No. 57 – Struggles the Clown

Capricious bugger

Oct 28, 2022

Welcome to the latest issue of Feed the Monster: a monthly art journal for creative, curious, imperfect and sometimes disheveled humans.

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Few will remember Struggles the Clown, the patron saint of a Ladies Night at my house some years ago. A musician friend was having trouble with her songwriting at the time and I guess we said “struggles” so many times that it took on a life of its own and somehow became Struggles the Clown. You know how it is.

I got up to pee at 5:00 a.m. this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep, and I started to think about Struggles. Struggles is with me—I may as well admit it and stop kidding myself every two days that I have the new, best idea for how to move forward with my creative life after my forced break.

Stop resisting what is. Embrace Struggles.

But witness the caprice of Struggles. As I lay awake this morning Struggles the Clown provided me a way into this edition of Feed the Monster. “Write about Struggles”, said Struggles. “Just work in your sketchbook and stop thinking you can combine quick practice paintings with producing things to sell.” Wow, okay. Struggles giveth, and Struggles taketh away.

Right now Struggles giveth, so I’m jumping on it.

Last month I wrote about beginning, and yes I was. That part was not a lie. But I was kidding myself if I thought, however briefly, that I could spring straight into producing pages for Life’s Work the graphic memoir. I’m too rusty. Thank you Struggles, I understand now. I need to accept whatever Struggles brings and not argue about it. I need to practice patience, and be unashamed of my Struggles. I need to chill the fuck out.

THANKS STRUGGLES!

LIFE’S WORK, THE GRAPHIC MEMOIR IN PROGRESS

Please go here to learn about Life’s Work, a visual memoir about my mother’s Lewy Body dementia, and my relationship with her.

“My mother and father split for good two months before I was born”

In the spirit of being unashamed of Struggles, I give you my sketchbook effort from the other day. Yeesh. I actually laughed when I did this—my mother with her splayed hand, swimming pool abdomen, giant sea-horse fetus and Amy Winehouse legs. Oh–em–gee.

Someday, when I’m less rusty and feel ready to produce pages for the actual graphic memoir, this will be the opening scene. Growing up, I’d always thought my parents had split for good one year after my birth. But in doing research for the memoir I found their divorce papers from 1978, and the grounds for divorce are stated as:

There has been a permanent breakdown of the marriage between the petitioner and respondent and the parties have not cohabited together since the month of March 1960.

That’s two months before I was born. And it’s true—there are no photos of my father from that time. It’s always just Mom. We can never really know precisely what happened in the past… even our own past. It’s always shifting sands.

Back in 2010 I started a blog on BLOGGER called Feeding the Monster. Yes. Why didn’t I stick with that name for this newsletter, instead of changing it to FEED the Monster? I don’t remember.

Anyhoo, I started that blog because I’d read an article that said people like to “get to know the artist”, and see their process. So I started posting—for who I don’t remember but probably no-one—and I really loved doing it (as I love doing this). One thing I liked to post was images of artwork by artists I loved, so of course I posted about my favourite local painter, J. McLaughlin. And I would like to do that again now.

For the past while, J has been painting and posting beautiful little abstracts on paper—watercolour, acrylic, and mixed media. But what I fell in love with back in the day were her acrylic paintings that are layers and layers of imagery (sometimes “degraded”) taken from 50’s and 60’s ads (and other media. I think). They are so damn good—we have several of them around these parts. When I work at the table in the house (as opposed to my studio) I look straight at a beloved J painting hanging in the hallway:

Can you see the little boy in the background?

Lucky me.

SUPPORT LOCAL ARTISTS!

Last month I “went paid”, meaning that you can now pay monthly for Feed the Monster if you find it in your heart to support my work here and in my studio. It will also remain free. The newsletter doesn’t yet have a large reach compared to many, but it does have a great open rate which means that a goodly percentage of people who subscribe do actually open it (and presumably read it). I choose to take this as an encouraging sign that I should keep going. Keep improving my “offering”. Keep searching for that square one of BA-ness where my essence flows freely from every pore. Ew, okay, maybe not that freely. But in that vicinity.

I mentioned last month that I pay for a few newsletters: Austin Kleon, Subtle Maneuvers, and Maybe Baby. Today I added Café Anne to that list—another newsletter that I thoroughly enjoy every time I read it. Honestly, since the pandemic began, how many streaming services do I pay for that I’m no longer even using? (I should really look into that). These newsletters are a fraction of the price, and far more edifying than most of what I end up watching on the boob tube.

There—that’s my diabolical way of plugging both their newsletters and my own.

As I was saying… nothing cosier than a pipe cleaner scarf

Experimental new feature… ASK ME ANYTHING!

And of course I don’t have all the answers, haha. But if you’ve ever read anything here that’s made you curious, ask away. About studio process, or methods, or artistic blocks, or book recommendations, or resources to mine, or art materials. Or perhaps anything to do with being an HSP, or an introvert, or an alien from a distant planet. Then there’s the world of dementia and “care”. ASK ME.

I’m curious about what you’re curious about.

Ask in the comments, or respond to this email if you’d rather keep it private. Or write to me here.