roller doll

I've finally made a doll, all the way through. It's been a while since I've done that. Though I've started many.

This one is a rollergirl doll that I donated to a raffle for a local fundraiser. She was meant to be quick and basic, but of course ended up taking me a couple of weeks and a lot of figuring out. She's bigger then most I make, about 18 inches tall. It was only at the fundraiser when she was claimed by her raffle winner that I realized I didn't want to give her up to a randomly chosen stranger. Luckily he turned out to be a respectable fellow who assures me she's being well looked after.

She stirred up some interest in my doll making work from a whole new culture. Plans in motion to make more rollerdollies like her.

for the record

planes

This is my dad, Bob Wingerter, somewhere around 1954 at the Woodbridge Air Force base in England. Behind him is an F-84 fighter jet that he worked on as an electrician.
This is me last week in front of an F-100 Super Sabre. My aviation history expert friend Brett took me to the New England Air Museum to see it (and sit in it) last week during a rare open cockpit day.

I have about 150 letters my dad wrote home to his parents during his time in the 79th Fighter Bomber Squadron working on planes. He was most excited when the F-100s replaced the F-84s, it was the first American production supersonic jet. He couldn't wait for a chance at a ride in one. "Quite a thrill to fly faster than sound and rise from the ground to 40,000 feet in a matter of seconds." I wish I knew if he did.

technical difficulty

Blogger stopped letting me upload photos midway through my last post. Either I've reached my limit or Blogger has gone crap. Lots of interesting things to tell-- puppets! fire! planes! dolls! roller skating! But I can't blog without a photo, so I'll have to fix it before I can go on.

puppets

A gallery exhibition of puppets at the Guilford Art Center, with a dozen or so puppet builders represented, including Puppetsweat which had James from James Mars, and Don Quixiote from Master Peter on display. Then there was Weinerville....

And Growing Up Linda, with a terrifying Carvel Cookie Puss ice cream cake and a tormented girl named Linda.

Bob, Leslie, and Margaret of Puppet- sweat with Don Quixote and James Mars.

mute

Dealing with the coming and going of muses is an old familiar problem, but now I've got an overabundance of visitations yet I'm unable to respond and I don't know why.

Painting has been tough. Even the collages aren't happening though I'm inspired to do them. I'm looking back at the first set I did several years ago which came out of the blue and relatively smoothly. They were all watery, Jungian, and female, and happened at a time of busy transition and new endeavours just like now. Now I'm even more full of images and words, but utterly incapable of getting them out in a sensible form. I'm afraid I'll lose it if I can't make good on it. I hope to find some clue in these watery women.

"I am the mute who is speechless, and great is the multitude of my words".

skates

With the aquisition of a new pair of skates yesterday I began to wonder how many pairs I have now, so I called a meeting to have a count. Five, bladed and wheeled, all beloved.

At the top left, my first adult skates my mom bought me at the age of feet-stop-growing. French wide foot boots, used when I got them, they must be 30 years old.

They were replaced when I took up skating again 3 years ago by the swanky Klingbeils which cost more then some cars I've owned. (bottom right) Custom made to my odd shaped feet, built in Queens NY, an edelweiss engraved on the bottom of the soles along with my name. The day they arrived after a 2 month wait was glorious.

The old white rollerskates above them were given to me by a friend who was a competitive artistic roller skater until most of the wooden rinks closed down and she switched to ice. They fit perfectly though need some work.

At the bottom left, rollerblades my nephew outgrew. Also a lucky perfect fit, though I don't enjoy rollerblading so much as the absence of a toe pick / toe stop has me falling on my face a lot.

And in the middle, the newest addition: a pair of slick Firecracker speed skates, with a Pursuit 2000 leather boot, red laces, ABEC 5 bearings (fast!), and Sure-Grip Zoom racing wheels. All the faster to chase wild geese with.

Though I do engage in a lot of activities that could be called frivolous, skating is serious business. After quitting my waitressing jobs and going full time with illustration I went into a steady physical decline. I sat at my desk sometimes 30 hours at a time trying to establish myself. By 29 I was a disaster, overweight with hypertension, increasing pain in my arms and back, and anxiety attacks that could paralyze my face and hands. And then I wasn't getting the work done. It finally turned into a crisis.

Something clicked at 30 and I started taking back my life. I worked out-of-the-house jobs, began socializing, and found an ice rink. Ice skating was my first ever love, the joy of it kept me going back every other day, and I haven't tired of it yet. It prepared me splendidly for many more great things to come after, puppeteering, fire twirling, dancing. I certainly haven't figured out how to balance them all yet, but I'm learning what's essential.

Mum, thanks for the skating lessons all those years. You got a lotta bang for your buck on that one.

the wisdom of foxes

After being moved to tears by a marvelous show called Between Sand and Stars, a puppet and trapeze collaboration between Sandglass Theater and Nimble Arts, I've began going through Saint-Exupery's other books, and came to The Little Prince. I recall reading it with my mom alot, who presented it to me as something important, though she doesn't share that memory, she remembers it only as being a weird book. And rereading it for the first time in years I have to agree. It is pretty weird, and sentimental, and didactic, but wonderful in its simple wisdom.

The fox fell silent and stared at the little prince for a long while. "Please...tame me!" he said.
"I'd like to," the little prince replied, "but I haven't much time. I have friends to find and so many things to learn."
"The only things you learn are the things you tame," said the fox. "People haven't time to learn anything. They buy things ready-made in stores. But since there are no stores where you can buy friends, people no longer have friends. If you want a friend, tame me!"
"What do I have to do?" asked the little prince.
"You have to be very patient," the fox answered. "First you'll sit down a little ways away from me, over there, in the grass. I'll watch you out of the corner of my eye, and you won't say anything. Language is the source of misunderstandings. But day by day, you'll be able to sit a little closer..."
The next day the little prince returned.
"It would have been better to return at the same time," the fox said. "For instance, if you come at four in the afternoon, I'll begin to be happy by three. The closer it gets to four, the happier I'll feel. By four I'll be all excited and worried; I'll discover what it costs to be happy! But if you come at any old time, I'll never know when I should prepare my heart... There must be rites."
"What's a rite?" asked the little prince.
"That's another thing that's been too often neglected," said the fox. "It's the fact that one day is different from other days, one hour from the other hours. My hunters, for example, have a rite. They dance with the village girls on Thursdays. So Thursday's a wonderful day: I can take a stroll all the way to the vineyards. If the hunters danced whenever they chose, the days would all be just alike, and I'd have no holiday at all."I blog this to remember it as I throw myself into yet another round of new adventures this week at breakneck speed, as if I don't already have enough to keep me occupied. I wonder if I'll ever know why I have to do these things. More fox wisdom:
"Here is my secret. It's quite simple: One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes."

bad art night #3

Meg with my flying fish umbrella.

Another Bad Art gathering. We tried starting in the afternoon this time and went 5 hours before we knew it. It was a slighty different group of people, and Meg and I noticed a remarkable change in the body of work. There seems to be running themes, colours, and materials that carry from artist to artist. Last month the webby brown paper and feathers were the big hit, today it was Lucky Charms and AOL cds. More photos on the RealBadBlog.

And more of my heart collages. When you need to make bad art, you can't go wrong with hearts and glitter.

museum

This afternoon I did my second perform- ance at the Children's Museum of Connecticut in New Haven for their Saturdays at 2 literature series. Daniel Barash, a puppeteer I met by chance at City Wide Open Studios this year, hooked me up and gave me the idea of drawing while my books were read.

The first time I did this with Pig of the Pig I was a wreck. I haven't had a lot of success drawing big in marker on the spot. Kids are surprisingly good at pointing out mistakes. But I was heartened by the enthusiastic response me and my reader, Tory Church, got from our audience of 50 or so 1 - 8 year olds and their parents. It was a fast and furious 20 minute session of drawing, and a few kids did let me know they noticed I cheated with pre-drawn pencil lines.

This time I did One Grain of Sand to another full house. Daniel sang the lyrics as I drew and puppeteered some animal and planetary cutouts into the picture. I was still a wreck, but the slower pace and breaks from drawing gave me more room to relax and play a little. It's a sad kind of tune, and this is the book I connect to my friend Sam who died, making me more serious and melancholy then usual. But Daniel's beautiful singing and the silent, intense attention of the children made those few minutes powerfully magical. I think we did pretty well. We got great applause.

First photo: a lingering audience member standing before my motley little crew of glittery puppet characters and drawings that came together to make one little world by the end of the song.

surrender

I barely manage to stop whining and feeling sorry for myself long enough to finish this cover painting I've been fretting over for so long, but only because my generous art director gave me 2 extra days. It's traveling to Illinois by FedEx this morning.... please please FedEx don't lose this one.

losers

Lately my heroes are people who did really stupid things and lost big time because of it. Timothy Treadwell is one, subject of the movie Grizzly Man. He spent 14 years in the Alaskan wilderness making a nuisance of himself around grizzly bears, living in an exceedingly stupid proximity to them, doing stupid things like swimming with them and petting them. In the end he got himself and his girlfriend eaten for it.

He probably wasn't really doing anybody any good by being out there, not the bears, definitely not his girlfriend. But I can't help but love this man for the extreme lengths he went to to make his life meaningful. He didn't sit in his room waiting for life to prove itself to him. He went out and created a life, and extraordinary one that gave him a purpose for being on the earth. And for however stupid and crazy he was, it's pretty damn amazing that he lived with grizzly bears for 13 years. No one can deny the guy had a pair of brass ones.

And then there's Lindsey Jacobellis. She was the great hope for a US Olympic gold medal in snowboard cross, which I've never had an interest in before, but this race was fierce and exceptional to watch. In the final she'd pulled out far far ahead of the other women, she had the bottom of the field to herself, the gold was hers. After a quick look back to see her lead, she took the last jump and did what everyone says was so stupid: she pulled a method air, a freestyle trick, which she wiped out on, giving just enough time for the Swiss competitor to pass her and win. She still got the silver, but also a storm of accusations and ridicule.

She sticks to her story that it was a tactical maneuver, while the press says she got overconfident and was showing off. But I say it was pure enthusiasm that just took her over. She probably didn't even know it was coming, a burst of joy and excitement that twisted her into that celebratory move. And so she wiped out. And so she didn't add another gold to the US tally. But she clearly raced the best race, and she's clearly a person capable of great energy, risk and happiness. And I love her for that.

Seekers of an authentic life, people of great enthusiasm, people who did stupid things, people who lost a lot. These are my people. I hope they have no regrets.

far too early

I noticed a yellow plastic bag out my bedroom window this morning when I was getting dressed, (which can be a time consuming endeavour, often not knowing if my day will consist of painting in a cold attic, a professional meeting, ice skating, or all of those.) Living in Waste Haven, the capital of rampant wandering garbage, a plastic bag blowing into my back yard is nothing new. But I noticed this one for its elegant, American Beauty-esque entrance. I spotted it hovering high above the trees, and watched for quite a while as it slowly made its descent, catching lightly on a branch where it danced very delicately until freeing itself. It looked to blow over the fence into the neighbors yard, but instead floated down to another branch, then another, until it landed in my dormant shade garden, where my dog stopped to look at it with curiosity too.

It came with such theatrics that it seemed more like a message dropped from the sky then random trash. I went outside to find out what the writing on it was, and discovered much to my chagrin that it had landed on the daffodils which have already begun to come up.

The daffodil bulbs were the first thing I planted after buying this house. When I first saw them pushing up out of the leaves the next spring, I was overwhelmed with a feeling I'd not yet experienced- for the first time in my life this was my own land, my own soil, and these little plants were the first thing to come from it. They were completely and totally mine, they existed only because of me. I've since planted other bulbs, perennials, bushes, trees, but every year the daffodils come back and remind me of that first moment, for that they are dearest to me.

Now, they are so early. The unusually warm weather of the last weeks has tricked them into thinking it was fine to come out of their winter sleep. But the snow is coming back, the cold is returning, and the newborn reaching shoots of my lovely daffodils have naively exposed themselves, unaware of any peril. I've never had them come up so soon. Are daffodils hardy enough to survive late February?

I wondered about this as I picked up the plastic bag. It says: "It makes a difference where you shop. ShopRite. Partners in Caring. Stopping hunger starts with you!" A red heart made of two clasped hands.

I looked up to the sky wondering what spirit dropped such a message. There were only thick clouds, a small plane headed west, and a solitary northbound seagull.

the whale

My favorite place to be in the world is any skating rink, but especially this one. The paradise of the Yale Whale: peaceful, sunny, quiet, warm, with ice like glass. The soaring architecture and old wooden seats remind me of the West Orange, New Jersey rink I grew up in. Here is the only place I can fly on my own volition. Feeling blades carve into ice sooths, balances, and thrills me no matter what kind of day I'm having.

rejection

A sketch for a magazine cover that was rejected. This is stressing me out. Not just because the final is due in a week and I don't have an approval yet (this is bad), but I'm frustrated with not finding opportunities to work with the subjects I'm most interested in. I once thrived on the challenge of working within limitations, I'm not sure why I don't so much anymore. Maybe there's too much of my own stuff in my head, maybe my hands are tired and I've gotten cranky.

blue pilot

Another fire/air collage-painting I'm working on. These personal pieces are a little more mood-revealing then my regular illustration work, which isn't something I necessarily want. Here I'm showing a futzy, murky scatteredness, which is what I was trying to escape by doing this painting. Sometimes I can transform my temperament through paint, but not always. I love the basic parts of this one, just more work needed to find the sum.

a tale of two Lindas

The proof cover for the most recent book I illustrated, What Could be Better Than This, by Linda Ashman. Not sure of the publication date yet. A very different kind of book for me. I'm pretty pleased with the printing and design, they used metallic gold throughout, with an ornate border design around the illustrations. Some of the spreads are quite handsome. I just wish that ship on the cover hadn't sailed so far right, very annoying.

January

There's been a definite lull in the blog, though there's been no lack of blog-able events going on. I just keep forgetting my camera. (That and I think I blogged myself out on the road trip.)

January was a strange transitional month. I'm in between books, with What Could Be Better Than This in the proof stage, and the challenging Chiru struggling to get into some tangible form on paper. My doll group, ODACT, spent a day in downtown Westport making a display of our dolls in the window of Max's art store on the Post Road-- an impressive ecclectic show of a couple dozen dolls by 6 artists I recommend seeing if you're down that way. I tried a new experimental performance at the Children's Museum of Connecticut in New Haven where I drew the story of The Water Gift and the Pig of the Pig as actress Tory Church read along for 50 or so children and parents. I took a puppet workshop with Dan Hurlin at Wesleyan and was reminded how far I have to go as a puppeteer. Meg and I are planning the next Bad Art Night, and I'm researching material for an SCBWI New England conference workshop I'm giving in April. The next bunch of collage paintings got a good start but now languish on my desk as I sign books that need signing, deliver art that needs delivering, and read contracts and manuscripts that need reading and re-reading.

Drawing: something like an exquisite corpse collaboration between myself and my muse.

bad art night #2

Some of the wonderfully bad art from Saturday night. 14 brave and reckless souls gathered at the Megwear Studio to create for nothing but the sake of creating. All that was needed: a tremendous pile of art supplies and discarded materials to play with, many bottles of wine, a lot of food, and great company. More BAN: realbadartblog.