Month: June 2022

Mom, Odditerrarium, A.M. Sketching and rulings IRL

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, artist book, artistic inspirations, fine art, Odditerrarium, publications - publishing, sketchbook, writing and illustrating

My adopted Mom has passed and is no longer in pain. I wrote in a prior post about her illness. For more than 20 years and before JL and I moved to Washington 12 years ago, Mom and I met for lunch at least once a month sometimes more. Lunch was either at a restaurant or at her house. After Dad and then JL retired they joined us for our lunches. During every lunch I ever had with Mom she had Pinot Grigio. Mom liked flowers and often had carefully curated displays of them in a vase somewhere in her house. She commented on them in the restaurants. Dad had what Mom called “flower blindness” he just didn’t notice the flowers. Lay a book somewhere and he saw it immediately – but new flower arrangements flew above his radar. So I did my best to notice and say something about Mom’s flowers. What I learned and the love I got from Mom would fill a galaxy and could start a new one.

Before getting the news about Mom I had begun working on this blog as follows below. Because my head isn’t here right now I’m leaving this blog unedited as it was in draft form typos, raw text, unended sentences, no links and all… I’ll be back again next week. If ever anyone taught good coping skills it was my Mom. Anyway here’s what I’d planned to share…

I delivered 3 new works to Burnt Bridge Cellars and Kim put them up after Amy from Caplan Art Designs took the sold ones down to be sent to their new homes.

BLAHBLAH about the visit

Close ups of the newest ones, titles etc

After the delivery I worked on the digital files of Ant Hology for Storyberries and sent those in. Photos and such will come later.

I also changed the name of my email newsletter from Clancy’s Coffee with the Green Dragon to “A.M. Sketching”. It’s less of a mouthful and more directly to the point. https://sueclancy.substack.com/

Below is one of the sketchbok pages I shared via A.M. Sketching- I really leaned this week on my alphabetical list of things I enjoy and am still working on the list. So more on this later.

The bulk of the week was busy and stressful so the only work I got done towards the newest childrensbook is some sketchbook drawings of bears bicycling.

I found the Supreme Court decisions stressful. If anyone thinks the ruling about Roe v Wade and the probable striking birthcontrol only affects young women – in 2018 my middle aged lady parts went haywire and an IUD basically saved my life. All of the artwork I’ve created since then is thanks to the availability of women’s healthcare. So after the ruling today I keep thinking about what might have happened to me if the current Supreme Court ruling had been in place and I had lived in a red state in 2018.
I might not have lived. I might not have been here to be photographed working in my artstudio on a hedgehog

The next morning I drew this in my sketchbook and we donated to several orgs including After Roe: Help protect choice everywhere — Donate via ActBlue
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/after-roe

I’ve been happily having coffee with my sweetie every morning for 26 plus years and I plan to continue no matter what. We’ve both fought for womensrights and for gay rights and we will keep doing that too.
Damnit I’m sad, upset and angry about the current Supreme Court rulings and the likelihood of the anti birth control and anti gay rulings to come. I go into action when upset … BTW I consider all forms of creativity practical actions. Maintaining our humanity is direct action. Hang on to your heart, your mind and love wins.

Below are our favorite morning mugs. I had a time in my creative life when I did ceramics.

Here’s a post I saw that resonated

Anyway, becaus we can’t really live in rage let us now go to our happy places … the bookshelves in our living room are one of my favorite places s. Sometimes I like to just look at the shelves and what’s on them.

Please hang on to your heart and be gentle with yourself and each other this week as we all gear up for a fight for basic human rights.

See you next Monday.

Odditerrarium, art, ants, anteaters and books

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art gallery, art techniques, Art Word Combinations, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, book design and layout, books, children's book, ebook, fine art, Odditerrarium, sketchbook, visual story, visual thinking, whimsical art, words and pictures, writing and illustrating

Ants are making progress… in my new artist book that is! In my last post I was working on “Ant Hology” using a collage of letters, ink and gouache. It’s another miniature 2 inch square book that opens to 20 inches long. Here’s the progress:

The letters I used came from Columbia Gorge Book Arts.

Now to do the graphic design hocus pocus and send a digital file containing all of these ants to Storyberries!

In my last post I shared a sketchbook page that had Anteaters in it … yes, there’s a new children’s book in progress. The text was written by Judy Sullens. Please notice that I used my ant research in this project too! Ha! Here’s the first illustration:

But this new book has been put aside temporarily so I can make new Odditerrarium paintings to replace some of the paintings that have sold at Burnt Bridge Cellars via Caplan Art Designs.

Here’s my studio supervisor dachshund supervising the paintings in progress. They need to be finished by the time you read this post so my supervisor is helping to keep me focused. Says the dog “Hey, where are you going..?”

Here’s a look at the two paintings on my easel now that they’re finished except for the varnishing, framing and delivering. Due Tuesday!

Storyberries contacted me about their release date for the ebook version of my Odditerrarium. Here’s a Reel about Odditerrarium on Storyberries that I did to help explain the visual story puzzle aspect of my Odditerrarium project.

And – drumroll please – here’s the ebook version of Odditerrarium on Storyberries! https://www.storyberries.com/short-stories-for-kids-odditerrarium-by-sue-clancy-art-books-for-kids/

When I was a kid I loved looking at coffee table books with paintings in them. Now I’m enjoying making books for children that contain my fine art because the little kid I once was would have absolutely loved a book like Odditerrarium!

Anyway, this week has been very busy but even so I still played in my sketchbook most mornings (you can see what I sketched via my Substack sketchbook emails here) and each evening I read books. Here’s what I’ve been reading:

And here’s the evening shift supervisor cat who makes sure we have whipped cream on our hot chocolate, maintain a regular reading program and still get to bed at a decent hour. Says the cat “Hey, you with the thumbs, quit poking about on the phone and get back to lap making and book reading.”

I hope your week is pleasant. See you next Monday.

The ants the wetlands and the wild books

A Creative Life, art exhibit, art techniques, Art Word Combinations, artist book, artistic inspirations, author illustrator, book design and layout, books, children's book, creative thinking, drawing as thinking, fine art, household surrealism, miniature art, Odditerrarium, poetry, sketchbook, Storyberries, visual thinking, whimsical art, words and pictures, writing and illustrating

In our neighborhood we joke that western Washington is built on a giant anthill. Each spring we all battle ants outside our houses before they can invade indoors. The first hint is a mound of dirt where there wasn’t one before. Like this one on the edge of our patio.

I lifted the bricks and put the ant bait directly on the fascinating ant farm-tunnel construction then covered the bait with the bricks again and swept away the dirt on the brick edges. Of course I had a good look at the way the ants collected and organized  the dirt before I did my acts of destruction.

When ants are found indoors I use a solution of vinegar and Dawn dishwashing soap to clean the area where ants were seen. The non-poison solution is in a spray bottle and it quite effectively kills and deters ants. Between the outdoor/indoor methods the ant activity is usually successfully managed.

After doing some ant battle outdoors I came inside, looked at my bookshelves and realized how many anthologies I have: collections of poetry, short stories, essays… In one set of bookshelves alone I counted over 25 anthologies. There are still more on other shelves. I have an anthology infestation and I’m keeping it!!

For the first time I saw that there’s an “ant” in the word anthology – so I grabbed a dictionary, a scrap of paper and made a list… and with that list I have begun a new children’s book for Storyberries. I’m using a collage of letterpress letters from Columbia Gorge Book Arts and drawing ants in ink. Both my handwritten list and the beginning of the new book are in the photo below.

In case you have trouble reading my handwriting here’s the list…

Anthology: [a gathering] collections, often varied authors, of a similar literary form or topic or time period (in my last post I listed a few anthologies about the Beat Generation)

Ant farms: [a gathering and a structure] a colony of ants constructing a dwelling

Holo: a word element meaning whole or entire

Alphabet: [a structure] a set of letters to be arranged in a customary order. A structure  of language

Hology: [a relationship] – a general relationship  between reality and it’s content

Besides musing about words my wife and I went for a walk in the Steigerwald Wildlife Refuge with our binoculars. I saw the purple blue grey colors of a great blue heron up close! I didn’t realize the extent of the purplish tints to the heron feathers.  We saw lots of other wildlife too – including smiling friendly humans!

During our walk I kept thinking of a work of fiction I had read long ago that had a musician character who sang “Oh I’ll cry when the wetlands are dry”. The wetlands were a character in the story too as I recalled.

I also vaguely recalled some phrases about birds and wetlands from Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry.  But these were fleeting snatches of phrases half-remembered like wild birds glimpsed in the pond reeds.

When we were home I rummaged in my books for where the “Oh, I’ll cry when the wetlands are dry” phrase originated. Turns out it came from “With A Tangled Skein” by Piers Anthony. I had an enjoyable hunt for wetlands in this title too…

The half-remembered phrases from Wendell Berry and Mary Oliver: “I am hardly an ornithologist nevertheless I live among the birds…” (from Leavings by Berry)  and “The labor of writing poems, of working with thought and emotion (or is it the wings?) of language, is strange to nature, for we are first of all creatures of motion.” (from Upstream by Mary Oliver)

I also saw and heard some of the Mary Oliver and Wendell Berry poems about wetlands on this Wisconsin Wetland site https://www.wisconsinwetlands.org/wetland-words/

But since I live in Washington state I went looking for some wetlands related poetry from local writers. Here’s what I found from Salish Magazine a publication located in Washington state https://salishmagazine.org/issue-9-art-poetry/

In the mornings I was still thinking about the herons and the ants so they’re in my sketchbook pages. And it’s been fun sharing my sketchbook pages via email on my new Substack https://sueclancy.substack.com/

Speaking of slurping… I made a yummy fettuccine recipe using spinach and green herbs from our garden: garlic chives, green onion and basil. Here’s the recipe:

https://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/fettuccine-with-green-herbs

I also did a Reel this week about my Odditerrarium book and exhibit…  https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cejq5Lap2mI/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

This is the challenge for me – remembering  to promote the project I finished and is currently in public like Odditerrarium. Often I finish something and I’m on to the next project right away … like my “Ant Hology” book now in progress! So, more on that book next week.

I hope your week is pleasant. See you next Monday.