Creativity Friday: The Sequential Artists Workshop (SAW)

One my favorite things about living here in Brooklyn is the community—I’m surrounding by so many intensely creative and lovely people who inspire me on a daily basis. Two of my neighbors are the well-known comic artists Tom Hart and Leela Corman. I was sad to learn that they’re leaving our tree-strewn neighborhood of Ditmas Park for the southern charms of Gainesville, Florida. However, they have good cause: Tom and Leela are opening an art school, The Sequential Artists Workshop (SAW).

SAW will be a informal, intensive school dedicated to cartooning and sequential art. Tom Hart has ten years teaching experience at New York City’s School of Visual Arts and has been nominated for the Eisner, Harvey and Ignatz Awards. Leela Corman has illustrated for dozens of clients and illustrated a dozen books. Her graphic novel Unterzakhn will be coming out from Pantheon in Spring 2012.

To help SAW surmount the initial big hurdle of securing a space for their school and other legalities, they’ve announced a fundraiser with some amazing thank you gifts starting at five dollars—a great way to get that warm and fuzzy feeling of supporting arts education while scoring something cool. All donations are tax-deductible.

For more about the school in depth, visit SAW’s official website at SequentialArtistsWorkshop.org. Prefer social media? SAW is also on Facebook and Twitter.

• Filed under art and words, creativity, events, friends and colleagues, the art world, the world around me | No Comments

Creative Women Salon update: Your work on television?

Big news: The Creative Women’s Networking Salon is going to be featured on Brooklyn Independent Television for a feature about our lovely neighborhood. They’re seeking to interview creative women from the Flatbush area. If you’re interested in having your work featured on television, please arrive at 6:45 pm to be interviewed by the crew. Feel free to bring samples to show!

Here are the details:

Friday, May 6th, 7 to 9:30pm
Creative Women’s Networking Salon

Are you an artist, writer, creative entrepreneur or practioner? Come out and meet other like-minded women for conversation, inspiration, and wine. At previous salons, we were joined by photographers, crafters, editors, designers, artists, writers, and illustrators. Suggested donation: $5 for refreshments.

This event takes place at:
Kris Waldherr Art and Words studio-gallery
1501 Newkirk Avenue
entrance on Marlborough Road across from Rite Aid
Brooklyn, NY 11226
347-406-5811

More info: http://www.artandwords.com/events.html

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In other news, I’m hunkered down rewriting and revising my novel opening in preparation for the Backspace Writer’s Conference. I’m excited that I’ve already received my workshop group assignment — historical and commercial fiction — and am really looking forward to meeting the other authors. So far, my novel bible is really helping me clarify my characters’ motivations and relationship. That written, this new level of information is bringing up new questions as I write. It’s good in a somewhat nerve wracking way as I’m being forced to go deeper and truer.

I’ve also started running in Prospect Park with my friend illustrator Amy Saidens. And I’ve already injured myself. I feel like such a rube since I committed a classic newbie mistake: I didn’t get my running shoes checked out even though they were bothering me. Frankly, I didn’t want to spare the time or the money to shop for a new pair. Plus I figured my shoes were good enough for a beginning runner. So bad running shoes = lack of support in ankle =  intense knee pain.

I spent most of yesterday with my knee packed in ice and feeling deeply humbled. The good news is that my knee is already healing. And I’ve learned an important lesson: Don’t skint on time or money. This is a lesson I already know when it comes to my creative work, so I should have known better.

• Filed under The Novel, be-mused, creativity, friends and colleagues, studio and gallery | No Comments

Book Giveaway: Stephanie Cowell’s CLAUDE AND CAMILLE

Last year, I interviewed acclaimed novelist Stephanie Cowell about her book CLAUDE AND CAMILLE, which relates the little known story of Claude Monet’s first wife, Camille Doncieux. Good news: CLAUDE AND CAMILLE is now available in paperback with a gorgeous new cover—and we’re giving away five copies of it. (Rules and more below.)

Besides CLAUDE AND CAMILLE, Stephanie’s other best-selling novels include MARRYING MOZART and THE PLAYERS. She is currently writing a novel about Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Here’s an excerpt from last year’s wonderfully inspiring interview:

KW: CLAUDE & CAMILLE is quite the delectable tearjerker — Camille is such a quicksilver, tragic muse of a character! What was the hardest part about writing about her? What did you find most compelling? Most difficult?

SC: Camille was the most difficult character in the book and the last to develop into a full, complex character. In an early version she was just a sweet young thing from a poverty background, but when I learned her background was upper-class it made a difference. When I was in my early 20’s I knew a few girls, one who kept lying because she wanted to appear fascinating and then didn’t know truth from fiction and a few (me too) who threw away good homes to live in poverty and wash diapers by hand, feeling we were among the genuine people. My editor kept coaxing Camille from me during the editorial stage and she just grew into something we both didn’t expect. Her terror of growing older, her secret letters to an unknown man…that sort of all came to flower (so to speak) towards the end of the writing process.

KW: One of the things I loved about CLAUDE & CAMILLE is the visceral sense of nineteenth century Paris you’ve evoked — the artists’ gatherings with their rough red wine, the scrounging for oil paint, the renting of model’s clothing, and so on. It’s all very La Bohéme. Can you describe your research process? How long did it take? Do you research before you begin to write?

SC: Research takes place before, during and then after in a way. You keep adding things. I love to find bits of daily life and stick them in. I guess I was researching the whole time. Various biographers had different opinions of the characters, and of Camille herself there was very little known at all. I worked with old photographs and paintings and many books. I walked the streets of Paris where Claude had walked and I went to Giverny….

You can read the rest of the interview here.

As I mentioned above, the good people at Crown Books has generously given us five copies of the paperback edition of CLAUDE & CAMILLE to give away. (Not one. Not two. But five!) To win one, simply leave a comment by midnight, April 14, 2011. It’s that simple. However, if you want to spice it up with a recommendation for a novel you recently read and enjoyed, I’ll give you a second entry. I’m always interested to hear what others are reading!

The small print: Only one comment per person. Book can only be shipped to U.S. or Canadian mailing address. Winner will be chosen at random and announced here April 15th. Good luck to all!

• Filed under friends and colleagues, giveaways and raffles, retail therapy, reviews + press | 6 Responses

Creativity Friday: Closing reception, ON THE ROAD OF BONES

I’m so very close to finishing up this DOOMED QUEENS follow up princess proposal that it’s frustrating — hopefully today! It’s been an amazing amount of work, ut as soon as I think “that’s it!” I find another way to improve it. And I’m the sort of person who can’t let go of a project unless I feel that I’ve done everything I can on it. It’s a blessing and a curse.

In the midst of this, mucho activity is going on at the gallery. The big news is that our current exhibit, On the Road of Bones: Ghosts of the Siberian Gulag Along the Old Kolyma Highway is closing tomorrow. I hope you’ll join us for a last look at this stunning exhibit! The curator will be on hand to answer any questions you may have about the coldest place on earth. We’ll also have refreshments. Here are the details:

Saturday, March 5th, 1 – 4 pm
CLOSING RECEPTION: ON THE ROAD OF BONES
Children welcome. Free admission.

About this exhibit: Through photography and mixed media, this exhibition reveals the secret history and natural beauty of Kolyma, formerly the land of Soviet labor camps and the coldest inhabited region in the world. Stunning new works by young native Siberian photographers Bolot Bochkarev, Nastya Borisova, and Ajar Varlamov trace the remains of the vast highway built across the taiga, tundra, and permafrost of North Asia by Stalin’s prisoners. “On the Road of Bones” juxtaposes the events of the hidden past with the power of the frozen landscape and the contemporary lives of people in the far north. Learn more at OntheRoadofBones.com.

This event takes place at:
Kris Waldherr Art and Words studio-gallery
1501 Newkirk Avenue (entrance on Marlborough Road, across from Rite Aid)
http://www.artandwords.com/events.html
directions

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Our next exhibit opens the following Saturday! Here’s the poster for it:

More information to come very very soon—as soon as I get this long-aborning proposal off my desk!

• Filed under creativity, events, friends and colleagues, new projects, queens, studio and gallery | 3 Responses

Creativity Friday: Creative Women’s Salon — and a quick update

Tonight’s the night: the Creative Women’s Networking Salon returns to the gallery for the first time since 2010. I’ll have red wine, chocolate, and other yummy refreshments to stoke your inspiration. Here are the details:

Friday, February 25, 7 – 9:30 pm
CREATIVE WOMEN’S NETWORKING SALON

Are you an artist, writer, or creative entrepreneur and practioner? Come out and meet other like-minded women for conversation, inspiration, and wine! At our previous gatherings, we were joined by photographers, crafters, editors, designers, artists, writers, and illustrators. We also had a lot of fun. $5 suggested donation for refreshments. Directions and address.

Hope to see you there!

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In other creativity-related news, Thea’s been home from school this past week. We’ve had some delightful adventures including a road trip to the fabulous Eric Carle Museum. Their bookstore there is one of the best I’ve ever been to — I definitely broke the bank buying books for myself and Thea. But now I’m very backlogged with work, alas, and am dealing with the perpetual struggle to balance everything. Here’s what’s going on here:

~ Preparing for the new children’s book illustration show. I have five wonderful illustrators lined up, but think I need one more. The show opens in mid-March, so time is getting tight!

~ Finishing up the long-aborning book proposal for the DOOMED QUEENS follow up, which is about (drum roll) princesses. It’s probably the most design-intense job I’ve done since my iPhone apps.

~ Revising the next part of THE LILY MAID for a novel-writing workshop I’m taking in April at the Sackett Street Writers. It’s the first writers’ workshop I’ve taken since (gulp) college. I’m excited but anxious.

~ Research, research, and more research for both THE LILY MAID and the princess proposal! I have a tall pile of books that I’m wading through — great stuff! They range from books on the history of fairy tales to Victorian sexual obsessions and nineteenth century medical history and Wilhelm Wundt and early anthropology and science of the Enlightenment and more. Gotta love my job!

~ On top of that, I’ve gotten in several design jobs — websites to cd design to book trailer videos. The cd design is for composer Robert Patterson, who’s written a chamber music suite inspired by my BOOK OF GODDESSES. It was debuted last summer—it’s wonderful. I feel so thrilled and honored to be involved.

~ Plus I’m in the midst of publicizing Art and Words Editions, my new e-book imprint. I’m about half-way through my “to-do” list with that — I want to get my authors’ books out there as much as possible.

~ And more, believe it or not. Thea’s sixth birthday is coming up in March, so there’s much to celebrate.

It’s all good. But it’s also a bit overwhelming. And with that, I should get to work!

• Filed under creativity, events, friends and colleagues, studio and gallery | One Response