After the Gaulois Rooster, my students and I were brainstorming our next painting project, when JoAnn came up with the idea of a Narragansett turkey. I was especially thrilled, since the Narragansett turkey is pretty magnificent, and for me, it was an original idea. But it was a complicated project, and I wondered, "how in the world was I going to manage to paint and then teach this?"

The turkey motif was a natural companion to the rooster, and since Thanksgiving originated in Massachusetts, the background had to be from the Boston Globe. Searching for headlines, I found one about a French company favored for a commuter rail deal (our infamously outdated and inefficient, but somehow beloved "T"!), another about the excesses of thanksgiving, turkeys, and black Friday, and a third about the unpredictability of weather in New England. These headlines made a perfect backdrop for the turkey, since they are representative of the way the New Englanders talk about themselves. My students loved it, and it was a great project to create, paint and teach!