Posts Tagged ‘art’
creating my niche
create: 1: to bring into existence;
2a: to invest with a new form, office or rank;
2b: to produce or bring about by a course of action or behavior;
3: cause or occasion;
4a: to produce through imaginative skill;
4b: design.
– Webster’s Dictionary
I am very interested in creative endeavors and I like being creative. I am happiest when I am writing, painting, drawing, sewing, weaving, knitting, and so on.
Although I best like to write, I find creative activities substitute for one another. For example, when I am not writing for an extended period of time, I am often embedded in some other activity, such as painting.
Weaving exemplifies the lure of my various creative undertakings. The producing requires knowledge and skill, and builds confidence. The process is enjoyable and time is made available for thought and concentration. The threads and fabrics are luxurious to the touch and the colors are bright and joyful. When I am finished a project, I am so proud of the resulting textile, I want to show the world.
My loom is a simple floor loom, 24 inch wide. I bought it at a country auction, about 20 years ago. My sister and I were among the stragglers at the auction, trying to outlast a heavy rain. In the corner we saw a bundle of varnished wood and some metal parts. “I think that’s a loom”, whispered my savvy sister. When the item came up for auction, there were few bidders remaining, and no one know just what ‘it’ was. At $25, it was a huge bargain.
My loom and I have not been steady company. It takes forever to install the warp threads, and sometimes weaving is hard on my back. But the fabrics we make together, my loom and I, are beautiful and comfortable and good for the soul.
What creative endeavors shape your niche space? What materials do you use and what do you love about them?
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yellow line
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the road is fabric
weave of asphalt
ditch and yellow line
warp of guard rail
fence and heddle
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trees in plantations
lines on the hayfield
shadows on road
hip and curve of the earth
weft as she turns in her sleep
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shuttle piloted
through landscape
and watershed
textile in folds
texture the yearn of the loom
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faults in the granite
potholes in pavement
rifts in the fabric
where weavers might falter
revisit work of earlier times
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learning the lesson
taught by the loom
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choose your weft wisely
balance color and texture
maintain your tension
fix mistakes as you go
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rest when your back hurts
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listen
to the whisper
of weave
of yellow line
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All my best,
staying at home, staying safe,
Jane Tims
the yellow line
Strawberry Kool-Aid Hair with Ribbons
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Strawberry Kool-Aid Hair
with Ribbons
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strawberry Kool-Aid hair
with ribbons
she pushes the button
to cross Dundonald
serious with her boyfriend
her backpack heavy
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she is like
the student on roller blades
skilled with traffic
not slowing near the top of Regent
reckless to the river
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or the man
a block from here
a man with a briefcase
leaning across the fence
making a bouquet
of pussy-willows
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All my best.
Stay safe.
Jane
heroine
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heroine
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her hair
is a stroke of pink
on the brown audience
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more compelling
than the script
or the decorated stage
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not surprising to see
her name on the program
Rose
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in black but for the hair
even her lips
implore the audience
to pardon the difference
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she, the heroic one
not Romeo
or Juliet
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not the dead
but the left-behind
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All my best.
Staying safe,
Jane
spring flowers
Our dominant ground greenery at this time of year is from the leaves of lily-of-the-valley (Convalleria majalis). Like emerald flames they light up the yard. And now they are in bloom. The fragrance is amazing!
All my best
and please stay safe at home.
Jane
next book in the Meniscus Series: the illustrations
For the last two days, I have been in a drawing mood. Not many authors illustrate their books (not including those who work on graphic novels), but I love this part of the process.
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I have had lots of discussions with readers about the right and wrong of illustrating. Some think it takes away from the reader’s wonderful ability to imagine characters and scenes. Others think the illustrations take a reader deeper into the author’s intentions. As an author, I think drawings help get my ideas across. Since my books are told as narrative poetry, my words tend to be vary spare and I think of the drawings as extensions of the narrative.
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I include two types of drawings in my books: portraits of the characters and sketches of the action.
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The portraits are useful to me as a writer. They help fix the character’s face so the image does not migrate from book to book. I am really proud of the portraits and looking at them inspires my writing.
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I am also proud of some of my drawings of scenes from my books. When the drawing is close to the idea I want to portray, sometimes it suggests new details in the text. Some drawings are not so good but I rarely re-draw. Instead, I think of these as representative of the weirdness of planet Meniscus. It reminds me of a line from my favorite TV show Lost. Daniel Faraday, on his first visit to the island says,
The light… it’s strange out here, isn’t it? It’s kind of like, it doesn’t, it doesn’t scatter quite right.”
On Meniscus, the pencil doesn’t behave quite right.
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In every book, there are 23 +/- 4 drawings. Some are portraits or repeats of earlier scenes. Today, I did two drawings, both unique to Meniscus: The Knife.
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All my best,
staying home
and staying in my two-family bubble,
Jane
next book in the Meniscus Series: the Cast of Characters
Other writers often ask me about the use of a beta reader. Of course, I value their input and listen carefully to any suggestions about the book they have just read for me. In a series like Meniscus, the suggestions of the beta reader often help me more with the next book. Sometimes the suggestion has to do with the storyline or a particular character. Sometimes it is a suggestion that becomes integral to the whole series.
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When she read Book Two of the Series, Meniscus: South from Sintha, my beta reader Carol suggested adding a short description of each character in a compendium at the end of each book. I began to do this for the next book and now every book has a Cast of Characters.
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Since some of my characters are aliens, I group the characters as Humans, Argenops (benevolent furry creatures), Dock-winders (self-serving overlords), Gel-heads (unlikeable minions), and Others (animal companions and other sentient aliens).
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In the Cast of Characters I include information on the character’s role in the story, the character’s age, where the character lived on Earth, what they were doing when the Dock-winders harvested them, what Earth year they were taken, their occupation on Earth, their occupation on Meniscus and sometimes their motivation, faults or wants.
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Here is an example, a character description of Zachary, a carpenter and an important citizen of Themble Hill:
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Sometimes I wish I could change the character description a bit to suit the story, but I try not to do that. I also include all of the characters mentioned in all of the books to date although they may not appear in the current book. So far, I have 41 characters, major and minor, who have appeared in the various books.
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All my best,
staying home and keeping in my two-family bubble,
Jane
a glimpse of sickle moon
I am so happy to announce my poetry manuscript, ‘a glimpse of sickle moon,’ has won Third Place in the Writers’ Federation of New Brunswick (WFNB) Competition for the Alfred G. Bailey Prize for a poetry manuscript.
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I’d like to extend huge congratulations to First Place winner of the Bailey Prize, Kathy Mac, and Second Place winner, Roger Moore. I cannot be jealous of these winners because they are, respectively, members of my two writing groups: Wolf Tree Writers and Fictional Friends.
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Roger Moore has also won Third Place in the WFNB Narrative Non-fiction Prize and First Place in the WFNB Competition for the David Adams Richards Prize for a fiction manuscript. I am also proud of another of my Fictional Friends, Neil Sampson, who won Third Place in the David Adams Richards Prize for a fiction manuscript.
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And to all the other winners, some of whom are good friends, congratulations!
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My manuscript, ‘a glimpse of sickle moon,’ includes 56 poems about nature, arranged according to the seasons: winter, spring, summer, fall. For every four poems, a year rolls by, so the manuscript covers 14 years of seasons!
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Here is the title poem, about the andirons in front of our fireplace.
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andiron
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wrought owl with amber eyes
perches on the hearth
hears a call in the forest
three hoots and silence
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great-horned owl, light gathered
at the back of its eyes
the oscillating branch
after wings expand and beat
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iron owl longs for a glimpse
of sickle moon
shadow of a mouse
sorting through dry leaves
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in this cramped space
night woods decanted
fibre and bark, fire and sparks
luminous eyes
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The next step will be to complete some drawings for the poems and add the manuscript to the poetry manuscripts I intend to publish.
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All my best, especially to the winners of the WFNB Competition.
I am staying at home,
and in my two family bubble.
Jane
final touches
So, after a month of organizing and sorting the poems in my ‘forty-years-of-writing bone pile,’ I have three illustrated books of poetry ready for the next step:
‘niche’ – poems about the spaces occupied by plants and animals, including humans, as they search for home. A good friend of mine has written the Foreword for ‘niche’ and I am looking forward to adding his name to the cover.
‘blueberries and mink: summers on my grandfather’s farm’ – poems about life on the farm and the changes over the years.
‘ghosts are lonely here’ – poems about abandoned buildings and other elements of the countryside.
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Now that I have everything sorted, I know I have more collections to work on, but this is enough for now. My computer is more organized than it has been in years..
The next step in the process is to request Proofs. Once I get these proofs, I will do one more round of edits and make a few final decisions on formatting. Then I will publish them, using KDP. I have no intention of marketing these. I will get enough copies for family and friends who would like to read them.
Requesting Proofs is tricky right now. Amazon has turned its efforts to making and shipping Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). I don’t mind being patient.
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Sample drawings from the three poetry books:
All my best
Staying in my bubble!
Jane
illustrating poetry
I am in the process of creating several books of poetry from the many poems I have written over the years. I am now working on the third book, poems about life on my grandfather’s farm. The title will be ‘blueberries and mink’ since these were the main products of the farm.
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There are about forty poems in this collection. I have decided how I will order the poems and done much of the formatting. Since I illustrate the books I write, the next task is to pair the poems with drawings I have done.
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For some poems, as I wrote, I had an image in my head that my hands could draw. A good example is the poem ‘patience.’ One of the lines describes ‘staring down a cow.’ The drawing was fun to do.
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In some cases, a drawing I did for another purpose will find a home in my ‘blueberries and mink’ manuscript. An example is the drawing of old pop bottles I did for a blog post a few years ago. These bottles look much like the ones that used to sit on a window ledge in a shed at my grandfather’s farm.
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Once I have inserted the formatted drawings into the book, I have to make sure they are distributed evenly through the book. Sometimes a poem and its drawing can be relocated. Sometimes I have to do another drawing to fill a gap.
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Next, from the drawings, I have to pick one for the cover of the book. I want the covers for these books to be similar in style with the book title and author name superimposed.
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A couple of the possible covers I am working on are shown below.
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all my best,
staying home,
Jane
Stay Home
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Don’t know how many times
