Some notes I found from reading The Wheel of Time.
Wyrd Sisters
On the way to Charleston I read Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett.
I loved this quote about the theatre,
“Things that try to look like things often do look more like things than things. Well-known fact, said Granny.”
and
“Actors had a habit of filling all the space around them.”
On Tenterhooks
Sometime in the months after Davy was born I found myself saying I was “on tenterhooks” and realizing I had no idea what it meant.
A tenter is a frame with wicked looking tenterhooks that stretch cloth taut to make it flat.
Once I learned I knew it had to be a metaphor for a piece of art.
Suddenly the word was more accurate than ever with a new visceral understanding of what it meant.
This work is done indoors now, but you can still see holes like this on some bolts of cloth.
Our LEGO Era
Last month Davy leveled up from DUPLO to LEGO.
We were getting frustrated by the lack of “regular” 4 & 6 stud bricks in the new starter kit and Nathan found my childhood LEGO in the attic.*
One of the minifigs we found in my collection was this. It was immediately deemed “Link” and he proceeded to act out the many levels of Zelda in dungeon levels he created out of my old school bricks
The more I looked at this little guy I wondered if they ever made him in green.
After some detective work I found they did!
This series was called The Forestmen and there were several sets in the Castle series.
Ebay would have you believe these are super expensive, but a few years ago I learned about buying used LEGO pieces at Brick Owl (or Bricklink).
When you find the set or minifigure you want you can break down the inventory to see the individual pieces.
The shipping is usually $5-$6 and pieces range from a few cents to a few dollars. So I usually put together my own little bundle for less than a modern LEGO set.
Enter Link!
See the resemblance?
(He also has a little bow, but it didn’t make it into the photo.)
It’s all in the details. 🥰
* The plural of LEGO is LEGO which is something I learned watching The Toys That Made Us on Netflix.
Advice from an Agent
“you’re never going to make me any money, so just write what you want to write”
Melanie Jackson (Percival Everett’s literary agent)
Source: Everett’s acceptance speech for the PEN Award
Mind the Gap
When I saw this game to see how many London Tube stops you could name from memory I had to give it a go.
It’s been over 10 years since I lived in London for my postgraduate degree.
I only remembered 14% of stations, but it was a fun reminder of how much I love the London Underground and how much more there is to know about it. I have a wonderful book I bought years ago and have never read.
It particularly bothered me that I couldn’t remember the Tube stop for Sutton House where I went each week for my placement / internship. (It was Hackney Central not Hackney.)
I’ll have to pull down my book about Tube design and see where it leads. I really love the design of the London Underground maps and the simple color coded system (versus the horrible numbers on the New York Subway.)
Maybe I’ll also order this book about the seat fabric design. I was fascinated by the design identity of each line during my time as a Londoner and took so many photos of seats and Tube stations.
(This cover looks wild because it’s the seats for several lines combined. Each like would have matching seats of a certain color. You could pop into existence on the Tube and know exactly where you were by the seat covering and my autistic heart really loves that.)
Early Proofing
Ordering my first proof of Entwined. Something I’ve learned is that you don’t need a completed manuscript to get important information from the proofing process.
This proof will test black and white illustrated elements and be a preliminary test of the cover art before diving into cover design and book formatting.
Get on with it
“The easiest way to do art is to dispense with success and failure altogether and just get on with it.”
Stephen Nachmanovitch in Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art
via Austin Kleon
Oozing Forms
More art experiments. Spray foam didn’t work to create oozing forms spilling out of this shape sorter. So I’m trying another material. I popped it in the freezer to set more quickly and turned it every few minutes to control the shape somewhat.
A Fresh Perspective
Yesterday I saw Ellen Gillett’s call for the photograph’s of artist’s ceilings. I love how a simple prompt or collaboration can give you a whole new way of seeing a familiar surrounding.
