CBIG

I went to the Childrens' Book Illustrator Group meeting on Sunday wondering if it could be at all useful to my errant freelance fancy, as in, earn a buck. While Regina Griffin of Egmont did a most informative overview of her new (start up) American branch of a large European publishing company I looked around the packed living room of our host and saw the eager, hungry, talented, and skilled hoards of illustrators, I asked myself the key question.

What sets me apart?

I haven't actually illustrated many books or magazines for kids. I certainly am not a name in the business. My style is not cutting edge or going to change the way an entire generation thinks about the way we see the world (Sendak). But...

I combine skills in a way that does make me a bit unusual. I've studied calligraphy, cartography, poetry, life drawing, book design, cartooning, painting, adobe illustrator and photoshop, color theory, perspective, anatomy, and I know how to develop a narrative and tell a story in words as well as images. One of the ways all this combines is in creating decorative/illustrated maps. Maps always have a narrative implied.

So during the Q. & A. I asked if she had need of such maps. She does.  (I have done many--for fantasy books, kids' books, YA, historical, travel and whimsical.) I hope that she gets back to me, I left her my card and sent an invitation to view my website. Sometimes it helps to know what I can offer to a client, something I am uniquely qualified to do, that nobody else in the room is mentioning.

After that I leaned back and enjoyed the wonderful work my fellow members were presenting in the portfolio review. Here's to all of us.

Tasters' Choice

You know how some friends send things back to the kitchen, "I wanted my coffee in a proper mug with a handle, not a glass cup, please" and others would drink dish water from a dirty can without saying a word? The world divides into two camps, the resenders and the takers. So too in my house.

I woke up to a clear message that the cat (resender) had objected to both her wet and dry food by resending it onto the floor near my bed, by the human toilet, and finally in strongly worded contempt, the interior of my loafers. The dog (taker), on the other paw, had not only eaten hers, but had not objected to eating what the cat didn't want. Which isn't so bad but the high calorie cat food gives the dog a colonic cleanse which resulted in the dog turning solids into liquids in areas where my foot landed first stumbling from sleep to day.

Ah, the joys of pets.

The Tim Burton MoMA Show: brain afire

Yesterday I went to the Museum of Modern Art with my friend Jeannie. Thanks to her membership, I got in for $5.00. Thanks to her company, I had a wonderful time. It was a good thing we went at the relatively unfashionable time of one-ish on a Thursday. It was pretty full, from school trips to tourists, to fans from everywhere. I can't even imagine how packed it is on a Saturday.

I learned I am only two years older than Mr. Burton. Made it fun to walk through and check off the influences. In his early years: Disney, Dr. Seuss, Grimm's fairy tales, Mad Magazine, horror movies and Houdini! Then Don Marquis' Archy and Mehitabel, George Herriman's Krazy Kat, Gahan Wilson, Charles Addams, Van Gogh, Al Hirschfeld, Ralph Steadman, and on and on. But really, anything I was devouring visually, he was too. The show had several walls and cases showing his development as a kid with some (not remarkable) talent into someone who would --with drive and obsession-- develop his themes and vision into a fully realized creative institution.

When I was a girl and teenager I could not keep my hands quiet. Along with a strong pull to my own daydreams in the classroom, I doodled. I drew on any piece of paper in front of me, on the desk, in my school books, on my skin. And if I couldn't draw, my hands couldn't stay still. I tapped my pencil, chewed my nails, rubbed the student inflicted initial scars on the desktop. At home I filled notebook after notebook with drawings in pencil, magic marker, watercolor, and gloppy poster paints. But here my path begins to diverge from Burton's. He never stopped. And in that time after high school he kept drawing. The themes are all there in the early work but they become distinctive, creepier, deeper, more wild as he goes through his 20s. His show made me wish that I had not let myself be diverted, that I had kept pursuing the drawing... but it is never that simple. I had good reasons to quiet down my hands and start paying attention in the classroom. The real story is not why people stop, but what makes them keep going. I don't think talent is the engine really. Artists like Burton have a compulsive need to keep doing the things they do and the will to make it viable to themselves and others. And then there is that mysterious extra ingredient that an artist can't control, call it talent or communication, that makes the effort compelling and marketable. I had art teachers tell me I had great gifts and would end up a successful or famous artist. I also had college professors who informed me my work was listless with precision and no vision. Who was right? Doesn't matter, if I had kept going I might have gotten somewhere as an artist, you can't get there by stopping. And Burton didn't stop.

The best thing was watching his themes devour the influences and grow into his unique vision. He is smart, funny, and able to tap the creepiest fears that rise up from nightmares and shame. I love his approach, a sky is not a color but a radiating energy of lines. Fears become fantastical recognizable monsters. I was laughing out loud through much of the show. Then in the final room, the movie props, wonderful proof that he has been able to make teams of other artists see what he sees.

I am now getting out a sketchpad. I remember how much FUN it was to doodle! Don't worry, I won't give up my poetry and graphic design, but the best thing about seeing a show like this is how it inspires. Like a virus, I've caught the Burton bug.

IMAGININGS poetry/prose contest

Here is the flyer for this contest,  write up to 500 (probably won't need more than 200) words to go with a slow motion video. 4 videos, 4 chances to win. Winners get $500.00 Poets welcome! Go to: http://vimeo.com/channels/69858. I entered. Deadline extended to January 31st. And since you ask, yes, I designed the flyer, careful to use web safe fonts...

Crafty moments

Getting good comments on my design work for both the Madeleine L'Engle and Jay Marshall biography projects. Yay.  Mostly reviewers don't comment much on design, so when they do, I am delighted:

"Although I expected a wealth of detail from the page count, I was unprepared for how bountifully the book is illustrated and how exquisitely it's laid out, not only with rare photos of Jay but with all sorts of posters, letters, and personal memorabilia."  --Steve Bryant

Since I spent months laying out this 69 chapter book and color correcting and repairing (mildew, rips) the 700 old photos and memorabilia, great to have the work noticed.

And in the evenings, been having fun making beaded gifts for family, friends, and my very own self.

My Avatar after party, not

Jim and I went to see the wonderful 3-D Avatar and I deeply wished I was blue, ten feet tall, and able to leap onto the back of pterodactyl-ish transportation. I recommend the film, who needs the plot to be more than it is? It was pure fun.

You would think after all that visual excitement I'd have dreams of the imaginary world, Pandora, and continue the adventure using my own high maintenance avatar unit--my sleeping brain. And I did, but not exactly. Instead of finding myself in the body of a superhuman with a neural telecommunication device growing in my hair and romping through a rain forest (amped on helium and steroids),  I was a balding middle aged, middle management MAN going to work and feeling as sluggish and gray as the office park I entered. I had to sit through meetings, sort out the departmental internecine squabbles, and think about my mortgage and depleted investments. Yes, it was startling to go to the men's room and experience the different plumbing, in both senses, but I felt terribly cheated. This is the true avatar experience, I thought as I rubbed a patch of beard stubble under my right jaw I'd missed in the rushed morning shave, this is how it feels to walk in another man's shoes, literally. And I didn't like the shoes. Dang-it, I shouted at the dream, let me be George Clooney or Viggo Mortensen at least. Although, who knows what's truly fun in an actors life (boring waiting around sets, for instance)...let me be president Obama...oh, wait, talk about a tough job...Never mind.

The cool thing was, I didn't walk or talk like a woman when I was a man. So whoever you are, in whatever world, thanks for letting me borrow your body for eight hours, I have just proved to myself I'd rather be me, thanks.

Those fabulous book parties

Speaking of which, except for my wardrobe, I have been part of some terrifically sophisticated Manhattanish book and arts celebrations. Consider me your book party avatar and be sure to imagine me in something quite stylish, and while you are at it, make me 3 shoe sizes smaller.

At the legendary midtown club:
First was the launch of Gardner McFall's poetry book Russian Tortoise (disclaimer, I designed the cover) as well as an opera she wrote (I remember the theme of flying) at the Century Association. Into this legendary club I showed up hauling a 2 by 3 foot mounted poster in a huge, now wet, black plastic bag. Gardner's husband had me create, on the sly, the poster with her cover altered to read "The Tortoise Has Landed" and I added the parachute from a Russian soyuz to show the tortoise is not crash landing. This party was upstairs in a well proportioned dove gray room room lined with interesting artworks owned by the club. An open bar and frequent tidbits made me happy. Opera singers with classy voices sang a short selection from Gardner's opera as the composer played the piano. I quickly discovered half the room was lawyers and the other half poets. This led to me writing a poem about the singular way we are alike, as both poets and lawyers know the crucial importance of a single word. I enjoyed talking to poets I know as well as some lawyers that were, no surprise, well read and lovely to chat with. Melinda Thomsen and Martin Mitchell sat at a table with me and my husband and the caterers soon realized we were voracious and always swooped by.

At the NOHO Bowery Poetry Club:
My next party was the annual Brevitas reading at the Bowery Poetry Club. As the title suggests, the Brevitas poets, all two dozen or so of them, only write short poems. However with a music interlude of half an hour, the guest poet Harvey Shapiro!, two open readings (disclaimer, I was in the first open reading) and some Brevitas readers that felt the need for explanations that sometimes took longer than the poems, the event that started with me fresh at 1:30 ended with me rather droopy by 5:30. The Bowery Poetry Club is so unlike the Century Association that I feel Dante would have to feature them in two different books. Here the colors were black and the textures scuffed. I was especially there for my friend, the talented Flash Rosenberg, who not only read her poems but drew the bright and witty cartoon cover for the anthology of Brevitas poems that the $7.00 cover charge entitled one to. (Disclaimer, I helped her place and trim the artwork for the cover.) Because I read in the open mic, and am a pal of Flash, I got invited to an after party in Bob Holman's art and book inspired penthouse. The floor was painted with poetry, even the hallways. What a brilliant thing to do. Poetry books filled the walls of this airy lovely space. Did I mention Bob runs The Bowery Poetry Club? Well then, he does. Since I was utterly charmed by most of the work I had heard that night I was hopeful the group would consider me when they need to reinfuse their membership. There were tidbits to eat, including chocolates, and wine and lovely conversations. I even bonded a bit with a large plump gingery cat that lived there.

At a fabulous artsy residence in the Village:
Our friend, and my collaborator, the talented Carly Sachs, had one of her delectable food poems included in The Poet's Cookbook: Recipes from Tuscany, an anthology of food poems in both English and Italian edited by Grace Cavalieri and translated by Sabine Pascarelli. To celebrate the publication of the book, both poets and recipes from the book were enjoyed in a brownstone that is inhabited by a painter with helpful children (selling books) and walls replete with tongue-in-cheek collections of art. A wall of dog hunting paintings, a wall of delightful whimsical drawings! But honestly, I was far too distracted by the FOOD! Oh my god, Tuscan cooking, prepared by Alison of Alison's Restaurants, via the Village, a marvel. Olive dips, mozzarella so fresh it practically moooed, and pignoli cookies. The reading was sponsored by The Bordighera Press and the Vermont Studio Center Writing Program so there was a mix of poets, patrons, painters, and program directors.

Again in the Village, another lovely home:
And finally, a party in celebration of the publication of Patricia Carlin's new book of poetry, Quantum Jitters from Marsh Hawk Press. This home spoke of taste, spaciousness, and comfort. In fact, it was the home of the former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey, now the President of The New School, and his wife Sarah Paley who hosted this lovely event. As I was looking for the address, I noticed a man outside busily listening to a cell phone and asked him if I'd found the place with the book event. He kindly nodded me in and later I realized this was Mr. Kerrey. Inside I found many of my fellow members of Marsh Hawk Press, all looking spiffy, and soon other dear friends arrived. Jeanne Marie Beaumont (poet) and Bob Mendelsohn (video), Lynne Saville (photography), Philip Fried (poet/publisher) and more. I met a fascinating woman who studies game theory. I was suddenly struck by the thought that once, back the the 1970s, my mother taught at the New School. Had she too been to any events at the president's house? And here I was eating bitty bits and sipping excellent wine and also celebrating the life of poetry. Raise a glass again!


While the lawyers dressed impeccably at the club reading, the poets just as expected in the Bowery, the most interesting outfits winked in and out of view around the trays and platters in the Village affairs.

Remembering and Designing Madeleine L'Engle

I just created my first design published on Lulu, A Circle of Friends: Remembering Madeleine L'Engle. There is an expensive all color interior first edition and the far more affordable grayscale, (black and white) interior.

The remembering part I did as well, I have an essay in the book. I took a writing class from Madeleine in the early 90s at the Episcopalian convent on 113th Street. Despite the palpable hero worship surrounding her, she had a very directed, concise, encouraging, and witty/tart presence. The book is full of wonderful examples of her advice on writing and warm personal memories from close friends. I wasn't part of the inner circle, not being nearly as interested in the Christian aspects of her writing as in the narratives and characters she sent through familiar and imagined worlds.

Designing the book happened sort of by accident, the editor Katherine Kirkpatrick needed help with some things and before you know it, I'd sunk into the project and did it all. Lulu was rather difficult to navigate. You simply cannot speak to a human. I discovered a cover could not be one point too narrow! Not one point or the whole thing was off. Argh! But once I got that it was an utter perfectionist and could not comprehend human imperfection (which may in its own way be an explanation of why the infinite and finite seem to have so much trouble communicating) the job uploaded and declared itself published. In the old days, when I worked inhouse at publishing companies, after a book was published we generally met and hoisted a paper cup with an undistinguished vintage and made noises about effort and talent and thanked everyone. So let me raise a cup to all the people who wrote, edited, designed, and coaxed this book into existence. Especially Katherine Kirkpatrick who always believed it was a book that needed to happen.

Illustration: Say Ahhhhhhhhh for Alimentum

The Winter/Holiday Issue of Alimentum: The Literature of Food is in my hands and looks grand. All my spot art printed just dandy! The ink line (scanned) and pencil smudge (via photoshop) turned into a real live journal and I am walking around the apartment with that aren't I something glow. My spouse reminds me I need to vet a job proposal and think about what I want for dinner. As if such things could interrupt my cloud, my cloudia of euphoria. It is also fine to discover this issue is sold out wherever I go. The cover, which I didn't draw but did design--picking very cherry pie colors for the issue--looks yummy.

Also I did the small deconstruction of the slice of pie on the back, turning the cover's whole pie slice into a single cherry in 4 steps that hopefully won't annoy the artist Marilyn Murphy. When the next delivery of the magazines arrives at my local independent bookseller (Book Culture) I will buy them as holiday gifts. Because as nice as some of my small illustrations are, the real charm is the content, Alimentum is simply a good read. See, the dancing fruitcakes are happy!

Laying out the House

Despite having a professional service come in and haul away absolutely everything that didn't sell at the tag sale or get shipped by the movers, my stepmother feels the need to go in and do a final sweeping and mopping of the large, now empty house on Long Island that was their home for so many decades.

I was going to tell her this isn't necessary. The man buying the house isn't going to need it cleaned to perfection. And then I realized this is what we do to the shell of things that were important to us. Bodies are bathed and cleaned for burial, as if earth or flame needs them clean. Even the tiny deaths of change bring out the need to honor a place by leaving it well tended.

She needs to mop. I need to mope.

-----

And I am happy to report that I'm up to 5,211 words in my novel. Right on target. This time the writing is more directed by plot. As I walk to the places I go to do my writing, I talk to Jim about the mechanics of getting my character from one situation to another, racheting up the stakes, what to do with some of the peripheral characters, and above all, ask important questions such as what sorts of martial arts would a werewolf girl take?

During the day I find myself thinking of my book as if it were something I'd taken out of the library and wanted find it so I know what happens next. I can almost see the cover under the glossy library jacket. Then I ask myself what a cheesy writer would do and beg myself to do better than that, throw in a wild card. And dialogue, and tell them what it looks like, and make it feel real.

Last year I based my novel on a fairy tale, setting it in 1911. The historical demands combined with my inability to trust hasty research really inhibited me. This time, no such problem. I know all the settings, the time is now.  As I navigate the skills needed to construct a novel, I am thankful I eliminated some of the clutter. Maybe after I finish this book, I'll feel confidant enough to go and finish the other one. But for now, I hear the dogs howling. Time to write.

Illustrating Alimentum

I finished. At the 11th and 3/4 hour.
I have now drawn dancing fruitcakes, well rolled burritos, pots of coffee, a hamburger, some saucy tomatoes, and plenty of pie. In other words, I got to do the spot illustrations for the Winter 2010 issue of Alimentum: the Literature of Food. Thank you Paulette and Peter, the editors/publisher, thank you.

I am particularly pleased with a pastry box (wrapped with striped string) on which I half hid the name of Ebingers, which is a now defunct yet legendary bakery I remember from the corner shop on Newkirk Plaza near my Grandmother's apartment. Think Brooklyn, mid 60s. Oh those ladies fingers, oh those breads. The scent of the place was enough to make my belly fuse with my heart.

Today was also an education in internet terminology. As in "trolling." I had my first anonymous negative attacker. In a series of increasingly hostile comments, the person forensically revealed their hurts and ills. I have deleted them and now have discovered there is a way to review comments before they are posted.

I am in the midst of illustrating a book of food-frenzy poems and am finding fruits and veggies have a lot of personality if you just ask them nicely to anthropomorphize.

Welcome to Louisville

After a 15 hour car trek we are here and wondering what besides the actors theatre and sluggers museum one would wish to see?

Reading with live jazz, pure fun

It was a thrill to have my poems responded to with live jazz improvisation. Brian Groder on trumpet, Lisle Ellis on acoustic bass, I was backed up by some of the best in the business. (In fact Ellis is on his way to play with Tony Davis, from me to Davis, too cool). They really listen, respond, in smart creative sound. I loved what they did to my raunchy poem about making love to a balloon. Ellis made these great squeaky ballonish sounds on the bass, it was all I could do to keep reading and not burst out laughing. That was fun, will have to do it again.
Thanks also to my fellow readers, Chris Cunningham and Sue Melot.

Old poses in new light

Statue by Claudia Carlson, 1971
My influences...

My parents are undertaking the selling of their house and to do this properly they are clearing out the attic, garage, and other corners of clutter. Family has descended to help them sort and haul and shred... I'm photographing and scanning old photos and the now musty drawings and paintings of the ancestors. My family was full of artists, both Sunday painters and professionals. The uncles, grandparents and my father's efforts are an astounding assortment of doodles, sketches, studies, draftsmanship and total whimsy. It is no wonder us kids were so encouraged to create.

My sister Christina spent a week pulling things from the attic and arranging them in the garage. She wore a face mask to protect her lungs from the attic dust and mildew from the now demolished shed. And out of the dust, she unearthed a statue I had made when I was 15.

"Look," she said, "here is the original and the knock-off." And yes, my statue that I haven't seen in 35 years, was sitting on a board just outside the garage. It was a jolt, a double-take. I'd forgotten so much about it. The dress had been black, she'd worn a crown, I'd left her flesh dead white...

A long time ago I fell in love with clay and my art teachers indulged me by letting me work during free periods or after school. I'd rolled and squooshed and carved this wonderfully malleable stuff and I was possessed by the need to turn it into a snarky yet elegant expression of my pissed-off attitude. I was a shy sarcastic skinny kid who looked 12 at 15. The next year I made a big fat American nuclear family--I wanted to savage the suburban life. I made cartoons in three dimensions. And if I hadn't been so stubborn and insecure, the sculpting would have netted me a scholarship into art school...I was offered one...but maybe in my heart I knew I was going to be an English/art history major and a conservatory wasn't what I needed.

But back to the evil queen. I remember her being much bigger. This was only 10 inches tall. And at 15 I considered it far better in quality than I can see now... But also, I'd forgotten how much attitude I'd put into it. I'd created a mix of Jadis (winter witch queen from Narnia), Coco Channel, and Sargent's Madame X. Her head was abstracted, snake-like, and the hands were my own, big with long fingers.
And next to it, stood a smaller blond version my other sister had made, setting off a huge intellectual property screaming match. Just one of many.

"You know, it's pretty good," I said, turning it in my hands.
"Yes, really, it is," replied Christina, putting my old work in a box for me to take away with some other, less successful efforts (including an odd pink elephant that looks like it has constipation).

All these years later, the terrible rage I'd felt at someone copying my idea, poof, gone... why couldn't I just have been flattered at 15? Ah sisters, it takes us so long to grow up.

What went wrong with The Bacchae

Don't get me wrong, there is much to enjoy in the free performance of THE BACCHAE in the Central Park amphitheatre. You can sit out the 90 minutes admiring the skills and talents of cast and crew, the grave music of modern master Philip Glass, and an amazing set by John Conklin featuring a moat, steaming volcanic fissure and a tier of stadium seats that veers down into a point of rubble (a visual representation of Gibbons?).

But I guess I have to blame the direction on the mish-mosh effect of this production. The visuals span the eons. The vengeful god Dionysus is shown as a rock-star, complete with American Idol microphone waltz moments, the doomed wrong-headed king Pentheus wears a 90s Wall Street suit, the chorus of women dazzle in Balinese/harem flame-orange with extra cloth padding their hips (by Kaye Voyce), the set is mid-century modern, the music is 70s redux, and the body of Pentheus--including his head--is full Fangoria explicit.

Euripides' troubling play, in which a god's infinite need for revenge makes dangerous beasts of the human victims, was strangely cerebral under JoAnne Akalaitis's direction. There is no homage to the fun moments of being enthralled to the god of wine and orgies. And as this tips into deadly excess, we have women driven mad with lust rampaging in the hills as they tear apart bodies of animals with their bare hands and teeth. Hot stuff. Not in this production. When Agave realizes she has slaughtered her own son, a moment that should be Greek tragedy Richter scale 10, it is strangely flat, as if she were saying, damn I broke my nails on this skull.

Most of all, what was lacking was a clear response on the director's part to this odd and difficult clash of gods and mortals. Were we to enjoy the burlesque homoerotic moments when the king falls prey to Dionysus suggestion he dress as a woman and spy on the women's sacred rites? Were we to enjoy the austere set and music against which the acting should resound? I didn't know which Bacchae I was most inclined to follow. And the chorus, lovely as they were to watch, were stuck in synchronized swim. I wanted them to use their numbers to express more conflict. After all, where was the danced representation of wildness and civilization, faith and heresy, infinite and finite, self-determination and fate?

Several times, alone and in groups, raccoons scuttled over the fallen "stones" at the corner of the stage. Once could easily imagine them tearing small victims apart. They got the strongest response of any actors on that stage. Or offstage, I heard them busy themselves in the trash cans near the stage entrance... it was a long 90 minutes.

I sat with a group of 18- and 19-year-olds. Perhaps it is a fault of their generation, even as the last bow was taken they were loudly criticising the show from their seats. This isn't TV, you aren't separated by a screen and on your living room couch... so many skilled and talented people worked hard on this show and were in earshot. I honor them for that. I was a little ashamed to be with my noisy detractors. But they had a point. When I saw the terrific production of Twelfth Night, at the Delacorte earlier this Summer, the applause filled the air.

Billy, Billy, Billy

I just borrowed Billy Collins latest poetry book, Ballistics, from the library. Over half the cover is devoted to a photo of a bullet slicing through a queen of hearts. Blam, you might think, this is poetry that cuts to the heart, poems that fire you up and punch holes in your assumptions.

Having read half the book, I have yet to find poetry that startles, pierces, or tears me. I have always enjoyed the way Mr. Collins writes: his essay-like turns in argument, whimsy, humor, and his graceful observations. He can be funny in a toast-master fashion or find the small profundities in the zen moments of everyday activities. And some of that delight is here. But there is a triviality to the handling of subject matter that makes these feel like the exercises of a skilled yet unengaged master. Death in his hands is a dentists appointment that has been scheduled for you, old age a daily round of boredoms, and lust is a thin target of verse.

Yes, there are a few winners in this deck. And I will find a few more if I keep reading... But I have to ask why the poet hasn't challenged himself to do more with his skills. This is the least engaging collection of his work I have read. When I think of poets like Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, or Donald Justice who could take a stroll and look at things, and write both the surfaces and the depths, I want to direct Mr. Collins to go deeper and stop stalling with card tricks.

Produce and Production or two brains at play

Back to illustrating...

Funny how I need to come at a project. Call it a weak ego, but I needed to start with my best skill and then work my way down to my weakest. So faced with Carly's wonderful pro-lust-pro-vegitarian poems, what did I do first?

1. Research! Tons of web images as well as a trip to the local produce aisles with my camera.

2. I designed the book, set the type, picked a trim size, and contemplated 60s diner-style retro fonts and finally chose a fun display face for the cover and poem titles.

3. Did rough pencil thumbnail drawings for 2 poems. Got better ideas, did roughs for the deeper, wilder, unexpected concepts.

4. Redrew the roughs to size in my typical "art students league life drawing sketch" style.

5. Redo the drawings in a breezy seemingly effortless mod pen and ink style.

I am now stuck between items 4 and 5. It is clear to me that it takes many attempts and failures and much practice to appear loose and spontaneous. Just kill me now.

So I turned to my Madeleine L'Engle project and wrote a 1,500 word essay. Take that pesky illustrations. I can essay my way out of a paper bag.

How do I illustrate a batch of poems?

I'm working with the talented and above all fun poet Carly Sachs. She has created a persona that mouths off in verse. "Ramona" is a militant vegetarian city-based earth goddess.

My mission, if I can possibly imagine it, is to give both the produce aisles and Ramona life as pen and ink illustrations that expand and compliment the poems. Hmmm.

Carly suggested I look at 50s and 60s style food advertising art. What a great resource! The exaggerated zippy lines, jazzy patterns, and over the top aprons, hairdos, and poses, perfect!... except that the faces on these drawings are interchangeable housewife dolls. Not so the character of Ramona. She is a 2009 woman and exudes character.

So here is to Ramona (sound of iced tea sloshing in ice cubes) and my crazy desire to learn to illustrate...

The houses were smaller

Well, I have just returned from my Grandma Hal's funeral in Indiana. I met cousins and friends I hadn't seen in at least 30 years. With that Rip Van Winkle effect, people instantly look like their parents and their children are what you thought they'd look like. My god the generations roll along faster there, women my age were grandmothers and great-grandmothers.

People were so kind, we were put up in cousin's homes, we heard stories, were treated to meals, including memorable sweet corn, the first of the season, and felt just how much Grandma's life had been tucked into theirs.

After the burial we drove on to Rochester, the town where we spent summers living in Grandma's two houses. The whole way there, Nedra (my stepmother) and her sister Sonya kept saying the houses didn't look good, one of them apparently had been a meth lab, that we should just look at old photos, spare ourselves, etc. But all us "kids" were adamant, we needed to see the streets, yards, gardens, alleys, and houses--no matter how they looked now.

And then we drove down the shady street and there it was. Not the hideous wrecks we expected, vinyl siding had gone up on both places. New management? They looked fine. Motorcycles parked out back, neatly mown, and tidy. Everything was smaller. So much smaller. But there was the gravel driveway where I accidentally dropped my end of carrying my sister Christina and a piece of the gravel had nailed her scalp. There was the L shaped porch we had lined up on to take turns cranking the home-made ice cream, ice and salt spilling into the lawn. The alley where cousin Robby, with all his ADHD energy, had peddled maniacally on his tricycle. And then I realized what was missing. The gardens behind both houses were ordinary and lacked transformative magic. My grandmother had grown a parking-lot-hiding jungle along a fence, had a grape arbor over the path to the back door, and her clusters of lilies and blooms had made the eye travel the yard the way a great painter arranges the composition of a group portrait. Even the bushes of honeysuckle, where I'd extract a drop of sweetness before the hummingbirds beat me to it, was gone.

A woman drove by, saw all us folks with rented cars just standing there, and gave us the finger. I wonder what ticked her off more, us standing in the street or staring into houses we had no business looking into?

So much change over the decades, houses knocked down to make way for the expanded church, stores with changed purpose, and being a recession, quite a few shops were empty, but the old stone courthouse with its blurry faced stone lions was just as I'd remembered it.

And then it was time to go, as we drove past the cemetery Nedra waved and said, "good bye Mom" just as she had every night on the phone.

The Health of Our Soldiers

The government recently proposed improving the health of members of the military by banning tobacco, citing the predictable rise in cancers and cardiovascular diseases after years of use. But I posit, if the government really wants to improve the health of soldiers, they should stop having wars. Why worry about long-term smoking risks when smoking guns give instant health effects?

The Luxury of Grandmothers

At my age it is a very fine thing to have a grandmother. Plenty of my friends no longer have parents. And most of my generation lost their grandparents decades ago, or worse, never got to meet them at all.

My Grandma Hal (Florence Dawald Miller) was acquired by the sound decision my father made to marry my stepmother when I was a baby. But, today, at the age of 95, my last grandmother has become past tense.

We spent many summers in Grandma's homes in the small utterly flat town of Rochester, Indiana. She had one rather large house with a wrap around porch and backyard filled with bright flowers and sting happy bees. Across the street she rented out several apartments and we stayed in one of these on our visits. Here too were planted swaths of flowers, their colors duplicated in the patterns she painted on her saucers and vases at her ceramics store, a few blocks away downtown.

She made us all replicas of Victorian porcelain dolls, sewing their kid leather arms and legs, painting in their features and making outfits of such small precision you could understand why she was once an exacting instructor at the Singer Sewing Machine store. I treasured my doll and named her "Indiana" in honor of her state of manufacture, as I too had been born a Hoosier, a distinction none of my half-brothers and -sisters can share. She taught me to crotchet. I also got to make piggy banks and daschund ring holders in her ceramics store. And she made all of us gifts that came from her hands, blankets, our names in lace, crotchet Xmas tree ornaments of starched white cotton snowflakes, and more.

But just in case you are thinking Florence was the epitome of grandmotherly cotton candy, let me say she was a woman with sharp comments, hasty judgements, smug gossip, quick wit, and the ability to stretch a short tale into a mini-series of needless detail. Saturday Night Live could have done a skit on her recounting a typical road trip with her friend June. You heard what diners they ate at. What pie they chose, that the waitress had folk from Michigantown who were now living in Peru. Which reminded her of a trip to Indianapolis and the time she and June rode their mopeds around town... And this would only be the first pit stop. The point of interest was dutifully recorded in her odd photojournalism, for some reason she never could frame a shot and more often than not it was crooked and the heads of her fellow travellers cut off.

And unlike storybook grandmas, Florence was a bad cook. She favored the boil into goo school. She once got us to eat boiled potatoes only by claiming she was serving whale blubber. And when she was dieting, which was often, she made nasty concoctions using ersatz ingredients. Non-sugar sugar, non-mayo mayo, and so on.

She loved local history. When my father interviewed her for his family history she was in her element. She had so much to recount and what she didn't remember her research (years in the local historical society and DAR) supplied back to the first family members who settled the flats of the Midwest.

When I was about thirteen and she suddenly widowed, we spent a rough summer together in San Diego. She yelled at me for not making my bed, for using too much toilet tissue, for giving lip, for making faces, for reading too much, for not being nice enough to my little sisters, for not being like my little sisters. She made me put soap in my mouth once and I stopped swearing in earshot after that... And being Grandma, she got relief from my sullenness by gossiping about me. And being 13, I wasn't able to see she was grieving. Grandpa Hal had been the love of her life.

And as much as we fought, we didn't disown each other. I defended my right to claim her as a grandmother to my mother's side of the family, where great aunts would tell me "stop calling her your grandma, she isn't BLOOD you know dear, your real grandmother is your ONLY grandmother and you are hurting her by claiming this woman is." And I fiercely disagreed. It isn't about blood.

Luckily, we got older. I came to appreciate her artistry and skill in making quilts, crotchet, knitting, and anything else she crafted. She wanted to be useful, and she was. She had the courage to take on old age and call the terms. Even in her wheelchair she was leaf blowing the driveway. Her delight in my daughters was wonderful. I know they enjoyed doing puzzles with her. When my mother-in-law came for a visit carrying her own extensively researched oral histories and genealogies, Florence read the entire thing, through a magnifying glass, and enjoyed discussing the work of recording history with Jeanne.

When she moved into an old age home I made sure to send her occasional boxes of diabetic chocolate truffles from Mondel's Chocolates. If those treats were good enough for Katherine Hepburn, they were surely good enough for my Grandma Hal, who shared my sweet tooth.

Thank you Florence Dawald Miller for being my grandmother these many years.

Family Reunion Special Guests edition

My family and close friends of my parents (father & step mum) are gathering weekend after next in a 50th wedding anniversary/family reunion event in Ocean Grove that is sure to bring my parents joy, their grandchildren delight, and for those of us in the middle, a memorable mix of roles and reactions.

What I expect: some tension, mosquitoes, and an unexpected heat wave competing with my own daily hot flashes. Pack two swimsuits and plenty of tee shirts. What I also expect are moments where I think how lucky I am to be part of this crazy creative smart snappy snappish warm and unpredictable clan.

What I didn't expect, the dreams I am having for those who would like to attend but are otherwise unable to appear.

Last night I was talking to my daughter Natalie. Which isn't odd since she was here for a visit. This talk however was happening while I was sleeping. As we talked about her upcoming acting apprentice year in Louisville, I noticed someone appear behind her right shoulder, at first in silhouette and then, yes, oh my god, it was my mother! My mother looking good, before the cancer whittled her, a glowing 35, and she had her delighted proud grin. Natalie noticed I was no longer making eye contact.

"What are you looking at Ma?"

"Can't you see her? It's my mother, your grandmother, she's right behind you." And my mother could see us both, had been enjoying our conversation.

Natalie couldn't see her. But I stepped over and gave mom a huge hug. And even in my dream state I could smell the familiar mix of gardening mulch, lightly sweaty skin, and marlboro smoke in the weave of her cambric shirt. I could feel her warm solid body.

I had so much I wanted to say, to ask, but as soon as I started to be aware this was Only a Dream it faded away.

When we all woke up I told Natalie the dream. She said, "I have a dream to tell you, I've had it several times. Just as I doze off I can sometimes enter a meditative state. I come to a place that is a huge grassy plain. There is cloudy light everywhere, it is a feeling of whiteness. I arrive alone. Then off in the distance I see two small figures. I am not afraid. They come closer and closer and then I see they are Grandma Helen and her mother Great Grandma Rose. They smile and tell me how happy they are to see me. I am happy too but also weirded out and want to go and I tell them this. They say it is OK. They are glad to see me, anyway. We hug. Then I leave. I've had this dream during tough times. Once I had it after our building burned down, another time after our babysitter Pat died and she came with the grandmothers and I felt less odd with her because I had really known her in life. I think they are protective spirits."

"Well next time you see them, don't be afraid, give them my love, talk awhile if you can. They both would have been delighted by you, they each did community theater and wrote plays... and at least Grandma Rose got to hold you when you were a newborn..."

At this point Natalie and I are both crying.

I wonder who else didn't get an invitation? No doubt they will let me know.

Great lunch with my friend Jeff

I had lunch today with my former colleague and now friend Jeff Krum. Jeff is one of those guys who is always excited about some aspect of creativity and teaching. He regularly checks out Life hacker and other good places to get ideas on the Internet. If Santa Claus were Jeff, he'd be considerably thinner, but his bag of gifting ideas would be even bigger.

We went to a Mexican place. After I tucked into my delicious almond/mole glazed chicken tortilla, which strangely looked like a sweet French pastry but was utterly subtle and not sweet (and I must bring my brother Anders there when he next comes East, we are both people who are delighted by almost anything almond and chocolate) and I ate enough to return to the world of talking...

Jeff asked me how freelancing was going. I told him I was still in the say yes to everything phase and it was seeming like I should turn down a job or two when they bore signs of inducing strife or insanity, or worse, weeks of utter dullness.

Jeff then asked if I had a sheet of paper. I did. He took my pencil and quickly sketched a nifty diagram that he'd seen by Bud Caddell "how to be happy in business--venn diagram." Here it is:
To take it further, if I get paid only for what I do well, I risk getting bored unless I keep learning what I want to do (passions). This diagram is so useful. I understand it has gone viral across cyberspace. So yes, I will continue in my quest to draw better, design better, write better and make all the things I do play nice with each other...and earn me a living.

Jeff was a teacher before he became an ESL editor and publishing manager. He once told me one of his favorite aspects of working with authors was the phase before the book was even written, when they could take a walk and talk about the concepts, how the ideas could be used, could be expressed... He is clearly an idea junkie.

I think generating ideas and synthesizing concepts must also be one of the intelligences that come in a bell curve. Jeff would be at the far end, where ideas are as plentiful as several bags of jelly beans filling a big bowl. And then there are the people who can entertain only one concept at a time. You know, the ones that tell you the only way to get to heaven and avoid freelancing in hell is through playing simon says with their prophet. These are people whose jelly bean bowl has only one stale bean.

Thank goodness for friends with lively minds!

Teaching what you have known so long you can't teach it.

I come from a proud line of teachers.
And I'm proud of them too.

My father Elof Carlson with his 50,000 former Bio 101 students, 99.2% of them grateful. And I run into them. And they tell me his was one of their very favorite classes at Stony Brook or he inspired them to teach with his dramatic, at times funny, and warm style or his class led to a change of major and the career they now embrace. Certainly he won awards for his teaching. My mother Helen Carlson taught, with wit and ripostes, more in the The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie style, but her favorites were inspired and the students she publicly whipped with sarcasm (for not doing the work or paying attention), I am sure they didn't forget her or the poems she was explicating.

My step-mother Nedra has a masters in teaching. My sister Christina has a teaching masters and taught for many years. My brother John was a teacher. My brother Anders is about to turn to teaching full time. With this background, it is easy to see why I thought I was qualified to teach without any training or experience whatsoever.

Ha.

I have now discovered a corollary, the more years you have been immersed in a profession and it's tools and jargon, the less able you are to remember what it was like to know nothing and explain it in plain English. I have been trying to describe what I do to Jim. I have been trying to tell clients why things are Done A Certain Way.

Hah.

Teachers of the world, I salute you.

Last night I attended a terrific well attended free seminar at Noble Desktop. For two hours Daniel Rodney explained how websites can be built more efficiently, using Dreamweaver software and cascading style sheets. But it was way more than a pitch for taking classes in software. He managed to give an overview of how all projects can be better managed when they are better planned. That this method of building sites allows for the minimum fuss and time in making changes. That his approach frees him to try things, allows him to be more creative as well as efficient.

As we talked about it over a Wendy's dinner with our friend Michael, the three of us were inspired. Enjoyed the concepts. Felt excited about the possibility of working in the way Dan showed us. Now that is teaching.

Wish I could send all my clients to Dan's seminars for an overview. Then they'd stop saying, could you just change this or that, I'm sure it won't take long. They'd know which was a lot and which was a little work. But no, I can't send them all to Dan the Man. I have to be the Dan. I am going to remember how he explained things. Clients, I will do my best to use regular words, not webspeak, so we can talk about the jobs I'm doing for you. I will channel my inner Dan.

My four Fridays

Friday 1.
I had a huge freelance project to finish. Illustrating a picture book for a sweet guy who wants to give wife a surprise gift, her story turned into a book. So when the first hour of Friday shows up I'm still printing it out onto special Kolo pages (with borderless printing turned on, edge to edge color thank you very much and thanks to Flash Rosenberg for showing me how to do this Kolo thang) and assembling it all into a presentation binder. 32 pages of last minute hysteria to finish. Hands hurting from so much digital painting. Jim cheering me on in an increasingly fainter voice. I finally wrapped the book at 3 am and fell asleep on Friday morning.

Friday 2.
Woke at 6:30, not refreshed. Waited for employee of the man who wanted me to illustrate the book to drive by and pick it up. SUV pulls up to my building. I walk out with package. Guy in vehicle takes package and hands me an envelope containing my check. Very spy feeling. But he is nice, says the whole office has been enjoying my progress reports (I sent PDFs of work to date), and great that I made the characters look like real people, namely the boss and his family. Not feeling sleepy, yet, I clean up huge cyclone both on dining room table and in my mac. Stagger to bed at some point.

Friday 3.
Woke at some hour in early afternoon. Am feeling it must be Sunday by now. But no, it is actually and really Friday. How can it still be f*gging Friday? I ask my dog. Silly question, for dogs, it is always Saturday. Check email. Client lets me know he is very happy with the book. Now hoping wife will like it. We both hope she will. Just before dinner I lay down for a nap...

Friday 4.
And it is still Friday when I wake up. I stagger with arms out and gaze at hands that are not drawing.

And then, unbelievably, finally, I had only one Saturday and a singular Sunday.
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On Saturday I went to the New York Public Library and heard a slide show and talk by William Low about becoming a digital illustrator after starting in oils and other traditional media. One of the many events that the lively, smart, and well-connected children's librarian Elizabeth Bird organizes for people who love children's books. I was familiar with Low's lovely, painterly, approach to illustration. It was great to see how he uses a Wacom digitizing tablet, photo reference, and his many years of training to create original art digitally. He told us that some of his students at FIT fail to transform the source material, they just apply an effect in photoshop and he can still see the copyright watermark on their bits and pieces. A real artist takes sources and reimagines them with the lighting, perspective, gesture, and mood that the illustration demands. Low has a Bronx accent mixed with Chinese. His parents ran a laundry. The drawings he did as a boy are astounding. Meticulously correct super heroes and space ships. At the same age I was still doing blob heads with stick arms and legs.

On Sunday I went to Books of Wonder, one of my favorite bookstores in the world, for a reading from the new fairy tale anthology for kids 8-12, Troll's Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales. Edited, natch, by Datlow and Windling. Delia Sherman, Ellen Kushner, and Holly Black read teasers from their stories. I bought a copy for my niece and two nephews. Planning, of course, to read it myself before sending it on. I am now more convinced than ever that I want to resume my efforts to write short fiction. There is something just so delightfully unfussy about a good short story. Concision. Brevitas. As Delia said, a 3,500 word story is a lot like writing a poem, every word has to count. They all read well, I just love that, authors reading to me, their own expressions given their signature phrasing. Then it was time to buy the book and get it signed. As I waited, lucky #13, as the line wound past the shelves of expensive "older" editions. It sort of horrified me how many of them I have read (almost all) and actually own (more than half). The man behind me on line, about my age, had the same thought at the same moment. He murmured that he'd recently realized you can't take the books with you. Yes, I replied, my father recently donated his collection of genetics books to the Cold Spring Harbor laboratory library. But who will want my collection of YA, picture books, poetry, and fairy tales? Hmmm.

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I finally catch up on email and gossip. As I suspected, Neil Gaiman is dating Amanda Palmer. Despite the fact I've never met him socially and am older and, OK, I'm married, I just sort of had a baseless crush on him...and the horror is that at his book readings or signings I see all these other middle aged women who doubtless have that same wee crush. There must be millions of us. And now we can all take that big sigh. Ooooh ungh. He's with a sexy 33 year old punk rock experimental artist who used to be a living statue and likes to pull her clothing off as often as possible for Arts sake. I went to a Ramones concert in the 80s, I wore fish net stockings in the late 60s, I went skinny dipping--in darkest night--during college in the 70s...but no, not even close. Lets face it, I'm practically the face of October in the Upper Westside Mom calendar. Except I have cool glasses. Take that Amanda Palmer, I have very cool glasses.