Announcing a new drawing challenge: The Key

Hi everybody,

I’d like to call a new drawing challenge: THE KEY

I was looking thru some old work the other day, and came across a book I wrote and illustrated which I called “The Uncomplicated Life of Joan Wood”

This is a collaged book of drawings, ephemera, poetry and music (which one imagines would play in the background of each segment of Joan’s life.)

But the key to this book are 9 letters, which I found in a box of letters at a flea market. There is one letter written by a nine yr old Joan from holidays at the sea to her aunt and uncle. The rest of the letters are written to Joan, by a headmaster of a school, by Joan’s friends, by suitors, and by a fiance. Slowly, using these letters as the key, I reconstructed Joan’s remarkable and somewhat heartbreaking life, and, as the letters stopped, I made up the rest.

It’s a slow book…that is…you have to read it slowly and methodically. Pull each letter from the envelope, read the content, read the poetry, look at the images, imagine the songs playing in the background, take it page by page. It’s the key to a good, lazy Sunday morning in bed.

Tell us. Do you have a key? Is there something key to your art? Did you…like me…spend an hour searching for your keys (cabin) only to find them right in the place you decided to keep years ago so you wouldn’t search for them every time (yeah, what are we like?)

Say yes, and unlock a lovely bit of art, writing, photography…anything for us. 😀

As usual, my post will come up on Friday, I’ll link everyone in, and we’ll go have a visit over the weekend. 😀