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.

Birdy love

Happy "Bird's Wedding Day", a.k.a St. Valentine's Day! It recently came to my attention that once upon a time in Sussex, England, February 14 marked the first day of Spring when birds flew about and chose their mates. Chaucer wrote a poem about it, "Parlement of Foulys" (middle English...Lit majors, you know who you are). This sounds like a lovely custom, worthy of celebrating with a loved one, preferably over a glass of something with bubbles. Forever more, my Val's Day will be all about Bird Love- so long, Hallmark and FTD. Come 2/14, I'll be bird watching to see if they really are flocking together two by two, filling the sky with the music of their mating calls. Love is literally "in the air". And it's a LOVELY excuse to welcome Spring a few weeks early.

New Year bluebird

The new year seems to be in a much greater hurry to get on with it than I am. Already mid-January and I'm still getting organized. I love the New Year holiday for it's hopefulness. That first day or two, it feels like a major transformation is really possible, that the New Year Elf will come in the night and take away the old me and leave a changeling me who is all the things I'm often not - organized, productive, efficient, prolific, articulate, precise, inspiring, energetic. I would call her "Julia". Lots of new possibilities are in the 2011 works, so no reason to be anything but hopeful. If I don't wake up one day soon as the changeling me who gets things done pronto, maybe I'll wake up as the me who takes some time over morning coffee, thinks about the big picture of my little life, tries to be kind to people and is always open to the miracle of an idea. May the bluebird of happiness visit you and me (or Julia, as the case may be) often in 2011.

Merry and Bright

The season of good cheer and celebration is upon us, ready or not. Time to pry ourselves away from studio interests and obligations, dust off social skills and do the HoHoHo dance! Here's my 2010 Santa, partying away in very cool ankle boots. This is obviously pre-Christmas Eve, as he would be too tired to kick up his heels for quite awhile after the big night. So wishing to one and all a merry happy bright festive Christmas, Hanukkah, Feliz Navidad, Kwanza, what have you! And hopes for some peace on Earth in 2011.

Listen

Listen. It's different from hearing. Listening involves...involvement. And attention. And concentration while your brain processes meaning from sound, then chooses an emotional response. Working in the studio, making this image, I was listening to (in no particular order): Etta James, Bright Eyes, Otis Redding, Edith Piaf, John Lennon, La Boheme, Bruce Springsteen, Cat Power, Django Rheinhardt, Elvis Costello, The Ventures, The Corrs, Charlie Hayden, Cocteau Twins, Lou Reed, Rufus Wainwright, U2, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Bach, Thelonius Monk. Thank you, iTunes, for playlists and genius mixes, for freeing us from the tyranny of complete albums (apologies to certain purists who consider this musical blashemy). Listening and responding emotionally while painting is one "multi-tasking" function I happily embrace.

I thank all my studio musical inspirations for "listen".

It's always something...

Last weekend I attended a Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators conference here in my fair city. Writers outnumbered illustrators by about 10 to 1. Luckily, I am equally interested in words and pictures. Scribbling furiously, I tried to capture every spoken word, piece of advice, do this, don't do that, offered so generously by the excellent faculty: Laurent Linn, AD at Simon & Schuster, Alvina Ling, Sr. Editor at Little Brown, and Liz Waniewski, Sr. Editor at Dial. Now, back in my real world, sitting alone in front of the blank page (or screen), what will I be able to make from all of this? Surely something finer than before. What I love (and sometimes hate) about this life as an itinerate creative is... everything you produce comes straight out of your brain. You go out into the world and look, and listen, and gather information, relationships, experiences, places, characters, dialog, stories. Then you bring it all back to the studio, sit with your blank page and see what, if anything, you have to say today. Jasper Johns said "Do something, do something to that, and then do something to that." It's the only way I know to begin anything.

Yesterday's News

If a picture is worth a 1,000 words, I offer this one to express my dismay over the massive "plume" of oil still below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. The operative word is "below". As long as the surface looks better, happy days are here again. Except for the destroyed marine life. And the livelihoods derived from it. For who knows how long.

I remember swimming in the clearest most aqua blue salt water, walking on the brightest white sugar sand beaches of the Gulf, imaging I could almost see Mexico on the turquoise horizon. (sigh). So before this turns into 1,000 words, I'm going to hold that thought and go for a walk with Daisy-the-dog, to enjoy this beautiful late summer Friday afternoon.