Thursday, December 17, 2009

Narrative Arcs: Part 3.3 Hot Oven

The stained glass angel (above) was a gift to me from Nancy Willard. She wrote "The High Rise Glorious Skittle Skat Roarious Sky Pie Angel Food Cake". This was her way of saying "thank you" to me for illustrating her story.

She could easily have illustrated her own story, but let go of the young words, and watched them march down her front steps to take on a life of their own. The words found their way to me, and we bonded. Now, it can be irksome for an illustrator if an author meddles and tries to tell the illustrator, "This is what I was thinking for the art...". Einnnk!

But what Nancy did was firstly to send me a plaster egg. "Would you be so kind as to sign this egg?" "Ah, so that's how to 'egg on' an artist," I said to my moose. I took the bait, and made a little house for the egg out of Bondo auto body filler, papier maché, and gold leaf, then mailed it back to her. The game was afoot.

What did I know of angels? Not much. I have a dearest friend (who is rational, intelligent, sober, and honest) who has seen an angel. When writing or illustrating, I want to know everything I possibly can about my subject. As I stood in my front yard debating if I should even illustrate this text, wondering what angels were like, out of nowhere, a dust devil barged into our neighborhood. The dust from our dirt road suited this brisk wind, and he picked up a million leaves of all shapes and sizes. As I stood and squinted at the center of this mini-maelstrom I rather imagined each leaf as an angel. This was the gift I needed as I began my journey with this story. I'm pretty sure an angel blew in my ear and dust came out the other ear.

Russian lacquer box painting from the fairy tale, "The Raven".

Then there came the gift of dreams. If two people can dream each other's dreams, you get to a quiet place just above the tree tops. I find it fascinating that in the Scriptures, whenever an angel appeared to someone, they freaked out and fell on their faces very much preferring to die rather than hang out with raw light and power. Although the young virgin Mary faced Gabriel in her innocence and asked for clarification. The childlike drink freely of the divine. Adults need frequent swigs of skepticism.

Anyway, in one of my dreams I found myself outside in a hurricane. My shirt was blown off and I leaned into the wind to seek refuge. On the street corner, I found a U.S. mail box. Since I used to be a mailman I could unlock the box. Inside were dozens of parcels tied up with string, in the shapes of bizarre creatures. One was half bird, half airplane. When I asked Nancy how she sent the dream parcel, she mailed me the card above.

In this scene, the angels have smelled the girl's cake baking all the way from Heaven, and have come into her kitchen hoping for a taste. This book has a lightness of being, but it was baked in an oven of pain and grief. When I was working on my part of the book, I had some deep pain.

As I attempted to paint lighter-than-air, heavenly images, my father had a stroke, got his leg amputated, and finally died. I later found out that the author, Nancy, was going through some similar pain with her own mother who was dying. Our editor for this book, Bonnie, also had great pain. In particular, her mother had brain surgery to remove a tumor. She read this story to her mother the night before her surgery. The next morning, she brought her mother a little gift. "See what they found in your head?" And presented her with a golden thimble (as in the story).


Valentine from Nancy

I guess all stories rise like yeast from the full aggregate of our jumbled lives. Would I say that making this book was a piece of cake? No. No way. And yes. Absolutely.

9 comments:

steven said...

richard that's an amazing story necklace. synchronicity in any way tells about access to the deep mapping of whatever this place is!! have a peaceful day. steven

Diane AZ said...

Enjoyed your posts, especially the Zen of Messy and how your son posed as an angel. Love your work!

Richard Jesse Watson said...

Thanks, Steven. I like your idea of "deep mapping". It suggests that we can learn some of this, but there is way more that is "uncharted".

Hi Diane, thank you for visiting. Your avatar of the succulent is perfect. Makes me think of sunnier places.

Claire Rudolf Murphy said...

Richard, I have enjoyed all your blogs, especially those on narrative arc, but this last one was my favorite. Oh, the angels and the dreams and the pain we can touch as we work on our books - to help us go deeper and deeper. Thought-provoking words. Thank you for sharing so deeply.

tlchang said...

Your 'narrative arcs' are so much more poetic than mine. (Although I'll agree, synchronicity does seem to happen.) I so enjoy your angel stories here - the whirlwind of leaves, combined angelic dreams..... I would love to live inside your head for awhile Richard. It seems a gorgeous place to be.

Richard Jesse Watson said...

Thanks Claire. Maybe one of the reasons we love books is that they go deeper than many other forms of expression. The time it takes the ideas to sprout, grow, and come to fruition, makes for roots that search our inner recesses. We tap a collective groundwater of yearning, dreaming, pain, and joy.

Tara, you are too kind. If my studio is any clue, then inside my head is a jumble. But it might be fun too. I could say, "Hey, Tara, what color do you think?" And since you lived inside my head you could just doing! and I would know your thoughts.

Zuzana said...

A beautiful, almost spiritual post, lovely and poignant in words and pictures.
I am a bit too late, but I would like to wish you and yours a wonderful 2010,
xo
Zuzana

Richard Jesse Watson said...

Thanks so much, Zuzanna. I wish you the very best in this new year as well.

Anonymous said...

That picture of the little girl on the stool is simply beautiful - very inspiring =)