Greetings from Comic Book Land!

whew, so it's been over 4 months since i last posted. i actually have been busy, and intermittently lazy, with art and writing and teaching and some travelling and such. but what i really want to talk about is my trip to Washington, D.C. last weekend where I visited my college friend Patty and attended the Small Press Expo (or SPX) nearby in Bethesda, Maryland. Patty and I both went to Pratt Institute where I majored in Fine Arts Printmaking and she ended with a degree in illustration. Patty helped introduce me to comics back when i was interested but didn't know where to start. ah, the good old days of "Johnny the Homocidal Maniac" and visiting Forbidden Planet at Union Square. i hadn't seen her for years, so it was really nice to hang out with her and her sister Sarah and discover some new comics talent.

 

patty (on the left) and me. an amazing savory potato-chive waffle and salad at a belgian place in D.C. where i discovered that i really like pinot gris. which is saying a lot since i don't usually enjoy alcohol.

i have to say that i admire all the freaks who call themselves comic book artists. i use the term affectionately, since i have made a few short comics in my time and i understand that it requires an obsessive and self-motivated personality to produce such things. you gotta believe in what you're doing because why else would you spend so much time drawing each and every tiny panel. also, i believe that comic book art is truly a democratic medium. anyone can put anything they want onto paper and call it art. sometimes it is terrible and sometimes some magical things spring from this uncensored and unique format. i myself love comics because they are a blend of art, writing, and cinema. they tell stories that might not normally be told. they are weird and beautiful and reading them brings me a pleasure that nothing else can.

so onto the show! it was totally packed and noisy and full of tablers. i probably missed out on some good stuff because after 4 hours i was overloaded and i know that i hadn't seen everything. i definitely want to go again next year. there were some awesome artists and it was cool to be able to talk with them and have them sign my comic books.

these were some of the gems i picked up at the show. i would've liked to get more, but at some point i had to be frugal. so i'll review what i got:

so Corinne Mucha is one of my comic book heroes. i love her simple, yet at the same time detailed, way of drawing and the fact that her comics are SO funny. i picked up her comic "My Every Single Thought: What I Think About Being Single" which she signed for me with a doodle of a sad cupid. this comic made me laugh and commiserate many times about the ups and downs of what media tells us is a pitiful state of existence. i almost didn't want to part with this comic, but ended up mailing it to someone who i thought would appreciate it more right now. Corinne also just published a young-adult graphic novel about high school life which looked pretty cool. wish i'd had something like that back in my awkward years. oh wait, i'm still awkward. oh well.

this chap came all the way over from Manchester, UK! His name is Joe List and he makes comics that are absurd yet at the same time heart-felt. this one is called "Skimpy Jim," about a hair-creature that materializes from a boy's unruly mop-top. Skimpy Jim wanders the streets trying to figure out the true nature of himself, good, and evil. heavy stuff. super-cute drawing style.

I was delighted to find a former Pratt-alumnus at the expo, Laura Terry! I had once taken a sculpture class with her back in the day. she attended the Center for Cartoon Studies in vermont (imagine - a school dedicated solely to comic book art!) and is now making comics and doing freelance illustration. this lovely comic called "Morning Song" was nominated for an Ignatz award for Outstanding Mini-Comic. laura has a very fluid drawing style and beautiful sense of color.

i picked up "Blammo #7" by Noah Van Sciver, who came all the way down from denver, CO with his publisher Kilgore Books. i'd never read his comics before, but i like the way he draws people and the ways that he tells stories. this collection was a bunch of seemingly unrelated narratives (actually, i suppose that death played a role in most, but i'm not sure how purposeful that was), including the one above about a grim young man who helps out a girl who gets lost on Halloween. the other stories in the collection include a couple of horror stories about near-scrapes with death, an unemployed dead-beat, and a historical account of the beginnings of Mormonism, the acceptance and rejection of which Van Sciver later reveals was a large part of his formative years. his comics are very self-aware and modelled after older alternative comics serials (including fake ads and a letters page), yet there is a sense of sincerity throughout.

David Mack had the most crafty-artistic display that i saw at SPX. he had many little books that showed a fine eye for detail and experimentation. one of his comics, Steak and Cake, used punch-outs on the cover to reveal said steak and cake characters. he also had cards, etchings, and originial drawings. the comic above was a tiny little story about a sheep in wolf's clothing, perfect for anyone who has felt out of place in their world (with a happy ending, too!)

okay, so that's the majority of it. i got my comic fix for sure. i wish the best of luck to all the aforementioned comic book artists and also ones that i didn't talk about. i do admire you guys, and you have inspired me to set aside time to make my own comics again! when that will happen, i'm not sure...

speaking of, i have done a couple of comic/zine collaborations with the amazing Katie Green that i am sheepish to say i have still not posted about. but i assure you they will be in an upcoming post real soon. and i have a few other things to report on as well. all in good time. for now, enjoy your day everyone and keep creating whatever it is you create!

The Rest of Them

Here are the last of the paintings I did for Harrison St. Coffee Shop. I am happy to have finished this series - it's satisfying to see all of them together.

All of the paintings were drawn from life, except for the Asparagus Flower which I drew from a photo. Also, the design on the plate was made up. This was an interesting way to work. I went to the grocery store and farmer's markets, and kept an eye on veg and fruits that looked particularly beautiful or interesting. Then I had to draw them before too many days passed and they got rotten or misshapen. I took photos of the foods so that I could reference the color when I went to paint them, since usually after I drew them I wanted to cook/eat them. It was fun drawing the cupcake. It was a nice treat to eat - delicious!

6th Day of Fasting

Yesterday was the 6th and final day of my fast, and the day i broke it. i felt pretty even-keel that day, but i was excited to eat again. at around 4 pm i cooked some vegetable soup. i used fresh parsley and kale that had overwintered in our garden.

Strangely, eating after 5 days wasn't quite as triumphant-feeling as i thought it would be. it just felt normal. though i was only supposed to eat the soup that day, my tummy kept wanting more. it was hard to know when i was really full. i knew i shouldn't overstuff myself, but i ate some roasted seaweed, many handfuls of raw pecans, and half an apple. my tummy was grumbling like crazy the whole night, trying to process so much.

This morning i only craved another glass of lemonade. i think i ate a bit too much last night. i feel fine, but not bursting with energy the way that some fasters seem to feel.

Early this morning i woke up with several thoughts running through my head. This fast has been helpful in showing me a different way of thinking, and of putting together pieces of a puzzle i've been trying to solve. Originally, i wanted to go on this fast to detoxify as i felt sluggish and unmotivated. i have always had trouble focusing, and i'm a major procrastinator and worry-wart. During this fast, i felt oddly "normal." i didn't feel anxious or over-worried as i usually do. my moods were more stabilized. this makes me realize that i need to keep a better watch over my blood sugar dropping. during the fast, i could tell everytime i needed more lemonade because i would become suddenly irritated and angry. once i drank the lemonade i felt better. i believe that i have internalized a lot of these negative feelings that may have a large part to do with my metabolism and blood sugar levels. Maybe because this fast focused my attention so much on elimination of bodily waste, it was easy to see these negative thoughts similarly as "invaders," separate entities that enter into my mind and become stored inside my body as pent-up irritation. i've resolved to practice letting go immediately. Also, maybe just the simplified practice of drinking lemonade helped clear my mind and allowed me to focus on the fasting without thinking about too much else. i became a bit weaker through this fast, so it may have given me only enough energy to be aware of the fast.

another realization is that much of my hang-ups about food come from a deep-rooted fear of "not having enough" - physically, emotionally, financially. i think i've always been like this. it makes me act selfishly at times, and feel like i need to hold onto things for fear that i'll lose them or will never have another opportunity to have them. i think this feeling has impacted me negatively my whole life. i've read that if you want to experience abundance, you need to practice abundance. i had been trying to do that more consciously ever since the new year, but this realization compounds it.

and the last realization leads me to why i have trouble focusing. this doesn't have to do specifically with the fast, but i believe something about the process helped me to figure it out. it's not so much that i don't have enough energy, as i first believed, but that i MISUSE my energy. i divert it through anxiety, worrying, and distraction. the reason that i divert my energy is that i become overwhelmed very easily. i am not a good multi-tasker. i have always been jealous of others who seem to do many things at once so easily. i used to think this was something i should just get better at. but i have to accept that my strengths lie in different areas, and i need to develop those strengths. i am much better at doing one thing at a time. it takes me way too much energy to switch gears constantly. i believe this is the reason i am so detail-oriented. it allows me to focus much more fixedly. if i have too many things i need to do, it's like my brain just shuts down and i can't deal with anything. I decided that i need a way of organizing my thoughts to streamline my tasks so that i don't get overwhelmed. so far i haven't quite found a system of doing that, so i am searching around for one. but it feels good to know that i've found the root of the problem, and i can begin to work on it constructively.

Ever since beginning teaching at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, i have been sometimes overwhelmed at the prospect of teaching and all the planning it involves. there have been times i've freaked out and felt like i simply couldn't do it. but one thing that helped was to simply sit down and actively try to solve "the problem" - write lists of the materials i'll need, brainstorm on class ideas, and call people if i need help. this very basic way of tackling problems has been so much more helpful than simply beating myself up for not feeling capable right away. i AM capable. I just feel afraid sometimes.

anyway, this has been a rather long post. but i felt it was important for me to get these thoughts down. hope everyone's having a great day. time to go to the grocery store and get some cat food for Dozer. Here's a picture of him jumping on me when he wants to tell me something.

5th Day of the Fast

yesterday was definitely the worst in terms of feeling cruddy. later that night my body temperature dropped a lot - i was so cold! i fantasized about eating warm soup. i also fantasized about eating some pecans - anything with some healthy fats in it. i got the hiccups, which was making me slightly nauseous as it was causing all the fluids in my stomach to jump around. I know it's normal to to get sick during the fast, but when you're already run-down it's easy to feel frightened that something is going wrong. for the first time since starting the fast, my stomach felt SO EMPTY. it felt so scary.

this morning i felt better, no sore throat and more energy. i had hiccups throughout the day, which is strange. i wonder why and if anyone else has had this reaction. i know i could continue on this fast longer, as i think the 4th day was probably the worst. but i decided to do my "Ease-Out" phase of fasting this afternoon. i started drinking the fresh-squeezed orange juice. tomorrow i will drink more orange juice and then cook a soup in the evening! i will eat mostly the broth, but it will be nice :) i guess that i have wimpy willpower. i know that sometime in the future i will try the fast again, maybe make it a yearly thing. if i can increase my duration each time, i will be happy.

i went to the grocery story today to get the oranges and some vegetables for soup and salad. i was very tempted by all the food i saw! i feel like i've lost some of the mental strength i had before because i'm totally obsessed about all the meals i want to make and the deliciousness of food. Though i eat pretty healthy, i'm definitely thinking of how good everything will taste! Evan's grandma is going to take us out to lunch next monday, so i am really looking forward to eating at Kuba Kuba, an awesome cuban restaurant in Richmond. last time i got huevos rancheros and tostones (fried plantains).

i was reading a Master Cleanse forum and  i found an absolutely delicious-sounding recipe for a raw "soup." i have not tried many raw food recipes before, but it makes me curious about getting a raw cookbook. i will post a pic when i make this soup.

***
This recipe is from The Complete Book of Raw Food~ Lori Baird, editor

Abeba and Anna's It's Really Soup:
serves 8 to 10 people

10 to 11 fresh Roma tomatoes, chopped
1/2 red or yellow onion, peeled and chopped
4 cloves garlic, peeled
fresh basil to taste
fresh dill to taste
2 tablespoons fresh-squeezed lemon juice
Celtic sea salt to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/8 to 1/4 cup raisins
1 to 2 red bell peppers
1/4 jalapeno pepper (optional) (i used habenero because i love spicy!)
1 cup sun-dried tomatoes, finely chopped then divided
1 avacado cubed
1 ear of corn cut from the cob
1/2 sweet yellow pepper
finely chopped parsley for garnish

In a blender combine 6 of the tomatoes with the onion, garlic, basil, dill, lemon juice, sea salt, olive oil, raisins, red bell pepper, jalapeno, and 1/2 cup water.
Blend well.

Add 1/2 cup of the sun dried tomatoes, a little at a time. Blend well.

In a large bowl, combine the avocado, remaining fresh and dried tomatoes, corn and the sweet yellow pepper. Pour the blended mixture over the chopped veggies and stir well. Garnish with parsley.
***

and here's a pic of some yummy food i made last summer, as a celebration of food! it's a tofu scramble with cornbread and soy sausage. quite delicious.