Like the boat I stole from Bosch, major details of this painting were also appropriated from a 16th century artist: Pieter Bruegel the Elder. This was taken from the sky in the corner of one of his "Temptations of Saint Anthony" paintings. Before I told you that, you may have interpreted the title differently... as having to do with what seems to be a vase-shaped object with smoke coming from the top. I must admit that I have added some details that were not in Bruegel's original of this - partly because the original image is only a couple inches square so I had more details to fill in, and partly for other reasons: the original image I was working from was so small that some details were not entirely visable... such as if Bruegel's guy with the oars was balancing a vase on his head, or had a vase for a head. Having a "vase" for a head worked better for my thoughts on the scene, so I went with that.

As I mentioned, some details had to be made up or filled in because the original lacked some detail because of its small size. The passanger with a torch, for some random reason, I decided could be some kind of bird person or something... and to the guy on the flying fish-like creature - I gave a spiked helmet, a cool looking pink aviator sort of scarf, and a shield (which he may have had in the original). I added a beehive to the end of the ship's lance, and some bees... because it seemed appropriate for some reason. I added the smoke thats coming out of the rower's "vase-head".

This small canvas board was painted while sitting in Greyhound bus terminals, on the sidewalk in NYC, and in some sketchy bar in Boston.