In the Labyrinth

Project Valour-IT

  
Ok..no matter what your position on the war, here's a chance to show your support for the men and women that have served in harm's way. I know times are tight...but consider a tax-deductible donation to this current fund raising drive that will finish on November 11.

Once a year all four branches of the military get together for a competitive fund-raising effort for the incredible Project Valour-IT (sponsored by the equally incredible Soldiers' Angels). The spirited competition raises money for technology that reconnects wounded veterans and aids in their recovery.  Here are a few of the ways technology assists the wounded:

Voice-controlled Laptops - Operated by speaking into a microphone or using other adaptive technologies, they allow the wounded to maintain connections with the rest of the world during recovery.

Wii Video Game Systems - whole body games systems that increase motivation and speed recovery when used under the guidance of physical therapists

in therapy sessions (donated only to medical facilities).

Personal GPS - Handheld GPS devices build self-confidence and independence by compensating for short-term memory loss and organizational challenges related to sever TBI and severe PTSD.

Stop by the Project Valour-IT blog to read more information about the project and posts from those wounded vets who benefited from the technology. And read here, from the wife of a wounded vet about the healing power of this techonology. And if you feel moved, do click on the icon at the top of the right hand column (hey...we're Team Navy over here!) It you feel uncomfortable sending a donation over the internet, here's a snail mail address:

Soldiers Angels
1792 E. Washington Blvd
Pasadena, CA 91104

Finally, if you want to help spread the word you can go here to register your blog, facebook, or website and join a team. They have all the widgets you need and its ridiculously easy to set it up.

The comic at the top of the page is by artist Damon Bryan Shackleford and is copyrighted 2009 by Delta Bravo Sierra.

The Remarkable Letters and Sketches of Vincent Van Gogh

Oh my what a treat! Peacay over at the incomprable BibliOdyssey has posted a remarkable collection of Vincent Van Gogh's illustrated letters to his brother Theo. The letters and sketches offer a rare and fascinating glimpse into Van Gogh's thoughts about art, his own work and process as well as his observations of the world around him. The image above was accompanied by these reflections:

"Nature always begins by resisting the draughtsman, but he who truly takes it seriously doesn’t let himself be deterred by that resistance, on the contrary, it’s one more stimulus to go on fighting, and at bottom nature and an honest draughtsman see eye to eye. Nature is most certainly ‘intangible’, though, yet one must seize it, and with a firm hand.

And now, after spending some time wrestling and struggling with nature, it’s starting to become a bit more yielding and submissive, not that I’m there yet, no one is less inclined to think so than I, but things are beginning to go more smoothly. The struggle with nature sometimes resembles what Shakespeare calls ‘Taming the shrew’ (i.e. to conquer the opposition through perseverance). In many things, but more particularly in drawing, I think that delving deeply into something is better than letting it go.

I feel more and more as time goes on that figure drawing in particular is good, that it also works indirectly to the good of landscape drawing. If one draws a pollard willow as though it were a living being, which it actually is, then the surroundings follow more or less naturally, if only one has focused all one’s attention on that one tree and hasn’t rested until there was some life in it."

Stop by BibliOdyssey and give thanks to Peacay for putting together this remarkable post that allows us all to read the letters and linger over the beautiful sketches (be sure to click on the images to see larger versions.) This is certainly one arena where the internet offers an advantage over the museum exhibition.

Maquettes: Articulated Mythic Figures from Clive Hicks Jenkins

Welsh artist, Clive Hicks Jenkins has created a series of gorgeous "maquettes" -- articulated figures taken from images out of his paintings -- many of which are influenced by mythic and heroic stories. These maquettes just knock me out -- their structural forms and articulated limbs make them seem as if they have jumped from the canvas and become more alive. It's easy to imagine them moving their limbs and marching across the wall.

 

Do stop by Clive's website and see all of these beautiful creatures -- as well as more of his paintings and prints. Also, I highly recommend stopping by Zoe In Wonderland's blog and checking out her terrific post and interview with Clive about his most recent works -- an extraordinary illustrated edition of Peter Schaffer's play Equus (every detail in the production of this limited edition by The Old Stile Press is sublime) to Clive's new illustrations (below) inspired by Seamus Heaney's poem "St Kevin and the Blackbird."

Except the Queen: At the Finish Line

I just turned in the galley corrections for Except the Queen, which now means the mss. no longer belongs to us. Always a bittersweet moment, since I think most writers would probably tinker with a text forever if they could. I thought I would share a cover idea our editor sent to us -- which of course will refined a bit more for the final cover. I have to say I do like it.

Also, we got our first blurb for the cover -- a lovely bit from the fabulous Patricia McKillip (which has me doing a little happy dance over here.)

"It's a wonderful romp of a book, full of unlikely heroes and heroines, thoroughly nasty villains, and natural magic seen through a kaleidoscope's eye in vivid, ever-changing detail.  Against a solidly urban background, old friends out of fairy tale appear with new and brightly fearsome faces, while Faery retains its enchantments, world merging effortlessly into world.  The writing is fast-paced and powerful; it's hard to guess who held the pen in any given chapter.

Jane Yolen and Midori Snyder spin their tale so well together.

EXCEPT THE QUEEN is indeed a treat for the fantasy lover: lovely, unpredictable, and a great deal of fun."

 

Read it on the Web: Madness and Creativity, the Fruits of Gloom, and The Imaginary World of Roseau

Author Jeanette Winterson has written a thoughtful article, "In Praise of the Crack Up" on the relationship between creativity and madness. She discusses the role of art to be transformative -- a resource to which we turn to address traumatic wounds:

"Creativity takes the heavy mass of our lives and transforms it back into available energy. Taking the mundane or the weighted, the overlooked or the too familiar, art is able to re-show us ourselves and ourselves in the world. Art holding up a mirror to life is commonly misunderstood as realism, but in fact it is recognition. We see through our own fakes, our own cover stories, we see things as they are, instead of how they look, or how we'd like them to be."

  Goblin Fruithas a terrific new issue up, just in time for the season of gloom and monsters. As always, I am so impressed with this wonderful online poetry journal, edited by the industrious trioof Amal Al-Mothar and Jessica Wick, and Oliver Hunter.  While there is something here for almost every taste (from ghoulishly gothic, to twisted fairy tales, and poems with teeth and fangs) I'd like to recommend Megan Arkenberg's "The Fawn Prince," a gorgeous and quiet poem about a fantastic encounter.

In this issue of Goblin Fruit, Oliver Hunterintroduces us all to the sublime work of French illustrator, Roseau, whose work handsomely illustrates the current Autumn 2009 issue. Of her work, Hunter says: "Living and working close to the sea, she creates jewel-like miniatures on pieces of handmade paper and teabag packaging...Roseau invokes a diverse range of traditions, including medieval manuscripts, the surrealism of Joan Miro, Paul Klee  and Leonora Carrington, and the contemporary revival of journal drawings shared amongst friends over the internet." Treat rather than trick yourself to peek at her beautiful work on Flickr and Etsy.

A Dog's Life

Terri Windling and her husband Howard Gayton have a gorgeous new puppy and I have been totally enjoying the prolific family photos of Tilly -- and watching her sweet little face show up in some of Terri's new art -- like this one above. That's Tilly sitting on the lad's lap.

 

It reminded me of another artist, Patray Lui who after two years now, continues to chronicle in wonderful black and white prints the life of the very philosophical Cane Picio at Le Aventure del Cane Picio.

And a while back, I posted a charming and very funny little film  created by OmniProductions called "Dog Years, Love." I was delighted to discover they had made a second film "Dog Years, Health" as well.  Like the first, the musings of the dog narrator are hilarious.

Dog Years 2

UPDATE!! Check out the major designer mansion dog houses on If It's Hip, It's Here. I mean, a Bauhuas Doghouse for a mere $5,000 or so...or what about the $328,000 pooch palace?  

Emiliano Lake-Herrera: Call and Response

 

I have posted before on Emiliano Lake-Herrera's work (see the post on the terrific Perros Paños) and I am excited to see his blog has been recently renovated and filled with a lot more new work, including a one man show he had last year, "Call and Response" which is a fabulous series of 14 paintings combining the folk song/story of John Henry -- that steel driving man --  but visually narrated like the Stations of the Cross. The monochromatic paintings were done on wooden chapel windows -- and together the show creates a contemporary experience of spirituals and oral folk traditions that is really compelling. The quartet of paintings I am showing here are not in their correct order..but they are: top left to right: "He Meets the Women and Children of Jerusalem" and "He Carries His Cross" and below left to right: "Veronica Wipes His Face" and "He Falls the Third Time."

 

Stop by his blog The Studio which is filled with wonderful new stuff --especially a fascinating post on traditional Mexican artist, Pedro Linares, who along with his family invented the  "alebrijes" fantastic nagual creatures created in paper mache and painted in brilliant colors. There is also a fabulous video -- which shows Pedro casually cutting a little tuft from the back of one of the many house cats which he used to make his brushes. 

City of Mermaids: Norfolk, VA

So I am back and all I can say is you have to love a city that cherishes the mermaid as the symbol of the city and places wonderful and whimiscal sculptures of her every where. The Norfolk mermaid is almost as ubiquitous as her Starbucks sister here -- and while her posture never changes, she wears many inventive guises.  Here are a couple more near where I stayed. (The Tigress is outside of the Zoo)

 

And I have to say, I really loved being by the ocean again. The desert always resembles the bottom floor of the ocean if the water suddenly rolled away and left only the rocks and corals. So it was thrilling to be back in salty humidity of Norfolk's air. And eat crab cakes...really, I could eat them every day, sitting at our local bar on the beach.

I Am Here All Week...

I am heading out tomorrow for a week of travel so I don't think I will have a chance to blog much. I am going to be visiting this totally buff fellow...anybody want to guess my location? (Click on the image to see him in his glory)

Hint: crab cakes baby....

A Week of Textiles From the Trunk: Friday

Here is what every good hostess needs -- a 1940s something cocktail apron with a menu of cocktail drinks and their ingredients. I love this apron -- sadly a bit too delicate to wear, but everytime I see it, I want to go through the drinks and try them all out. This belonged to my grandmother, Jeanette Westergaard -- who was also known professionally as Jeanette Mahoney for awhile (though she never actually married Mr. Wilke Mahoney). She had a very interesting career -- one that involved social work, early civil rights activism (especially among the newly formed military platoons of black servicemen), literacy campaigns -- and she worked as a script writer for the Big Bands, and in Hollywood -- writing gags for Bob Hope's "Road" movies and Red Skelton, among others. 

Here are two photos of her -- including one with Wilke when they were first together. They posed as a married couple for a long time -- but when Jeanette won the Irish sweepstakes and a notice was published in the newspaper about "Mrs. Wilke Mahoney's win," Wilke's family were horrified since Wilke had not informed them he was "married." They were wealthy, she was not, and his family succeeded in convincing Wilke to give up his relationship with Jeanette or face being disinheirited. What a rat...

 

Here's a later photo of Jeanette, in 1947 from The Chicago Defender, an African American newspaper dedicated to civil rights in the first half of the 20th century.

 

And this is really one of my favorite photos -- I've posted it earlier on the blog -- but that's her -- back in the corner with the cigarette. This seems the perfect place for an apron such as this one.