A Day in the Life

Participated in an interesting project set up by my friend Jennie recently. She asked several artists and designers to document the same day, March 6, and then she plans to put them all into a book. I have to say this up front. I was very excited about the project, but that day, that particular day, was about as far from an artist/designer's day as one could possibly get. By the end of the day, I was so discouraged by the mundane-ness (mundanishness? mundundity?) that I almost gave up on the project. Still, I spent some time thinking it over, and realized that any given day is what you make of it. Not all of us get to order our days, and yet, we still have to find some meaning in them.

So here it is, my essay on March 6, 2009 called "So I Took a Picture of It."

At 5:45, Dave the neighbor begins to warm up his truck. It’s 42 freakin’ degrees, so why he’s warming it up I have no idea but the jet engine rumble is more effective than an alarm. I take a picture of it. At 6:30, NPR kicks in. Before bank disasters and layoffs can lull me back to sleep, I get up.

I can’t find my new glasses right away - a week without and it’s like starting over. I take a picture of them. The street lights are still on and shining a pool of orange light through the early fog. The marsh across the street is dark and silent. I take a picture of it.

Breakfast is tea, strawberries and cereal. It used to be Diet Coke and a wince. Getting older. I take a picture of it. Gray heads off to school. I take a blurry picture of him at the door. Most of my pictures of Gray are blurry, he’s growing that fast.

Shower. I don’t take a picture of that. Throw clothes on and head out the door. Frost still on the windows. You can feel that spring is in the air, if you stand still and breath deep. But the quick glance reveals only frost. I take a picture of it.

7:30, I take Hunter to school. Look at car ass all the way. Take a picture of it. See a dashboard hula dancer. Find myself wishing cars were more interesting to look at. Once I found myself following a van with one of those video screens mounted between the back seats. Pathetically grateful for the 30 seconds of video distraction. No such luck today, just a hula skirt’s gentle sway for the duration of a stoplight. I take a picture of it.

Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. MATC. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Work. 57 degrees. Stoplight. Stoplight. Took a picture of them all.

Lunch is two corndogs, an apple and a plastic bag of tasteless carrots. Michael Pollan wrote something like...“Never eat where you get your gas.” Does Michael Pollan have one car, one son in school 30 miles away with no bus, doctors appointments across town and a schedule tighter than a new pair of control-top pantyhose? I doubt it. I took a picture of it.

Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. MATC. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Not sure where this doctor is but the nurse said we’d know it when we saw it. Saw it. Took a picture of it.

How do you kill 15 minutes in Middleton? Cost Market Plus and Sea Salt and Vinegar Chips.

Stoplight. Roundabout. Stoplight. Beltline. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Car broken down and blocking - you guessed it - the stoplight. Picture. Picture. Picture. Oh Hell.
I snapped them all.

Stoplights turn into stop signs. PDQs and strip malls turn into horse farms and Lake Kegonsa. Almost home.Stoplight. Stoplight. Stoplight. Dear God. How much time do I spend at stoplights?

Pizza for dinner. I took a picture of it. It’s Friday and we’re all wiped. Lay around the TV room like we’ve been drugged. Cheesy doughy drugs. Stopped taking pictures. Tomorrow’s Saturday. Thank God!

Keeping Busy

Still looking for paying work but really my heart belongs to my latest project. An illustrated fairy tale called Tatterhood. It's the story of a girl who doesn't fit in. She's messy. She's contrary. And she doesn't really care what others think. Now what would I love about that, huh?

The folk tale is Norwegian, but I'm retelling it, so I'm adding other elements beyond the basic story. The only problem is, it's getting long. And, you know, it's not really a children's fairy tale. It's more like a woman's fairy tale. So that's my plan for illustration. It won't be one of those cutesy kiddy things, but more a coming of age story. With birds.

The Library

I went to the library today and made myself right with the world.

Yes. I am one of those. I am a chronic tardy book returner. And worse, I occasionally lose them. Which means that, on occasion, I am unable to check out books due to the large-ness of my library fines. And sometimes that state of having fallen from grace extends so long that I forget what I like most about the library. The vastness of the supply. The variety of the goods.

I've learned to accept this about myself. I mean, I am, in many other respects, a good person. I am kind to the elderly and small children, mostly. I cook nutritious meals for my family, mostly. And I try to avoid frequenting enclosed public spaces when I'm having intestinal difficulties. I think you know what I mean.

And it's not like I check out two books and lose one of them. When one continuously checks out books two dozen at a time, it's natural for one to slip the corral, as it were, and go astray, once in a while. So, back to today, I decided to go and find out just how bad the damage was, and try to make it right.

In my library, you can ask them to check the shelf for a book you've been accused of losing. It doesn't take too long, but is like asking the ticket clerk at 11, if they are sure you've missed the 10:45 bus. It almost never works but you've gotta do it. And, low and behold, today it worked! As it turned out, all this time, I actually DID return the darn book, and it's been waiting on the shelf, all this time, unchecked in and lonely. And I am not quite the regenerate book loser I can't help but think of myself as.

So I've been curled up on my couch, reveling in my library stash. Books on Norwegian fairy tales, organic gardening, the latest Terry Pratchett and some Dana Stabenow that has somehow escaped me before now. All that treasure, returned to me. Just for the price of a question.

The Thin Line

I read an article this morning about Shepard Fairey, the designer/artist who has taken the world by storm with his iconic Obama campaign (and, it appears, now presidency) images. According to this article, Fairey has lifted vast quantities of historic imagery in the creation of his own for profit work. http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Obey/index.htm

I'm sure I'm a naive fool, but I've always just thought that he was for real. I loved those boldly graphic images reminiscent of Russian and Chinese revolution posters, and 60's social revolution statements. Now I come to find out that the reason they reminded me so strongly of those things, is because he used those things, outright, in the creation of his own work. He did this knowingly and seemingly without concern about the appropriateness of his actions. For anyone else this is called plagarism.

It's discouraging to see, not only the article, but response to the article, where people say things along the line of "well, that's what graphic designers do." That is NOT what graphic designers do. Graphic designers, good ones, struggle and strive to find a new way to say what needs to be said. They may be inspired by work from the past, how could they not, but they know that what they create needs to be as original as they can make it. They may use echoes of the past but they do not just copy it line for line and plant it in their own work with no acknowledgement or compensation for the original artist.

Being a collage artist, I've struggled with the thin line between using work to create new work, as many collage artists do and stealing. I've always tried, very hard, to stay on the correct side of that line, and, in many cases, have simply decided not to use an image if my use could be construed as stealing the image. And this is for personal work that may only be seen by my friends and family. I know the joy of an original creation and the nagging doubt when too much of the piece owes itself to someone else's work.

How is it then, that someone of Fairey's public stature, can be so ignorant to the ethics of the situation as to feel that he is entitled to the use and even subsequent copyright of such material? Have we lost our moral compass? Shame on you Mr. Fairey. Shame on you.

Abundance

I've been thinking a lot about abundance lately. There's a school of thought that says that if you visualize abundance you will receive it. Sure, there's an element of magical thinking there, but I'm all about magical thinking. What makes it relevant today is this:

I've been waking up to NPR pretty much every morning for the last few years now, and I've never heard such an unending string of negativity as I've heard recently. The economy. Corruption. Death. Greed. War. More corruption. Failure. Poverty. Layoffs and bailouts. Rising unemployment. Who deserves help. Who doesn't? Where will the money come from? Where did the money go? Why are people still behaving like greedy scum? (My question here is, what made us think they were going to stop?)

I found myself becoming more and more depressed about the state of the world as I listened. The problem is, I don't see how I can do what I need to do while focusing on these things, most of which I can't even wrap my mind around, let alone change. So I've stopped listening to NPR in the mornings. Sorry NPR, I still love you. It's not you, it's me.

What I'm going to do instead is this. Exercise. Eat a good breakfast. And focus on creating abundance. The world is a vast and glorious place. Still. The sun rises in the East. Every morning. Still. Every day (for the next six months or so) each day will get a little longer, a little warmer. And for every greedy bastard out there, trying to hide his ill-gotten gains, there are a hundred people doing little things to help a fellow citizen of earth, be they human, animal or plant. A thousand people, doing what they can.

For all the big horrible stories that glow and pulse with a sort of sick fascination, there are lots of small stories, quiet and unprepossessing, that glow with the creativity and humor and beauty of the human spirit. I'm going to focus on those stories for a while.

I know that it's seen as important to see what's going on in the world. To make yourself aware of things. To read newspapers and magazines to educate yourself about what's happening. But for all this awareness of evil, there ought to be some sort of flip side. Some sort of acknowledgment of the good. I don't mean to say those in trouble should be ignored. Their pain is real. But we focus on it excessively. We wallow in our bad news.

I believe in focusing on abundance. On bending my thoughts towards the positive, in order to help the positive become stronger. This sounds pretty metaphysical but look at it this way. Visualization is an accepted practice in sports. Top athletes visualize themselves doing their thing, over and over, with successful results. They know that if they think they can't do it, if they allow negative thoughts, thoughts of failure and despair to dominate their minds, they will not succeed. Studies show that when an athlete is successful at visualizing, they are more likely to be successful when the actual event arrives. I'm suggesting that the rest of us take up this practice as well. To visualize ourselves succeeding. To visualize and focus on the good in the world, the things we want to succeed.

Pretty Pollyannaish stuff. I know. But it's worth a shot. Visualize abundance.

More on the Altered Books project

Beginning any art project can be hard. Deciding what to do, getting past the fear and really committing yourself to the work, can all be daunting. Combine this with three other sisters and trying to communicate a basic sense of guidelines for everyone to work within, via posts to a family website and you've got our Altered Book Project.

To help my sisters out, as none of them have done an altered book before (and to be honest, I've only done a couple myself) I researched some websites for them. Don't worry, I'll share. This list is far from complete. In fact, I know there are so many out there, I almost don't even want to commit to just this list, but I will because the beginning is important. And by "beginning" I mean "starting". You have to start.

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

So I begin, as I always do, by looking at what others have done. Not to copy, but for inspiration.

www.alteredbookartists.com
www.altered-book.com
www.art-e-zine.co.uk/alteredbook.html

And best of all, a site called Recycled Words, by Will Washford.

There's more. There's so much more. But here's a start.

A Sense of Fun

It's so easy to forget the golden rule of living.

Approach living as you would like to live.

I've been so busy fretting about all the stuff on my to do list (a quick top three: 1) get a job 2) Get a JOB 3) GET A JOB) that I forget that I am really extraordinarily lucky. I have a great family and a wonderful life. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

I've also forgotten the first step to achieving the nirvana of the golden rule of living. Have fun.

Why am I starting out my blog post with this? It's circuitous but here it is. Last night my sister called. We talked about many things, but one of them was a new sister project we're starting with the new year. Our previous sister project was as follows:

Create a doll. Put it in a box and send it to the next sister up in birth order (except for me, as the oldest I sent mine to the youngest sister.) Once you get the box, open it, continue to work on the enclosed doll, add to the story of the doll, replace in the box and send to the next sister. Repeat until all sisters have had a chance to work on your doll and it comes back to you.

The outcome was unexpected in several ways. First of all, what we all thought would take, oh say nine months tops, (there are, after all, only four of us) took five years. Yeah, you heard me, FIVE YEARS. Second, the process was very revealing. We learned a lot about each other as we saw the changes and additions each sister made to the doll in their hands. Third, the product was unexpectedly meaningful. And I don't just mean the product of the dolls, which were all great, but the idea of having something that all my sisters contributed to made it mean that much more to me. And the stories...well, the stories were funny and weird and didn't always make a lot of sense, but they were really, in some ways the best part of the entire project.

I forget what incredibly creative sisters I have, and how extraordinary it is for us all to have the kind of relationship we do, living as far apart as we do. This project was a reminder that we always have each other.

So the new Sister Project? I can hear you wondering. It's altered books. We will each be creating an altered book and sending it around to be further altered by our sisters (and possibly others - this could become a different animal all together!) The theme is our family, so this ought to be wild.

As I was talking with my sister about this project, she told me about her friend, Robbye, who is also creative and who does a blog as well. This morning she sent me the link to Robbye's blog. I loved it. And what I loved about it? The sense of FUN! It reminded me that I am at my best when I approach life the way I want to live it. She seems to embrace life with a sense of creativity and vitality that I find very appealing and tend to forget to add to my own. So thanks Ame. Thanks Robbye. Ame posted pics of her doll on her site. I'll see if I can find some photos of the others.

So here's my one and only New Year's resolution. Approach living as you want to live it. Pretty simple huh?