Category Archives: Art

A Lovely Lass & Her Longing Lads

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Ginger Bred

Once upon a ginger lock, I made a little wish

That every bird in yonder flock and every silvery fish

In yonder stream should stop to see how lovely and, alas,

Aloof from my sweet would-be love was yonder ginger lass,digital illustrationFor she was sweet as mead and mint and lilies in the glen,

And many were the lads who looked on her, as I did then,

With wishful hearts and hopeful souls, yet Queen of bees was she,

To sting our hopes, who wished and dreamt and loved her gingerly.

For my good friend Jim and his merry band at gingerfightback.

Struttin’

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digital illustrationIt’s especially nice, when I’ve caught myself wallowing in self-denigration and insecurity for a bit, to think on those things that actually, really, truly are pretty darn good about me. It’s no sin to appreciate the gifts we’ve been given, and their relative smallness in comparison to others’, as there are always people for whom we have [possibly unwarranted] adulation as exemplars of all those things we long to be, is irrelevant. Safe to say that every one of those great and mighty high achievers has some hidden insecurity and certainly, all have imperfections. Our inability to see those reflects more on our own worries and wishes than on who anyone else genuinely is.

So I go off looking at the astonishingly skillful artistry of others and am ashamed at how little I’ve accomplished in my artistic life thus far and feel inadequate and cheap, and sulk for a moment or two, and then I need to pick up my tools and get back to work and remember that I do this, to be fair, for the love and joy of doing it, not because I need to impress somebody. And I remind myself that despite my ordinariness, I am in my own way new and improved in comparison to where I started my artistic journey.

The same holds true for looking at others’ writing, cooking, gardening, housekeeping, home decorating, DIY projects, you name it. If there’s anything I do that I wish I were better at doing—and anything worth doing is worth getting better at doing, no?—the reason I have such a wish is that I know I’m far from the best, and I can only know how far I am from the best if there are others leading me there by example. In fairness to my meager position in the relative scheme of things, I need to recognize that most experts spent a tremendous amount of time and energy becoming the avatars that they are, that if I did think I were nearly perfect at anything it would be foolish and delusional and hubristic and, well, tiresome, and that I do improve over time, if not quite at the rate I would fondly hope I could.

This is not a pity party for Poor Little Me, lest you be misled by my maundering start: it’s a self-reminder that I am very fortunate, and yes, a little bit gifted, too. My gifts may not be the kind that were evident from my birth and improved exponentially over a shining, prodigious span of growth and productivity and marvelous output. But incremental growth and modest gifts can be celebrated, too, and since I have no need for fame or (however pleasing I may find the idea of it) wealth, it matters none whether anyone else celebrates them. That they do, and indeed, tell me so, is a kindness and brings the kind of wealth and fame that have a far greater value than the more worldly sort, when I accept them wholeheartedly.

I know I’m not the greatest of or at anything. But I like who and what I am and think I’m on a slow upward incline regarding what I do, and that’s reason enough to hold up my chin and puff out my chest a little and march on forward with a smile on my face and my head held high. I’ll bet you could do it, too, even if you merely do so by letting yourself believe what the people who love and respect you tell you. They don’t love and respect and admire you for no reason at all, and who are you to question your admirers’ integrity! Go ahead, own up to being the new and improved you. Preen a little. You deserve it.

Green Means Go

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It’ll be a while yet. Spring and its sprouts aren’t making any particular headway even here in Texas just now, and I don’t expect to see any more than tiny hints of promising green until the current cycle of typically unpredictable and radically changeable temperatures settle into their usual late-February-into-March kindliness. But I can’t help thinking ahead.photoAfter all, there’s such a compelling sense of momentum that comes with those first tiny glimpses of something ever so delicate and yet determinedly pointy that forces its way out of hard ground and harder branches. The very fact that they can emerge from such unwilling sources tells me that once they’ve driven through those barriers, not only is there little that could stop them, they will pick up speed as they go, unfolding, uncurling, swelling, bursting into bloom, and finally, enlarging into the full fruits of the season. Such a suffusion of newness and energy and purpose!photoI look forward, in the same way, to some of my many projects coming to fruition, as I so rarely know what the final outcome will be, really. What seems like a perfectly lovely little green bell pepper can grow up into a dramatically bold but even sweeter scarlet capiscum, if nurtured and tended along its sojourn of development; in the same way, what may have begun as a quick little one-line idea sketch with pencil or pen while I sat in the back of a rehearsal hall or in the waiting room before an appointment could well grow up, over time, into a digitally enhanced illustration full of color and texture and layers that I hadn’t planned at the start. Whatever the result, it begins with the green bud or the green light of an idea, and I cannot resist the allure of that color, beckoning me with its promises and possibilities.

My First Valentine

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Long, long ago, in a state far away, there was a small, screaming infant being baptized by her father, a pastor, on the Sunday that fell on this very date, his birthday. I can only assume that my ornery howling was not the most perfect birthday present he’d ever had, but since Dad didn’t toss me in the dustbin either on the occasion or shortly thereafter is testament to a tiny fraction of the loving kindness he showed me then and continued to shower upon me, no matter how fractious I might have been at times, throughout the following years. That sort of tolerance alone is a good reason I’ve been very fond of the fella from the start. I’d say it’s also a good indicator that Dad always tended to have an excellent sense of humor about the silliness of real life.digital illustrationCommemorating that day is likely a good enough sampling all on its own of the man-of-many-parts that is my father, but it’s far from all. His long career as a Lutheran pastor and then bishop was complemented by plenty of stellar adventures as a leader, chairman and member of innumerable committees and boards from university to seminary to hospital and community. He traveled to and worked in dangerous and war-torn places like Honduras and El Salvador and early-1970s Chicago but still managed to come back regularly and be Dad at home to four daughters and help Mom keep the home fires burning while donning his ecumenical-superdude cape for quick service in his myriad day jobs.digital illustrationBetween his understandable popularity with many folk—even, I daresay, thanks to his unpopularity with a small contingent of people who didn’t approve of his frankness or his willingness to stand up for certain causes, a trait of courage and/or foolhardiness I would happily have had him pass to me genetically—and the careful scholarship that underpinned his good-humored to life, he’s always been a major influence on me. You can certainly see why I would consider Dad as fine a first Valentine as anyone could have. Happy Birthday, dear Dad!

Crestfallen

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digital illustrationHigh Hubris among the Lowbrow

I, like the mighty John Fall-staff, may fall, the butt of others’ laugh,

If I heed not the warning signs, and slip in traps, believe the lines

Yarned by slick liars, kind and not, that tie me in knots I’ve dumbly wrought

Myself; if I would puff and preen, I’ll skid and splat upon the green

In front of wiser fools in stocks, caught up in the snares of my own locks.

Like old Sir John, I’ll meet my doom

If I think me the smartest in the room.digital illustration

My Own Inverted Jenny

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book cover imageI have a little confession to make. My book-publishing debut has a noticeable flaw. It’s not huge enough that the editorial filters of the publisher, or even my own oft-repeated scrutiny, caught it in the preview and proofing processes, but I noticed it, and I’d like to make it better. See, in the hard-copy and digital proofs that I checked before giving the go-ahead to publish, I didn’t manage to spot how low the contrast was between text and background on one of the two-page layouts, and it’s not nearly legible enough for my taste in the final print, even with my relatively eagle-sharp eyes.

So I’ve made a revised version of that page duo and a couple of other pages that were quite acceptable but I thought deserved a boost of readability as well as long as I was at it, and I have requested that the publisher allow an after-publication change. Those of you who have already purchased and received the book (I’m looking at you: family members; Mira, Diane, Gracie, Christine, etc, and a handful of others that I know of thus far) will probably know which typography I’m describing. It’s readable, but it’s an effort, I admit. Those of you who haven’t bought the book yet, I certainly hope you will do so but maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to give you an even more polished product if you wait until I give the thumbs-up to a tiny revision in a week or so. Now, at least you know the whole story of my neophyte adventure.

If you’d rather hang on to the original version of the book as it stands anyhow, I promise you that all but the one poem—all 165 or so of the others—are entirely readable as the book stands, and while I can’t in any way promise that this, my first foray into unintentional-humor publication (to be fair, the rest of the book is supposed to be amusing) will be my last, let alone likely to accrue the sort of megabucks value given the famous upside-down airplane stamp of my post title, I do hope that when I croak, you might be able to get a bonus by selling off the short run of mistake-inclusive prints to crazed collectors. So if you paid, say, ten or twelve dollars this week (and I see they’re already reducing the price on Amazon, so bargains can already be had) you may be able to sell the book in a couple of decades for thirty-six cents extra. Talk about a fantastic investment! Don’t say I never gave you anything exciting.

But seriously, I hope that you will think buying a book from me is a reasonable investment not only in my happiness and well-being but in your own good spirits, because that’s what the book was intended for in the first place: playful entertainment for semi-grownups in the form of my whimsical-to-wacky drawings and poems. With your patience and a little perseverance on my part, we ought to be able to conjure up such an interlude together one way or another, no? I thank you for your good humor and support. Have a lovely day, y’all, and I promise I’ll keep you posted on my progress.photoOf course, since I’ve already made the revision of my “oops page” to submit, now I’ll be getting started with the conversion of the (reedited) book file to prepare it for a Kindle edition, and will need to decide which of the many other books I’ve got on various ‘back burners’ will be next on my agenda for what will hopefully be mistake-free from the moment of its publication. That’s the plan, my friends.

A Little Bull Session

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digital illustrationHow Beauty Contributes to Survival of the Species

A longhorn with a handsome set of horns as curly as they get

Was slightly cowed by what he saw when shown the Long Arm of the Law;

He’d had some hope he was exempt from need to keep his long horns kempt

And polished to a shiny sheen like pearl, his hooves polished to keen,

Dark, perfect handsomeness, the ring hooked in his nose, and everything

In fashion, grand in every way; turns out, he’d missed his class the day

The rules were set out in his youth, and so he lacked this simple truth.

So he was startled when the fuzz pulled him aside and said because

He’d failed to keep in such fine style, he’d have to go to jail awhile.

You, also, may not know these rules, if you too missed time in your school’s

Important seminars, so here I share them with you; do not fear

That cops will catch you; do not dread, but spiff your hooves and horns instead,

And you’ll be free to roam and graze in any pasture, all your days.

Why do I share this? Cattle, kine, or beeves all ought to look as fine

As stud bulls, just in case they meet random policemen on the street,

For at the least—or, maybe, most—they won’t then end up as a roast.digital illustration

The News from Here

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My friends, I’m happy to announce that after many years of working toward it and blurting out to people all over the place that I was going to do so, I’ve finally published my first book. It’s on Amazon and can probably be purchased worldwide already, since my youngest sister, the one who lives in Norway, bought a copy earlier today. My first sale, for which I am of course immensely grateful. If you are interested in laying hands on a print copy of this collection of my art and poetry (aimed mostly at childlike grownups, but most of it will amuse clever children too, and hopefully even the occasional clever adult), please head over to amazon.com to purchase, and I’d be delighted if you’ll review it as well so that it will live higher in the Amazon promotional rotation than otherwise.

In any case, I feel a little like a proud parent, even knowing that my offspring will go forth and do ridiculous things once out of my sight, as all good children do.

I thank my regular readers and blog visitors and friends most deeply and sincerely for your gracious and constant encouragement, which along with that of my family gave me the courage and patience to make this first attempt. I should probably warn you that there are a number of follow-up books in the Sparks pipeline (some serious and many decidedly not) that will, if all goes well, make appearances at regular intervals after this. I will of course explore publishing my full-color work soon, but thought a taste of my longtime favorite style of working in black and white, mostly drawings, would be an appropriate way to make my debut. The cover is in color, if that helps.

book cover image

Miss Kitty’s Fabulous Emporium of Magical Thinking: Drawings & Other Artworks, Tall Tales and Weird Creatures (Volume 1) Paperback – January 25, 2014

Inverted Vortices & Puzzling Phenomena

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I realize that all of us living creatures are scientifically explainable up to a point. We are generally parts of the natural world and therefore part of what scientists study and attempt to suss out and, in some wonderful instances, they do manage to make great discoveries about just what we are and what makes us tick. But me, I don’t really get any of it.digital illustrationHow is it, for example, that I have all of the parts required for me to be athletic, and yet I have never become anything remotely like it despite any school-required or even occasionally, self-imposed, practices? I’ve seen incredible athleticism in people with far fewer obvious tools for the task, not to mention having a visibly smaller inventory of raw materials in the way of the commonly used senses—blind or hearing-impaired athletes, for example—or functional limbs: any Paralympic athlete could clearly trounce my trousers in a trice.

How come, with all of my commendable efforts at garnering a real school-based education and my various attempts as an autodidact, I’ve still got an ordinary intellect and not the mega brain I see in some who appear to have been born to create shade for my dim thoughts?

I say this not to complain but, surprisingly, because it impresses and even sometimes thrills me, this magical, miraculous existence that we have. It’s actually exciting to me to think that there is so much around me and about me that I can’t begin to explain or understand. It may drive me a little batty at times to realize, as I do increasingly with the passing of said time, how little I will or even can ever comprehend about who I am and how I fit into the universe, but then I catch one more glimpse of a star—human or celestial—and remember how fabulous, how inexplicably yet palpably rich, this life can be. And I am both humbled and exalted.digital illustration

Smart as a Pig

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digital illustrationIt’s good that fiction has not entirely neglected the intelligence of the porcine race. There are such admirable figures as the marvelous Wilbur, saved in E. B. White’s superb story by that great media campaign waged by the arachnid heroine of ‘Charlotte’s Web‘; the stalwart Babe of Dick King-Smith’s ‘The Sheep-Pig‘, famous for being Farmer Hoggett’s eventual go-to pig for sheep herding and assorted acts of clever heroism; there’s the not so brilliant but ever so endearing Porky Pig, he of the stammering charm and accidental accomplishments. There are Snowball and Napoleon, who use their canny piggy wits in a dystopian world to prove that some pigs are more equal than others, a less sweet and engaging use of porcine wit and intelligence than some might like, but they are still outnumbered in the literary pen by Miss Potter’s little creature Pigling Bland and his far less bland but equally stimulating porker, Mr. Wodehouse’s Empress of Blandings.

All of these, of course owe a certain debt to their famous forebears (or forepigs) who were Little in size and Three in number. The Three Little Pigs, not all of them geniuses, I grant you, manage eventually to outwit the beastly Wolf. They’re so good at it, in fact, that their cleverness has continued to be immortalized for ages since their first appearance and they star in everything from many classic-styled re-tellings to a wide range of variants like Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith’s delightful ‘True Story‘ and even the Ninjas in Corey Rosen Schwartz’s version.

And still there are so many real, live pigs with even more impressive mental acuity than all of those little pretend ones put together; just ask any pig person (farmer or veterinarian or person with a companion animal). Ask Celi over at thekitchensgarden about Sheila’s exploits and the adventures and discoveries of the plonkers (the half-grown young pigs); go over there and Search her site for Sheila posts, and you too will grow wiser.

I hear a lot of people praising horses for being as intelligent as dogs and dogs, then, as smart as apes; apes, in their turn, for being as smart as their cousin humans—but I would be pretty flattered, myself, if anyone found me as clever as a pig.