Roadtrip

  We spent Monday driving to Pittsburgh and back. To pick up a letterpress.
Evan had been searching all over the internet for one, his interest mostly academic. He bemoaned their sudden steep rise in popularity, which had more than tripled their standard asking price over the past few years. He browsed and inquired and researched. And then, last Saturday, he accidentally purchased one.

  He confronted me with the news when he picked me up from work on Saturday night. He'd made a low bid on a 5 x 8" press of decent quality on eBay, and had been shocked to receive the email notifying him that he had won. It needed some cleaning, some new springs, and the rollers needed to be recoated, but otherwise is was in good condition. We just had to drive to Pittsburgh to pick it up (that, or pay to ship a 126-pound press. Driving was much cheaper).

  This thing is amazing. We drove nearly ten hours straight (roundtrip) to pick it up. Everything West of the Appalachians was encompassed in a blizzard both ways, so that when we returned home our car was caked and streaked in salt. But we made it, picking up the press from a quiet Pennsylvanian man in his Ford pickup, who waited patiently for us in the snow.
Now it sits behind me. We haven't gotten down to cleaning it yet, we have a lot of lemon juice and vinegar to acquire for that. But it will come. And we have our own press.

  Books, bookplates, business cards... One of the first projects I plan to tackle is to finally design and print my own deck of cards, something I've been meaning to do for years now. Expect updates on press process, as well as art updates of my progress. I've been lax in uploading art here lately, I know. I do most of my internet-ing on my Eee PC now, and most of my art-ing on my Mac--meaning that I need to get considerably less lazy to get things up here.
My DeviantArt account has been getting rather more love.

Minutia

With the overwhelming retail workload of late, I've had little time for anything else. I arrive home from work exhausted, drained, often demoralized, and want little else but to divert myself via the contents of a novel or a video game. Art and writing have been creaking along at sub-glacial speeds. Email and twitter are ignored. Blogs go unread.
So I have little of real interest to share here, except a journaling of some of the more diverting occurrences of the past week.

A photograph of a mug, taken in Hessler St., Cleveland, with my phone. Several years old. I was trying to pick up the delicate traceries of the spider-webs, though the lighting on the mug itself ended up being the more fascinating aspect.
Posting it because I feel it's appropriate.

A troublesome customer (how it should have gone).

    I glanced up at the clock on the monitor. It was fifteen minutes into my break, and I still had filing to do behind the register before I could take off. My replacement had arrived on time, but the constant stream of customers had kept me pinned behind the desk. Now the line had dwindled to three people, two of them apparently a couple. I finished helping the customer in front of me, then turned to the other cashier.
    "My break started 15 minutes ago, so I'm going to take off now. Do you think you can handle this on your own?" She smiled and nodded at me. "Awesome. Where was that binder? I have a donation sticker."
    "Wait a minute," Interjected the next customer in line, an elderly woman standing with her husband, two slim volumes balanced upon her palms. "I have to wait now because she wants to take a break?" She turned to her husband, the look on her face self-righteous affront.
    "I'm sorry, but I've been here a long time..." I began.
    "She's been here a long time! As if I haven't!"  The customer in front of her seemed to be nearly finished with her business, but I called for backup anyway.
    "Look, I've called backup. Someone else should be here shortly. But I really can't help you, I need to go. And I think you need to calm down and be a little more considerate of others." I took down the donation binder that my coworker had indicated, and began recording the sale.
    "I'm the customer!" She was close to yelling now, and I was having difficulty maintaining a smile-- I'm sure it looked strained.
    "Yes? And?"
    "Your customer service is awful! I can't believe you treat people this way!" She turned back to her husband, who had taken to throwing sarcastic jibes at me between her outbursts. "Can you believe this? She must really not like this job!"
    The implied threat is what did it for me. I returned the binder to the shelf, and approached the register. My coworker was trying to mollify the irrate woman, telling her that I had called for backup.
    "Well, she didn't tell me that!" Was the customer's huffed response.
    "I see that I've been wrong," I said calmly. "I didn't realize how much more important your schedule was than mine. It's true that I'm rather behind on taking my medication, but since your time is so valuable I can put that off a little longer. Surely nothing bad will happen."
    "Well, finally!" The customer trounced over to the counter, angrily dumping her books in front of the scanner. I keyed my employee code into the register, then leaned across the counter to for her purchase. As soon as she was in range, I twitched the specialized muscle in the corner of my eye, causing the vessel there to burst.
    Jets of blood shot from my eyes, hitting the customer squarely in the face. She began screaming and stumbling backwards, flailing into other customers, who were backing away themselves. With a quick thumb's-up to my grinning coworker, I clutched my hands to my still-bleeding eyes and staggered out from behind the register. Headed up the escalator and towards the breakroom, I made sure to mutter "Oh gods, oh gods..." whenever a customer approached, for effect.
    Only three people stopped me to request directions, making it the most effective aversionary tactic I have yet devised.

Employment

So I have a job again. A seasonal position as a bookseller for Borders, which is obviously not ideal, but certainly better than nothing. After Office Depot, I had forsworn ever working retail again... though tough times obviously call for doing things you'd rather not. 
But at least it's a book store, and so far everyone I've met there has been really nice (and in some cases, quite pleasingly zany :) ). Being out of Reston and dealing in products rather than services, I think this is going to end up being 50x less stressful than OD was, as well. Despite this being the holiday season. Let's hope time proves me right.
The other advantage of this job is that it dovetails really nicely with my biannual graphic design contract, which happens every early spring and late summer. If they like me well enough at Borders, perhaps I can keep swinging back and forth between the two jobs (working summer and holiday seasonal) until something more permanent comes along. Sure, Borders only pays about 1/3 of what ASET does... but it's more than 0, and admittedly the majority of my entertainment spending goes towards books anyhow. Getting a consistent 33% off of those purchases will be amazing.

In the meantime, I keep drawing and writing. Submitting to magazines and contests. Further successes will, of course, be reported here. :)

Happy Hallowe'en, GUD-monster style!

"Be careful your clockwork doesn't run down." monster:  You're the robot from Darby Larson's Electroencephalography in Issue 1. You were built by Dean's family to help around the house, but it seems you don't take orders too well. You do take other things, though. Like hearts. What GUD Monster are you?  Find out at GUD Magazine!

I have spent the past week working on the illustrations for this quiz.  I ended up pouring in more time than I had intended, but the cause (promoting GUD Magazine) is good, and I really enjoyed doing it!  Sometimes, it's incredibly nice having inspiration placed in front of you. :)
I encourage you to take the quiz. It's quick, amusing, and links you to both my art, and some excellent writing.  The monsters are also quite strange and creepy (not your usual Hallowe'en fare, these!)

There are also ten different possible outcomes, so you might want to take it more than once. ;)

Where the writing goes.

For anyone who has been following my blog for a long, long time, there might be some recollection of my having once posted snippets of short fiction on here as well.  I stopped doing that a while ago, frightened by the prospect of having my work stolen (something that is easier to do, and more difficult to prove with words than it is with imargery).  But I have no ceased writing!  Since finishing my six thesis books, I have continued to write short ficiton for myself.
Emboldened by my recent visibility on GUD Magazine's blog, I am beginning to submit some of them to contests and literary magazines. 

First up is Nanoism's December five-part twitter serial contest.  I'm posting about it here for three reasons!
a.) So that you know about this magazine, because it's awesome and because there is a chance I might be in it! 
b.) Because, as an incentive, they allow you to submit two different stories if you mention the contest! 
And
c.) This is a nifty contest, and a really cool little magazine, and you should submit!  Yes you!  Whoever you are, send them something and make it good!  They make it very simple to do so.
The deadline is October 31st, and winners will be published in December.

Second, I am also submitting to Fantasy Magazine's Halloween flash fiction contest.  Flash fiction is good for me.  It forces me to be succint, to have an entire story arc in mind when I begin, and to actually finish the thing.  1,000 words is also a pretty good goal for a single day of writing. 
This contest is particularly good because the premise requires that a graphic be paired with the story, as the inspiration, and I can make my own.  Thus, it gives me a possible venue for showing my art as well: two-for-one!
The deadline is October 16th, so get to work!

Blogging!

So I just wrote a guest post for GUD Magazine's blog!  It's on the topic of banned books, and is a belated post in recognition of the ALA's 'Banned books week' several weeks ago.  Check it out!
And while you're there, be sure to take a look around the site.  GUD's an excellent literary magazine, and the freebies there alone are enough to be worth your while.  Plus, they've recently gotten a whole slew of honorable mentions from 'The Year's best horror'.  I have three of their issues, and I've been enormously impressed by everything I've seen an read of them.  They have some great editors, and a lot of diversity in what they publish.  Definitely worth keeping an eye on. 

My brain is getting in the way of thinking.

I have difficulty working with music or sound around me.  Or rather, I have difficulty conceptualizing... once a sketch is down and I'm onto the grunt work of rendering, I can listen to anything.  This is something I am just realizing.

Despite five years of art college, it took until now for me to recognize this pattern in myself.  I honestly thought that the reason I tended to do most of my work in silence was because I was too lazy to turn on music, or an audio book until I was several hours deep into a project.  I also though that the reason that I didn't like spending time in the noisy Print studio at school was because I am antisocial. 

It took until I was living with Evan full-time, working in the same studio space as him for the problem to truly surface.  He loves music, and works best with his MP3 collection, a podcast, or an internet radio station playing in the background.  He does a lot of insanely tedious work for a graphic design firm, so he seriously needs it.

I know why this is, too.  I have Asperger's Syndrome (as I've probably mentioned before) and tend to automatically visualize everything.  If there is a music track playing, my mind is working to visually map that song, with colour, imagery, and geometric shapes.  If someone's speaking, my mind is creating a tableau based on whatever they're talking about, overlaid with a running transcript written in a pleasing serif font.  This ties in with the synesthesia so common in us Aspies, apparrently.  Also, sometimes I just hallucinate stuff, for no other good reason!  My brain does not like to think that I am lonely.

The net effect of this sort of all of this?  I become almost blind when there's too much sound going on around me.  I'm seeing what I'm hearing, and I'm finding it almost impossible to focus on whatever is in front of me.  So even if I'm doing fine, inking and listening to music, someone talking to me over that can make my entire workspace go invisible. 
I love working in coffee shops, because they remove me from the constant temptation of internet time-wastage, while also getting me out of the house.  This is where I write best.  Unless it is too loud there. This is highly frustrating.

The best solution I can think of is to find myself a quiet, private place to get started on my work in.  Where that is, I have no clue, as I live in a townhouse with no backyard to speak of.  Anyone else out there with similar issues, and perhaps suggestions?

SOZD*!

Today is 'Support Our 'Zines Day'!  Something I was informed of upon waking this morning, by an incredibly exuberant Eimhin.  He, not the procrastinator that I am, has already posted a wonderful and comprehensive list of 'zines-of-amazingness on his own blog, which I recommend that you peruse.  But there really is no possible way to over emphasize the importance of literary magazines, both in purveying excellent literature (and visual art, comics, and poetry...) and in promoting artists, burgeoning and established alike.  So take a spin about these bizarre and marvelous publications, and if you can afford it, show them some love.

GUD Magazine
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet
Crossed Genres
McSweeney's 
Weird Tales
Leading Edge
Brain Harvest
Electric Velocipede
Sybil's Garage
Tin House
Flash Fiction Online
The Cafe Irreal
Fantasy Magazine
Strange Horizons
ClarkesWorld
Shimmer
Steampunk Magazine

If there are any others I have missed, or simply have not heard of, please tell me about them in the comments!  There are few things as satisfying as discovering a good new source of fiction.

I listen to not nearly so many Podcasts as Evan, but I am a generally huge fan of the readings over at Telltale Weekly.  Alex Wilson's voice and inflection are perfect for these readings, and his content selection is excellent.  It was through Telltale that I first found out about Kelly Link, actually (you must listen to 'The Girl Detective' as read on the site) which has, of course, led to all sorts of  fascinating developments in my life.

*SOZD still sounds to me like a state of drunkenness.
Somewhere between dameschwipschen and completely toasted.  Probably not the ideal state for reading, but to each one's own.  Go for it.

Random pet peeve

This may strike you as strange, but one of my biggest language-related pet peeves is the misuse of the word 'cannibalism'.

Cannibalism is the devouring of the flesh of one creature by another member of its same species.

Anthropophagy is the devouring of human flesh, by any creature. 

So a chicken that eats another chicken is a cannibal; but a chicken that eats a human is anthropophagus.

There, important English-language lesson of the day.  Use this knowledge well.

All that talk of not having any art done...

...and I forgot that I hadn't posted this sketch here.  Done in my Canson sketchbook, one fine afternoon whilst sitting about at the Hardbean Cafe downtown. 

A larger version, as always, can be seen on my DeviantArt page.

Graphite.  5 1/2" x 8"

On the misappropriation of 'masculine' and 'feminine'.

Still struggling with my artwork and creative motivation.  In the meantime, I've decided to write about something that has bothered me since I was just a wee childling.  That is...gender, and how it's characterised!

As a child, I was what is commonly referred to as a "tomboy".  I liked dinosaurs and dragons, hiking and getting muddy, running about and playing outside.  I hated dresses, and as of 3rd grade began refusing to wear them entirely.  I would not wear pink, make-up and purses held no fascination for me. 
For a long time, people thought this meant that I did not want to be a girl.  Hell, even I was convinced of that for a while.  But what has come more and more apparent to me over time is that being a girl is never what bothered me.  It was (and is) the false set of roles and restrictions that are handed to every child upon determination of their biological sex at birth.  Restrictions that are, inarguably, a lot more restrictive to the development of individuality in girls than they are to boys. 

Duck, lest ye run afoul of the steam shooting out of my ears.

Sometimes, even well intentioned people can be very, very insenstive.  It usually comes when someone questions or challenges their priviledge in a situation where they don't perceive that they have it.  I've been guilty of this in the past myself.  Today, though, I'm going to ran about somone else.  Someone who's very near and dear to me, but who can still be a complete jerk at times.

Exactly one month ago today, Melissa McEwan over at Shakesville wrote this post, about how we, as women, often have to make the decision between protesting when someone makes a sexist (or downright misogynistic) statement and potentially ruining the evening for that person, or "swallowing shit" and only ruining it for ourselves.  I had an evening like that not long ago, where I decided to just swallow the shit and deal with it.

Nothing to show

I'm having one of those days where nothing goes quite right.  I can't mix the colours I want, the shading goes all wrong, the line ends up elsewhere than where I want it.  The grey catbirds come out looking a little more on the green side.  It's not  artist block, it's more of an artist stumble. 
My time tomorrow has been booked by parents and parents-in-law, so I know I'll get little to nothing done--which only adds to my sense of frustration.  This was supposed to be a day for making!
Normally, if I'm having trouble in one sphere of creativity, I move to another until the stumble resolves itself.  Today there seems to have been little recourse but to write and avail myself of Write Habit's list of literary magazines in the attempt to find someone who might want to publish my work (hopefully with a little bit of pay to be exchanged, as well).
So at least that was something.

There can't be anything much more boring than reading about someone who cannot create.  More interesting posts are in the offing, I promise.

In regards to actually getting to work.

So my lovely mate, E, has been in LA for the past week.  He was there attending the workshops and award ceremony attendant upon winning one of the quarterly Illustrators of the Future contests.  Incredibly impressive.  If you want to go rush over and take a look at his work right now, having heard that, it's here.  Go over.  Spend some time.  I post his DeviantArt rather than his website, because he updates it more often.  (Mine own, more neglected, is here).
So I've gotten up off my own butt, and I'm getting back to work on the art that I've been ignoring, due to demanding-contract-dayjob.  I admit to bouts of self-doubt and criticism of late.  There are a few things that are difficult in a relationship between two creative people in the same field, and being torn between extreme pride in your mate and jealousy/self-doubt is one of them.  That, and some people will come at you with the preconceived notion that in a creative couple, one of you must be inherently "better" than the other.  More about that in another post.
Anyhow, I've been spurred to work on my artwork, more vehemently.  Also to pick up my writing again.  After the six books of mini short stories I wrote for my BFA thesis, I took a rather substantial break from writing.  Partly because I didn't know how to surmount the main (and very legitimate) criticism that occurred during my thesis critique: that I have difficulty ending a story.  Or at least, coming to any kind of conclusion.
So this is my goal.  I have several short stories in the works at the moment, and for practice I'm going to try writing flash fiction.  Just to practice better how to bring a story from a begining to a thoughftul conclusion.  The stories will probably begin showing up on here. 
And of course I will be submitting to Illustrators & Writers of the Future as well.  E says he had a smashing time at the workshops, and heartily recommends attendance.  By which he means getting off one's ass, and getting the courage up to submit to this thing.  Now. Because it honestly cannot hurt (except one's confidence).

As if I didn't love her enough...

...for her incredible books (Palimpsest utterly blew me away), this is what Catherynne M. Valente had to say about the recent Mammoth book of Mindblowing Science Fiction Gender/Racefail:

"Stories are important. Stories, in fact, are life. They are what is left of our unique experience in this world. They speak--no. They scream. And when an author sits down and constructs a completely imaginary world in their heads, if people like me, people like us, do not exist in it, or exist only to be ridden like animals or raped or murdered or humilated or destroyed so that an audience can acheive catharsis via symbolic annihilation of our lives, bodies, and souls, well, certainly, we can sit down and look at the floor and say: yes, you're right, that is what we deserve. Or we can stand up. We can scream back. We can band together. We can demand our right to exist, to take part in humanity, to learn, to grow, to evolve, to self-examine. We can tell our stories, to anyone who will listen, to the campfire, to our lovers, to coffee shops, to strangers, to publishers' skyscrapers in New York, to the heavens, to the earth. Yes, you're fucking well right we can."

Besides being the very first one to call it out. 

How to lose me as a customer

I'm finally getting back to work on my gallery website.  I tried it first two summers ago, and was ultimately defeated by my own ambition.  This time, no flash is going to be involved at all.  Just a simple, aesthetic layout in Dreamweaver, using Lightbox2 to showcase images.  My writing will go up on it too.
What spurred me to get on it again?  Well, my domain name registration expired.  I'd been waiting for this, because I originally got it using GoDaddy, as it had been the only registry I had heard of.  Then I got blasted with some of their ridiculously gross, sexist commercials.  Decided I didn't want to send any more money that way.  I canceled (after having them unsuccessfully try and charge my credit card for re-registry behind my back) and now it has been several weeks of waiting for my domain to free up so I can register with DynamicDolphin.  Is it supposed to take this long?  Seriously not amused.

But anyway.  Here is a doodle from one of my sketchbooks, done in café Tryst a few weeks ago.  Ballpoint pen and white coloured pencil on recycled brown paper.

Good/Bad

Not Happy:
-Maybe coming down with another sinus infection.  
-Coming home to find toaster oven's door broken off.  
-Call from coffee shop telling me I'm not hired.  -Someone trying to hire me to do 20-25 colour illustrations for her children's book in under 6 weeks, and only offering $250 as pay (and making passive-aggressive comments about how reasonable she thinks this is.)
-Still not living in Portland.

Happy:
-Working again, for good-paying contract.
-Working also on illustration commissions for two books, both of which are future-pays.
-Working on t-shirt designs that will get made, and I get commision on! Yay!

The tide is rising...

Evan and I just got back from downtown. We went to see the high tide, which is 1 to 1.5 feet above average. Accompanied by heavy rain, it's the cause of the 'coastal flood warning' that's been in effect from Tuesday morning, and will remain in effect through Thursday morn.

After crossing the drawbridge into the city, we were immediately confronted by a massive puddle, at least 100 feet long, more than a foot and a half deep, and spanning the entire breadth of the road. The storm drains in Annapolis are a little counter-productive. Whenever the tide is high, or there has been a tad more rain that usual, they back up and flood into the street.
The dinghy docking area, normally consisting of a small brick park with trees and benches about three feet above the waterline, was entirely immersed. Water lapped against the stairs on the far side, dampening the bronze children of the Kunta-Kinte memorial. Waterborne debris littered the plaza, and we spent some time fishing out and disposing of the inorganic matter.
The closer to the docks we got, the higher the water level. An Camaro and an SUV sat side-by-side in the lowest point of the dockside parking lot. Both were submerged up to their headlights.
The waterline sat less than a foot below the dock, sometimes coming into corners so violently that we were hit by the spray. Not that this mattered much, the constant chill rain--illuminated occasionally by distant flickers of lightening--kept us damp enough.
We took the side of Dock street opposite the docks on the way back (which proved to be a mistake). The Navy yard was surrounded by a veritable moat, and we joked that the single grey boat sitting in the parking lot was there for such occasions. A car passed us, and the shock of its passage sent a wave of brackish water over our shoes.
There was no saving our feet, really. An ankle-deep pool in the sidewalk pretty effectively drenched Evan, and swamped over the ankle of even my waterproof hiking boots. We arrived home soaked but elated.

It's easy enough to enjoy, because it's mostly spectacle. Despite the high water, there's no possibility of damage to businesses, homes, or people. In 2003, long before I moved here, hurricane Isabel did major damage, flooding all of Dock Street and up to the Hard Bean Café and Riordan's. 2009 is predicted to be a relatively average to light hurricane year. Considering the state of the storm drains, however, and the unusally rainy six months we've been having, it might not take a hurricane to cause real trouble here.


Illustration:
"Cthulhu before R'Lyeh"
India ink on bristol board.
6 x 11"
Copyright Lisa Grabenstetter, 06/2009

Thematic redux (Plumed equine)

A re-examination of a subject I drew back in highschool. There used to be a long, elaborate story it went with, but now all that I remember is its environment. Long, domed flint shores that ran into a translucent sea. Enormous mosses and lichens towering overhead. Plumed equines running about beneath. That sort of thing.

Colored pencil and walnut ink on hemp paper.
8 x 8"

Tried out a new technique with the penciling this time. Not sure if I'm going to stick with it.
Feedback would be immensely helpful.

The Magnetic Crow

Just because, it has been neglected.
This was actually drawn for this site, before it ended up on my thesis card.
Expect it to show up somewhere soon.

On literary magazines.

Something I neglected to mention here. Two of my pieces were selected to be published in the newest edition of GUD (Greatest Uncommon Denominator) magazine. I just received my contributor copy in the mail, and it is really quite sweet.

Now, publishing your stuff in magazines really does not pay much. It's really about the exposure, and being involved in something as beautiful and independent as a lit mag like GUD. And so, I am extremely thrilled about this. Really, go check it out. Even if you don't have the extra income to spend on a copy right now, get a peek at the free content. 'Time cat' is an awesome game.

Some considerations.

I have been thinking a lot about this blog lately, and what I want to do with it. See, I have many venues for putting my artwork up online. There's deviantart, and carbonmade, and my future website-which-I-haven't-finished-yet. Yet I am a very opinionated person. I read a great number of science and political blogs, and would like to express my thoughts.

So here is what is going to happen.

I am still going to post my art here, and also bits of my writing. I like having a space that's entirely my own to do that in. Also, I'm going to stop being afraid of letting my opinions come out in a space where they will be connected with my art, person, and career. Mostly, I am no longer going to be afraid of vociferously expressing myself as a feminist.
I know! What could possibly make me afraid of letting possible future employers know that I am in fact an advocate of my own gender? Or, more importantly: I know that this will be a possible put-off to future employers, but I've made the decision to not care. Because I really do not think I would be happy or comfortable working for someone who would penalize me for voicing the opinion that I deserve equal rights to my male coworkers.
Also, I know that my views are going to remain visible in my art and writing anyway.
So there.

I have been posting on feminist blogs for a time, most under the pseudonyms 'L.G.' or 'Algae'. Now I'm using 'Magnetic Crow' as my one and only. We'll see how this goes.

Raining, raining, and cold.  I plan on updating her more regularly again, but today seems like a day for reading 'The Diary of Anaîs Nin' and drinking tea.

Indeed.

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
  - Steven Weinberg

Right right, Google.

A crust of ice.

We finally got a little snow here in Maryland, and though it doesn't even approach Cleveland standards I'm willing to feel it's better than nothing. A few inches, total, and shelled by that evening in a crisp layer of ice. This is what I remember best from growing up around here, the days when you awoke to a two-hour-delay because the trees, road, and everything else had been encased in clear ice overnight. The brilliance of sunlight refracting through the ice-covered twigs. The occasional, heartrending gunshot from the forest as a tree broke in half under the ice's added weight.

I took the opportunity of being somewhat stuck inside for the past two days to finish this image. I started work on it in July, lost it among my possessions for a long time and then rediscovered it a few weeks ago. It's probably the most ambitious watercolour I've attempted since entering college five years ago, and I'm still ambivalent regarding the outcome. Any comments are critique would be much appreciated.

9 x 12" on Strathmore. Ballpoint and Watercolour.

Submitting

The deadline on submissions for Spectrum 16 are on the 23rd, and I just mailed off my entry. This feels very big to me. For years I have leafed through Spectrum, ogling the artwork, peering in at an industry I only dreamed of being a part of. Submitting is very, very intimidating to me. But I did it, and now I wait for April and hope for the best.

I submitted a series, including my two prints 'Making Peace' and 'Returning Home', and this image here, 'Diplomacy'. A scratchboard I finished today, but felt belonged to that much earlier sequence.

Happy Winter, All!

A lot has been going on in my life of late, which has prevented me from being fully participatory on the internet. Nevertheless, I make my attempt.
Happy winter all, and best of luck struggling through the hard times the economy is presenting to us. May it improve soon.


Image: Perchta and the Wild Hunt.
My part of Evan and I's joint Winter holiday/New Year card.
Watercolour and ink.