Grow, Grow...

I think I've been making real progress on my creative block lately. This ancient quote from the Talmud has been helpful:

Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over and whispers "grow, grow."

It's comforting to think that there's a part of the universe encouraging me to grow and heal and make art. It's up to me to hear those whispers and act on them. Which lately, more and more, I've been managing to do.

Kitchen Witch

Work in progress: Kitchen Witch

The girl from my sketchbook that I posted a few weeks ago formed the inspiration for this drawing. When I was a little kid, we had a kitchen witch hanging up in the window over the sink. It was this kitschy cute 70s/early 80s sort of thing, very like this one here, from this fun Etsy shop:

When I think about the old kitchen witch, I get this warm sense of childhood nostalgia, taking me back to a time when things were safe and simple and I was really innocent and nothing was complicated yet.

I decided to draw a bit of an update of the idea, without using the witchy stereotype of the old woman with the nose. 

Kitchen Witch detail

I'm pretty happy with her so far, especially with the little owl that frequently shows up in drawings. I'm also really happy with the glass jars and their zinc lids, although the pattern I used to signify the preserves didn't work out quite the way that I'd hoped. The colors make me super happy, all warm and soft and cozy. 

I love the 80s

My 80s Moodboard

I have to say, even all these years later, I still love the 80s for music, fashion, and style. It seems like the 80s were the last time that fashion had anything really original to say, and we've just been doing these endless insert-a-year-here reinventions. Clothes were fun, bold, graphic, colorful, comfortable. Yeah, I was there. If I'd had anything really resembling a sense of style in the mid-80s, my moodboard here would have been it. Oh man, I wish I'd had a pair of pink jeans! Or that newspaper sweater - I would have about killed for that.

In high school, I did have the jeans rolled up at the ankle (still do) and the keds, and a very Molly Ringwald-esque hat. My all-time favorite t-shirt was a plain white cotton thing, well-broken in and loved. My esprit bag was turquoise, but I totally would have settled for fuchsia. I had that kind of knit striped skirt too, but mine was in gray and teal.

Moodboards are fun! I think I may do one for every decade in the last century or so.

Girls In My Sketchbook

A Sketchbook Girl

When I feel like making a quickie little sketch, either in one of my sketchbooks or on the back of an envelope (or for years, in the margins of class notes and on homework), what usually comes out is a girl or a woman. I've never figured out why I'm so drawn to creating the various characters that show up, but from the time I was little, I've drawn people.

I've never been drawn to doing portraits or particularly realistic drawings of people. Maybe because it's only in the last ten years or so that I've understood that (a) I wanted to be an artist and (b) I could actually be an artist.

Ever since I really started to explore the work of artists that I admire and to try to figure out my own style, I've been banging into a wall. Many of my favorite artists and favorite art involve drawings, paintings, collages of women and girls. I want so badly to make art like Cori Dantini or Pam Carriker (they are both just fabulous), but I'm terrified of "copying" them. Of being unoriginal.

A few things have begun to tear down that wall. One is the idea of creating what wants to be created. Another is coming to the understanding that I really do have my own visual signature and that as long as I don't set out to directly copy someone else's work, as long as I bring my own voice to the page, it's ok to take inspiration from someone else's art.

It's my job as an artist to show up to the page, to create the work that wants to be created, and to take care of the quantity of my work, trusting that practice and Inspiration will take care of the quality. And it's ok if what wants to be created are the various smiling, wistful, or knowing faces that arrive on my sketchbook pages and elsewhere.

Bitch Rabbit

I've been thinking about the idea that my job as an artist to to create what wants to be created. Imagine my surprise when my own personal Athena turned out to be a fashion-obsessed, foul-mouthed rabbit. 

Bitch Rabbit emerged fully-formed from my forehead, cosmo in hand and ready to dish on everyone in sight. I can only say 'What the @#$*" and run with it. 

Bitch Rabbit will update M-W-F (or whenever the hell she feels like).