Quotable

Announcing THE NEW QUOTABLE WOMAN mini edition, coming soon to a book or gift shop near you!

This is a tiny book with pithy quotes from lots of wise women who have lived large enough lives for their words to rate being collected in a book like this. For me, it will be a nice portable portfolio since each and every illustration in it is mine, and most feature my "ladies".

The cover art is from feminist journalist Rebecca West's quote, "Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul." I immediately visualized riding an elephant through India, as that is my idea of having a grand adventure.

My very favorite quote didn't make this book, however, as the author is precluded by gender:

"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." Oscar Wilde

What else are you going to do?

Frida

My first post since Val's day! I've been (happily, gratefully) busy assembling 20+ images for my latest illustrated book, The New Quotable Woman, published by Running Press and due out in September. It was my pleasure to create images as true as I could conceive them to honor the likes of Frida Kahlo, Margaret Mead, Indira Gandhi, Margot Fonteyn, Anais Nin, among other wise women who had much to say, succinctly. Brevity is, indeed, the soul of wit, as Polonius pointed out in Hamlet.

As for Frida, she expressed her soul and wit, love and pain in her paintings, mostly portraits. "I leave you my portrait so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you." In my image, Frida is released from her bed, her broken body mended, free floating, at peace. Alas, she's one among many in the arts for whom an early tragic death was a solid career move.