Swallowed By Art

This happens a lot. I have trouble knowing where my art ends, and I begin. Or where my art begins and I, uh...hmmm.

This is a younger me, which I guess is true for every photo, unless it is streaming video. But even that would be a younger virtual visage because of the time it takes for light to go from image to camera to eye to brain.

Do you get lost in your work? Your art? Your passions?

The Telling Image: Art Exhibit at Bainbridge Island Library~Opening Friday September 3

Spin a yarn with words and you are a story teller. Spin straw into gold and you are either in a fairy tale, or you are an artist.

As a children's book author and illustrator I weave words and images together to tell a tale. The art that I make for a book unfolds a visual narrative.

My goal is to illuminate the text but also to reveal subtleties in the story which may not even have been mentioned. My inspiration comes from dreams and from that calm land of elixir between waking and dreaming. Music, hope, and longing also seem to stitch themselves into each piece of art that I make.

This Friday evening~September 3~ from 5:00 to 7:00 during "ART WALK", I am exhibiting some of my artwork at the Bainbridge Island Public Library. I will give a short presentation at 6:00. Included in the show will be a range of work in various medium: oil, egg tempera, sumi ink and acrylic on elephant dung paper. Pâté de foie gras on Russian parachutes.

Truth in lending here, one of the above may not be true. But the rest are.

The exhibit will be up for the month of September. Love to see you there Friday!
BYOS&GL (Bring your own straw. And goose liver).

The Shape of Time

I did not have time to play with time. But time had time to play with me. So I went with the flow and ended up at Ruby Beach on the coast of Washington way far away from everything

The "haystack rocks" thrust up along the shore. And the time-worn stones beckoned to be stacked.

At first I could not get anything to balance, I guess "hurry" still lingered as my mojo. But Susi had stepped out of stress's scrunch and the stones vied for her attention. Freeze tag is one of their favorite games.

Time and tide, tide and time, time and tide, tide and time, time and tide, tide and time...

Ahhhhhh.... one must sigh first. Breathe more slowly. Let the rocks tell you their stories.

There were other players. Birds. Light. Wind. Salt.

A time to work, a time to play.

We are all larger and smaller than we think. Time will tell.

GODZILLA COMES HOME TO ROOST!!

•my art for the 826LA art auction•
based on my eye witness account
of the Great Summer of 2010 Rampage

Some artists are "out there". Dan Santat is one of them. Like, Ooo~Whoo...! Last week Dan and I were doing portfolio consultations at the SCBWI writers' and illustrators' conference in LA. I learned that besides being Lord Vader's valet, Mr. Santat has some rather unsettling super powers. He can bend a palm tree by strumming his ukulele, and he can make art that bends the mind.


Yes, bends the actual mind. For some reason, a group of artists found his new book, OH NO! exciting and inspiring. It is a (soon to go viral) little picture book for warped children. The good kind of warped. He says that his book is a sort of homage to Japanese rampaging monster movies. But I promise, it is educational too. I actually own a copy of the book. I love it. My kids love it. My grand kids love it. Maybe love isn't the right word. We eat it. We gnaw on it. We run screaming down the street with it. Yeah, that's better.

You can bid on and own a piece of the art that has been made (as a spin off from OH NO!) for the fundraiser. Proceeds go to 826LA which is a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 8-12 with their creative and expository writing skills, and helping teachers inspire their students to write.


I don't think it's a problem if an artist has a few screws loose. It all depends on which screws.

Check out Dan's site and check out THE AUCTION here: Eye Witness Reports There are some seriously stellar artists who have joined the fray. First EBAY auction online August 23-27

Ding Dong The Book Is Dead

SAY WHAT?? Oh, man I hate hearing this. When Garrison Keillor announced in May that publishing was dead, a lot of people threw themselves out of ground floor library windows. Or at least threw out their cassette tapes of Prairie Home Companion. When I heard this I threw myself off the couch.

Rubin Pfeffer

When Gutenberg printed his big book back in 1450-something, a lot of calligraphers stabbed things with their quills and threw lamp black ink out their windows.

Having just returned from the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) conference in LA, I am inspired, pumped, and curious about this quantum leap in publishing. The times they are a changing. My agent, Rubin Pfeffer, in his key note speech (which rocked the house) urged the organization to transform itself into an ebook publisher. He challenged authors and illustrators to get a handle on the fact that "the world wide market for digital publishing will be very, very large".

Rubin took pains to emphasize that the changes are, "Not instead of, but in addition to..." (the traditional book form). I love the fact that he said, "Our challenge will be to remain high above all the poor quality material out there."

This is a huge discussion, which will unfold in ways we can't imagine. Pfeffer says, "With books being reinvented, we must be innovative in creating content that can leverage the multimedia capabilities of technologies like the iPad." . Although I don't have an iPad yet, I am making one out of cardboard, tape and tin foil just to tide me over.

Going to this conference was seriously inspiring, but also provided the occasional surprise. Such as helping Jay Asher, Rachel Vail, and Carolyn Mackler into their Cupid costumes. Those wings offer up engineering challenges you wouldn't believe.

I loved being back in L.A.. So-Cal is my stompin' grounds. You never know what you are going to see, like the space age gas station (above). Last time I was here the police blocked off the street during a bank robbery in progress, with me trapped in front of the bank.

In the lobby of the Hyatt Century Plaza Hotel, with writers and bloggers extraordinaire, Jolie Stekly, Jaime Temairik, Martha Brockenbrough, and Molly Blaisdell.

Me and blog buddy, Julia Kelley.

RJW with Ann Whitford Paul, and mi hijo, Jesse. Ann's book on writing for children is one of the best I have ever found: Writing Picture Books: A Hands-On Guide From Story Creation to Publication. Jesse has an amazing new picture book coming out in the fall, HOPE FOR HAITI.

Like musician and poet, Paul Simon said, "If you want to be a writer, find a humble pen." Or make that~find a humble digital device.

There is fo-sho a publishing revolution underway. Books will change, and books will stay the same. Both. But however we receive our content, remember this:

"Of the making of books there will be no end." ~Ecclesiastes 12:12

Summer Vacation~Old School

I love old photos because they teach us the art of "Old School". "Hey kids, feed the bears some raw meat while I try out this pin hole camera." On the right side of the picture, notice some "Old School" photo-shop tools: i.e. get out the Buck Knife and scratch out the riffraff.

I hope this summer you can get down and dirty with some bit of nature. Yesterday I was struggling with a creative Frankensteinish what-not, and I did not have the upper hand. So, we went for a walk. Even if you can't raft down the Grand Canyon, or climb a redwood, you can go for a summer evening walk. It will cure what ails ya. Guaranteed.

For instance, on the walk I saw a sun dog. A glowing patch of rainbow, (but not a rainbow) otherwise known as a parhelion. It was on the edge of a misty, glowing ring around the sun. When I see such flabbergasters I know that everything is going to be good. On this same walk, yellow birds, blackberries, two herons, plus I found a thingy on the ground which will go into one of my flying saucer models.

Are you having any Old School fun this summer?

Lone Star Hospitality: Abilene~Part 2

If you have ever driven across Texas, you have been humbled by its flat grandeur. We drove across it in a blizzard. In a VW bug. With a squalin' baby. They shut down the interstate, so we found back roads. Is that it? Noooo. We also had a flat tire. And the jack wouldn't go high enough. That it? No. We were really cold. Did you know they find cattle with their mouths frozen to the ground? Yes.

The National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature • Abilene, Texas

In Timothy Eagan's book about the dust bowl, The Worst Hard Time, he describes those southern plains, "It scares {people} because the land is too much, too empty, claustrophobic in its immensity...It scared Coronado, looking for cities of gold in 1541. It scared Anglo traders who cut a trail from Independence to Santa Fe... It even scared the Comanche as they chased bison over the grass...It scared the Germans from Russia and the Scots-Irish from Alabama...It still scares people...a place where the land and its weather --probably the most violent and extreme on earth--demand only one thing: humility."

Now hold your horses. There is something even bigger: Texas hospitality! The NCCIL hosted an art exhibit of the SCBWI Golden Kite award winners. Pictured above: Larry Day, Kristen Balouch, Alan Stacey, David Diaz, Pat Cummings, Priscilla Burris, Barbara McClintock, Diane Stanley, Cecilia Yung, and moi. We were treated like Princess Amidala. Although the guys wanted to be treated like Davy Crockett.

Nice expanse inside and artwork with a remarkable variety of technique, style and emotion.
It is such a beautiful show.

Stephen Mooser and I were fixin' to hunt buffalo. He even had a shirt made for the occasion.

Turned out it was easier to go to the Perini Ranch Steakhouse. You have to bring your own Bowie knife (also known as an Arkansas tooth pick), on account of the steaks that won't quit. We are talkin' steaks that will knock you clean off'n your chair if you turn your back on 'em.

Out front they have an iron armadillo the size of a tank. This is to scare away vegetarians.
Do you know what they call an armadillo out here? A Texas speed bump.

Eating large rare steaks does kind of iffy things to folks. Why that lady in the middle started pawin' the ground. Above: Liz Mertz, Stephen Mooser, Lin Oliver, Jacqueline Gramann, and Mark Mitchell. Seriously, Lin and Steve are the founders of SCBWI. They began with a handful of writers in their living room in 1971, and it has become a vibrant, international organization.

At Frontier Texas, these bronze sculptures by T.D. Kelsey capture the thunder of the cattle drives which are such a part of Abilene's history.

Thank you Sujata, Debbie, David, and the entire crew at NCCIL and SCBWI. I love y'all.