life cycles
I was honored when ELL teacher Marcia Salem asked me to visit her class at King Middle School. As my daughter winds down her eighth grade experience at “the best middle school in Maine” I love that place more and more. Ms. Salem’s students, who hail from Somalia, Kenya, Burundi and beyond, have studied life cycles of plants and animals. I worked with them to create books about their learning. I made a little comp to show what we might do, using a small drawing of a frog my daughter did awhile back. A circular format seemed to fit the bill. During our first session, design...
Read Morethe circuit
Here I am, on a dusty shortcut somewhere south of Paradise, California, circa 1990. When we lived in San Francisco, we rode all over the state. I recall riding past miles and miles of rows and rows of crops, dotted with the curved backs of pickers. Those scenes came back to me when I worked on a recent assignment for Cricket Magazine. Francisco Jimenez wrote The Circuit, a memoir of his childhood as an immigrant from Tlaquepaque, Mexico working alongside his family in the fields of California. The power of his vivid writing pulled me in, and I saw those golden suede hills and felt the...
Read Moremoon energy
With this week’s stretch of rain, there will be no full moon viewing tonight. I may not see it, but I can still feel it. I’ve just done this for next year’s Lunar Calendar. It will run in black and white, so I used a limited palette for the original drawing, titled “Full Sap Moon.” Events keep coming at a steady clip, and I need all the sap to rise up and keep me grounded. New things are...
Read Morecritters
There’s an amazing show of infinite delight at the UNE Art Gallery called “Critters.” Having just delivered all the art for a picture book about animals affected by climate changes, I was keen to see animal art. The show is swarming with sculpture inside and out; there’s a dizzying amount to take in. There are well-known artists like William Wegman, Bernard Langlais, Dahlov Ipcar, and even a couple of artists I was surprised to find, like former colleague Joe Begnaud, and fellow pastel artist Wade Zahares. Certain creatures called to me, like this school of ceramic...
Read Moreode to mum
My mother, Jeanne Hogan, died on April 10. It has been a sad yet busy and often overwhelming time since then. Even though I had braced for this event since my father’s death 14 years ago, I find I’m not really ready for this transition. But here it is. In going through her things, I came across many photographs I’d never seen, like this one from 1933, when she was 9. I also found every card that I ever made for her; I loved making cards for my mother, for everyone. Maybe I worked at Hallmark in a past life. This one will bring me comfort this Mother’s Day, my first...
Read Moreb is for book
How better to spend a sunny Sunday than in the swell company of bookish folk? I did that last weekend, sharing a table at the Book Arts Bazaar at USM, with fellow artist and educator, Judy Labrasca. We became fast friends when I took her Picture Book course at Maine College of Art years ago. The Book Arts Bazaar featured over 40 vendors with all manner of offerings: hand made paper, bookbinding, zines, comic books, art books, posters, paper sculpture, vintage ephemera…I was in heaven. Here is Judy, setting up her beautiful wares. She was next to Allison Villani, art teacher and...
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