All Clear Sky

So the collages for I Can Say Interpellation (BookThug) are done. The book will be out in May. These poems of Stephen Cain’s are brilliant, disturbing, funny, and I’m incredibly flattered that he asked me to illustrate his book.

I’ve played around with collage before, but I’ve never put together a series of collages before this. It was challenging. I’m fortunate to have a father who has a huge library and an amazing collection of paper ephemera — and who was willing to spend hours of his time helping me find images. And I’m fortunate to have a mother who was willing to visit for a week and read to she-who-does-not-sleep for hours on end so that I could get the project done. But it’s done! Check out the cover on Stephen’s blog: http://stephencain.blogspot.com/2011/03/now-in-colour.html

One Little Girl

Of the things I’ve made this year, I’m most happy with my gift for my daughter’s first birthday. What I thought would be a weekend project, turned into months of cutting and sewing (keeping in mind that caring for the daughter leaves me with little time for much else). She likes the book now (especially number 5), but she’ll probably appreciate it more when she’s 20.

When I made this, my daughter was not yet one, and I had no idea how much stress a toddler can put on an object. The big pink butterfly is one of the things in this book that needs to be repaired.