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Tomorrow my husband and I are heading down to good old Rockland County, New York for my 40th high school reunion--North Rockland High School, Class of 1970. The school is now located in Theills, New York and has been since it opened for my senior year. This won't be so tortuous for my husband because he actually went to school with most of these people until his family moved to another nearby town in 10th grade. The best part is that the reunion will take place in Haverstraw (which is where the grand, old school was from 1933 until the new one was built) in a place just a half a block down the street from the house (on the Hudson River) in which my husband grew up, until the fateful move.

Needless to say, this is a prime experience for a time-passing-obsessive-nut like myself. What could be better than participating your own Ken Burns experience? I am not exaggerating when I say that with very little effort, I can put myself right back in my late 60s mindset, in the very halls where my high school heart still wanders in my dreams. In that place, everyone still looks exactly as they did 40 years ago. Close my eyes, and it is not much of a stretch to be back in my old clothes, in my old classrooms, cafeteria, and locker room, with a vivd sense of what was. I can recall the feeling of the halls, the big old windows, the way the old granite and marble steps felt, the vivid CCC/WPA  Depression painted murals on the walls of the Home Ec classroom, and the sense of a solid and substantial building meant to last (they still use it for the Middle School).

I won't go into much detail about how the new, one level, barely finished high school structure felt for the one laskluster year I was there. But suffice it to say that the yearbook staff managed to sneak one four letter word via morse code into the monotmous brick cover of the yearbook itself; that exposed where our collective hearts really lay with regard to the new school vs. the old stately building. It was a very silly and immature act of rebellion in retrospect, of course, but accurate at the time for a bunch of 17-18 year olds who loved the old building and town fiercely. 

In any event, I am very much looking forward to doing some time travel and some great catching up with my former classmates to see where our lives have led us during the past 40 years. We may not look now as we did then, but I am sure that many of us still feel like adolescents in our hearts.

After a weekend of High School revisited in Rockland, back in Boston the following week my husband and I have are having dinner with one of his law school classmates and his wife, after not seeing them for 30 years. Here is another case where it is effortless to imagine us once again back in Ithaca where we lived for 3 years, and get into that late seventies mindset. And it is equally vivid: clothes, food, house, soft sculptured dolls everywhere, while he happily toiled away in the evenings at his studies. Got local yogurt, Earth shoes,

Last weekend I had the opening to the first gallery show I have really done of my own work since about 1980, when I was still working with dolls and puppets. The space is THE GALLERY AT RED GATE FARM in Plymouth, NH. The people up there are lovely and enthusiastic. Even though the space was small, I packed a load of art into it. I had a many pieces of art framed: about 15 pieces from Tex and Sugar, and about 12 pieces from editoiral work and other books. I also offered unframed art in the print racks and I had professionally shot and printed giclees of the Tex and Sugar pieces that were available, and are part of editions of 50.

For an extra dimension of fun, I brought a few remaining soft sculpture pieces from home, not for sale, but to add flavor. Here are the two busts that live in MA in our piano, and are meant to be "at the bar." Martini's anyone?

I like the idea that this showing took place in a gallery that also houses fine handcrafts from skilled artisans all over the USA. The setting appeals to me because that is how I began my serious first gallery shows--working in fiber, and with the best craft work from the glory days of the 1970's.

Here are shots of the show before people arrived:

The hand made furniture you see is by an outfit called Shoestring Creations. And the funny part is that I have a TON of this stuff in my Massachusetts home, so showing my work next to that furniture is how I actually display my art in Needham. I have the same lamp, along with other pieces. And I bought them from this gallery.

Here is when I read my book. What a wonderful audience! I think they may be my favorite group yet. I love the way the adults got down on the floor along with the kids and that they ALL listened with rapt attention.

The nicest part about doing a gallery show? You sell a lot of books to a sincere group of attendees who get to see your illustrations up close. When the art is tangible and right there in person, people realize that someone actually had to sit and paint for many hours of hard work. I think it makes those signed books even more appreciated.

Thanks, New Hampshire, for a great time!

(don't forget to click on the photos to see bigger images!)

Well, I have been trying to wrap up all sorts of things before the summer break up in NH.

One of those things I was trying to do was create a Hoedown slideshow to music that I could stick up on Youtube. The problem is that I am just not that computer smart to get it going....yet.

So in the meantime, I'll just share my snapshots of the evening that many of my freinds and family helped share with me. When all was said and done we had about 145 guests, and it was great to see them all.

Just before countdown, the tent is up, the bar and food tables get dressed, and the arts and craft table for the kids gets ready for action. When the guest arrivem they all really get into the spirit of being cowboys and cowgirls. And people came bearing gifts, which was a wonderful, unexpected and unnecessary surprise.

Mostly we all ate, drank, and hung out at the ranch. The margaritas and cosmos flowed, along with Corona and Dos Equis. And the Tex Mex food got gobbled up by all of us hungry cowhands.

It was great to see many old friends from out of town...

..and near by, too.

And in my journals people drew their fantasy cowboy boots, along with their own ideas about cowboys

Thanks to everyone for making the night a special one!

Even though I won't be able to really post about my party until later in the week, I want to say a BIG THANK YOU to the 145 people who came to the Tex and Sugar Hoedown at the Johansen Newman Ranch on Saturday night to help me celebrate my various and sundry milestones, along with Tex and Sugar's book release. You came, you really dressed in cowboy style, you brought gifts even (pictured above is a super cool gift from Liz Goulet Dubois ), and you were all so wonderfully enthusiastic. It's a night I will never forget. Thank you, thank you.

Some of you I only knew online before the party, so it was a genuine thrill to meet you in person, like Vivian AKA Hip Writer Mama and her wonderful family and Kathy Weller of Weller Wishes.

Some of you are collegues, family, friends and relatives I see often, but often not often enough.

And here are the first friends I made when I first got to Boston in 1981. This party was our chance to reconnect after many years. The first shot is Saturday night, with my husband Phil (can you believe I got him to wear the shirt I bought for him?).

The second picture, as we were when we met as a bunch of artists who got together to paint several days a week. I am with my dear grandfather, my old doggie Otto, artists Joanna Kao and Maria Fang and with us in the old picture is the late artist Pacita Abad, whom we all wish could have been here to complete the picture on Saturday night.

As I said, this party was more than about the book. It was a celebration of the passing of time, in a way, and life's journeys. Joanna and Maria knew me when I was first trying to make the transition from puppeteer and dollmaker to illustrator. They listened to me groan on and on about the frustrations of the illustration business, compared to the ease of the dollmaking business.

I'll be blogging with lots of pictures about the party as soon as I catch up with a few other things that were woefully neglected the past few months due to kids, book work, and party planning. First up is an interview of Kim Norman, on Thursday.

Before I post my own pictures, please check out some pictures here:

Liz Goulet DuBois' blog, Chat Rabbit

Shennen Bersani's Blog

Monica's Cafe

Wahoo!

Nearly six months ago, I mentioned in a blog post that my family and I decided to throw a party for the arrival of Tex and Sugar. Lord knows my family deserved it . They managed to overlook my 12 hour days painting away in my studio for 10 months, while the laundry piled up and the house went to pot. They ate a lot of take-out food. They didn't make me feel guilty--well, not too much, anyway. To tell the truth, the usual chores of domesticity bore me silly anyway, and I am no Suzy Homemaker when it comes to that stuff. So it was great to have a genuine excuse for slipping into even deeper waters of house neglect, with no fear of drowning. But if you read this blog, you already know that.....

Anyway, as we picked a date and made plans to celebrate, it became apparent that this party was not really just a book party. The book was the "excuse," but in reality, and quite by accident, several anniversaries seemed to coincide with it's arrival. If I were at all into numerology, I might think there is some cosmic significance to these figures. But I don't know squat about that stuff, so feel free to enlighten me, if you do.

Here is what we realized I was really celebrating:

35 years of seriously making art in one form or another: painting, puppets, dolls, fiber art, illustration.
25 years of being a published illustrator
10 years of choosing to follow my first love: books for kids

...oh, and Tex and Sugar, my first book as both illustrator AND author. That, too.

Besides the fact that seeing all those big numbers makes me feel a little old, looking at them and writing them down makes me appreciate that life is a journey after all. And art especially is a journey. I initially set out to do exactly what I am doing now, but I got sidetracked. Very sidetracked. I went to one college instead of another, I studied painting instead of illustration, and I got so fed up with art professors that I took to puppetry and dolls with a vengeance. It took some time and distance before I went back to my love of drawing painting again to become an illustrator.

But life always offers distractions. Especially if you begin to raise a family. So it took even more time for me to finally focus ONLY on what I initially wanted to do 35 years ago: work on children's books.

Go over to Hip Writer Mama and read this post. Sometimes you have to take control of things and make plans to follow the dream. She is doing just that. At some point in the middle of also raising three kids I had to make that choice, too.

So here is a brief recap of my journey to becoming an author. I hope it gives everyone some hope to see that many of us do travel a ways to get where we are. Hey! It just happens to be twelve steps:

1. I decided to stop working with puppets and dolls and pursue my wish to illustrate.

2. In 1983 I wrote a collection of poems: "Seven Working Kitty City Ditties." I also started working on my illustration portfolio.

3. In the summer of 1984 I went to NYC with my portfolio (with the ms tucked in) and one editor came to meet me and pointed to the one poem and said, "Turn this into its own story."

4. Instead, I got very busy with tons of editorial illustration and raising three children.

5. After my third son was born, I was inspired again!

6. I started getting more and more illustration book work.

7. Around 2000, I pulled that dusty ms out of a drawer (literally) and began to work on it, in between a lot of book illustration work.

8. I sent it out for the first time. I could have sold it, but let someone else do the art. I said NO.

9. In between work, I tried to work on it. I had a couple of near sales, but no cigar.

10. I decided to focus almost all my time on writing and illustrating, but no educational work

11. It became a better story.

12. In the spring of 2005 it sold 22 years after I first wrote it, and it came out two years after that.

So, for all of you out there who have been juggling families, and careers, but still long to write or illustrate, listen to me: you should never give up on your dreams. And, for what it is worth, my first book as author and illustrator is about that: following dreams.

To everyone who is already planning to come on Saturday to the "HOE-DOWN AT THE JOHANSEN NEWMAN RANCH" to help me celebrate following my dream, I can't wait to see you. Lots of food, drink, and music!

And think of it as this: as celebration of your own dreams, too.

And this, too: maybe a little kick in the ass to follow Hip Writer Mama's 7 or 30 Day Challenge.

Although, it doesn't mean you have to be like me and take 30 years. So get crackin!

Back from NYC, and a long, fun, tiring, and inspirational weekend. A little sleep deprived, but that's the usual MO, so what else is new. Here are some pictures from the Friday night fun at Bar Nine. It was great fun to meet the famous Betsy Bird, of Fuse #8, in person. Here's a picture of Liz Goulet Dubois and Betsy.
I was also very excited to meet Pamela Coughlin, the gal behind Mother Reader. I present Pam standing with Alvina Ling, whom I had the peasure of meeting at Kindling Words just two weeks earlier. Alvina's blog is bloomabilities.

Bar Nine reminded me of the kinds of places I used to go to when I was young and in college: dark, well worn, a little grungy and very comfortable. It also had the feel of having had many patrons for many years in one form or another, as many New York establishments do. When I went downstairs to use the ladies room it was not hard to wonder what kind of place it might have been at the turn of the century, or perhaps during the roaring twenties--a time that particularly fascinates me. The back room was crowded and lively and there was lots of conversation going on, none of which I could hear, but all of which I imagined to be engaging. Here are a few more shots of people and space. Take a note of Ruth McNally Barshaw in her usual stance. I'm going to post about her as the wandering sketcher very soon.

I am sorry I didn't learn the names of many of you, but I am happy to show everyone having a great time!