Kick Off ’17
Everybody seemed eager to kick 2016 into history. Yeah, there were losses, that Election, hate, and plenty of things I want to forget. But a New Year…is a perennial place for hope. An earnest band of neighbors called the Get a Grip club gathered at our house on New Year’s Eve, armed with resolutions of change, good humor, and some hand-made glasses we will use for envisioning a better world. Rest assured, we will keep a grip on what matters! A few days later I visited King Middle School, a hive of young people poised to take over the world. It was my 9th outing as a visiting...
Read MoreTake something like a star
I have stars on my mind. It never fails that I am working out of season when illustrating a picture book. Last July I was feverishly drawing deep snow for A Porcupine’s Promenade. As the ice forms outside, I am drawing a summer day at the beach for Ana and the Sea Star (for Tilbury House, coincidentally located on Starr Street in Thomaston, Maine) When we decorated our tree, I noticed how many star ornaments we have. This one, from former island neighbors Deb Deatrick and Scott Vile, is a joy to rediscover every year. The letterpress poem by Robert Frost always shines a light on...
Read MoreIllustration, How Do I Love Thee!
Illustration is literally all around right now. I just realized I’ve been doing it, living it, and breathing it non-stop for the last month. My talented kin, Mati McDonough, an artist, illustrator, and teacher visited Maine in November. She gave me a long, hard hug the day after The Election, the results of which were still sinking in. We went straight to the Portland Museum of Art, sure that art could lift our spirits. She signed her latest children’s book, How Do I Love Thee? an illustrative telling of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s poem. We then browsed the Matisse show,...
Read MoreFresh Eyes in Luna Land
Nancy F. W. Passmore is the venerable editor of Luna Press, which has published it’s 41st annual edition of the Lunar Calendar: Dedicated to the Goddess in Her Many Guises. I sketched her after our recent visit in Boston, which I will always consider Luna Land. I’m honored when it’s my good fortune to do the cover! These are some of this year’s sketches, done in June. In this rough idea, I have referenced my goddess figure sculpted by Peg Astarita. I tried a collage approach. This mosaic of blues was inspired by the work of Paul Klee. How about simplicity? This is...
Read MoreSotto Voce
Of all the scripts I read in January for Portland Stage poster development, Sotto Voce by Nilo Cruz stood out as multi-layered, romantic, and evocative. In the play, a young Cuban man finds a German-born novelist living in New York who shares a connection to the 1939 voyage of the MS St Louis, a German ship that left for Cuba with German-Jewish refugees, only to be turned back. The elder writer, Bemadette, calls the young man Student. They don’t meet yet weave a romance built on memories and imagination via phone calls and messages. Like all the plays this season, the theme is about...
Read MoreMECA mid-semester
We are well over the hump of this semester in IL 321, where I lead an intrepid pack of 15 students in the Junior Illustration Majors Studio at Maine College of Art. I met them briefly last spring after they declared their major, and gave them sketchbooks to fill for the summer. I believe in the powers of daily drawing, and knew whatever they brought back to the table would provide seeds for insight and inspiration. And I’m always blown away. Tyler Eldridge is double majoring in Illustration and Graphic Design. Stand back! Some students had a tough time finding the space to draw, with...
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