Whence Comes December

Detail from The Snow Bees

Thanksgivings is such a darling holiday. Christmas is great, but by the time the bells have been rung and the holiday adds have been played ad nauseam, the tinsel is starting to look a little wilted. Thanksgiving, on the other hand, slips up and puts her arms around you quietly--a blessed reprieve for a while. This holiday however, did not care to stop for me.

I completed two and a half out of the five drawings I aspired to have. But I am almost completely content with them (the pine one is not quite finished). I've started another one that is the interior of a room, and a billowing bed of pillows. Right now it's somewhere along the lines of "In February I should be happy to be snowed in for a month!" We shall see where that one ends up. I'm also working on one that regards an ode to a left over robin.

                     The old Pines shook their silver heads and murmured of the evil that would befall them, they warned of sharp blades and the crunching boots that come after the first snowfall. The young pines flexed their boughs and compared growth; they ruffled their thick spiky needles and tried to look important. The pinelets shared whispered tête-à-têtes, and dreamed of the coming snow to adorn them in white crystalline skirts. 

(Excerpt from The Procession of the Pines)

The deadlines do continue to loom, don't they? On Saturday I have a one page abstract about the work due. Next Thursday is my final class critic before the December review, and I'm going to be presenting my keynote (as it will exist then) which will include the spreads (the book layout of the combined images and text) and other aspects of the work. I still have to do the beginning layouts with the text and image. I would also like to have thumbnail sketches of rest of the book, as well as some letters scanned in, and reference images I am using.  My plan is to finish the keynote on tuesday and use wednesday to practice before presenting the following day. In many ways, figuring out how to present the work is like writing a story, and I don't yet know how I want the story to unfold.

At this point I have very evident "holes" in my work. In many ways I feel like I'm on a really long Rummikub turn. I've got all these reshuffled pieces and I can't quite figure out how they fit together, but I am certain that they do, and that the answer is hiding away somewhere in the corner of my mind. All I have to do is hold out my turn long enough to figure it out. So for now I am still working on several threads simultaneously.
   They are:

• Delicate watercolor illustrations
• Finding the everyday extraordinary
•  Letter writing, and the idea of correspondence
• A year | the seasons    
• Prose (with a 19th century flare)
• "A Year of Insignificant Happenings"                 

"When January came, I heard the sky singing:

                          'Get your hat! Grab your scarf!  

                          The world is a whirl of snow bees and white sailed ships, and we want to play in it! 

                          Out, out!  

                          We must go to that high hill over there,  and you must bring your sled, 

                          the old toboggan that floats on air.' ”