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Poster! Thanks Kelly!

Kelly McMahon, who runs May Day Studio letterhead press and book bindery,  made these beautiful posters for my show! Whoo-hoo! May Day Studio shares studio space with Fort Can Gallery, which is hosting my show. Tomorrow, Saturday, is the first public day of the exhibit, and I'll have a couple of portraits to draw. More about that soon.

Mild to Extra-Spicy

is the name of the exhibit I'll be having at the Fort Can Gallery, in Montpelier during the month of September. (If you go to the Fort Can site there won't be anything about my show yet, as we just pinned down the details yesterday, but you will get to see what's at the gallery now, as well as their philosophical take on art.)

I am inviting folks to visit the gallery, potentially have their portrait drawn, look at artwork I'm working on, and check out the letterhead press/book bindery, May Day Studio, that shares space with the gallery. Fort Can and May Day Studio are located at 190 River St. Montpelier, between The Restore and Trading Post Furniture.

Gallery hours are Saturdays, 10am-2pm and by appointment.

If folks are in the Montpelier area (and we haven't already made an appointment) and are interested in a fifteen minute to hour long portrait (and visiting an interesting gallery) let me know. I'll put you on the schedule. Otherwise, do stop by during gallery hours - I'd love to show y'all around.

P.S. See below for an example of "spicy".

I recently bought a book titled "Put What, Where?, Over 2000 Years of Bizarre Sex Advice" authored and annotated by John Nash, from the remainders bin of my local bookstore. I almost regretted buying it, but then realized I could make use of it as background for some spicy drawings.

 

Lynda Barry's "What It Is" available in bookstores NOW!

Hey! Go out and get your copy of What It Is by Lynda Barry, either through your local independent bookseller or via Drawn & Quarterly, Lynda's current (and awesome) publisher.

I've got mine and I'm very very glad.   

It's a combination of autobiographical picture story telling and writing exercises. But this description is an insult to the art of this book.

Go! But It! Now! (Ok, or beg your local library to get a copy as soon as possible (now?))

And now I really have to get outdoors.

Enjoy the day.

 

short visit to say hi and some recommendations

Hey-ho (as Kermit the Frog would say),

I've been mulling over this and that the last few weeks, plus I still have a cold, which was really hellacious at first, ten days ago, and now just irritating. I tried breaking up with it earlier today (imagine me yelling at it: "It's OVER! Get out of my body, NOW, and take all your snot rags with you!", kicking the waste paper basket across the room for emphasis). We'll see if that has the desired affect.

Meanwhile, I've been visiting some more web sites.

Here's a few I particularly like:

TED: Ideas Worth Spreading

Bizarroblog

Byron Katie's "The Work"

Have fun with these. I'll be back after I change the locks (if I can ever get this darn cold to leave the house).

Crazy

Last Saturday evening I went to a production (one woman play) called "Crazy" by Gail Marlene Schwartz up at the Vermont College Chapel. Third Story Window is the name of Gail's community based art/performance company. Very Cool. VSA Arts of Vermont was the producer for the 5 performances in Vermont, the one in Montpelier being the last of them.

I'm so glad I went! Gail's story, which is autobiographical, centers on her experience of the 18 therapists she's seen since she was 5 1/2 years old. It's a great story and afterwards there was a panel discussion with local providers, consumers, advocates and some combination of all three and the audience, and Gail, the actor/writer. It was a great experience, and instead of re-writing all about it I'm going to re-print the evaluation/testimonial here.

Initially I scribbled some notes to myself and wasn't sure if I was going to send Gail or the producers my feedback, but after a couple of encouraging e-mails from Gail I decided to go ahead.

Although I've never been diagnosed as "clinically" one thing or another I've never felt "normal" either. Not coincidentally this was also my mother's approach to being pinned down mental-health wise, in large part because once one is diagnosed it is on one's permanent health record...or something like that.

So seeing someone explore their life-long relationship with the therapeutic process with humor and panashe and so fearlessly, despite interruptions indicating the contrary (see answer #2 below), well, it was just great! At some point I will post a response to the questions of Jewish and Crazy that Gail posted about recently. In the meantime, I think this is plenty to read about right here.


1. If you were telling a friend what you appreciated about this presentation (show), what would you say?

I liked the story, the method of story telling (not linear!) and detail choices, the set, props and three dimensionality of the stage (riding bike onto stage, using props handed up and thrown back from front row, etc) and the intelligence and wit.

2.What moment/s stood out for you and why?

The "interruptions" of neurotic cleaning during particularly tense or tender moments of the performance, the video of the actor's younger self riding her bicycle near the end of the performance, and the stills of the actor's recent self crying. The cleaning interruptions were so funny and real. The actor used the bike with the banana seat through the whole performance, and spoke beautifully about her experience of learning to ride her bike. As an audience member, when I got to see real footage of her riding her bike, I found it quite moving and saw it as a statement about the actor's resiliency and innate sturdiness in the face of 18 versions of interpreting her "craziness". I was very surprised by the stills of the actor crying, as this is, usually, as emotionally vulnerable as a person can get. I appreciated the actor's inclusion of these stills, but didn't fully appreciate their value until I read the materials afterward and discovered the actor had been photographing herself in high states of emotion to include in future performance pieces.

3. What did not work/what would you change about the presentation and why?

The "Rorschach" test images were invisible from where I was sitting. I felt I was being shown a blank (or almost blank) screen and being asked to interpret nothing; that it was a joke, which was frustrating. At the end of the performance I saw that the images were shown in their original size and shape and were actually out of focus close ups of objects, and the actor's face. I wish the test images were just a little less out of focus, maybe because Rorschach test images are so graphically stark.

4. Were your views about mental health/illness impacted by the presentation? How?

Yes. I felt a surge of positive associations with being on the "crazy" end of the mental health continuum. That is, I identified with the intelligence, wit and vulnerability portrayed by the actor. I'm not crazy about being considered "crazy", but this performance displaced a chunk of the shame associated with it, and I also felt less isolated. Thanks.

5. Would you recommend this program for other communities? Why or why not?

Yes! What's not to like??? Seriously, because it takes issues that might be seen as "mental health" issues and turns them into human issues, which is something everyone can benefit from.

6. Any other comments?

Thanks to the actor for baring her soul, and VSA Vermont for producing the performance, and the Vermont Community Foundation for funding the project! This is important work and should certainly be supported in the future.

7. May we use your comments in future projects?

Yes.

still almost spring, but closer

I visited with my friend Amy this afternoon. She's also an artist and we were both drawing while we sipped tea and visited with another friend of Amy's who was new to me. I'm pleased with this drawing. First, because Amy's beauty comes across, although she's a lot more interesting looking in person. Also, with a minimum of effort I got a good resemblance, although I really wanted to capture more of her animation than her repose. This was the fourth or fifth page of drawing I worked on in the couple hours we spent together, so the effortlessness took some effort to get to, but so what? Once again I got to see that the effort to get to that effortless looking place is completely worth it.

P.S. New profile and sidebar photographs courtesy Andrew Kline of After Image Photography

Guerrilla Girls homage

Here's a couple of political cartoons I've done with a friend. My friend's the idea person, and I get paid for illustrating them. Pretty cool, eh? We're both still developing the ideas and style of the cartoon, including the title and characters. But the one thing that's a given is the theme: economics.

musician Dan Walker

I went down to the Langdon Street Cafe tonight and drew Dan Walker, who played solo guitar and sang original songs and a few covers. He bills himself as an Americana Roots Music man out of New Hamshire. Pretty good. Damn hard to draw, though. I was feeling quite pissy after an hour and a half of not very satisfying drawing. As I was leaving I ran into Dan as he was coming back inside and told him I liked his playing. I told him I'd done some drawings but wasn't going to show him, because they were crap. But he said some 75 year old characaturist made him look like a woman, and as long as I hadn't done that, they were probably ok. So I showed him, but I was telling him everything that was wrong with the drawings, including the drawing above having an eye that's too big for the rest of his face. But when I held it up to him for comparison, the resemblance was pretty good! Huh! So I'm feeling much better now. Thanks Dan, and good luck on your tour!

P.S. If you haven't seen Maira Kalman's Principles of Uncertainty then do go and check it out as soon as you can! I just got the hard-bound version of the blog she has of the same name (but is no longer adding to) at the New York Times site. It's wonderful. I'm overcome. I want to adopt Maira. Maybe she could be an older cousin? I already have a few of those, so it's not completely out of the question. I'm just saying I'm open to the possibilities. Maira, if you see this, think it over and let me know! Thanks!

today

It's Friday. I woke up at 6:21 AM. I had been dreaming I was telling my friend Gina all about a crush I was recovering from. It was true to real life detail for detail (except I haven't talked with Gina about any of this, yet). The only thing that was different (than real life) was following Gina from room to room while I told her what had happened between me and my crush-ie.

Thursday morning my therapist asked me to think about how dreams effect real life, and vice-versa. Or, did he ask me how dreams and waking life interact? Or what it means to have dreams, and how they effect us, whatever is going on in our waking lives? Now I can't remember.

I do remember responding to his suggestion with sarcasm, as he knows I have issues about this subject, since my late mother was a Jungian psychoanalyst. Dreams and all that hoo-ha. Interestingly, my dream life seems to be effecting my waking life, despite my mistrust of psychoanalysis. But when my dreams act like my waking life one quarter step removed? I'm sorry, that's just weird.

My weekend is on Fridays and Saturdays. I spend a fair amount of time wandering around the internet during my time off, and today I've been spending some time on Maira Kalman's blog: here

I also ran into an aquaintance who is a bookbinder, who also has a blog and a website: maydaystudio

Both very cool, in totally different ways.

At 7:45 AM I tried getting my car out of my snowfilled driveway. It's only December 21st and I've already gotten stuck three times (front wheels spinning on ice under the snow). My next door neighbor took pity on me and helped me back out. But she said she's gotten stuck just as many times. WTF?! Winter is less than 12 hours old.

Mercifully this didn't take very long, so I made my appointment at the mechanic right on time. He replaced the purge valve, but first listened to another customers's engine, and then, while working on my car, took two or three phone calls and a visit from a potential business insurance provider (who he apparently knows personally...he kept making references to some awkward voice mail messages from someone they know in common). All this in less than an hour, and no more "check engine" light on my dashboard!

I park my car on the other side of my apartment building (where the traction is better) and walk downtown to mail a birthday present to my niece, who will turn 11 on December 24. I got her a little leatherette covered blank book and a graphite pencil. Last year I got her 12 Prismacolor markers and a big sketchbook. I am the art aunt.

I wander into my beloved independent bookstore, which can also be accessed at Bear Pond Books and I page through the 2nd edition of the cream of the crap, "The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, and Never Will See, in The New Yorker" by Matthew Diffee and Robert Mankoff. It's awesome, partly for the cartoons, but mostly for the seriously silly questionaire all the artists fill out (or ignore, or cover with graffiti, depending). They also have all been asked, apparently, to provide a photograph of 1. a self-portrait; 2. the inside of their refridgerator; 3. drawing a cartoon; 4. their feet; 5. their studio/work space. I love seeing all these artists riffing on the posibilities in these requests. The guy who photographs himself drawing a cartoon, with a handcuff attached to his wrist, also abligingly provides a photo of his foot drawing a cartoon with a (foot?)cuff attached, made my bookstore visit. It's 9:45 AM.

On my way home from downtown I start thinking about posting more of my mom's story on the blog, but first I pop some biscuits and chicken in the oven (I kind of skipped breakfast). I usually check out my main e-mail account, Doonesbury, dykestowatchoutfor, Found Magazine, my hotmail account, alas, a blog, and drawn!, before doing anything else on the web, including look at my own blog. And look at the personals hosted by my local free alternative weekly, Sevendays Personals.

Yeah, that's where I saw the ad for the guy I've had a crush on. He's the sweetest, but not for me. Oh well.

I did a little shopping at the food co-op a few hours ago, which was pretty busy at 3pm, but I knew it would be even busier later. Holiday frantic energy. Two advantages to being single and a Jew at the end of December: a short gift-giving list and it's all done before Dec. 25th.

I did write a bunch of holiday well-wishing cards to my co-workers earlier this week, though. I work at the Red Hen Baking Company, which just moved to Middlesex, VT (from Duxbury) a little over a month ago. I also work for Anne Davis, who is the artist who creates the greeting cards, calendars and now children's books for her company Anne Made Cards, which I used for the aforementioned holiday greetings.

Time to log off and relax on the couch with the latest issue of the New Yorker magazine.

Happy Solstice everybody!

Keeping out of trouble with Tara and Brian

I did a couple of drawings at the closing party for these two artists Tara Jensen and Brian Ziegler. I usually draw someone or something when I go down to the cafe. It keeps me out of trouble, usually.