Facing Your Inner Critic

What does your inner critic look like? What does he/she sound like? Lately, mine looks like this (above).

We all have thoughts. Agreed? And usually we are in charge of them. We call the shots. Rule the roost. We are the emperor or empress of the whole of Rome in our brain. Do this, do that, peel me some more grapes. That is, until The Critic arrives. Our inner voice that, well, criticizes the hell out of everything we do. His/her POV is that s/he is in charge of quality control.

"And you call yourself an artist. More like a fartist." Though this image is from Ben's and my book, The Boy Who Went Ape, the omni-max in red is my second grade teacher, Miss Foot, mixed in with my piano teacher, Miss Hand, or was it Miss Hook. Both hated kids. My inner voice looks and sounds like her sometimes.

I find that the inner critic can paralyze me from proceeding. Why bother when it seems so frikkin' impossible? One way to shut her/him up is to drag her into a scene. Here are some notes I jotted down from a recent tête-á-tête with my inner critic (loosely translated).

"Avast! Ye scurvy fog headed poltroon. Belay! Set to! Unfurl the mizzen you sorry wet dog. Goad the Fates and heave ho! You lard rendered lubber, you Jack-of-no-trade. Put your back into it , Sea Foam-For-Brains. Pull!! We're bound for the Outer Hebrides and sun burnt gold that glistens like sweat. Not that you've ever sweated, pig.

Haul yore rusted rump about, uncork that rum soaked noggin and burn yore oars, fire the crow's nest. What a far sighted fake. I've seen mermaids with more muscle. Show some fish guts, tan yore hide, slice the water and butter the bow. You call yourself a writer? Get me a bucket and a linen hanky, while yer at it."

We all need to self adjust. It makes us better people. We need to respectfully listen to others and to our inner critic. And then when we can't stands it no more, we make our inner critic walk the plank.

Are you listening?

Some of my best friends are phantoms. This boy, for instance. I don't know who he is, but the photo speaks to me. Volumes. I've had this photo forever. It reminds me of my dad who made the first crystal radio receiver in Forest Grove Oregon, when he was a lad.

What is he listening to? It's blowing his mind, whatever it is. Or forming it. I like his button up shoes. The oriental rug. The doily on the table top. And that radio, with the Bakelite knobs, and the speaker horn-thingy.

Do you have old family (or otherwise) photos that stir your imagination? What do they say to you?

Fortune and Glory

I painted this aeons ago using my daughter as model

It wasn't very long ago that my offspring were children. I'm not sure about the word "offspring". Sounds like what happened to our couch. Anyway, now my chirrens ( to use Mr. T's colloquium) have chirrens of their own. And my daughter, Faith, has just announced on her blog, a new contest: The Winter Word Olympics, a.k.a., The Writer Games.

Go. Just go. To: Sacred Dirt. Fortune and glory await. There be cleverness, and a chance to scale new heights. A different wordish competition with each post. Prizes. Self esteem infusions. Free tax advice. Facials. Thank you all for being great friends, and for being you.

Notes From the Underground

Often when I am in a phone conversation or my mind is elsewhere, I find that I have been doodling. My subconscious is expressing itself.

I remember that this one was a difficult discussion.









One might call it Hypo Art. Images from down under. Sublimages.

These noodlings have survived because
as I was throwing them in the trash
I looked at them and thought, huh!

So instead, I tossed them on one of my piles.


Unconscious poetry, speaking from the dark.





What are my dreams telling me?


Who are these friends?


Where have I stuffed these emotions?









This kind of art is done without agenda. Without deadlines. Without ambition. It simply flows. And is what it is.

Mostly the ideas are nonrepresentational. But occasionally one of them peeks out to say hello.


Do you doodle? Are you giving voice to your shyer musings?

Giant Grapefruit Mistaken for the Planet Jupiter!

It would be hard to imagine a more discouraging month. There was sadness, sickness, and wierdness up the wazoo. But it is turning out to be a great new year, full of promise, and a life time supply of grapefruit. Dear friend Cathy Bonnell, went out in her back yard, picked some of her other-worldly fruit, put it in a huge box, and mailed it to the dark, wet, cold, mist-shrouded, Northwest. Let me preface: she is the world's greatest librarian, and friend. Besides which, she lives in Arizona. You know, "sun, sun, sun, til daddy takes the T-Bird away". Come to think of it, she may live near Area 51.

To help you get a an idea of the size of these puppies.

The range of citrus: grapefruit, oranges, lemons, lime, tangerine, kumquat. They arrived just in the nick of time. I needed vitamin C big time, and this kind friend brought earth medicine, smiles, and an antidote to the blues.

At first these two didn't know what to make of each other. But after swapping stories...

It was best of pals. They became inseparable. Now they go everywhere together-- the beach, the cinema, hiking, they were even going to take in a jai alai game, but thought better of it.

Art Made From Plum Sweat

This is an orphan plum. We rescued it from a life of rot and splat. In Port Townsend there are gleaner freaks. Waste not, want not, you know.

Our daughter, Faith, came over to do a bit of canning a while ago, while we kept the grandkids busy. Since the windows all fogged up from the steam of canning, we discovered a new kind of "canvas" for making art. If I'm not mistaken, Michelangelo began the Sistine Chapel on his grama's window pane, while she canned plums. Or was it pears?

Faces from the foggy mists of the past.

Smiley faces. Point, move finger, and ta da! Art happens.






Careful...just so.

This picture tells
of fairies, and
ballerinas, and a kitty, no wait, that's a cloud with a rainbow. And those are birds and a
porcupine. And I'm flying so fast.

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.