Archive for illustration friday

Illustration Friday: Hatch

// December 11th, 2009 // 6 Comments » // illustration friday

a-final-multi

The Joys Of Being Unbalanced

// November 20th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // illustration friday

unbalanced

joys of being unbalanced

  • see the world from funny angles
  • haughty baristas can’t hurt your feelings
  • get to nap at weddings and birthdays
  • dogs and babies will like you more
  • everything is like surfing
  • breakfast options always include chocolate
  • sand only gets in one ear when you go to the beach
  • people give up their bus seats for you
  • (sometimes the whole bus!)
  • circus people stop being scary
  • cable news people stay scary, but seem funnier
  • birds make songs up just for you
  • your yoga teacher will take you on as a special project
  • life is deliciously dangerous
  • the earth spins around to catch you, just in time

Illustration Friday: Blur

// November 9th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // illustration friday

blur



His life is blurred.

The people walking by are made of gauze, and lost.

They make swishing noises when they move and he can’t be sure if something parts as they pass through, or if they part as something passes through them.

Somedays, in sharp relief against the soft edges, a moment stands out like a jeweled object dropped from a Rumi poem.

For him, once, that object was a cup of ayurvedic tea, held as he sat on the back of a dune.

The surf swallowed everything on the other side, but the tea’s fierce heat bounded by the cup’s porcelain rim, kept the world on his side in focus.

All noise receded and the sand flashed brilliantly under the gaze of the sun, the sun itself was fresh like lemongrass, golden.


Animals and Cheetahs and Cheetahs and CHEETAHS!

// October 27th, 2009 // 3 Comments » // creativity, illustration friday

cheetah

Our son was a fanatic about animals until very recently. He loved his animal collection and his animal TV shows, zoo visits were almost a pilgrimage for him.

Sometimes he’d stand before us in the living room with a small plastic cheetah in his hand, three year old energy coursing through his body looking for some outlet. We’d ask  “What are you doing Finn?” And he’d go ”I’m Animals and Cheetahs and Cheetahs and CHEETAHS!” and run around and around the living room like a cheetah with it’s tail on fire.


Awesome! I love that sense of trust and commitment in the act of becoming an exuberant cheetah doing laps in a suburban house.

I often find the act of writing so intimidating. Even before my fingers hit a key I get stuck with a whole lot of ideas and criticisms about what my writing should look like: points to cover, habitual mistakes to avoid, and a bag full of criticisms that will be thrown at me if I ever manage to finish (that’s assuming I even get to start!)

What I end up with is a whole lot of ‘Wanting To Write’ energy roiling inside me but with all the exits blocked. Auugh! I’ve decided to follow my little boy’s example and give that energy an outlet by making “I’m Animals and Cheetahs and Cheetahs and CHEETAHS!” my new writing mantra.


Flying

// October 12th, 2009 // 4 Comments » // illustration friday, poetry

fly IF

FLY

This morning Maria clings to the boughs of the thick-limbed cedar

outside her house. Neighbours on their lawns look up, faces calm,

feet clamped to grass. She envies them: their solidity,

their white appliance weight, their children sand-bagged snug

across their hips. Her feet lift with the breeze. Her face strains

as the wind whips through her nightshirt. One slipper

spirals down to be thrashed by two chocolaty daschunds eager

to prove their worth. The fire truck arrives with ladders and hoses,

orders fly through megaphones as the women organise

a flannel gathering by the firemen. Maria, forgotten, lifts one finger,

then another. Lets her flesh untwine from the bark and floats

above the street, above green cubed yards filled with whirling women

and men moving in formation. She feels the air, fresh on her face, feels

weightlessness, feels herself lifted and carried away.