Falling in love with your baby
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Monthly Archives: April 2015
The Half-Dead Girl in words and pictures (and how to get out of the abyss)
I had a dream once of a half-dead girl who everyone thought was dead but came alive every now and then. I was keeping a dream journal at the time and this excerpt is a page from the journal in words and illustrations. As you might have guessed the story is about Depression and points to how one gets in and out of the abyss. My handwriting is a little hard to read so plan on typing up the full story and will upload more excerpts as I complete them.
Page two of my Journal in its original form
A tribute to Maurice Sendak’s ‘In the Night Kitchen’
Every artist must hone their craft and draw inspiration from those that have come before. I was going through my old sketchbooks the other day and came across this study I made years ago as a way of perfecting my craft. So in true Copy-the-masters tradition I give you a collection of random sketches I made from Maurice Sendak’s famous children’s book In the Night Kitchen. Though Where the Wild Things Are, has enjoyed momentous popularity, I’ve personally always preferred this book. Perhaps it’s a combination of the totally innocent male nudity, cityscapes of food and the fabulously corpulent baker. A lot more enjoyable then wild and scary monsters gnashing their teeth.
Darwin’s Complaint, and other favorite things by Maira Kalman
I found many interesing treasures in Maira Kalman’s book My favorite things. The book is a walk through both Kalman’s personal history and aesthetic taste in words, illustrations and photographs. It reminds me that some artist’s are both collectors as well as archeologists, and edified my own propensity to collect random things that most people would call “junk” (much to my husband’s dissapointment). I was particualrly touched by her penchant for collecting broken chairs. But by far the thing that most facinated me was a letter that was written by Charles Darwin. It is a complaint that reads like a diary entry about an obviously difficult time in his life. His dissiluusionment is apparent, but so his his sense of humor. I’ve included a copy of it below. The quality is rather poor, so I suggest you check out Kalman’s book for the better version and to see the many other curiosities she’s collected.
Charles Darwin’s Complaint
This is part of a Illustration I’m currently working on that is the visual counterpart to a guided embodied meditation practice. I post more images as I complete them and be cure to post the final Visual guide.
I just finished reading this book by Cheryl Strayed: Tiny beautiful things: advice on love and life from Dear Sugar, and thoroughly enjoyed it. The book is a memoir which is cleverly disguised in series of online advice columns that she wrote for the Rumpus. Though I am not a fan of advice columns, or memoirs, I appreciated Cheryl’s skillful blending of the two genres. Below are some of my favorite quotes from the book. Of course, I was most interesting in her perspective on parenthood.
On Being Raised by a single mother: Advice to a single mother who is struggling.
“As a single mother—and by that I mean truly a mother alone like you, Oh Mama, one does not share custody or co-parent—she had to be her best self more often than it’s reasonable for any human to be. And you know what’s never endingly beautiful to me? She was. She was imperfect. She made mistakes. But she was her best self more often than it’s reasonable for any human to be.
And that is the gift of my life.”
On having expectations as a parent: Advise to a man who had lost his son in a tragic accident.
“Letting go of expectations when it comes to one’s children is close to impossible. The entire premise of our love for them has to do with creating, fostering, and nurturing people who will outlive us. To us, they are not so much who they are as who they will become.
On deciding to become pregnant in her mid-30’s :
“I decided to become pregnant when I did because I was nearing the final years of my fertility and because my desire to do this thing everyone said was so profound was just barely stronger than my doubts about it were.”
“If a magic baby fairy had come to me when I was childless and thirty four and promised to grant me another ten years of fertility so I could live a while longer in the serene, feline-focused, fabulously unfettered life I had, I’d have taken it in a flash.”
On the path not taken:
I’ll never know and neither will you of the life you don’t choose. We’ll only know that whatever that sister life was, it was important and beautiful and not ours. It was the ghost ship that didn’t carry us. There’s nothing to do but salute it from the shore.
Yet, another piece from my current work in progress that is a guided meditation in words and pictures. Peace, love and happines, what more could we ask for in life? Will post the final copy when I’m complete.
This is another piece from my current work in progress that is a guided meditation in words and pictures. Will be posting a few more of these before I post the final Copy.
Reading: The truth of my brutal pastime
Site of a Recent Kill
Even before I became a parent I rarely read a book cover to cover. It would be highly unusual for me to read every word that was written in a predicatble sequence. Instead I read like a hunter. I have a very specific agenda. I’m on the hunt for words or phrase that surprise, sentences that draw me in, and ideas that almost leap of the page and bite me. Sometimes there are also images or bits of dialogue that are just too juicy to ignore. I underline those words, to copy down at a later date, then I throw the rest away. Meaning, I don’t go back to read the parts I missed or finish the story. I return the book to the library or donate it to a friend who I think may enjoy it. I feel no allegiance to the author or the characters in the book. It’s a brutal pastime really.
I rarely talk about my approach of readin to other people, espcially other writers, or anyone who has written and published a long body of work, as it makes them flinch just a little bit. Because of this habit, I am always “reading” several books at once.
When my husband and I were first dating he was initially impressed by the amount of books I read. They were often piled high along the floor of my couch, some flung open on the kitchen table, dog eared, bookmarked and underlined.
I knew our relationship had reached a new level of intimacy when he discovered how I read them. The conversation went something like this:
“How could you just skip ahead to the final chapter when you haven’t even read the second one yet?!”
“Because I can” “…And because I want to see if the book is worth my time”.
“But you’ve already spoiled it!”
“Uh-huh.”
Perhaps the real reason I skim read everything– and I mean everything: fiction, non-fiction, cereal boxes, poetry—Is that I don’t read for information, entertainment, or escape. It’s fine to be transported to some other time, place, or reality, but that doesn’t interest me much.
I read to be moved. If something doesn’t move me I move on. It doesn’t have to be much: a word, phrase or piece of dioloque, the way a certain character is decribed. Then I take out my scalpel, trim away the fat and store those juicy bits in the refridgerator of my heart and mind for later use. I read like a scavenger, like a thief, like a hunter and like a bandit.
I have no remorse.
I am hungry and restless. But I read.