Simply Sunday - A Podcast Birthday, Rainbow Hair, and Creative Life

Pivotal points in a creative life, a birthday for the podcast, rainbow hair, and more. Plus a sketchnote of Episode 487 of the Creativity Matters Podcast.

Happy Sunday! Today:

• Pivotal points in a creative life

• Redoing a rainbow hair comic

• A sketchnote of the newest podcast episode

• Week in review

• Illustrate Your Week prompts for Week 24

• Another rainbow hair portrait

And more!

Thank you for sharing a bit of your day with me.

Amy

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Pivotal Points in a Creative Life

What decisions have ended up being pivotal for your creative life?

Are there projects you can pinpoint that you know changed your trajectory?

Or is the map already written, just revealing itself as we walk?

This was a birthday week on the CMP, 17 years of the podcast, a few gaps here and there, but it’s a yellow-brick road of sorts through my life, though my adulthood, certainly, and through my evolution as an artist.

Who would I have been without the podcast? I’ve thought a lot about it this week. The podcast is really important to how I think about what I do, about my margins, about my creative life, and about how I view and see and interpret the world.

I always did all kinds of creative things, but the creative me of now is much different than the folk artsy, knitterly, sew-my-own-clothes, Mary Engelbreit fan who was inspired to pencil and watercolor a few sketches of her sons in the early 2000s. There are so many things I made and did through the years. Always a creative life, yes, and lots of art in various ways, but the podcast heralded something new. There was a transition to drawing and watercolor, a movement away from needlepoint and knitting and painting wooden knobs and folksy farm animals on a storage cabinet to something different, to “everyday matters” (a la Danny Gregory), to visual journaling, to ATCs and whimsical series with mermaids and birds carrying threads, lighthouses, a year of daily bird drawings, self-portraits, photography, drawings of hands and coffee cups, chairs, windows, and quilts on chairs, and records of vacations drawn in cartoon panels, me in my pink Supergirl pajamas on a balcony in Oregon. (Those were the days! Those were the PJs!)

In thinking about the start of the show, and some of the things I’ve drawn along the way since then, I found myself wondering, would I have continued to draw if I hadn’t started the podcast in 2006? Would I have developed the illustrated journal habit I have now? Would I have found the Index-Card-a-Day Challenge or Inktober? Would I have ever really started drawing portraits and discovered that it was and is my favorite thing? Would I have stuck with all the wonky stages of building and continuing to build skill? Would I have learned to stay determined, stay positive, and stay gentle with myself as I tracked and found my voice in hatching and line, in wonky glasses and noses? Would I have discovered the meditative quality of drawing hair? Would I have ever really learned the value of routine, of repetition, and of creative habit? Would I have become someone who values mindfulness and a gratitude mindset?

Maybe. Maybe everything is set on a path and just unfolds, but my gut response to the question is….. I don’t think so. I can’t imagine not having a creative life, but I don’t know if I would have had the same kind of creative life. I think I would have missed out on so much color and line and ink!

When I asked this week about someone’s hobbies, my son replied, “I think we are a very hobby-oriented family.” (And he meant that he thinks this is unusual and that it shouldn’t be the question I ask when I am trying to learn about someone. I don’t think hobbies are that unusual. Are they? I don’t even think of what I do as hobby. It’s so much more important to me than that.)

I think the podcast helped me unlock and discover the creative life I have now. Helped me find myself. Helped me develop tools and life skills that I have called upon through the years, habits and routines that are now both touchstone and anchor. Helped shape my philosophy of life and helped and continues to help me explore memory (or the lack and loss of memory), aging, parenting, fear, loneliness, and more.

Who would I be without the podcast?

And what is a podcast, really? Of course, it is spoken word. It’s that simple in some ways. It is someone who sits down with a microphone and talks. Or reads. I started with reading. I am always a writer first. Today, I do a combination. Either way, a podcast is spoken word.

In high school, I gave a speech about how everyone has a place. (Ironic, since I never really fit in.) The Barbra Streisand song “Somewhere” was really important:

“Somewhere...
There's a place for us
Somewhere a place for us
Peace and quiet and open air
Wait for us
Somewhere
There's a time for us
Someday there'll be a time for us
Time together with time to spare
Time to learn, time to care”

In college, I did performance art and wrote and directed plays. I was obsessed with the layering of dialogue and with words unspoken. I was big on Beckett. I directed Lanford Wilson’s Home Free, for which we made a large model Ferris wheel. I directed readings of my own plays. I took a drawing and a painting class. One of the assignments was a self-portrait comprised of objects. A large ceramic stained glass piece figured prominently, broken but full of color. I also painted a diptych self-portrait and was enchanted by the gap, the space between, all that was unseen, hidden. In graduate school, I continued writing poetry and did poetry readings. I wrote a thesis, forgotten now, that combined poetry with a personal history of women’s handwork and quilting, of feminism and Little Red Riding Hood and being lost and found in the woods. I wrote a weekly newsletter, Breaking Ground, in which I played with language, with structure and form, with the construction and deconstruction of meaning. I printed the newsletter on oversized legal papers in bright colors.

Jump forward a few years and there was a big move, a move with writerly ambitions, all those images of writing from coffee shops. A few years more, and I was in the “creative mom” space, making and enjoying art with kids, my own and preschoolers at the local co-op. We sewed new pillows for the little red nursery school. We redid the oversized dollhouse. We took on the newsletter. We did monoprints and origami and all kinds of crafts. I became enchanted with children’s book illustration.

Somewhere in that mix of time, before we were old enough for preschool, I found myself trying to draw the outline of a toddler. I was captivated by the scale and proportions of a small body in little corduroy pants, a puffy silver down vest, and a navy sun hat. I was mesmerized by the Sunbonnet Sue feel of a little boy in a white terrycloth coverup hoodie with red shorts and a khaki fisherman’s hat walking by the side of the pool at a hotel in Maine. The proportions fascinated me, and I tried to draw them. I tried to paint them.

I had no idea what I was doing. On weekly trips to the bookstore (it was a very different time), I scoured books on watercolor (and brought home many). Many of them I never really put to use. The one that was my favorite and that I returned to year after year for inspiration was a book about keeping a sketchbook.

Would I have continued?

There are always layers.

I wrote up my own knitting patterns. I envisioned my own line of needlepoint patterns. We tried to start a small business and made dozens and dozens of blankets that folded up into their own pockets. I had a knitting blog (which was also a life blog, as most blogs were at the time). I started a “puzzle” magazine that grew out of an obsession in my house with mazes and word puzzles. I created the puzzles, did the layout, and made monthly issues. I had a dream.

My track record with dreams isn’t great. Even making the list above, I see how many times I thought I was making something, carving a new path.

Then came the podcast.

That’s been 17 years.

The podcast has always been a vehicle for my writing, a spoken word version of my writing. I started out writing essays for the podcast.

Would I have had the same creative life if I hadn’t started the podcast in 2006?

I thought a lot about that this week as I recorded a quick show, squeezing myself into my room where my son is currently living for the summer, and then while listening back to edit. I went looking for a “rainbow hair” clip, and discovered that I can’t find all of the audio footage from the first decade of the podcast. The loss feels vast. I can’t even let myself think about it fully, but the rational part of me knows that it has been a lot of years. There have been many computers. And there have been many failed devices.

As with most things, the doing is what has really mattered. (I would really like to find a copy of all those little boy clips though.)

If you’ve ever listened to the CMP, thank you. Every writer needs a reader, real or imagined. Every podcaster needs a listener. I am grateful to have carved an outlet, a space where I can talk and write, be heard and be read. I am grateful that along the way, there has been support and encouragement.

I have made many connections through the years because of the podcast, and I really miss the people that I lost, the people who left, the people who gave up on me or moved on. All of it has shaped me. Thank you for reading. Thank you for listening. Thank you for now and then letting me know that you see me.

“Sunset is still my favourite color, and rainbow is second.” - Mattie Stepanek

Rainbow Hair

I talk about the rainbow hair moment in the most recent podcast (Episode 487). Here (on the left) is the simple set of cartoon panels from 2007 that prompted that show.

I decided to redo this strip as practice in Procreate (on the right). I am spending (a lot of) time working on sketchnoting (mostly in GoodNotes) and getting used to Procreate, too. I learn by doing and tend to just dive in with something “real,” so this was a fun little exercise. I ran into some problems and realized things I still need to get used to or sort out. (My 20+ years using Photoshop both do and don’t translate to Procreate.) I think it turned out okay. It’s silky and deep and inky. I recreated it as close to the original as I could (not tracing it). They look different, for sure, but I left all the wonky bits in and tried to recapture it exactly as I drew cartoon me in 2007. I might actually prefer the 2007 version, but it was still good practice. I sort of long for that me, that line, the freedom and optimism. This is a piece that means something to me.

There was a rainbow hair portrait, too, a combination of fountain pen and ballpoint….. It’s one I printed in my attempt at selling postcards. (In terms of portrait drawing, I have to remind myself that this was four years ago…. I can tell.)

It feels strange that I forgot all about this rainbow hair moment. We draw so much as daily creative people that it’s impossible to remember all the many, many things we’ve drawn, captured, rendered, painted. Only a few will stick with us, maybe a few series because we can think of them as sets, but we forget lots of things that we loved at the time. We are always moving forward.

I ran into this portrait in an older post about ICAD, a pre-2019 post. I laughed when I saw these lines:

“….A few days ago, I looked at the girl with the rainbow hair, and I had a flash of insight. I thought I might just draw people with rainbow hair for a while. I thought that might be a series of its own.” (Old post)

I laughed because I am so quick to find a series idea. The rainbow hair one is still a great idea for me. It is still something I can see myself doing and enjoying. This year, I had a similar wild hair for a portrait series. I didn’t act on it, but I think there is something revealing in the ideas that come up for each of us. They become their own little off-roads and ramps and bridges and markers, phantom roads on the map, indicators where roads might someday be carved, tracked, plotted, or walked.

“If you only chase the pot of gold, you’ll miss the beauty of the rainbow along the way.” - Jamie Worthington

Jumping In

As I said above, I like to dive in when learning something new. Instead of doing lots of practice takes, I like to work on something I care about. I’ve done a few small sketchnote-style pieces recently, but this week, I tried to capture some of Episode 487 that way. Every digital sketchnote will help build skill, but I thought you might enjoy seeing:

Pages 1 and 2 of sketchnote of Episode 487 of Creativity Matters Podcast, A Cowen

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The Week in Review

There was a birthday show this week for the podcast. It was also a week in which I looked up things about timelines…. and end stages….. about what to expect... things I have been reluctant to give concrete shape to in my head even though it feels like they are always there, sometimes all we talk about, always the elephant in the room. I worried about treatments and medicines and tests. I played a game of cribbage in response to an unexpected, “I want to play a game.” I offered to move furniture around. I watched episodes of “Succession” and “A Million Little Things.” I reviewed and signed some papers and then mailed the wrong ones. I wandered through some old photos at Flickr. I snapped photos of people while sitting in the car and waiting at a doctor’s appointment and while walking after a pharmacy stop. I pondered the kite still stuck in the tree, so high up that it’s impossible to see its details, other than that it is pink and there are lots of tails that flutter in the wind. I was given an unexpected guitar lesson. I don’t think I can do it, but that hour was maybe the high point of the week. On the next night, I practiced finger picking “Ode to Joy” over and over. My fingers are still sore. (Other things are sore, too. Girls with guitars…)

I drew a portrait that I really enjoyed, and a doll that was super fun, and a quick hand with a yo-yo, a hot-air balloon, and a cat toy from another prompt series. In and around all of that, I made notes. I jotted down the contours of the days and the week. The journal looks different than these paragraphs, which contain details of the week, too. It is similar but different. One is obviously more straightforward, and one is a puzzle to look at, a whole that when you focus in opens up to reveal a world of detail.

I’m caught in a limbo between past and present these days. Maybe it is to be expected with the things that are going on. Maybe it is the increased writing. Maybe it is my own aging. There are birthdays coming up. I don’t want to look ahead.

I suggested: “Why don’t you spend a bit of time each day, writing what you remember, filling in the story that you know I’ve forgotten so that I have it.”

The suggestion was met with a resounding no.

Not everyone has the impulse to write.

I am watching a story disappear, and I don’t know how to salvage it, how to record it, how to preserve it, or how to capture the contours.

The rainbow hair graphic novel piece used to be clipped in a clothespin-style stand in my office. It was a really early cartoon-style piece. It isn’t clipped there anymore.  I feel grateful for the digital tracks I find now and then, the photos at Flickr (which they constantly threaten to delete), the photos on my phone, the things chronicled at Instagram. But I know that even all of these elements and bread crumbs are transient. They can all disappear, be corrupted, be wiped out, or be removed.

If someone asks you to write your story, give it some thought.

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Illustrate Your Week — Week 24

The new prompts for Week 24 have been posted.

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