Henning Mankell

As when any favorite author or artist dies, the recent death of Swedish author Henning Mankell saddened me.

Drawn from a photo on back cover of one of his books, 1998. 

Drawn from a video of a recent interview.
I drew on painted paper and regret the rather
ghoulish spots on Mr. Mankell's face. 

Probably is was the Steig Larsson trifecta that got me enthused about translated mysteries, but it was Henning Mankell's Kurt Wallender series that hooked me for good. Quite by accident, my first read was also the first in the Wallander series, Faceless Killers...and maybe that I read it while in Paris helped increased my  enjoyment with good memories attached. Or that the BBC series on PBS began about the same time. No matter,  I had to read them all. And then I sought out other translated mysteries and found so many more authors: Karin Fossum, Karin Alvtegen, Jo Nesbo, Ake Edwardson, Arnaldur Indridason, Jorn Lier Horst, Camilla Lackberg, Juddi Adler-Olsen, Häkan Nesser, to name a few. And, though written in English, Donna Leon's Venice mysteries always satisfy.

And, in case you are a nut like me, did you know that you can get uncut versions of the Swedish Steig Larssen series? Because they are subtitled, you have to pay attention but it's a great rainy night diversion, and the uncut versions have many more details from the book. And if you are a Kurt Wallander fan, Netflix and Hulu stream a Swedish subtitled series. Just sayin'. 

Cleaning out my box o' stuff. Part 1.

That is,  my box of posts waiting to be polished and posted. I'm posting one a day this week to clean out the box.

This recent Brainpickings post is such a lovely post and a sample of how Maria Popova on this amazing site melds together books, quotes, articles, and images topically and gracefully.

In her most recent post, she reminded us of an out-of-print book, Letters from Amelia, in which Amelia, who, before marrying Albert outlined her expectations of marriage (which included not adopting the last name of her husband), advised her sister Muriel, whose own otherwise decent husband was gambling away the family funds. Amelia and her sister grew up in a financially strained household under an alcoholic father; both as a child and adult, Amelia felt it her responsibility to guide and assist her younger sister.

Maria makes the point that through these letters, one observes that Amelia was quite thoughtful, independent, and philosophical at an early age. She has liberal views on education, human nature, and relationships.

To demonstrate Maria's ability to artistically blend resources, she moves to Anne Lamott, who she is reminded of in reading Amelia's writings decades earlier.  Maria links  us to an earlier BP review of Lamott's book on grief, passages, and the difficult times in our lives we must occasionally face. Although the topics are often difficult ones - grief and sadness - there is an uplifting spirit in her message.

"The worst possible thing you can do when you’re down in the dumps, tweaking, vaporous with victimized self-righteousness, or bored, is to take a walk with dying friends. They will ruin everything for you. ...

...They ruin your multitasking high, the bath of agitation, rumination, and judgment you wallow in...they bust you by being grateful for the day, while you are obsessed with how thin your lashes have become and how wide your bottom."

Here are some other quotes in the varied references of this post that resonated with me:

"but you know the more one does the more one can do...Despite my unusual activity I am very well organized to do more the more I do. You know what I mean. … I am not overdoing and all that is needed to bouncing health is plenty to eat and happiness. Consider me bursting, please." (Earhardt) 

"I felt a moment’s panic at the thought of Barbara’s impending death, and maybe also my own. We are all going to die! That’s just so awful. I didn’t agree to this. How do we live in the face of this? Left foot, right foot, push the walker forward." (Lamott)

And if you should find that you are the first woman to feel an urge in that direction, what does it matter? Feel it and act on it just the same. It may turn out to be fun. And to me fun is the indispensable part of work. (Earnhardt in her memoir The Fun of It: Random Records of My Own Flying and of Women in Aviation.)

It’s called having friends, choosing each other, getting found, being fished out of the rubble. It blows you away, how this wonderful event ever happened — me in your life, you in mine. (Lamott)

The two nonnegotiable rules are that you must not wear patchouli oil — we’ll still love you, but we won’t want to sit with you — and that the only excuse for bringing your cell phone to the dinner table is if you’re eagerly waiting to hear that they’ve procured an organ for your impending transplant.  (Lamott) 

Amelia Earhart was clear as glass and cloudy as milk at the same time, and she was marked for greatness. She rarely failed either in public or in private to live up to what she demanded of herself. She would not compromise with integrity, she did not quail before danger, and she brought honor by word and deed to her sex, her country, her kin, and herself. (Jean L. Backus, editor of Letters from Amelia, on Amelia Earhardt. )

"What if you wake up some day, and you're 65...and you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life?"
(Lamott)

And to further illustrate my point that Maria Popova is a master of compiling and flowing interesting and relevant resources, I quote the last part of her Lamott post: 

"Small Victories is an enormously ennobling read in its entirety. Complement it with Lamott on how to handle those who refuse to welcome us, then revisit Aristotle on the art of human connection, Andrew Sullivan on why friendship is a greater gift than erotic love, and C.S. Lewis on true friendship."

Once again, I encourage you to put Brainpickings.org on your list of sites to visit regularly. Sign up for her weekly newsletter and donate a few dollars to keep it healthy and ongoing. It is, in my humble opinion, one of the richest sites on the aptly named worldwide web. 

A special Sunday Papers post...

“My mother’s utter devotion to the art … of book-selling - or more exactly, the selling of book-loving - and her belief that books and reading mattered, mattered more than getting home at suppertime to be there with a casserole between her oven mitts: That devotion was passed to me almost intravenously.” 

NYTimes, photograph by Sally Mann

Okay...so I am milking this for all it is worth. I posted to Facebook, Twitter, and my book club pals, but I'm just loving this article and loving that quote!

It is from the NYTimes Book Review section, an interview with photographer Sally Mann, quoted above.

http://nyti.ms/1JlmMeH

Sunday again...

Sunday's come and go so fast around here. Lots to enjoy in this, the longest daytime of the year. Ah! Sweet Summer. Here are some nuggets from recent papers, Brain Pickings, and my out-and-abouts.

Here's something I think you'll enjoy:

 
Student Design Award Winner - Curiosity: Exploration and Discovery from RSA Student Design Awards on Vimeo.

I saw this on Brain-Pickings, where I also liked an interview with Neil Gaiman (who grew up in libraries) on How Stories Last:

Stories should change you — good stories should change you.

Maurice Sendak, The Big Green Book by Robert Graves

Illustration by Maurice Sendak from 'The Big Green Book' by Robert Graves. 

Lucas Aoki

This is not my artwork. It is the work of Lucas Aoki from Argentina. It is from a funny and creative sketchbook I found here. It is also a reminder that, if you love to peek into sketchbooks (journals, drawers, and your sister's diary), you have hundreds to fascinate you here and possibly in your own city when sketchbooks tour the country. I wrote about it here.

And there is this creative and playful take on book covers  from May 3 NYTimes.
I think this looks like a whole lot of fun. I may have to try it. Stay tuned.

NY Times photo by Ray Defara

With the U.S. open in our backyard, golf is on our minds. I smiled at this quip from The Onion, quoted in today's Seattle times:

Bubba Watson horrified to learn two-thirds of Earth covered in water hazards.

Go Cubs..

On the subject of fairy tales

I have long been smitten with fairy tales, especially the various visual concepts of the illustrators of them. In my collection of picture books, I have several beautifully rendered fairy tales. Below are two I would love to see on my shelves.  There are other gems here, here and here.

I was detoured from my plans for the day with another post from the ever-fascinating Brainpickings, which has now made my top 5 favorite places to visit. (I am supporting Maria's site with donations. It is an awesome place.)

Hardly any other form of storytelling honors children’s inherent intelligence more than the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, which have been extending a luminous invitation into the dark for more than two centuries.   (Quoted from Brainpickings, Maria Popova

Here is a sample illustration from a new Grimm's fairy tale book. The illustrator is Lisbeth Zwerger. I love their choice of wallpaper, don't you?

Lisbeth Zwerger

Ms. Popova continues: 

J.R.R. Tolkien famously asserted that there is no such thing as writing “for children” — something that has since been echoed by C.S. Lewis, who admonished against considering children a special species, E.B. White, who insisted that one should write up to children rather than down, and Neil Gaiman, who believes that we do a disservice to children by shielding them from darker elements.

Here's another creative artist in a fairy tale format. The artist is Shaun Tan who created exquisite sculptural illustrations in Philip Pullman's take on Grimm's fairy tales. 

The Frog Prince. Shaun Tan. 

Rapunzel.  Shaun Tan. 

I really, really admire this kind of creativity.

My friend Gigi told me that I should really watch Once Upon a Time, the TV series. So I've hunted it down on Netflix and will do some catching up to see if I agree. Anybody else out there watch it?

Back to Books

…about something other than Budapest, Amsterdam, and points in-between.

carved image by me

I love translated mysteries from Scandinavia, Iceland, Italy, and France. Camilla Lackberg's series is a favorite of mine. This is her latest and my favorite so far. I have a hard time putting it down.

Diane Moline

and just also started this one and can already tell it will be as good as Devil in White City and In the Garden of Beasts.

Diane Moline

Sunday Papers Time.

While I haven't done much in my visual journals and I'm a few Sunday papers behind, I have been BUSY this month creating a lot of art, which is always fine by me. More on that later. Here's one project.

But on to Sunday Papers:
Whenever my friends and I get together for lunch, especially if it's been a while, we begin to make an agenda of catch-up items. We don't want to miss any news and views!  Or, if we meet often, we're likely to bring with us our latest clippings - physical or virtual - to share. Let's just say, in either case, we rarely if ever lack for conversational topics. Call this my Did You See opportunity I'd like to share with you over lunch. Are you going to have wine? Let's split dessert.

1

When women pass 50, in some ways, their lives get better,” Ms. Fonda said. “It’s like: Who cares? What do we have to lose to not be brave? 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/arts/jane-fonda-and-lily-tomlin-together-again-in-grace-and-frankie.html?_r=0

OK, I admit it. I'm over 50.

2

illustration by Jessica Fortner

" 'We travel for romance, we travel for architecture, and we travel to be lost,' the writer Ray Bradbury said in a 1990 interview...'There's nothing better than to walk around Paris and not know where in hell  you are,' "

Stephanie Rosenblum states in her essay, "You can't go wrong." Not only in Paris, she says, but in any city "if one hopes to have the kind of chance encounters that make a vacation more than a game of hopscotch around landmarks."  I am such a proponent of this concept that I enjoy solo wandering, hopping the Metro toward any direction, perhaps doing some research first as to things I might find in out-of-the way neighborhoods. I like to get off at any stop (I've done my crappy or dangerous neighborhood homework first) and stroll aimlessly around, perhaps looking for something in a photo I saw or just discovering. When I can, I do the same in any unfamiliar city. Paris is perfect for this: fairly compact, easy to hop on a Metro, something to sketch or photo on almost any street. Okay, I admit I keep my iPad or map in my bag in case I get hopelessly lost (which is, in my opinion, hard to do in Paris, but easy in lots of other places) or need to refresh my sense of direction. And I do this venturing out in the daytime. I will always remember the first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower I had as I wandered about on my first trip there. I was somewhat disoriented at the time, not worried about it, but aware I wasn't sure of my location. Literally,, as I turned the corner, there it was, a total surprise, the top half peeking over the buildings. A moment of unexpected glee I will always remember.

3

"We live in a culture so preoccupied with happiness...that we forget grief is not something merely to get over, something over which we "achieve closure," but a human undertaking, a slow, sticky process of allowing our love to take another, more remote, shape."  Meghan O'Rourke. 

From NYT Book Review, another memoir on love and loss and grief. There have been several lately. Any of us who have had a painful loss, even as a friend or family member helping the coping process, gravitate toward these memoirs, whether or not the loss is fresh. The process of grief is such a large part of life. I think this will be on my read list. 

The Light of the World, A Memoir by Elizabeth Alexander.  Book review written by Megan O'Rourke, author of The Long Goodbye.

A couple of updates and another shameless plug

First, at the risk of being a  nuisance, let me post this article that was in the Seattle Times today about the wonderful Boys in the Boat, which, if you haven't read still, please do yourself the favor. Human spirit, persistence, and all that good stuff.

http://www.seattletimes.com/sports/uw-huskies/boys-in-the-boat-gives-rowing-a-boost/

Next, I recently posted a notice and video of the upcoming Sketchbook Project tour, pleading to my friends in LA to put their dates on the calendar. Now, the whole year's schedule is available, and oohboy, they are coming to Seattle again. Whoo  hoo!  And it's the last tour, so saddle up and check it out!  I absolutely promise on my Sapphire and  tonic, you won't be disappointed.

Here's the full schedule:  https://www.sketchbookproject.com/events

https://www.sketchbookproject.com/library/12829

And here's another plug for my own entry called Hometown Journeys submitted in 2013,

which I would love for you to look at.  Because I did some fold-outs, not all of the pages scanned very well, but I hope you get the idea. You can instead view the separate pages on the Flickr link in the  right column or here.

It was hard to give up the real thing which represented a whole lot of time and work, but I visited a slew of new places and loved the challenge of integrating my photos and my own drawings.

Friday Five

Here are this week's Friday five from this week include three artists, one magazine, and a great resource. I should begin with a quote I found this week from Hunter Thompson.  
One life is too short for doing everything. 
Amen and Hallelujah.

1

I am enticed by Natalie Ratovski's sketches, drawings, travel journals, projects and other extensive work. I first found her through a Paris journal page that was posted, I suspect, on Pinterest.  Lovely journal.  The Pinterest post led me to her Flickr page where I see that she is a prolific artist! I will take my time perusing and appreciating her artwork.

One of her several projects is called An Endless Book....

a section of An Endless Book
Artwork by Natalie Ratkovski

This and the following two are pages from the Paris journal.


She and I share a similar love of extending photos with sketches and travel ephemera.

Artwork by Natalie Ratkovski

And a hand-drawn map is always quite fine. 

Artwork by Natalie Ratkovski

2

Lee.  Defining Me. Pretty darn fun.

She has a collection of women with personality and sputz.

This is Angel Eyes. Check her out.  

This is Angel Eyes. Artist: Lee


You'll like Ivy, too....as described by Lee, "she was known as a perpetual bridesmaid, 
and had the butt ugly dresses to prove it."

Love the art, love the humor.
I found her  on Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's Linky List Feb. 20. 

3

 Teil Duncan. I love the soft, almost abstract paintings from this artist, especially the beaches series. Hardly affordable art for the likes of moi, but lovely to behold anyway, yes?

Artwork by Teil Duncan

4

Lucky Peach Magazine.  What's not to love about its name, for one thing?  As self-described, Lucky Peach is a quarterly journal of food and writing. Each issue focuses on a single theme, and explores that theme through essays, art, photography, and recipes.

guilty pleasure confession:
I love visual collections of things. Sometimes I buy
Cook's magazine just for the back cover. This ploy obviously hooked me.

Obsession is this issue's theme. Seems relevant. I was specifically drawn to "The Lucky Peach Atlas," little watercolor sketches of food places in Paris. The issue has short stories done textually and graphically, interviews, some chocolate history, and a tale of McDonald's and the Monopoly promotion  I found quite enlightening.   Unlike Sweet Paul and Kinfolk, other food and lifestyle favorites, there is a lot more text, fewer photos, and is truly more like a journal. It's not the visual treat of the other two, relying instead on a variety of topics and approaches.

Read about my other favorite magazines here and here.

5

A black carbon fountain pen and Adam from Goulet Pens did this. From Goulet Pen blog. 

Folks who have been enrolled in Sketchbook Skool talk among themselves a lot about the tools of sketching and drawing. (Speaking of obsession, most artists love talking about their tools.) Lots of questions and suggestions about fountain pens. I have always loved using fountain pens, so why haven't I, I wonder?  I discovered a great series of You Tube videos from Goulet Pen Company, which specializes in pens, papers, and inks. Everything from beginning fountain pen users to fancy stuff, a 101 on using fountain pens, and regular Q & A videos. I have already learned so much from viewing just a few. 

A sample Q & A video.

Go with the FLOW

Have you found Flow Magazine yet?

It really is quite wonderful. It is a magazine with quite a different look, few ads, lots of color, patterns, images, artist spotlights, and little surprises within, and it comes from the Netherlands, printed in several languages. It's pages are thick and sturdy matte pages ready for journaling, printing, scrapbooking, envelopes, and paper crafts. Lots of attention to illustrators, artists, painters, artist studios, interesting places and products. Barnes and Noble carries it and you should check it out.

Or go look at their web and Pinterest sites.  You will be lead to artists such as

Dinara Mirtalipova

And Dick Vincent…who talks about his process for illustrations like Anatomy of a Pocket Knife

and who created this:

Copyright Dick Vincent

.

Love my indEpeNDenTS

Independent bookstores give me joy. In my top ten things to do…browse without a timeline in a special bookstore. Read all the "Staff Favorite" notes. Make lists. Enjoy the reader atmosphere. Get a jolt of whoopee finding a used version amongst the new ones.

Snapped at University Bookstore, Seattle

Oh, I admit it, I've ordered from Amazon, I miss having a Borders around,  and I'm always glad to see a Barnes & Noble in an unfamiliar city in case I need to quench my book thirst. But again today I was reminded just how much I value my three favorite local independent bookstores for books and merchandising that beat the box stores anytime.  And when I'm in Portland, I buy at Powell's and Reading Frenzy; a trip to Denver is incomplete without The Tattered Cover. I plan my trips to other cities around bookstores noted in My Bookstore (Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop, Ronald Rice, editor.)

Third Place Books, Elliott Bay Books, and today's visit to University Bookstore always, always leave me feeling deliciously woozy with Book Lust.  (And a good word in for Secret Garden, though I am not a regular shopper there, a bit out of my way.) They carry and promote books you just won't find (even if they are there, sitting unnoticed on a shelf  at BN. I spend too much on books. Always have. Always will.





Have you seen Julia Rothman's Nature Anatomy: The Curious Parts  & Pieces of the Natural World  (similar to another of hers, Farm Anatomy)? Love it for its diagram my feel and interesting tidbits, not to mention great drawing models, for when you need to draw your next katydid.

Then there's Lost in Translation: An illustrated compendium of untranslatable words from around the world.  Author/Artist, Ella Frances Sanders.

gezellig (Dutch)

                            

or the Arabic ya'aburnee

                             











Journalers and sketchers, check out China Days:  A visual journal from China's wild west by the wonderful Henrik Drescher.

Also could not resist What Would Jane Do?  Quips and wisdom from Jane Austen.

I'm certain all of these books cost less on Amazon. but I have special attachments to my books from the independents. All of these stores  recognize their loyal customers with small rewards, but even if they did not, my heart would break at the news that any one has to go away because we readers don't buy their books in consistent and great enough numbers. Books are costly these days; I can't buy everything I want to read, but that's what my library card is for.  (And don't even get me started on libraries….I treasure libraries!)

Starry starry sky

While listening to Under the Wide and Starry Sky by Nancy Hogan, I drew "Louis" - Robert Louis Stevenson.  I think I would have liked that handsome, skinny guy….

new reads

An eclectic mix....

inspiration, part many-many

I have been enamored by several lusciously richly photographed magazines, non glossy Anthropologie-catalog-like pages...so have treated myself to some paper or digital new and
back issues. I know you can find current issues of Sweet Paul and Kinfolk at Anthropologie and a few other similar stores. They are pricey, although digital issues and back issues are less so. But they are well over 100 pages loaded with good ideas and gorgeous photography as any similar book so, actually, they are bargains! she said to justify her obsession.  Oh, and also, far fewer ads than most magazines.

Sweet Paul   instagram.com/sweetpaulmagazine

More later,,,,
Chick Pea
The Simple Things

Uppercase