Monday, February 8, 2016

Wild places







 




"The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind."
Katherine Mansfield

(quote chosen by my friend, author of this book of 'seeds', which is part self-help, part creativity notebook, part memoir, and one example of something intimate and personal that is at the same time all the more universal for it)


This collaborative project is now out in book form. Re-reading it, I stumbled across the part about the inability to finish a project. They are my friend's words, but that paragraph could have been written by me (less eloquently). The illustrations had been finished for a while, but finding the mental and temporal space to learn the graphic design skills I needed to create a book proved challenging.  But now, years after we started it, we are holding it in our hands. And it turns out I love putting together books. Not as much as I love the more immediate drawing and painting stage, the tactile, visceral bit, but there is something very satisfying about designing something for print. Thank you to Pilar and Irma for their patience. I am glad their words will reach more people now.