Collaboration

Cats and House Spirits – The September Night Garden Challenge

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Last spring, the lovely people at The Night Garden approached me to be the guest artist for their Inspiration Challenge. I write a bit more about the website and their guest artist at the time (musician Jason Webley) here.

The Night Garden’s Inspiration Series is an opportunity for creative folks to get inspired by a particular artist’s work and raise money for the Great Lakes Bengal Rescue (GLBR) in the process.

March-April Guest Artist  – Jason Webley

May-June Guest Artist – Writer/Artist Christopher Lincoln

September-October Guests Artists – Valya Dudycz Lupescu and Madline Carol Matz

That’s right! Madeline and I have collaborated to inspire you over at The Night Garden. In fact, it’s such an inspirational challenge that working on it inspired us to create an entire comic around the characters featured in Madeline’s artwork!  (More on that in the next post.)

I’d ask that you take a look at the challenge and create an artistic response to it. You have until Halloween (October 31) to submit your response or make a donation. From the site:

Persons donating to Great Lakes Bengal Rescue between September 1st and October 31st will be entered into a random prize draw for a signed print of Madeline’s artwork above. Valya and Madeline will (consult with their respective house spirits and) also select one art contributor to have a cameo in the comic, drawn into at least one panel of the story.

The subject of our challenge is house spirits, those little guardians who traditionally protect our homes (sometimes with a little mischief thrown in). We hope that you create your art with house spirits in mind. Some things to think about:

What might your house spirit look like? What does he or she like to eat/drink? Where do they reside in a home?What’s their favorite music? What would might they like you to knit for them? Can you photograph their favorite dark corner? Do they get along with your pets?

You can also think about the house spirits of other homes, fictional or historical:

Does the TARDIS have a house spirit (perhaps a cheeky brownie)?

What does the house spirit of the White House look like? What’s their spin on past and present administrations?

What about retelling the events of Wuthering Heights from the perspective of the house spirit living there? Or Gone with the Wind? Or Frankenstein? (Halloween is coming after all.)

How about your favorite authors’ or artists’ homes? Is there a kobold in Neil Gaiman’s attic? Does the Cloud Club (where Amanda Palmer and other artists live) have a house spirit (or a hippy-esque house spirit commune)? Does Felicia Day’s perky little brownie follow her around from trailer to trailer? How does Kyle & Trillian’s Roswell feel about their house spirit? Who is the guardian on Jason Webley’s houseboat? Do the Evelyn Evelyn sisters have conjoined house spirits?

The responses can be as diverse as the inspiration: photos, sketches, flash fiction pieces, recipes, poppets, knitting, a song, a sonnet, a special perfume oil, a candle, a woodcarving or clay sculpture, jewelry, or a hat. So many options!

We have some of our own ideas to share! You can follow the story of our house spirit (a domovyk named Yaroslav) on our kickstarter page. Sticks and Bones, Issue 1: Home is Where the Hearth is.

We cannot wait to see/read/hear/smell/wear/taste your house spirit-inspired art and help Great Lakes Bengal Rescue !

Summer rain and cartoonification

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I’ve have been turned into a cartoon, and I like it.

My profile picture was done by cartoonist Eric Orchard (@inkybat). You can read his blog and see examples of his art on Eric’s website.

I woke before the kids this morning. That seldom happens in the summer, unless we have someplace to be. Usually I write until 3 or 4am, and then I wait until the kids wake up (usually around 8am) before finally getting out of bed.

I think it was the rain, the gentle summer rain, that did it.

It was in stark contrast to the fierce late-night thunder storms and lightning shows that have sent the kids scurrying to our bed in the middle of the night.

I awoke to a sleeping house, crept downstairs, and made myself a coconut milk late. I had the time and the quiet to begin this entry.

I finally finished Book #2 (S.C.) and received my first round of edits. I’ve also begun the first of two projects with Madeline Carol Matz (@mcmatz). I’ve oscillated between those two projects most nights. The mcmatz project has more urgency, since we have a sort of deadline for the first bit.

In the meantime, we’ve been dealing with flooding in the basement from recent storms. Sorting, purging, and organizing are on the agenda for most days, interspersed with general kid summer frivolity.

But the kids return to school in two weeks, and in a flutter of pre-school doctor appointments, last-minute excursions, and a final round of summer birthday parties and playdates, I find myself getting excited about Fall–my favorite and most productive season.

Glorious October is just around the corner.

 

 

Poppet plays Miss Lupescu & other collaborations

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The lovely and talented Lisa Snellings makes Poppets. Well, it’s probably more accurate to say that Lisa is astute and intuitive enough to have tapped into the magical world of Poppets, and she shares them with the rest of the world. 😉

I love Poppets. Many people do. There are photos of Poppets all around the world in unexpected places. Here’s one of mine at the door to the fairy tree in our backyard.

If you would like a glimpse into the mind and process of this remarkable artist, Lisa’s blog is here. You can also purchase her poppets here, and that brings me to the point of this quick little entry.

Poppets love books. Lisa has created Poppets playing various fictional characters and reading their favorites. Most recently, Lisa created a Miss Lupescu Poppet (from Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book).

I love her. (How could I not?)

As if you needed another reason to invite this Poppet into your home, Lisa is donating 20% of the sales of the Miss Lupescu Poppet (and only 4 remain) to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (or CBDLF). If Miss Lupescu is not your favorite, there are many other fanciful creatures on her etsy site:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Strangestudios

Poppet Plays Miss Lupescu - The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman

I love it when artists inspire one another and collaborate to find new ways to introduce wonder into the world.

Speaking of collaboration, the Night Garden has its newest Inspiration Challenge with Christopher Lincoln (author of Billy Bones). Visit the Night Garden site, see his sketch, and participate to support Great Lakes Bengal Rescue.

Mr. Lincoln will give away the original doodle to the person whose donation puts them over the $250 mark by midnight, June 30th. Entries will be accepted May 1, 2011 through June 30, 2011.

My oldest already loved Billy Bones, but Mr. Lincoln became one of the kids’ favorite writers when he met us for a coffee in Minneapolis. They had a lovely chat and he signed her book. She was SO excited!  (Buy a copy of his marvelous books, and share them with kids of all ages!)

One last collaboration tidbit, if you haven’t head of the Nighty Night album by 8 in 8 (a collaboration by Amanda Palmer, Neil Gaiman, Ben Folds, and Damian Kulash of OK Go), read more about their creative process of working together at Mad Oak Studios to create 6 songs in 12 hours at the www.eightineight.com website. You can also listen and buy a digital copy of the album at http://music.amandapalmer.net/album/nighty-night

My kids love several of the songs and have been sing The Problem with Saints (the Joan of Arc song) for the last two weeks. This has also resulted into the acquisition of new interesting vocabulary words for my 3, 5, and 7-year-olds: bisected, vivisect, and bifurcated. (Have I mentioned how much the kids’ teacher love me?)

Inspired by the album and encouraged by Amanda and Neil, their fans created videos of the songs that can also be viewed on the site.

I leave you with one of my favorites: