30 minutes line drawing every day then watercolor later on with something playing. When I start the drawing I try to draw straight through the 30 minutes, drawing steady, not hurrying but trying to time it so I fill a double page spread. It’s a practice of staying in motion, keeping a pace, drawing with a kind of line melody not stopping for 30 minutes.
An experiment with drawing in my compbook with a Uniball for 30 minutes everyday to see what shows up. Watercolor later on when I’m listening to something.
May 9! 7:00 pm Chicago Humanities Festival! Jad Abumrad and I talk about the unnameable energy at the center of all we have come to call the arts and all that kids encounter in a state of deep play. Tickets are available now. Find the Chicago Humanities Festival Website for more info. You dig it, it digs you!
Drove through the little town where I was born and where Frank Lloyd Wright was also born. Passed one of his buildings on my way to finding the first house I lived in after I was born. It was my Norwegian grandma’s house. My mother, who is from the Philippines talked about sitting in the upstairs bedroom practicing her English while she was pregnant with me. She said she was practicing in order to be able to tell my grandma where to stick it. They couldn’t stand each other. My grandma was ashamed of having a brown daughter in law and my mom was suddenly stuck in rural Wisconsin for months while my dad was in the Navy stationed in California. She hated Wisconsin. This was during the Korean War. Mom said she mastered English by sitting in a rocking chair in the upstairs bedroom reading primary school books out loud with all the hatred she could put into her voice, hoping my grandma would hear her. We left there when I was four but I still remember the address by heart. I think of the three of us in that house all at the same time when I saw that upstairs bedroom window today. Look Mother. Look Jane. See Spot Run.
