2022! WE ARE DOING OK.

Teaching, swimming, waterfalls, roadtrips, dogs. It was actually a pretty good year.

click on photos for descriptions

this unexpected experiment

What to say about this new work?  

Collage created post-concussion, working in a sketchbook, making abstract organic shapes from paper scraps.  Hiding in my office, making  work in a sketchbook because there was an irritated disconnect between my observations, my emotions, and my actions.  There was a terrible distance between my tedious explanations and what was understood. 

The work about my brain that is not about my brain.

In July 2021, I bumped my head and had no idea how it would change my life.

Three months later I was angry, frustrated and helpless.  I could not understand what was happening to me. I knew I was injured and struggling. I spoke carefully, slowly, thoughtfully but  my words sounded flippant, terse. I obsessed about how to say things, how to speak. But the harder I worked on communication, the less I seemed to be understood. 

All of this, I realized a few months later, were symptoms of my concussion and reactions to those symptoms.

But that autumn, as it got colder and darker, I felt confused and cornered.  I could not go to work, I was tired headachey, irritable. Noises and light crashed over my senses. I was thirsty for silence, for visual quiet.

I spent a lot of time in my office--a vintage trailer parked in our driveway. I was afraid of sounding angry, afraid of causing arguments, afraid of my own reactions.  I was too tired to go to my studio.  Impairments in visual processing made riding my bike difficult and driving dangerous.  Working in my office meant I could be separate but close by.

Collage became part of my regular creative practice around 2018.  By the time I was struggling with PSC symptoms, it was not unusual for me to collage, or collage alone. I started working on my sketchbook because  a friend, Kellette, shared her sketchbook and I loved the idea, containing all my work in one place, treating them like experiments.

When I decided to offer new prints for the holidays, I flipped through the sketchbooks, realizing I had a new body of work and a new way of working.  But what struck me is that the shift in my work came post-concussion. 

So many things shifted post-concussion it is difficult to differentiate cause or effect.  The past few years have been of great shifts, extreme social shifts, personal shifts. I cannot claim that any one thing could shift my work. And yet, here we are. Sketchbook number one.

This work is from the first sketchbook I started, in the dark dark days before solstice , as the days got shorter and the nights longer, and I was so deep inside my muddled brain, I could not tell you how I really felt about anything. I did not trust my senses, my gut or my emotions.

Somehow, with all this darkness, I worked with bright colors, I tried incorporating people, there are snippets of joy and whimsy. 

I am sharing them with you.

You can see the full collection here.

And buy prints here.

And if you want to know a little more about how post-concussion syndrome affects people, I am finishing up a zine about it. You can pre-order Eulalia #4 here. Created with collage, then riso printed in two colors.

Part of the Process

I was walking around the store the other night in a daze looking for a scented candle. It's been cold and I've been working at home a lot this week, at our kitchen table, because it is warm. I want a fire but I thought a scented candle would do.  There were one million candles. All different prices, few of them pleasing. I wanted to smell a forest (the next day I went to a forest, I think that is what I was actually missing),  I wandered around the candle aisle for too long, circled back, picked up some christmas candy and left. There are already aisles of tinsel and peppermint, wrapping and red and green wrapped everything. My sister has started her annual fruitcake bake. At home, our Halloween decorations are still blowing in the sudden and cold wind. It left me so tired.  

I have mixed feelings at best about gifting and the holidays.

I do love buying art for myself and my partner, sharing my art with friends, and sharing what I do with strangers.

The hardest part of my job isn't making The Thing.  I have no problem sitting down to collage. I have a long list of themes and questions for Keep Writing. I think of collage as a puzzle with infinite solutions. I love writing new classes and adjusting them to better connect with and serve my students. All of that is the easy part.

I struggle to tell people about what I do.

Maybe it doesn't seem that way because here we are, family or friends or strangers and you know what I do.  I struggle to tell the world at large in a way that interests them.  I miss opportunities to tell people who might be interested.  I get tired and burned out and delete social media. Sometimes I worry that what I'm making isn't that interesting or needed but mostly I know I am just a reluctant marketer. The best thing about being in my mid forties is being aware of my shortcomings. I am not a savvy businessperson.

I believe in the work I do. I believe we all are creative and can connect to others through making art.  I know this because of the feedback from students after every "I Can't Draw" workshop series. I know this because of the responses I receive each month for Keep Writing.  I know the work I do helps people connect with their creative self.

The past year and a half has been a year of transformation for me--some of it unwilling and the rest just trying to adapt.  I've made choices to make my business smarter, more sustainable, and maintain it as my only job.  I don't need a million followers or to tell the whole world what I am doing. I want to tell the people who are interested more about what I sell and what I teach. I invested in business coaching with friend and amazing human Bear Hebert, which has introduced me to lots of great small business owners, struggling with the same problems. 

And I told someone about what I do. 

Someone whose work I appreciate, whose work centers around questions and connection. We were chatting in a social media DM and I did it, I said: here is a thing I do that I think you would like.  

She offered gracious words and I remembered again that there are people who are interested in what I do.

Sound like a pep talk? Yes. It is. I needed one. Social media can be good for some things but it is fast paced and all consuming. I can't and refuse to keep up. Some days I get tired of talking about things I sell because I don't want to add to the noise. But I love connecting with you.

I am about to offer lots of information about my holiday offerings. If you are interested, awesome, let's work together. If you are here for the stories and long inner monologues, hi, welcome to this corner of my brain. If you are not, no problem, there will be reels of Mr. Peabody looking watery eyed and adventurous for you too. 

If you don't want to hear about creativity, postcards, waterfalls or a chihuahua, I am surprised you are still here.

I'm not participating in any markets this holiday season so I made a gift guide of my offerings.

The Custom Collage Machine is back.  There are Keep Writing gift subscriptions sent with gift announcement cards and I have a new body of collage work available as fine art prints. Eulalia #4 is on its way, a few months after I told wholesalers about it.  Fitting as it is a zine all about things I have lost and gained post-concussion.

I'm going to share more about these for the next few weeks, and then I will take a break.

If you love this and know someone who might want to read ramblings like this, or might want a monthly postcard, a collage print or hear more about creative practice classes,  please this forward to them.

Then take a break too. Enjoy the people you love, cozying up, warm drinks and the good things we have.

last swim of the summer

I was kind of freaking out for two days. It might’ve been hormones, or post-concussion syndrome symptoms or a reasonable response to an overwhelming, fucked up world but I was having a hard time. 

Five weeks ago, before the first day of school, we had a family swim day at the Sandy River. It was late August, the dregs of a too-hot summer that refuses to chill out. Deaths and theft and big changes that we are still sitting in the wake of, slapped by difficult emotions.  We went swimming and ate ice cream and called it a good day. My step kid scoured the sandy shore for rocks to smash while I floated out in the middle of the shallow, not too cold but sandy bottomed river. Most rivers near us wear rocks smooth; a treasure for the eyes but unsteady underfoot. The Sandy River is a great fishing spot in winter, but in late summer, before the rains return, the water is low, the current lazy and you can walk across the river without getting your shorts wet.  There is an old drive in diner that has been revamped with simple soft serve with fancy toppings, making a perfect escape from Portland Day.

Now, my step kid is back in school. Most mornings, I wake him, make lunch while he coos at the dog, then we walk to school together. But this day, I was exhausted. I had a headache for a few days, not a migraine like you'd expect but a special back-of-the-head ache that combines a little nausea, some brain fog and a lack of patience. I felt jumbled and foggy, and unable to enjoy my day off and I can't stop crying.

My head feels like a snowglobe someone shook too hard and now the glitter flakes won't settle.

It was supposed to be 87 despite it being October. I was supposed to go swimming. I am tired and impatient and finally decide to go. Every time I checked, the forecast insisted it would be 87 but at 3 it was 75 . I almost gave up.  I sat in the sun eating my ice cream and contemplated. I don't miss hot weather--it exacerbates my symptoms giving me a foggy, wool in the brain feeling. But I was hoping to swim.

This summer, I realized that floating on my back in cool water calms my headache. There is science for this, about being in cold water when you feel agitated or inflamed .   On hot days, I work at home and take multiple breaks in our kiddie pool.

I could take a cold shower too, and I do though it isn't just the cold water that offers relief. Even in shallow water, or in the little pool in our backyard, I float on my back, reach towards the sides of the pool or the edges of the water and look up. On the river, the horizon becomes almond shaped, bent at the edges of my peripheral vision.  Even with my head back my ears are below the surface of the river and all is quiet.  It is utterly calming.  Today I don't stay long. The water is cold.  I have waded out to a sunny spot but my hands and feet are chilled.  I float a few times, take deep breaths, looking up. 

You rarely know when you're experiencing something for the last time.

We came to the river to celebrate the end of a very difficult summer but the summer kept going. So I tried to say goodbye one more time.

The next morning was gray, chilly, almost drizzling. My step kid declared there are rarely any foggy days in Portland, which is a perfect example of how a 10 year old experiences the world. THere has been no fog for months therefore it is rarely foggy.  The summer is over but it is still swimming weather if you want it to be.