Christmas coloring (RubberMoon mk962) begun before the middle of November, postcard art uploaded and cards on their way. A world of wonder.
A reminder that RubberMoon is an angel company, which means if you are using our stamps on products for sale, they must be individually hand stamped. However, if what you are making is for your own use or as gifts, not profit, the images may be reproduced. Meaning you can make cards, tags, stickers and such with color copies of your stamping art. There, don't you feel less stressed already?
Remember that the fabulous Claudia Rose joined the family not long ago. Her images are pure delight and stamps make such lovely presents. Every single RubberMoon artist has designs that will speak to your heart. As you sip your favorite autumn beverage, give yourself the treat of wandering through the catalog. And remember, there are classes and art supplies, too. Visit us on Facebook, like the page and sign up for notifications.
Stay tuned, this could be a very RubberyMoony Christmas.
Let's say that we are in life as we may be in dreams, multiple characters in our own story. Victim and rescuer, speaker and listener, question and answer. This may sound like old business to many of you but it seems a fresh notion to me, brought on by my listening again to Beth Orton sing "Sisters of Mercy." That may be us, "Sisters of Mercy," binding up our wounds.
As I participate in a meditation course on beliefs, the process carves open pockets of emptiness, even if just for a moment or two, space in which no debris has collected, places of possibility. Since I often feel what passes for real life is a bill of goods in which we are constantly being urged to reinvest, it is not such a leap for me to consider that much of what we've been told is essentially untrue, that it has always been untrue. Consider this: what if we are not the lesser beings we always felt ourselves to be.
So I walk around the edges of the song, the entire notion of mercy and deliverance, and wonder is it wholly interior work. If this is the true and natural order, our acting as self-healers, no wonder so many of us have grown quite elderly and weary waiting for rescue to come from external sources. As I say, this may be a familiar idea for you. I stopped looking at so-called self-help books decades ago, deciding it might be less exhausting to blunder along in a state of disrepair than to try and mend, according to one specific set of instructions or another, all that I believed was broken. In my long-ago experience with self-help, I never had the sense of it being a process which one undertook for the long haul, the gradual merging of this into that organically. The books or PBS presentations always seemed to half-promise remarkable and rapid transformation, desirable as we judged our present manifestation to be so unpalatable, so wrong.
For this same reason I don't read books in which women especially embark on a journey - physical/spiritual - of rather short duration after which they become, quite simply, THE light. Such journeys, the expense of them alone, and such starry outcomes are not within ordinary grasp. Few humans transcend in this fashion. We are not less if we illuminate a smaller patch. Again I return to an acknowledgement of process, of time and effort. That progress as we measure it may not be swift does not make it any less remarkable. At 70 years and counting, I will likely never believe there is a destination we reach in this lifetime.
We lay our own hands upon our hearts and souls. In our heads we repeat mantras that pull us closer to center. A quiet mind is the best friend I can hope for. As it seems to be the most workable choice, is it not okay to remain part caterpillar, part butterfly, 100% work in progress? It is the only solution I can imagine that moves us forward without discarding the best-loved and loyal parts of us, a bit threadbare though some may be, that have brought us this far.
Twice I've been an unofficial participant in NaNoWriMo, short for National Novel Writing Month, which takes place each November. I say unofficial for while I've done the work, I have not submitted it for word count verification, etc.
When I began, I understood the guidelines to be: between November 1 and 30, write a minimum of 50,000 words of a novel, only a novel but in any form or genre, and, as I recall the first year I looked up the rules, we were told not to edit, not even to backspace, but to fly forward with all possible speed. Both times I met and exceeded the word goal, though the first attempt could hardly be called a novel, more likely an exercise is writing really fast. The second was more novel-shaped and contained many parts that could be salvaged and reworked. I'm still not certain that I wish to write a novel. I know I have no wish to try and sell one.
This October, as notices of NaNoWriMo began to appear, I decided I needed to apply that focus to something currently more important, my neglected art. If I am successful, I'll report about finding my way back to a drawing practice, something I miss enormously. The days become full and I grow weary before I've done any of that work which is at least as much a part of me as writing. The fact that time seems to evaporate around me does not make anything easier. How can it be November of 2015 already?
I'm telling this because I believe I am capable of more than I do, by setting up some realistic daily requirements I can add a specific joy back into my life. I may need to give myself a schedule that limits Facebook to certain days a week. I know I'll miss the people and things I find there - my version of curating is also a source of happiness - but those stamps aren't going to draw themselves. We are asked to make choices. As I write this around noon on Sunday, I have behind me an hour of drawing, done before I even turned on the computer. That is how it will have to be. On Saturday I completed an eight-episode Halloween story, which I'd intended to be three episodes. I enjoyed the work and woke up on Sunday thinking of the characters and what might be next for them. I wonder the same for myself.
Here are all eight episodes, reprinted, in chronological order.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
The sisters creep up on Halloween
Among their multiple imaginary personas. Photo found here.
(For those of you who saw the earlier version of this post, I've
changed illustrations. I presumed to borrow another artist's work,
which had inspired the story, and did so without her blessing. She was
enormously gracious about the whole thing.)
Referred to by their mother as Ambulancia and Sireena, these two unquiet
children began the holy hell of costume planning weeks before
Halloween. Negotiations, if they could be called that, did not go
smoothly.
They were a one-tiara family and Ambulancia, as the elder sister,
claimed the crown as hers. Sireena retaliated by grabbing all the
pastel tulle from deconstructed prom dresses, lashing it about her
waist, not unlike Odysseus and the mast, refusing to untie it or share
unless some detente could be reached about the rhinestone head piece.
The wailings they generated caused drivers to pull over and stop as they
motored north on Fair Oaks Avenue, scanning rear view mirrors for
emergency vehicles which never materialized.
Matters at school were no less fraught, the wearing of tiaras and
ballooning net overskirts being unwelcome on any day that wasn't
actually Halloween. The sisters, stubborn eyes agleam, were sent home
for the duration. They seemed oddly jubilant. Even victorious. The
unplanned holidays gave them uncommitted hours to squabble and plot. To be continued. Honest.
The vintage tulle was taking on a fatigued air, belted as it was with
gift wrapping ribbon and worn for days - and nights. The tiara fared
somewhat better, being more sturdily made and not being sat or slept
upon. Ambulancia built for herself a head-cradling pillow mound, tucked
against the far wall side of her bed, that allowed her to sleep with
the tiara in place and kept her unreachable by any hands seeking to
plunder. Her mother thought in sleep she resembled a half-mad dowager
of royal ancestry determined to keep the throne, the rest of the world
be damned.
As household nerves and costume materials began to fray, their mother
asked the girls who exactly they planned to be for Halloween. There was
some muttering that sounded like "princesses" but one couldn't be
certain. "If we had two tiaras," shrilled Sireena, "we could be, like,
zombie bridesmaids or, you know, just sort of Grey Gardens bridesmaids."
"Wilted, withered bouquets," Ambulancia volunteered. "Chipped
manicures, torn hems, smeary lipstick." One of the things the girls
loved best about costumes was makeup. Lots and lots of experimenting
with makeup.
"What if I got you matching tiaras, like bridesmaids would have?" their
mother asked. "Would that work?" Shrugging, turning their faces away
and mumbling, the girls said, "It might." Their mother, whose temples
already throbbed at the notion of these children referring to Grey
Gardens as inspiration for costumes, nodded gently and said, "Good."
She helped Sireena release herself from the bunchy cloud of old gowns
and saw that Ambulancia removed the antique tiara and put it away.
When their mother was out of the room, the sisters scowled at each
other, battling with mean-eyed, squinty stares and stuck-out tongues.
Then each began to chuckle softly, little "heh heh heh" sounds. Oh help
us, with Halloween still so many days away. To be continued.
Cover art and illustrations by Joseph Mugnaini for Ray Bradbury's "The Halloween Tree."
It was Halloween morning on Sycamore Avenue. The previous night's slim chance of rain never materialized, fallen leaves remained crisp and noisy underfoot. They skittered when rearranged by the cool north wind.
With their mother acting as trail boss and the voice of reason, the sisters and the brother-friends eventually began to arrange themselves in the car for the ride to school. Mrs. Garrick would pick them up, assuming no incident occurred before the last bell rang. Sireena had already been told she could not go barefoot, regardless of how that compromised the authenticity of her costume. The sisters had each made a copy of the photo showing their vintage selves with dollies and wore it like a Comic-Con badge around her neck. They wanted everyone to know how exactly like the long-vanished girls they were. They hoped some of the less attentive students would believe they were their own ghosts.
Starting somewhere around dawn or perhaps earlier, Ellington and Henri had arrived, ready for their make-up. They'd made a pretty good start of it (had they slept at all?) but needed help reaching the backs of their necks and ears and the girls' unsurprisingly professional touches. The pomade used to slick the boys' dark hair even smelled vaguely of flowers. Ambulancia pulled a tin of it from their, as they called it, Trunk of Wonders where it may have rested since the 1930s. One could not be sure.
Once they finished sewing their costumes, the girls took the various pieces outside, rumbled them around in dirt and dust, then smacked them half-way clean again so they had a lived-in look. They powdered their skin and hair, shadowed their cheeks and eye sockets and did look convincingly spectral. The last thing they wanted was to be mistaken for zombies, a costume they felt was just too common for words, though they understood why so many chose it. Odd and screamy as they were, neither girl was unkind. They rehearsed together paying sincere compliments to fellow students. They were not snobs as some assumed, they were simply great fans of nuance, as were the brothers, not that many of their contemporaries would notice. Before piling in the car, they posed together and separately for photos to document this year's achievements. The boys looked happily peculiar with clip-on bow ties attached to horizontally striped tee shirts, worn with plaid shorts, the waists of which reached nearly to their armpits. None was trying for a Best Costume prize but instead savored the contentment which came from hard work and goals achieved.
As the car stopped at the curb, a minor hoard of zombies pretended to claw at the windows. "Menace 101," whispered Ambulancia. "Tell Allison her hair is fab," she reminded her sister. "Tell Jaleel his fingernails terrify you." With dramatic shudders at the horror they faced, the quartet squeezed from the car and the sisters began to shriek, another reason why Halloween was their favorite holiday.
Comedian Harold Lloyd as a giant papier mache head.
The expression, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree," could have been coined to describe Ambulancia, Sireena and their mother. Creative extravagance ran through more than a couple generations of the family. It manifested in the girls' mother in, among other things, the making of giant papier mache heads of beings known and unknown. She, too, loved Halloween for its expressive vistas. This year, even with a late start, she planned to fashion (in paste, old newspapers, cardboard, brown wrapping paper and paint) five of history's worst despots. She could see them, spotlighted on the front lawn, a cautionary tale for trick-or-treaters who had enough curiosity to ask what or who they were. How to pick just five! The list was nearly endless. She felt the enormous, heartless faces would help illustrate Santayana's quote, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Each moment was an opportunity to learn.
For the sisters, the love of old photographs began with their grandmother, whose collection of family members, contemporaries and chums kept the girls engrossed and quiet for hours on end, listening to stories, gossip and opinion concerning every face they studied. Their mother inherited the stockpile and, knowing they'd learned to tread gently among the fragile portraits and snapshots, let the girls visit their ancestors as they wished. In its way, the collection was a time machine. They did love to look at some of their mother's almost-historic discoveries, referred to as The Archives, too, especially the giant heads, though they took equal delight in her vintage photographs of balloons from the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. None of them had yet devised a way to replicate those great floating beings but they were not ready to give up on the possibility.
Perhaps a life of ease and options, thought the brothers. Photo found here.
(For those of you who saw the earlier version of this post, I've
changed illustrations. I presumed to borrow another artist's work,
which had inspired the story, and did so without her blessing. She was
enormously gracious about the whole thing.)
Of course Halloween could not be creeping ever closer to the sisters (or vice versa) without a pow-wow with their best friends, the brothers Garrick, Ellington and Henri (pronounced on-REE). As they had known the sisters since all were toddlers, they knew the girls' real names (which no one other than teachers ever used), calling them Cia and Ree. As Henri, junior partner, liked to say to the younger girl, "We are practically name twins."
While Ambulancia and Sireena threw themselves like volcano sacrifices into the costumes of the season, the brothers favored clothing as close to normal as they could muster and extravagant face makeup, for which the sisters were their advisers and practitioners. The boys would gladly have sported their Halloween pallor and smudged, sunken-appearing eyes year 'round but had to be content with as many days as they could squeeze out of the holiday without being ejected from public places, like the library. When a staff member hissed at them, "Go wash your faces or go home," they invariably chose home after a pair of deep glowers and what they hoped were death-ray stares. Yes, they practiced, in the mirror, on each other, on their parents, on the sisters. They were actually quite fond of the library employees but boundaries were meant to be tested, or so they told themselves. In their journals, each kept a running list of potential adult employment for which their painted faces would be suited. The jobs of clown and mime did not appear on the list of either. It pretty much narrowed down to something in the arts or wealthy eccentric. Being creepy for no good reason didn't appeal to them, yet the thought of growing up wearing nothing but their own pinkish complexions day in and day out made them gloomy. Ellington had the task of reassuring Henri that just because there was no solution today didn't mean there would never be one. Henri hoped with crossed fingers that he was right.
Unless otherwise credited, all material posted here, text, illustration or photo, is my own original work, protected by copyright. If you wish to link, which I welcome, please give appropriate credit. If you are interested in artwork, please reach me by email. Thank you.
“i want to think
again of dangerous
and noble things.
I want to be light
and frolicsome.
i want to be improbable
beautiful and
afraid of nothing
as though I had
WINGS.”
-- Mary Oliver
"The whole of life lies in the verb seeing."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
(1881 - 1955)
