Wishing y’all a very happy holiday season and sending out love at the end of a very hard year. Thank you for reading!
Lifted type collages
“I used to steal magazines from a store on Genesee Street, in Waukegan, and read them and then steal them back on the racks again. That way I took the print off with my eyeballs and stayed honest. I didn’t want to be a permanent thief, and I was very careful to wash my hands before I read them.”
—Ray Bradbury
I’ve been working on a series of collages made from type I (literally) lift out of magazines. They’re sort of inspired by the word paintings of Wayne White and printmakers like Amos Kennedy, Jr.
What I do is, I keep a list of phrases in my notebook I want to make and then when I have a minute or I’m burned out, I make one.
Sometimes they’re phrases we say a lot around the house. (This one is stolen from one of my favorite movies, Withnail and I. I say this in mock outrage a lot to my kids.)
Sometimes they’re more abstract. (I took the Target tape off a package.)
Sometimes it’s a phrase I can’t stand. (“Don’t get me wrong.”)
Sometimes my wife suggests one like “They can’t all be winners.”
Sometimes I notice a phrase everybody starts saying.
I like to do conversational shortcuts and the passive-aggressive phrases you hear a lot in the South and the Midwest.
These pieces are very different than my other work, so it’s not exactly clear to me what I should do with them. Not sure they’re right for a book, but maybe I can work my way up to a dozen or so and make a notecard set or a series of posters out of them.
That’s the thing about new work, it’s not really your job to judge it, you just keep the channel open and let the stuff come…
Drawing while listening
Here are some diary drawings I made while listening to episode one and episode two the new Draw Together podcast from my friend Wendy MacNaughton. In some ways, I find these audio experiments more soothing and more interesting than the show: there’s nothing to look at, so you focus on your own lines, and feel free to diverge… (These were done with my magic brush pen.)
Writing as a spiritual practice
I took a break a few days ago to watch Paul Elie (author of The Life You Save May Be Your Own and Reinventing Bach) interview James Martin about his new book, Learning To Pray, and writing as a spiritual practice. (Read more my thoughts on prayer.) Video of the discussion is on YouTube.
Out of all the interesting subjects they discussed, I think I was most taken by Father Martin’s explanation of how his vow of poverty affects his writing. Martin is “editor at large” at America Magazine, and as he explained it, he basically has the freedom to write about whatever he wants. The same goes for his books: All of his royalties go to the magazine, so he’s mostly unconcerned about sales. He also said his purpose in writing, always, is not to achieve literary greatness, but to “help souls.” So his mission and his vow of poverty takes away most of the common pressures of publishing. Writing, for him, is never a struggle.
See previously: Learning to Pray with James Martin and Mary Karr
Carving Coconuts
It has been days since I saw Coconut The Owl, so in an attempt to bring her back into view, I spent yesterday morning making these block prints:
I use really cheap, simple tools. You can get most of what you need in one handy little kit online. (Try poking around the Speedball store.) I like to print on random newspaper pages at first, both to test the print and see what random colors do to it.
I’ve been inspired by Frasconi: Against the Grain, a wonderful out-of-print monograph of the woodcut work of Antonio Frasconi, who emphasized that anyone could make block prints and that you “don’t have to go to a special place, with a lot of heavy equipment. This is something you can do in any corner of your home.”
Block printing is also a wonderful thing to do with kids. My oldest can carve safely, especially with the soft “speedy carve” style blocks. My youngest, who’s a little more cautious, helped me with the brayer.
I might find some good paper and do an actual run on this print. Sign up for my weekly newsletter to be the first to know when they’re available.
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