rocks. just rocks.

I suddenly remembered my Charlemagne.

Different phases.

--where she paints her cheeks and hennas her hair, and slows her paces long enough so that darkness pools in her footprints. And she sends her pale hounds away and calls her red hounds to heel. And the bear is caught dangling in a net, while the scorpion falls beneath a dozen angry snouts. And she waits throughout, in a knit of shadows that stains her pale dress. And then bends, with her pack, to a hideous feast.

Thanks...

...for seeing an old baba into a new year.

Eau de Gerda.

Beginning to think that The Snow Queen is less about devotion than abduction? Well you'd be right. What is it occurs in the mind of a woman past a certain age that makes her frantic for the possession of bottled youth?

It's the strictures of fashion, isn't it? Raise those necklines, loosen those cinches. You'll find an immediate drop in the urge to distill the Essence from every rosy cheek. And a generation of Gerdas free to ramble while a gracefully aging Auntie Horde retires to fireside respectability.

Beside it the wreck of the Hesperus too.

Loose lips sink ships,
and curse pencils to repetition.

Brave (new) world.

What does it say about a person's work when he tries for innovation and ends up mulling around his roots? Not much, I suppose. Experimentation is nothing if not starting from the beginning.

A thunderous clap would have been nice, though--to herald The Tempest.

Proud Parent

This weekend witnessed the rebirth of jessicagadra.com. Alex sat grim-faced at his post, hands hovering over the myriad shining tools--and I paced the linoleum with loosened collar and wild eyes. There are still a few wrinkles to smooth, but the goal of updating has been achieved.

Check out the headers. The idea to use handwriting was an Alex original, and I think it was well done--softens the antiseptic bent, livens things up. Though I'm not convinced that the standard cast of fineline piggies and frogs really gels with my psychopathic script.

Hiccup.

Pay no mind to the stream of nearly-the-sames that is about to come. There's method behind it. Changes are being made in the matrix.

Wontcha come out tonight?

Cheers to the Birthday Gal!

You really DO always come back!

For those waiting: Sept. 21, 2007.

No one's interested in something you didn't do.

Shockingly, The Poetic Edda and The Gormenghast trio are providing weak creative ballast. Not that I wouldn't recommend them to the staunchest wordsmith in need of a nap, but not for the sketchbook are they. One operates on the most massive of scales while the other travels in an obsessively tight circuit, and I like my 'verses somewhere in the middle, preferably in a tame European countryside--hedgerows optional.

So, back to the Snow Queen, and more productive weekdays.

Hans off.

...and when grandmother told any stories, he would interrupt her with “but;” or...get behind her chair, put on a pair of spectacles, and imitate her very cleverly, to make people laugh. By-and-by he began to mimic the speech and gait of persons in the street. All that was peculiar or disagreeable in a person he would imitate directly, and people said, “That boy will be very clever; he has a remarkable genius.” But it was the piece of glass in his eye, and the coldness in his heart, that made him act like this...His games, too, were quite different; they were not so childish. One winter’s day, when it snowed, he brought out a burning-glass, then he held out the tail of his blue coat, and let the snow-flakes fall upon it. “Look in this glass, Gerda,” said he; and she saw how every flake of snow was magnified, and looked like a beautiful flower or a glittering star. “Is it not clever?” said Kay, “and much more interesting than looking at real flowers. There is not a single fault in it, and the snow-flakes are quite perfect till they begin to melt.”

The Snow Queen

It's no secret that Andersen hated children and the aristocracy, but apparently his disapproval extended to skeptics, actors, and, seemingly, number theorists.

Pt. 2

...!!!

Godless sea.

And when the seas receded, they left a seed which sprouted and grew tall. And the birds would dart like minnows through its hair while the sweet, sensitive deer schooled in its shadows. And it mocked the desert summers with a submarine grace and chided the winters with whalesong. And when the simple townsfolk ventured out, they would croon and bow and garland it with sage. And they called it Lan-yir, Messenger of the Waves, and tended it with great care.

And generations passed, and in the fifth and twentieth year of King Meshna the Forthright, Lan-Yir was consumed with trembling and its heavy pods burst with effort and poured forth from themselves wondrous clouds of--

--WEBFOOTED SOULSNATCHERS FROM THE DEEPS!

A chemical reaction.

I stared at a screw on the wall for so long yesterday that it leapt in fear from its post. But rather than fall to the ground, it sprouted wings and dipped, top heavy and grunting, out the door. Seriously.

Jesus in the sheets.

Been stuffing in earfuls of the The Knife. Ignoring the natural comparisons to T.A.T.U., it makes for wild listening. And a seriously creepy video.

Pagemaster.

Still slogging through The Snow Queen.

And grappling with the timeless 'blank page' issue. Drawing an open book presents the illustrator with a very real dilemma. To fill or not to fill. Theoretically the attempt at script should always be made--but the problems of precision and content are immediate and daunting. Should the artist take a stab at what is really the author's job and cross the line between illustration and documentation?
On the other hand, an unfilled page is glaring--potentially suggests indifference, lack of inspiration, or (god forbid) craftlessness.

I go back and forth. And am never quite satisfied with either result.

Bathroom walls beware.

Two for flinching.

Head in the waves.

When at a loss, remember that mermaid silhouettes are always in abundance.

Compass.

I want to see this.