Goals/Projects/Etc. in 2010

Currently working on:

• Memoirs Writing Class (Writing the story for issue #1 of "Geli Girl" later to be illustrated.)
• Putting together and laying out all the notes, sketches, etc. that I've been making for "Geli Girl" since 2005.
• Trying to learn, discover, re-fine illustration techniques for comic illustrations. (Trying to learn how to work bigger, shrink it down to size, scan and clean up on the computer... etc. In my last three comics I drew the originals on 8 1/2 by 11 watercolor paper. I then xeroxed those to make copies. I would then feed those copies into the xerox machine to make a booklet. Then end product is the comic.)

Goals/Projects/Etc.:

• Using my AmeriCorps Education Award for Summer or Fall Continuing Education Classes at College for Creative Studies. (Still contemplating whether to go for the Web Design/Graphic Design Dual Certificate or to take classes that will further enrich how to do graphic novel/comic book work.)
• Illustration project/collaboration with a singer/songwriter that will come out in September. It's a book of haunted stories! (Details TBA.)
• Still being discussed, but I might be illustrating a book of Armenian tall tales.
• Apply for Xeric Grant at the end of the year.
• Finish Geli Girl.
• Find a publisher.

Shows coming up:

• The Woods Gallery in Huntington Woods (Nov. 19-Dec. 28, 2010.)

Trying to find the means to afford:

• new, updated business cards
• new pens, brushes, and nibs (my old pen & nibs are worn out)
• new ink (b+w, colored)
• drawing paper for comics
• renew host for website in July

Self-Portrait 2010 in Progress.

After having not created a self-portrait since my freshman year as an undergrad in art school (1998), I picked up my drawing materials last summer and began the ritual of having to do a new self-portrait/s every year.

Recently, I was invited to Allison Graw's "Art Party" where every month other kindred souls got together in The Graws basement to do whatever your creative heart desires. Bring your own stuff to work on or use whatever supplies that are on hand at the art party (acrylic paints, papers, thrift store artwork to paint over, pieces of wood, etc.)

I decided that at these art parties I will do this year's self-portrait. I chose a picture with a frame from a thrift store to draw over.

I started sketching out with pen, and then crayons...

I am liking the background colors from the original picture on my drawing...but after an hour and a half, being hungry and now wanting my own art supplies (since I was using Allison's) called it quits for this session.

During next month's session I plan to continue working on this with arcylic paints. I need to paint over that little splotch over the nose... make it bold, create texture...

I'm looking forward to seeing how this will turn out.

Some of the work created at the art party, lined up:

On a side note, a girl named Sadie who is currently on a huge mimosa kick, brought a bottle of champagne to share. I am grateful for the mimosa and to meet this group of wonderful individuals.

Simone Weil on "Beauty" from "Gravity & Grace."

Every other year around this time I pick up my favorite book "Gravity & Grace" by Simone Weil to meditate on.

Excerpts that I have been reflecting on from her essay "Beauty":

"Beauty captivates the flesh in order to obtain permission to pass right to the soul."

"A work of art has an author and yet, when it is perfect, it has something which is essentially anonymous about it. It imiates the anonymity of divine art. In the same way the beauty of the world proves there to be a God who is personal and impersonal at the same time, and is neither the one nor the other seperately.

The beautiful is a carnal attraction which keeps us at a distance and implies a renunciation. This includes the renunciation of what which is most deep-seated, the imagination. We want to eat all the other objects of desire. The beautiful is that which we desire without wishing to eat it. We desire that it should be.

We have to remain quite still and unite ourselves with that which we desire yet do not approach.

We unite ourselves to God in this way: We cannot approach him.

Distance is the soul of the beautiful.

Beauty is a fruit which we look at without trying to seize it.

The same with an affliction which we contemplate without drawing back.

A double movement of descent: to do again, out of love, what gravity does. Is not the double movement of descent the key to all art?*

This movement of descent, the mirror of grace, is the essence of all music. All the rest only serves to enshrine it.

The rising of the notes is a purely sensorial rising. The descent is at the same time a sensorial descent and a spiritual rising. Here we have the paradise which every being longs for: where the slope of nature makes us rise toward the good."

[*Descendit ad inferos....So, in another order, great art redeems gravity by espousing it out of love (Editor's note).]

Corkboard Notes (Inspiration, Encouragement, & Influences) PART 2

In continuation from my "corkboard post" last February... additions to the corkboards:

[click for larger view]

1. Ingrid's card for my 30th birthday.
2. Art Detroit Now's area gallery map & guide. Now living here for a little over a year now, it's time to see what's out there for me.
3. Program from David Kovac's "Fooling Buddha." David is both one of my favorite performers and people to talk to. I never walk away from him without feeling encouraged and inspired. Our mutual friend, Sandy had sent me a Christmas package with this program added to it. Inside is a personal note from David to me:
   
   
   
   
4. A notecard from Cristalynn. I haven't seen Cristalynn in over ten years. She and I went took art classes together in high school and in an impromptu reunion re-connected and discovered that we are leading parallel lives; being in transition living back with our families after being independent for 10 years, turning 30, and coping with the autoimmune disease lupus.
5. Again, my favorite picture of Lynda Barry working at her table.
6. An illustration that my friend Lisa drew of me drawing.
7. Ingrid's Christmas card featuring her cats (grrr...) and Kingston. (Grr... was in reaction that I don't like cats much, but I keep this card up, because Kingston cares for me.)
8. Jack Lipman. The first baby born of my close group of friends from high school.
9. A list of restaurants that my rheumatologist "prescribed" to me. Actually most of our conversations (after finishing up medical stuff) revolve around food and art. I find it amusing that he is also a foodie and started jotting down all these restaurants I have to try in the metro Detroit area.
10. The Night Move schedule. Good if you want to get crunk barhopping in Ferndale, Royal Oak, and Detroit. (Now that I no longer live in Chicago with all it's public transit and cabs; You shouldn't be driving drunk, Missy.)
11. Card my sister gave to me for my 30th birthday, created by artist, Ida Pearle. Beautiful.
12. Card created by Dawn Wheat that my friend Cathy sent me. Both close and dear friends of mine.
13. Card that my friend Roman designed and gave to me at my art reception last July.
14. Personal autograph from Food Network star and fellow foodie, Sunny Anderson. (Because I'm a Food Network geek.)