Roz Wound Up

Project Friday: Sketching Styles, Storytelling Approaches, Working in a Series—and a Book Review

Matt Madden's 99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style, is a fun book containing a fun project. He tells the same story over and over, using a different style each time. For example: manga, how to, unreliable narrator, fantasy, police procedural, one panel, thirty panels, silhouette, horizontal, vertical, etc.

You can go to his blog at the link above. You can see some of these exercises in style at his project site.

I purchased the book the other day and admit that once I sat down with it I didn't get up until I had gone through the entire thing. It made me smile. I like projects like this. I like people experimenting with different ways to do things.

If you're a graphic designer or illustrator (or a writer or actor or singer or dancer; or a dog trainer, or a parent, or pretty much anything…) you are frequently asked to come up with several ways to "solve a problem" or get a message across and not a day goes by when I don't play with thumbnail sketches to do this. It's fun. Even before people started paying me to do this type of thing I would do it anyway. You can see this in my notebooks from childhood where I worked out different ways to write stories based on what was being studied in English classes, or where I created logos for myself for all the different jobs I might have. (The Rockford Files had a big impact on me and not just because I adore James Garner. And if you don't know what I mean by this reference let's just say I've always believed that everyone should have multiple business cards, even if you aren't printing them on the seat of your Firebird; and yes I prefer Mustangs.)

My point is it's a whole lot of fun, both intellectually and visually (if you're going to take a visual approach to it as Madden has).

And my point for today is that this would make an excellent Project Friday! Working in series allows us to exhaust all avenues of expression and really determine which best suits our purpose. It allows us to formulate an approach that is visually or verbally satisfying. It allows us to foster analytical skills and fit concepts into constructs with which we might be unfamiliar or uncomfortable—it's always good for a stretch.

I could go on. The point is it's fun.

So if you are looking for a project for today and the rest of your weekend I think you could have a lot of fun with the following:

1. Look at your art plan for the weekend. (You did have an art plan didn't you!!!)

Break it down into how many pieces you had hoped to accomplish, what theme you wanted to work on, what medium you were going to work with. Then see how you can switch it up. Maybe you'll be working in mixed media using media you don't usually work with. Maybe instead of painting you'll cut a linoleum block and make a series of prints. Maybe instead of doing a painting you'll do a series of comics panels. 

That's just changing media. Think also about changing theme and style! Permutations! 

2. Think about how you can create a series from your brainstorming for item 1.

3. Execute 3 or 4 pieces in the series.

4. Don't forget to spend some time at the end of the weekend looking over all your pieces with a fresh eye. Acknowledge what works and what doesn't work. (Do be honest with yourself—how does it live up to your thumbnail sketch, original concept, hopes and dreams? Don't beat yourself over the head if you haven't created the perfect piece of art—that's not what this is about.)

Write down any new directions you want to go, new media you want to explore more deeply and research more thoroughly. (Maybe you'll sign up to take a class from a printmaker because you have decided that monoprinting would be a good vehicle for expressing your ideas?)

Note: If you think you would like to experiment with printmaking but don't want to put out a lot of money for the project consider working with eraser carvings. It's similar to working with linoleum blocks, but they are easier to cut. And you can print with stamp pads (you probably have one around your house some where—though if you want to get a really nice black pigmented ink pad I recommend Brilliance Pad's Graphite Black). Check out my series on eraser carving that is four parts and starts at this link. 

You don't have to change from one medium to the next to do this mental and visual exercise. All your pieces can be prints from carvings, but you can carve in different styles…You might do one carving in a cubist style and another carving as if it were in a 1930's advertisement.

Also, whatever medium you decide to work in don't forget the importance of color. You can do a whole series just focused on color. How does the selection of a palette alter the effect of your piece? Are the colors you selected pop, retro, modern? How would you describe them?

Why do a debriefing?
Are you really asking me this? You just started reading my blog right?

I always recommend that you debrief yourself after projects because I think this is where the learning becomes solid and "part" of you and accessible for future projects. You become conscious of what you did, how you did it, and how you can do it again. How powerful is that?

So get your art plan for the weekend ready and dive in. Madden's exercise might be a fun place to start, or you might find that by flipping through some pages in your journal you have all sorts of ideas for projects that you just never got around to executing.

• You were going to do a series of landscape paintings in 4-inch squares. Go to a field right now and start sketching and painting. (Do tell someone where you are going and when you expect to be back. Safety first.)
• You were going to do a series of puffin portraits—get to the zoo and gather raw material for a carving/print, a painting, a dip pen portrait, etc.
• You were going to make a collage using only Dover clip art, or only bits from magazine ads, or only from torn pages of books you'd altered. How can you work on those collages to make them thematically similar but different in execution? If you normally work in a "packed" fashion what happens when you approach your collage with a minimalist attitude?
• Regardless of the medium you work in think about altering how you use negative space. If your style is typically open, fill up all the negative spaces and vice versa. Look at your 5 favorite artists and how they use negative space and work in your theme in each of their styles.

You get the idea—the fun is endless. And I know that somewhere in your journal there are tons of ideas that are awaiting exploration in one or all of these ways.

It's time to exercise artistically. 

Final Note: Madden has also written two textbooks on creating comics with his wife Jessica Abel. I purchased them at the same time I bought his "99 Ways" book. I haven't read them yet, but they look very promising. I'll keep you posted.

Wait, one more really final note: As you may have noticed in reading this, I mention writers. So if you're a writer or a poet you know all the styles you can work in, so jump in too. You don't get to sit out just because I've been focusing on visuals—that's why I mentioned writing earlier in the post. If your theme was bees I'd write a one minute short story, a sonnet, a one paragraph short story, a one paragraph essay, a recipe, even a limerick…

And don't even get me started on film. Make your own 60 second story. Do your theme as film noir, slapstick comedy, romcom, road trip, documentary….Limit yourself as to time (the length) but not as to the creativity you bring to the creation of your pieces.

Loosen Up: Two Books on Drawing (with a Nod to Some Others I Really Like)

My recent experience taking a figure drawing gesture class at the Atelier sent me off reading a bunch of books on figure drawing. (I’ve been dipping into them and will write about them as I finish them. And the Atelier link is just one of my posts on this class. Find "The Atelier" in the category list to read others.)

The line (no pun intended) between accuracy and expressiveness has always interested me. Fluidity of line elevates a sketch to art—communicating in one go something about both subject and artist. My love of line has glued my feet in place in front of a circa 1890s early Picasso sketch where with one fluid line he has described the neck of a female model (he was still drawing in a representational style at this time). My love of line keeps me staring at the quick and studied sprints of Sargent’s pencil across the page. And I can spend entire afternoons gazing at Ingres’ pencil portraits.

In my own work I am constantly looking both for precision (which is game played against time [age], dexterity, eye sight, and foxy cunning [experience which teaches us how to “cheat”) with ease.

While I’ve accepted that this will be a life long quest (and I’m not one who comes naturally to the concept of “ease”) I continue to enjoy and savor stunning examples of work by artists who have undergone their own searching.

Bill Buchman’s Expressive Figure Drawing is a wonderful “workshop in a book.” You can take exercises from this book and apply them every week to your life-drawing experience and stretch yourself. Artists at all levels will find something helpful in this book. You will also find yourself returning to these exercises as warm-ups or stylistic approaches. And your results will vary over time as your own ability to observe improves.

People who work with multiple media, or who wish to, will also enjoy this book because Buchman has fun ways of combining materials to get texture and line (while still focusing you on observations—he’s wily in getting his teaching point across).

His book is also peppered with good advice for any artist to remember: start with a guiding principle of what you want to accomplish whether it’s “any simple idea, subject, skill, technique, procedure, plan, feeling, or limit.” 

I’ve always been a “define-your-goals-girl” so you can imagine I warmed to Buchman’s approach. Rather than being overwhelming the variety of the exercises and approaches he presents, in context of going after specific attributes in each session, becomes manageable.

He also stresses learning to simplify. He discusses the balancing the effects of speed and tempo.

He has this to say about line:

Lines have visual personalities—and they behave according to the way they are executed. Your line is an exact replica of yow you move your drawing instrument. Move it in a lively, feeling manner and it will put life into your line. Variations in speed and pressure are your main means of creating the quality of your line. Consistency of line quality creates unity. Variety of line quality gives vitality.

Lines can be thick or thin, light or dark, fluid or awkward, smooth or jagged, translucent or opaque, and so forth. Every combination of support, medium, and applicator presents numerous unique possibilities for giving your lines these and many other characteristics.

The most amazing thing about lines is that they can define forms and space and suggest emotion and feeling at the same time.

Because Buchman loves line so much you know you will be in good hands to explore it. I think this would be an excellent book for new artists seeking to explore new approaches, or established artists wanting to mix up their habits and usual approaches. As I wrote earlier, it is perfect for taking each exercise as a weekly goal at a life drawing session to design your own workshop.

Readers of the blog Urban Sketchers will most certainly have seen the loose and fluid lines of artist Veronica Lawlor. 

Her new book One Drawing a Day: A 6-Week Course Exploring Creativity with Illustration and Mixed Media, is another excuse to get out a variety of tools and media you might not normally reach for and explore your use of line and your ability to observe.

The book is presented as short lessons pulled from a group blog Lawlor and her studio mates have created: One Drawing A Day.

Each lesson begins with an illustration depicting the theme or approach for the day. There is a short introduction by the artist who created that work as his or her daily drawing. These remarks typically say something about the intent of the work for that day. Instructions follow. Some readers may find the instructions too brief, but I felt that the combination of the components presented for each exercise as a whole provided the inspiration for the reader to jump in and draw. That’s the focus of this book, getting people to just draw.

Lawlor encourages people to not be afraid to over work things and keep pushing. The book is about working your drawing muscles. Again, all skill levels will benefit from hearing this message. 

I like the looseness of all the participating artists in this book and am happy to have their work in a book form that I can pick up and flip through: a reminder to me to let go of fussy!

Before leaving the topic of “looseness” I want to mention again one of my favorite books by local artist Doug Lew: Painting from Life.

I posted about this book at the link provided. If you are going to figure drawing sessions I think that you will find Doug’s approach to the nude both inspirational and instructive. 

In the same post I mention other books on drawing the figure or just about drawing. If you are looking to move both towards accuracy and looseness I hope you’ll check some of those books out.

My allergies and issues with dust, cause me to avoide smudge-able media in my daily routine. One of the freeing elements of my recent gesture drawing experience at the Atelier was the opportunity to get messy with charcoal.

Even a one-day-a-week vacation from your usual tools and methods can bring you growth and new insights into your work. You break out of old habits. You forge new strategies for mark making. You demand that your eye see clearly what is. You allow yourself to loosen up.

All the books mentioned in today’s post will help you do just that. What you do with the resultant benefits is up to you and will be influenced by your ultimate goals for the conversation you want to have with your paper, materials, and the world.

Survival Books—Some Recent Reads

I’m reading survival books. It’s not something I should be doing. In fact I think there is a clause in my relationship contract which prohibits me from doing so—in an effort to head off nightmares and other late-night terrors. I know survival programs on television are definitely off limits—the “I should be dead” franchise sort of thing.

I’m the type of person who has an endless capacity and energy to think through worse case scenarios. Dick jokes that I have a better utility belt than Batman. But beneath that jovial layer of kidding lies the hard reality of a mind always whirring noisily with “what-if?” schemes. 

I spent too many hours as a child sitting in the laps of men who had survived Bataan, or who were Japanese POWs in WWII. I listened to everything. And I learned early on it it was always important to wear sensible shoes and carry a couple essentials.

Of course over the years those essentials grew to include things I could survive without—my journal is ultimately a luxury even though it is how I process; dental floss is an essential. (In a pinch I can use dental floss to lash small things together.)

I don’t actively seek out the survival section in the bookstore (Yes, there is one!). Despite that avoidance I have ended up over the years with quite a number of books that have SAS (Special Air Service) in their titles. If push came to shove (and with my dislike of heights it would have to come to that) I could fashion a rudimentary harness and repel down the side of…well something. I could lash things together to make longer or stronger things; I could braid and weave a hat from non-poisonous vegetation; and I know not to eat a diet solely consisting of polar bear liver—you’ll die of vitamin A poisoning, something North Pole explorers have understood since 1596. (I try to keep up.)

Mostly I just try to keep myself out of any situations involving polar bears. I dated a geologist in college who spent his summers in the arctic doing research. He told me polar bears could smell you 20 miles away, upwind (i.e., the wind is blowing towards you—you should smell them way before they smell you). You do not have to be someone who had the privilege to work with two amazing scent dogs to understand how incredibly awesome a feat that is—and how overwhelmingly demoralizing it is for anyone lower than a polar bear on the food chain.

Even with the prohibitions and restrictions in my life centering on survival books and media, the other day I found myself in the survival section of Barnes and Noble. It is next to “Sports.” (At least in the HarMar store.)

I was looking for books on golf for my father’s birthday. All the golf books were in the “how to create the perfect swing for the rest of your life” mode. 

Since my father is 83, even though he is healthy, I thought any books in that vein would appear too tardy, an afterthought, or simply in bad taste; almost an affront or commentary on his skills to date (which actually are excellent).

So in order to avoid what could only be interpreted as an “ironic” gift, given my record in the family as “lippy,” I rounded the corner of the bookshelf and started to search through the vast miscellaneous sports section, in search of a mis-shelved golf book or a sports memoir of someone my father might have enjoyed—someone who didn’t use steroids. 

Suddenly the subject on the shelf changed to biking, and then abruptly the titles were all “Survival.”

If the books had been less shopworn (and why is that exactly?) I would have come home with many more titles. What I purchased were the following:

SAS and Elite Forces Guide, Ropes and Knots: Essential Rope Skills from the World’s Elite Units, by Charles Stronge (Isn’t that wonderful? I couldn’t make this shit up.)

“Includes step-by-step guides and expert advice for each knot.” (Don’t you love it?!)

(Note to self—they seriously need help designing covers! It’s arguably the most unattractive book I’ve ever purchased.)

As promised the book is full of diagrams and instructions for knotting. Did you know that a jury rig is the knot used to lash a broken mast together so you can still sail home? (The last time I was at sea I was 14 or 15—but it’s good to know, if for no other reason than people are always talking about jury rigging something or other out of nothing; it's fun to know where the phrase came from.)

What struck me immediately upon opening this book is why doesn’t anyone who wants to try out for “Survivor” read this book and know all this before they ever show up for the show? Useful knots like the Palomar knot, the Jansik Special, and the Turle knot would benefit anyone trying to fish. Knowing how to set a snare or make a basket trap might have helped several contestants in their bid to win the one million dollar prize.

If you’re interested in knots you might want to check out this book. If you’re going on “Survivor,” read it without delay.

I also purchased:

Getting Out Alive: 13 Deadly Scenarios and How Others Survived, by Scott B. Williams. 

I’ve only dipped into this book. I can’t do more than that. I have to look away…Maybe that’s why people read these books—the same people read these books as puddle and rubberneck around car wrecks. (I simply cannot even look at a wreck—even before my first responder training.)

This book has descriptions of what you can expect on day 1, 2, 3…of your ordeal. (Just watch the original “Flight of the Phoenix” with a wrenching performance by James Stewart and a marvelously nuanced and balanced performance by Richard Attenborough if you want to see what happens to your body in the desert.)

Interspersed throughout these chapters are “cases.” These are short blurbs about actual events. Often they don’t turn out well.

Each chapter ends with a list of tips like “10 Top Tips for Making It Out of the Jungle Alive.”

(For me, in a book on survival I guess I would like all the tips please, even if there are 11 or 15.)

The book is totally hampered by the lack of an index, which pegs it as a book for voyeurs, so I cannot give it a recommendation, though its chatty presentation may help you remember some of the information should you later find yourself in the middle of an "ordeal."

I’m still puzzling over the scenario of a woman who drown in 1988 in with one leg stuck in Alaskan tidal mud. As the tide recedes the mud, which is a fine silt, captures whatever gets stuck in it like cement. On the date in question equipment was needed to pump the young woman out. They didn't have time to set up the equipment. The tide returned while she was being held up by a state trooper; supported until the water covered her head and she drowned.

This is beyond tragic for all parties involved.

What I don’t understand is why someone didn’t tourniquet her leg, amputate, and get her the hell out of there, before the water came back in? Hindsight is 20/20, but this is the way my mind works 24/7. Maybe you don’t want to go to Alaska with me.

But I tell you this, if I die before you in any scenario where there is no food, I insist that you butcher my carcass and feed yourself. If the situation is reversed you can bet I’m going to fricassée your ass, with a selection of edible plants and wild herbs, all topped off with a wild berry reduction.

"Are You My Mother?"—Alison Bechdel's Graphic Memoir of Her Mom

If the above video doesn't work view Alison Bechdel talking about her process in creating "Fun Home" on YouTube.

A few years ago my computer guy told me about Alison Bechdel's comic strip: Dykes to Watch Out For. (We have a lot of downtime while we are fiddling with computer backups and such. He just finds a lot of cool stuff.)

Then there was a long period of time where I didn't check back in on Bechdel's work. In April the New Yorker ran a great article by Judith Thurman on Bechdel and her work (unfortunately it's a locked article so you can only get the whole thing if you subscribe—which I suggest you do. You can see some of it at the link.)

The article made me keep  my eyes open for her new graphic memoir Are You My Mother? Last week I picked it up and couldn't put it down for two whole days. (OK, I did put it down to take time to eat and go for my bike rides, and I did have to do a little bit of work, but the point is, I wanted to keep reading and finish, but I wished there was more when I had finished!)

I hope women everywhere read this book because I think Bechdel has done a wonderful job of looking at the specific and making it applicable to the general (something she actually has an argument about with her mother in the book). It doesn't matter if you have a good or bad relationship with your mother, or if you have a daughter. I think fathers might find it interesting as well. Some brothers could probably profit from reading it.

Yes there is some angst and generally I'm not interested in angst. But this author actually took the time to lay out what thoughts were going through her mind in an effort to get to conclusion. Following her mix of dreams, recalled conversations, and readings casts a light on her struggle to create. 

I found the way she melded her memories with her readings of various psychologists and Virginia Woolf fascinating and illuminating. I was left with a lot to ponder. Good books don't diminish and exhaust you, they leave you engaged and contemplative. (It probably helped that I was a huge Virginia Woolf fan who as a teen read everything she'd written. But I haven't reread much Woolf recently and I don't believe people unfamiliar with Woolf's books will feel lost at all.)

Because Bechdel's writing and illustration process as shown in the book is so introspective I wondered how she went about putting all the strands together in her brain. I wanted to know about her process. In fact I wanted to interview her about her process. I also wanted to immediately get her earlier graphic memoir about her father: Fun Home—A Family Tragicomic.

In going on line to find the latter I also found the video that starts this post—which is Bechdel talking about her process. I think you'll find it interesting. It isn't comprehensive, but you get a sense of what she goes through to get to the final marriage of text and drawings.

It's the weekend. Now might be a good time to pick up Are You My Mother? and spend sometime thinking about family relationships and creativity.

The Forgotten Society: Alan E. Cober

Alan E. Cober's facility with a dip pen and his intelligent and creative take on his subject matter made him one of my favorite illustrators when I was growing up.

The Forgotten Society is a book of 92 of his illustrations from prisons, nursing homes, and mental institutions. Originally published by Dover Publications in the 1970s it has just been republished (also by Dover Publications).

I recommend this book to anyone interested in pen and ink work, in illustration, and in capturing the character of another human. 

This wonderful quotation from Cober is at the beginning of the book's introductory essay.

I enjoy the electric part of it [drawing], the eye to hand to paper part of it. The expressionist part of it comes from not knowing what I am doing. It is like starting all over again each time I sit down to do a drawing, not a conscious act, like trying not to copy yourself, just forgetfulness.

Short Video about "Moonshine" book from Dreamworks

On June 15, 2011 I posted a couple book reviews for books that I found inspiring and one of those books was Moonshine: Dreamworks Artists…After Dark! (ISBN 978-193349294-0)

This short video is a look at some of the artists involved in that project, at home in their studios surrounded by their art. I think you will find their work and their thoughts inspiring. I also think you'll probably want to go and get the book if you don't already own it.

If the above embedded video doesn't work please view it on YouTube.

Ken Avidor on Capitol Conversations

If you pop over to Ken Avidor's post on the Minnesota State Capitol  at Urban Sketchers Twin Cities, you can see sketches he made while waiting to be interviewed on "Capitol Conversations." And then you can watch the episode (embedded at the end of his post.) He comes in at about 28 minutes and leaves at about 47 or so.

Check it out.

Gabriel Campanario's "The Art of Urban Sketching"

Last week my pre-ordered copy of The Art of Urban Sketching by Gabriel Campanario appeared in my mailbox. It was a delightful surprise because I'd forgotten it was coming out soon. I had great hopes of reading through it quickly and reporting immediately. Alas I am only on page 102. (There are 317 pages, and yes I have peeked ahead now and then.) It's deliciously slow going because I am stopping and savoring everything.

The book draws material from Gabi's Urban Sketchers Blog, and that site is still a wonderful and ever-growing source of inspiring urban sketches, but the book is fun because you can hold it, and savor the art and peer closely, pick it up in 30 seconds before going to a meeting… All the things I don't do on the computer. 

Gabi has made a great selection for his book and if you are a fan of the website I believe you will enjoy the book. If you aren't already familiar with the website I believe you'll enjoy this book as intensely as the discovery of a new indulgence.

Overall the book has an attractive design that showcases the work (which is the star after all) very well. There are a couple points in the book where the sidebar information seems to interrupt the flow for me and doesn't relate to the main featured artist's work on that page; then pages later that artist appears again. I understand the variety of constraints that occur when handling image-heavy books and this is a very small and infrequent dislocation.

(An example of what I mean happens on page 142-145 when the profile for Laura Frankstone begins on page 142, is faced with an unrelated sidebar box with work by other artists, and then on page 143 another piece of Frankstone's appears. I would have preferred to see her pages facing each other. That two boxes might then appear on facing pages would have been less distracting. On page 48 the artist Stéphane Kardos is quoted in the opening text but his work doesn't appear until pages 52 and 53. This type of jump jars the mind. They took me out of the luscious mood of enjoyment I was in and made my logical mind wonder where I was.)

Readers will enjoy the captions which include tips from the artists as well as "specs" on the sketches: size, paper, media, and in most cases, working time. It's fun to be told the media and size to get a sense of the work. It's great to see how some artists work quickly and deliberately and others spend an entire afternoon or even series of afternoons working on a piece. This type of information will be interesting to inexperienced urban sketchers who labor under an impression there is one right way to approach this endeavor. This book will disabuse them of this notion and free them up for their own experiments.

The book is a celebration of individual and idiosyncratic approaches to viewing the world. It is a lovely testament to the talents of the contributing artists at the same time that it provides a glimpse of urban life around the globe. If you like to sketch out in public, whether you capture buildings, people, fashion, cars, or whatever I really think you'll enjoy owning this book and dipping into it, savoring it a little bit at a time, or in big chunks. If you haven't started sketching out in public this book might encourage you to do so. I have to admit that books like this make me very happy because each sketch is a evidence that artists everywhere are using their eyes and capturing their lives on paper. It's wonderful that we get to see this work.

 

Charles Dickens Bicentennial

Left: Sketch of Charles Dickens in an oddly shaped journal I made in 2000 and used in 2009. (The paper is the old Folio and is no longer available.) The pages are about 3.5 x 7 inches. Click on the image to view an enlargement.

Unless you don't get out much and you never read the paper or watch any news of any sort, you'll already know that today is the Bicentennial of Charles Dickens' birth.

This might not matter much to you. You might have really important things to which you need to attend. You might not be "a great reader" (how sad for you). Maybe you got out of bed on the wrong side today?

If so, go read some Dickens. Read him aloud, so that you can hear his voice, hear the vowels, hear the consonants. It doesn't matter that you don't have an English accent, but if you happen to know someone who does, have him read a couple pages to you. (Then have that person call me and read a couple pages to me as well. Thank you in advance.)

Here's all you need to know about me and Charles Dickens. I started reading Dickens when I was eight years old. I've been re-reading him ever since. Dickens saved my life.

OK, there's one more thing you need to know about Charles Dickens and me: he solidified my relationship with my high school mentor. If Thom were alive today we would be together right now, reading Dickens aloud; laughing, crying, and talking about life.

Dickens isn't about "sweetness," and "Christmas" (though he did pretty much invent a sort of Christmas, but not the one practiced today). He's about the interactions between people and the circumstances of life which are greater than people, but which can be seen clearly through the crisp deliniation of the individual. He's about frustration. He's about progress. He's about telling a story of life that is vast and almost overwhelming, yet detailed and specific and containable. He's about contradictions.

He's sarcastic, witty, sentimental, and coldly clear-headed. He wants answers to the big questions in life but he can take pleasure in the small niceties that make life bearable.

His work defines productivity. His life exudes creativity. He was a hungry and curious mind. He was the consumate profiler—and by that I mean he looked around and noticed everything, and could understand what he saw.

I don't have Thom any more, but I do have Charles Dickens. Funny, Dickens is still saving my life, every day.

I suggest you let Dickens do a little magic in your own life.

Google "Charles Dickens" and read some of the interesting stuff being written about him at his bicentennial. I don't agree with it all, but then neither should you. Read his books and then make your own decision about whether or not you agree with what's being written about his work.

My friend Pat sent me these two interesting links that can start you off: "Six Things Dickens Gave the World," and a link to an article about two new biographies on Dickens.

p.s. my computer guru Bob wrote to me this morning and told me to check out the Google illustration for today, Feb. 7, 2012. Be sure to do that.

Ken Avidor on "The Madness of Michele Bachmann"

Ken Avidor, artist and political muckracker (his description, I just think of him as a thoughtful guy with a sense of humor and interest in social justice), will be signing copies of the book he wrote with Karl Bremer and Eva Young: The Madness of Michele Bachmann. 

The event will be at Common Good Books in St. Paul, on Saturday, December 10, 2 p.m.

These three authors have been keeping tabs on Bachmann for years with their Dump Bachmann blog. In this book you find details important to consider as elections draw close.