We had a fun visit this week with our wonderful Fairy Goddaughter, the very best Goddaughter since once upon a time! We had a delightful conversation about books and she gave us this one by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
It’s a delightful cheerful sort of poetry book. A restorative way to begin and end a day. What a beautiful gift and even better is having a wonderful Goddaughter to share life and books with!!! 💙💚
Also this week some bunny made a Mysterious Mural – https://sueclancy.substack.com/p/mysterious-mural-2 It’s a small 16 page artistbook story about the creative process that I made using fountain pens and gouache on one sheet of handmade paper for the encouragement in it. Details at the link above.
This week has been extremely busy – except for the leisurely visit with our Goddaughter – and I wrote some about my too-busy feeling on my email newsletter here …
… here’s one of several of my projects in too-busy-for-words progress…
… and here’s a look at my corner of the breakfast nook with my fountain pens, my sketchbooks and other in progress artist books. But enough about my projects …
…. because I’ve promised myself time to relax and just notice stuff…
Enough now – I’m going to put my phone away and let my mind wander and rest and read… Gnight.
This week in household surrealism I’ve been thinking of love. Love in the sense of the poetry, the food, the care for and cleaning of things, generally creating a gentle environment for ourselves and others. Perhaps an environment also filled with souvenirs of loving moments as I wrote in my last post.
My recent children’s book This Rabbit was about knowing what you like. Well, this week I’ve been thinking about how it can take practice as adults to remember to let ourselves love openly, wholeheartedly and to unabashedly enjoy things.
Among these thoughts is the fact that tulips are in bloom when I live in the Pacific Northwest. Here’s a photo from my spouse’s garden.
In the morning sometimes I read a bit of poetry while having my breakfast and coffee. The photo below is a poem by Mary Oliver, from “New and Selected Poems Vol 1”, I see this poem as talking about wholeheartedly living life. A life well lived is lived bit by bit in thousands and thousands of mundane moments. Many of those moments (even in pre-pandemic times) happen at home.
Letting oneself wholeheartedly enjoy and love little parts of daily life – why is that so hard? Perhaps as adults we get caught up in the “gotta do’s” as I call them. We sometimes almost chain-smoke, metaphorically, one gotta-do duty after another forgetting that love and pleasure is often part of the reason we do things. By contrast it feels good to pay attention to whatever interests you and revel in that focused moment. This wholehearted enjoyment is a way to be gentle and loving to yourself and the people you love. Anyway, I thought of that while I doodled in my sketchbook.
Then I worked several days in a row to flesh out my thought using acrylic paint on cradled board. Yes, this is another piece destined for upcoming art exhibits at Burnt Bridge Cellars and at Caplan Art Designs.
Below is the finished painting I titled “The Minutest Concerns”.
The label on the bottle of cleaning fluid the mouse is using in my painting is actually a bit of collage. I’ve been using a falling apart copy of Jan Austen’s book Pride and Prejudice as my collage source. (See my last posts here and here for details)
As I worked I also thought about and reread a passage in a book I illustrated titled “Dr. Bob’s Emotional Repair Program First Aid Kit“. The passage reads “love is clarity of perception and accuracy of response”.
Basically, in the bigger universal sense, things are okay, you are okay, and it’s okay to relax and enjoy just being yourself and liking and loving the world around you.
For example this photo below is part of my world that I love; I love picking up one of the books and reading a bit, I love just looking at the books on the shelves and I even love dusting them. Of course I confess that often I get distracted and stop dusting to read 😁
I love having lots of books so much that it feels like heaven. So I did this drawing and made a print of it…just in case someone else feels the same way. (This is part of the gift making I talked of last post) Even if I’m the only person who feels like this making a drawing and a print was a fun way to fully enjoy and love the feeling.
I also love the challenge of cooking. It took me a while to figure it out but I can now reliably make meatballs to store in the freezer for use whenever the odd meatball is wanted with pasta or rice or roasted vegetables.
Here’s my recipe as written in my kitchen sketchbook. Yes, this is another souvenir of love! Books and sketchbooks are the best souvenirs!
My sketchbook page will still be there long after the meatballs have all been eaten! Plus I can share this sketchbook page with people and thereby share the love.
That’s part of what I love about poetry, books, gardens and art they each nourish one’s spirit and are shareable. They’re part of how we know we’re loved and part of how we love other people and how we remember to love ourselves and the world around us. They’re part of how we connect emotionally with each other.
A dear friend loaned me this book “The 3000 Mile Garden”. It’s a wonderful almost voyeristic view of two people sharing their love of food and gardens with each other. And we readers get to see their intimate exchange of letters! The book has hand drawn maps and photos too! It’s a fun evening read.
These are the sorts of thoughts that inspire me as I work on my new household surrealism fine art series that I’m titling “Odditorium”. In addition to the art itself I’m also working on an exhibit statement- which is kindof like the synopsis on book covers – a short paragraph or two to interest viewers and help them understand what I’ve created. Wish me luck at crafting the sentences?
Anyway, I hope this week that you’ll remember to allow yourself to love whatever is commonplace in your world. See you next Monday?
While working on my new household surrealism art series I’ve been thinking of my art as souvenirs of special moments.
For example: a friends daughter and grandkids left a cup of daffodils for us on our porch. I photographed and sketched the flowers.
Here’s one of my sketchbook pages that seemed most promising for a painting idea.
Here I am starting to paint in acrylic on board…while carefully looking at a flower model.
And so my painting progressed by building up layers of color. I chose a mouse character, a shy mouse offering gifts, because I was thinking of the emotional risk a gift-giver bravely takes. Also I was thinking of the gifts of nature, like flowers, that are there if we’re able to notice the subtleties of colors, patterns and textures as they change with the seasons. I chose yellow croc shoes for my mouse character to wear because waterproof footwear is useful for puttering about outdoors where I live in the Pacific Northwest. So there are gifts of culture too. Gifts are to be found everywhere if you remember to look.
Below is the finished painting I’ve titled “Well, well…”. I looked through my falling apart copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for any words that would relate to gift giving or receiving. Finding the collage text is a lot like doing Blackout Poetry – I scan the Austen pages looking for words and phrases that fit my painting topic. For this painting I chose the phrase “Well, well…” because sometimes people say, when recieving a gift, “well, well, what have we here?”
“Well, well…” by Clancy – 18 x 8 inches – acrylic, pencil and collage on board
Painting the little wrapped gift in the lower corner of my artwork reminded me of how much I enjoy making designs for tea towels…and using the towel to wrap a gift.
My adopted mom, back in the early 1990’s, made fabric bags with a drawstring for use and reuse in gift giving. She was environmentally friendly before it was cool. So even though I don’t have Mom’s flair with a sewing machine I love designing fabric patterns and thinking of the fabric being used to wrap a gift!
Here’s a recent tea towel design I created on my Spoonflower shop … wouldn’t this be a fun gift wrapping?
Here’s a closer look at the art I did for the tea towel. These were drawn, over time, from real life.
Speaking of hot sauce: this week I got brave and baked hashbrowns! Yes, bacon, eggs, hashbrowns served with hot sauce! Turns out I really can imitate the not-quite-so-greasy-spoon diner at home! And keep the coffee coming! Here’s a link for the recipe I used for hashbrowns.
But back to the artwork. I have 4 more paintings that I hope to finish before mid May. I’m scheduled to have one-person fine art exhibits at Burnt Bridge Cellars and Caplan Art Designs later this year so I want to have at least 18 to 20 new works for the shows. Wish me luck?
I’m calling this new art series “Odditorium”… I chose this title because I intend the entire group of my works to be “odd” uncommon visual stories about common things. For my title I merged my thoughts of the word odd with the word auditorium. “Odd” means different from the usual. “Auditorium” means a building or space for an audience. I want to make a mental space for looking anew – or looking oddly – at mundane things.
As I work in my sketchbook I ponder things like: Perhaps those flowers, that towel, that coffee mug are really souvenirs of pleasant moments in life? What if dealing well with mundane life is itself a gift or even an art form?
In his book “Keep Going” Austin Kleon talks of making art as a gift. There’s also a wonderful book by Lewis Hyde titled “The Gift“. The message I get from both of these books is to remember the people. Both art making and gift giving are about emotionally connecting with people and sharing moments together.
Often when I’m creating I think of a person I know, or have known (even if they’ve died), and I make something they might like. Or I make something that reflects a feeling of connection. The person I have in mind is often never explicitly told that I thought of them. So, that thing you like … well, it just might be a gift for you.
So I make souvenirs of kind gentle moments in life by depicting common objects and animal characters in imaginative, surprising and whimsical ways that hopefully give a viewer pleasure. This, in my mind, is household surrealism.
I also see a visual pun in putting my artwork onto ordinary household objects like fabric or mugs. By making my objects available digitally and via mail (see my gifts here) I’m musing about objects that enable people to emotionally connect in a socially distanced pandemic safe way. My thought is that my work is not just about the stuff; the objects or books, it’s about our connections and our perceptions within our mundane lives. Can we find love, comfort and even art in the ordinary?
Anyway, lots of work still to be done to get ready for my exhibits! I hope you have a pleasant week full of the gift of kind moments with people you love! See you here next Monday?
Happy Jolabokaflod in advance! In my last post I hinted that I’d have a gift book for you. I have several! And some hot chocolate. Some assembly required… If you’re just joining this party – welcome! – and if you’re not familiar here’s another meme that tells what Jolabokaflod is.
So here’s one of your gift books that I’ve written and illustrated titled “B Mouse Reads A Book” – it’s a book-within-a-book book. I’ve created a wordless story about B Mouse who is reading and enjoying a book titled “A Mouse’s Book Of Scraps”
Yes, I simply couldn’t resist a visual pun about books for Jolabokaflod – the holiday book flood!
Click here to be able to, for free, add “B Mouse Reads A Book” to your cart so you can download it and have it on your device. Below is one of the pages …
There’s also the option to download and read “A Mouse’s Book Of Scraps” the very book B Mouse is reading too – you can go here to, for free, add it to your cart and download it too.
Both of these books can also be seen on Storyberries.com – without downloading anything there – by clicking this link to see “B Mouse Reads A Book“. At the bottom of that story there’s some words “click here to read the story B Mouse is reading” and that takes you to “A Mouse’s Book Of Scraps“
There are more free artist books that I wrote and illustrated available to download for free at the bottom of my shop page.
And on Storyberries.com there are 8 free books written and illustrated by me – just search the Storyberries site for my name, Sue Clancy
Now that you have some gifted books to read, here’s my hot chocolate recipe!
Enjoy yourself!! See you next Monday.
P. S. I’ve been off social media busy working on a new artist book… I hope to start sharing it here soon.
This week I finished Alphapets Too my sequel to Alphapets by Clancy! It began at the request of my fans and Storyberries – the publisher/distribution house I’ve been working with! (See my last post for prior letters)
The Alphapets Too portrait project this week is brought to you by the letters Y and Z. Here’s my abecedarian poem to go with these letters and artwork :
Yaka yawns under the flap
Zorro zealously says “Zip it! Let’s nap!”
Here’s the artwork (somewhere on each piece is an alphabetical letter):
I did portraits of a mouse and a hermit crab.
The theme, loosely, in this book is creature comforts. One of my personal favourite comforts is to read before bedtime until I get sleepy. So I did a portrait of a mouse, named Yaka, yawning while reading.
Earlier in this project a friend suggested that I do a hermit crab named Zorro. Naturally the crabby crab would like us all to be quiet and have a nap.
As I completed the original artwork for my abecedarian poem I also worked on the graphic design of Alphapets by Clancy. That’s part of what makes this an “artist book” – it was conceived and constructed like an art object – by me. My spouse did proofread the text, make some book design suggestions. That, in my mind, is akin to submitting a bunch of artwork to a gallery for exhibit. Here’s a photo of me doing the graphic design hocus pocus.
You can see a bit of my book cover design in the above photo but here, below, is a better view of the front cover of the printed book.
For those staying at home (thank you!) I’ve made 8 of my artist books free downloadable ebooks. Go to this page https://sueclancy.com/shop/ scroll all the way to the bottom of the page and you’ll find them. Add the books you want to a cart, check out and that process gives you the free downloadable file(s).
Some of my books, like “The Crow And The Waterjug” are for little kids. Other books adults will enjoy on an adult level while still being able to share with kids of any age. My book topics range from drawing cats, to cooking dinner, people and places in the PNW and of course mice who author books.
Here’s some photos of the original book art from which the free ebooks came.
Here are a few pages from my tiny sketchbook for the Brooklyn Art Library titled “A. Mouse’s Book Of Scraps”. And since you follow me here’s my entire book, free download, as my thank-you-for-following-me gift: AMousesBookOfScrapsByClancy
I’m doing this gifting by permission of our books author Mr. A. Mouse of course. <wink> We, Mr. A. Mouse and I, hope you like it!
And yes, this 2.33 inch by 1.66 inch book is a humorous parody or spoof on the concept of collecting and publishing…
In a recent post I spoke of this book and of the Brooklyn Art Library’s Tiny Sketchbook Project in general well here’s a link https://www.brooklynartlibrary.com/
You can also see more of my downloadable artist books on this page. Your patronage and support means a lot! Thank you!
This year I’m participating in the tiny sketchbook project at the Brooklyn Art Library – my sketchbook will travel to London, Paris and other places in Europe along with other tiny sketchbooks in a portable library that fits in a suitcase. My book will be in the Brooklyn Art Library’s permanent collection.
I’ve titled my book “A Mouse’s Book Of Scraps”. It’s a scrapbook from the point of view of a mouse. A Pacific Northwest Jumping Mouse to be exact. It’s fun to think about what kinds of things a mouse would collect; cheese rinds, vegetable scraps and landscapes.
Here’s a picture of my book in progress. The mint is there to show scale. And yes – it’s hand bound…
