An Excerpt From "Karl & The Terribly Fantastic Beard" | Prologue

The elderly couple were walking on the beach. They were walking very fast, stopping now and then to scan the horizon. The woman was wearing green galoshes and a canvas jacket pulled up around short, grey curls. The man was wearing a worn railroad cap which he kept taking off and on, and then off again. The woman paused again, shaded her face with her hand and looked out at the water. Her brow was furrowed.  

The beach was littered with bits of tree branches and trash. There was a deflated, brownish float which may have once been a pink flamingo. There was also an oar and a handful of dead fish. The old woman continued to frantically survey the beach.

Her son, his wife, and their new grand baby should have arrived the night before, but then that terrible storm had kicked up out of nowhere. It was vicious. She’d thought the little train car they lived in might blow right over the cliff and into the sea. The woman couldn’t stand the thought of her son and his family out on the water in such horrible conditions.

The amount of rubbish washed up on the beach was unbelievable. The storm seemed to have churned up everything from the guts of the sea – everything except any sign of their son’s boat. The pit in the old woman’s own stomach was beginning to deepen. Suddenly, she felt her husband grab hold of her arm.

“Petra –”

“What is it, Joe?” she asked. “Do you see something?” Her husband pointed a gnarled finger down the beach.

“Is that some kind of dog?” he asked. Her eyesight wasn’t very good, but it was certainly better than her husband’s. Up ahead, in the sand, something moved. The woman squinted. Then her eyes went wide with surprise.

There, lying on the sand just a few hundred feet away was not a dog, but a very large... turtle? It really was very big. It looked to be about the size of a 10-gallon ice chest... although whatever it was, it did seem a bit lumpy there in the back. Then she realized there was something resting on top of it. Something a bit orange and pink...

“Oh my god!” Petra screamed. The old couple began to run, each tripping and falling, first one, and then the other. They hobbled in the sand until they reached the great animal (which, by the way, was a tortoise, not a turtle) with its stony legs trenched deep in the sand. On the tortoise’s dappled shell, sleeping soundly in the sun, was baby Karl. The old couple knew immediately it was their grandson. Apart from his red hair every bit of his sweet, sleeping face was a carbon copy of his father’s.

Miraculously there wasn’t a scratch on him. In fact, there was absolutely nothing too worrisome or remarkable about baby Karl in any way --- well, except for one surprising quality. One strange, yet marvelous quality... a terribly fantastic quality (if I do say so myself). On his tiny, rounded chin, there was a coppery little glint. In the little train car on the cliff his grandmother lightly grazed her thumb over the shimmery spot as she held him in her arms.

“Look, Joe,” she whispered, “he has a little beard.” 

"Christmas Eve Dance" | Holiday Memories & Illustration Process

When my family lived in Hawaii my dad bought a big, warm-colored koa wood “entertainment center.” I put entertainment center in quotation marks because that’s how we always referred to it. Really it was just a big cabinet —a bit like a standing wardrobe except built to house electronics instead of sweaters. From Hawaii on, it moved everywhere with us.

It was built with a long cabinet door on the left side, and then another cabinet which could store a tv, (but never did, at least in my memory) and a set of drawers beneath it. The cabinet to the left held my dad’s CD player, which I never fully understood how to use. I did learn if you mashed one or two of the buttons, generally, (after a bit of sputtering) it would open and allow you to feed it up to five CDs at once. Inside there was a distinct smell — part oiled wood, part heated dust from the whirring of the player.

My dad has a pretty decent CD collection which he always kept in the second bottom drawer of the entertainment center. Certain occasions called for certain soundtracks. Breakfast for example, was the Cazimero Brothers. Dinner was Vivaldi. Weekend mornings ranged from Boston and Queen, to Whitney or Toni Braxton.

During Christmas, Dad would have my brother or I cue up two very specific Christmas albums: Merry Christmas, Baby (his preference, which includes ten tracks of classic 1950s and 60s Christmas songs) and En Riktig Svensk Jul (my mom’s preference — a collection of very old Swedish holiday music, which for any non-Swedish person would probably sound extremely strange. My husband, Michael, would likely agree, except now I think he’s just used to it.) To me, both of these albums are the definition of what Christmas sounds like.

A handful of Christmases ago, I was listening to Merry Christmas, Baby while decorating the tree with Michael. As we strung up lights and hung ornaments, I recognized a very old feeling. It’s the same feeling I have every time I hear these songs. Or, maybe, it’s less of a feeling really, and more like the sensation around an idea. Like nostalgia for something you haven’t quite experienced yet, but would like to.

Those Christmas songs, especially the old school stuff — “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” “The Christmas Song,” (aka Chestnuts roasting on an open fire…) “I’'ll Be Home For Christmas,” “Rocking Around The Christmas Tree,” or “You’re All I Want For Christmas,” — these songs shaped an idea about what it might like to be grown up. What it would be like to have parties, or be in love during the holidays, or to decorate with someone else in your own home.

It was funny, because while I was consciously recognizing this childhood experience for the first time, I was also actively doing the very things those songs made me wonder about. I was decorating with my partner, in our shared home, as a grown up (well, mostly, anyways).

Yet, listening to those songs evoked the same sort of wistfulness it did for me at twelve years old. Like a sort of foggy, still-life-daydream of what my older self and one-day life may be like, which may or may not include sitting regally by a fireplace in a fancy apartment somewhere. Perhaps at a holiday cocktail party? But most definitely in a big city, where it would be snowing (obviously).

That year, the year of the revelation, I was in San Diego (Big city — check). I was living in an apartment, but it was certainly not fancy. It was also certainly not snowing. But it was ours, and it was really wonderful. It was a really wonderful time in both of lives.

There’s the idea of something, and then there’s our lived experiences. Sometimes these seem to exist in tandem, no matter how old we get. I can’t help but smile when this happens. It’s like experiencing little synaptic glitches that reveal earlier versions of myself. As if little me is just stopping by for a moment to remind me of her ideas and feelings. There’s something sweet about it.

Anyways, this month’s illustration, Christmas Eve Dance, was inspired by that sweetness.

Also, in case you’re curious about my illustration process, here’s a few behind-the-scenes snaps of the development.

ROUGH SKETCH

I roughed out my sketch and used masking fluid to cover the areas I wanted to keep bright. Usually I tape off a border, but I couldn’t find the right size paper and I was too impatient, so I just went for it and decided I’d create a border later on in Procreate.

Tone & Color Palette Set Up

Then, I toned the paper with yellow ochre to set the mood of the painting. I wanted to keep it warm and a create a sort of vintage feel. Choosing a color palette is something I still struggle with quite a bit. There’s always something that gets a bit lost in translation from your head to the page, and I find translating the “feeling” of my ideas the most difficult.

I didn’t go through a traditional art school program, so color theory is something I’ve sort of had to muddle my way through. It’s a goal of mine to keep exploring color and color theory a bit more in the coming year in order to become more comfortable and hopefully make this translation a bit easier. For this one I landed on yellow ochre, alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue.

Inking

I don’t typically ink before I paint, but this time I decided to use Octopus Ink in Seahorse Brown to outline before going in with color.

Finishing

After painting I used some color pencils to add a bit more texture and details and then threw it in Procreate to clean up a few things…. and there you have it! The final piece:

MATERIALS

• 5x7 piece of hot press watercolor paper

• Prismacolor pencils & Derwent drawing pencils

• Sennelier Alizarin Crimson, Ultramarine blue, and Yellow Ochre

• Princeton Select Round Brush,Size 12 and Princeton Neptune Brush, Size 4

• Procreate

Thank you for all who have followed along with me this year. I so appreciate your support and interest in my work.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and start to the New Year.

Love,

Sara

Some Birthdays

          The first birthday I remember feeling true angst about was my thirteenth. There seems to be a lot of build up to the thirteenth birthday. I’m sure many of us (mainly girls, probably) remember our uncles and aunts, our parent’s friends and adults who are a bit awkward with kids saying things like, “Big 13 this year, huh?” or, “Ready to be a teenager?”

There are birthdays and then there are birthdays. There are some birthdays, like 13, that signify the “end” of childhood. Although, I think many would agree this is a nebulous age —a sort of limbic space between childhood and adulthood. There is the 16th which, in American culture anyways seems to coincide with the newfound freedom of the open road. There is 18 (woo-hoo adulthood!) and 21 (no more fake IDs!) and of course there is 30. It seems the rest start to blur into one.

On my ninth birthday, my mom decorated our dining table with a parade of plastic animal figurines. A tiger, an elephant, and a polar bear with teeth and black gums bared, are the ones that stick out in my mind. That evening my entire family, my dad and mom, my little brother and I went to the Barnum and Bailey circus.

On my 18th birthday my mom and I spent the day at a cottage spa. The woman who gave my mom a pedicure told her she had “summer feet.” She remarked on how perfect the half-moons of her toes were, and I remember how it made my mom smile the rest of the day.

On my 21st birthday, my mom took me on a roadtrip to New Hope, Pennsylvania — a little artists’ colony tucked into the eastern part of the state. It was just the two of us, and we stayed in a bed and breakfast which smelled like a perfect 1:1 ratio of maple syrup and Joann Fabrics. We browsed the New Hope galleries all day, and on the evening of my birthday we went to a creole restaurant which had taken up residence in an old, stone church. I ordered wine and when the waitress didn’t blink, my mom made her check my ID — for the ceremony of it, of course.

On my 30th birthday my parents, my cousin, my now-husband, Michael, and a friend went to New Orleans for a week. I was born in New Orleans, and it was a bit of a homecoming. My dad treated us to a 5-star dinner at the Commander’s Palace where once upon a time he and my mom, who was pregnant with me, had dinner. The restaurant had kept all their paper guest records, and all those years later, when my mom called to book us for my birthday dinner, they still had their 30-year-old reservation information. We continued to eat our way through the town. We drenched ourselves in music and buttered everything. We ate beignets, of course, and tubs of crawfish on tables covered in newspaper. Michael and I had a near-religious experience at a place called Vaughn’s where we scooped red beans and rice from a community slow cooker into little styrofoam bowls and danced until three am. We visited night markets. I bought an ink block print of a nude woman reclining on a couch surrounded by birds.

 For some strange reason, I have absolutely no memory of what I did for my thirteenth birthday. What I do remember is the anxiety around the idea that in just a day, with just one more added candle, I would suddenly become someone or something else entirely. I remember feeling like I was crossing through a door I could never back out of. I suppose this is just another meditation on time — or maybe less of a mediation and more of a rebellion. A fear of change and transition.

Resele’s first birthday

 On August 6th, my daughter turned one, and not since my thirteenth birthday have I felt such angst.  With each passing week and month I felt myself digging my heels in. All year I wanted to memorize every bit her, every changing expression and every new discovery. It took me nearly the entire last twelve months to realize the discomfort I was feeling was a fear of forgetting — if I didn’t record it or capture it in some way, I’d lose it forever. And trust me, I’ve recorded. I’ve drawn her countless times. I’ve sketched and journaled and taken an embarrassing amount of photos. It never seems to be enough.

In some ways, the brevity of infancy alongside the intensity of my awareness of it all makes it seem much worse than turning thirteen. Waking up to a “toddler” felt infinitely more uncomfortable than waking up as a “teenager.” The internet doesn’t help my case either. I swear the algorithms don’t just listen to your conversations anymore. It’s like they’ve trained some crazy AI bots to hear your thoughts and greatest fears. Increasingly, this psychic monster fed me videos captioned with things like: “You only have a newborn for SEVEN short weeks,” “Don’t blink — only 11 months of babyhood, then you have a toddler.”

God help me if I hear the phrase, “Don’t blink” or “It goes fast” one more time.

 Toddler. Teenager. These are just labels, of course. It helps us mark and understand time and development. But for someone like me, someone who struggles with transition and change, it’s anxiety-inducing. We don’t change so perceptively, overnight — but still, we’re all changing, growing, dying, all the time. I can only imagine what all the individuals who are much more grounded and emotionally balanced people than I might think while reading this — trust me, there’s even a part of myself who can’t help but roll her eyes: Good grief girl, get a hold of yourself. I know, I know. This is me trying. And yet, here it is. It seems having children just gives you more opportunities to confront yourself.

The first year with the first baby seems to be the longest and shortest year. They change so fast it’s hard to catch your breath. You’ve changed so fast.

In the weeks leading up to her birthday I was struck with another feeling, too. That somewhere in this strange mix of joy and grief was the sense her first birthday also marked another kind of birthday…

When she was born, I permanently walked through yet another door, and the version of the person I was before her ended. In its place a new person — a new mother — someone I’d never been before, was born alongside her. I can never again not be her mother. This is the most devastatingly beautiful, and the most terrifying fact of my existence.

For all mothers these births are inextricably linked. Every birthday signals a beginning and an end. A making and an unmaking. There are gifts within each that I need to learn to receive with gladness.

We celebrated her birthday on a Saturday near the river, under two big trees, with friends and family. The heat broke and it rained. In between showers our friends played cornhole and raced each other. All of her people held her. We ate charcuterie and watermelon and carrot cake muffins with cream cheese frosting. We blew bubbles around her, and we drank, of course. Her Uncle Joe made her a beautiful Princess Torte. Green marzipan with pink sugared roses. It was too windy to light the candle, but it didn’t matter, and everyone sang.

It would be a lie if I said I didn’t feel a little sad. All of it was a gift.

Meditations on Time

One of the most pressing themes from my childhood is the passage of time. It was a topic that was brought up frequently. An ever-present entity looming over us, showing up on holidays and special events to whisper in our ears that a whole year, or two, or three, or five had passed since the last time we celebrated a birthday or sat around the table at Christmas. I can still hear my parents, each in their own wistful sort of way, ask each other: “Can you believe it’s been [insert amount of time passed here] since…”

Memory is a fickle thing, but it seemed this meditation brought with it a palpable sense of grief —something lost, never to be held or experienced again.

My family certainly doesn’t have the market cornered when it comes to nostalgia; but perhaps its effect on me was the degree of nostalgia. Or maybe I was just more susceptible to the personal undercurrent it carried for them. Regardless, this sense of loss is something I internalized deeply.

I don’t know when I first became conscious of the way this became part of own emotional lexicon. I can’t remember when I first started saying, “Can you believe it’s been...” with my own sort of sorrowful longing, but I catch myself doing this all the time.

For almost as long as I can remember it’s felt like I’ve been in a fight against the inevitability of time. It’s always slunking around, like a house guest that just won’t leave. Leaning on all the furniture, throwing sideways glances and silently pointing at Its wristwatch. Tick, tock. I’m certain my gender and ambitions; my own predisposition to anxiety make all of this sharper.

Now that my daughter’s here I feel this even more acutely — I can see the time passing as she acquires new skills and grows out of the clothes that seemingly swam on her just the month before. These are certainly gifts, and yet I wake up some days and I feel panicked, like I want to grasp at something… but what? I’m not exactly sure.

What am I afraid of losing exactly? Am I afraid to forget? That I won’t remember exactly what her weight felt like when I held her at 6 months? Or when she ate her first strawberry? Do I feel like I have less and less time to realize my own dreams and goals? Or is it that I simply can’t come to terms with the idea that nothing is forever and one day everything I’ve ever known will be gone?

I can’t answer any of these questions for sure, but I do know I don’t want to live the rest of my life with this kind of relational angst.

Recently, I’ve been working on a kind of peace offering with Time. I would like to change the way I’m interpreting its story. Instead of focusing on loss, I want to better celebrate growth and change; and with it, the new experiences, insights and wisdoms.

This is certainly shifting how I create and the marks I make. I find myself journaling more than ever before, and making more art, just for myself: a portrait that captures the gravity-defying nature of my daughter’s hair, a rough journal sketch of my husband feeding her watermelon for the first time.

I can’t stop time; but even if I could, I wouldn’t want that either. Not really.

The first time I heard the quote, “If you’re not growing, you’re dying,” it was part of a speech famed football coach Lou Holtz gave at an event I attended in my early twenties. At the time, this sentiment blew me away because I’d never thought about living like that before.

All these years later I’ve heard variations of this quote hundreds of times. Coach Holtz himself borrowed this quote from writer and artist, William S. Burroughs. The beauty of it is that it can be applied to so many aspects of ourselves. And yet, another perspective posits that from the moment we are born we begin to die — that the very quality of living is to walk hand-in-hand with death.

If I could stop time, any pleasure found in it would be temporary. Stagnation would set in, and along with it a multitude of little deaths: no more surprises to discover. I wouldn’t hear my daughter’s first words or improve my painting or ever finally learn how to play that one song on the ukulele. I know this, and yet the acceptance of the fact is still something of a process.

I suppose the trick of it all is to challenge ourselves to grow in all possible ways despite the inevitability of death.

And better yet, to celebrate the whole thing: all the beginnings and all the ends, knowing they are two sides of the same coin.

Perfectionism & The Healing Power of Personal Projects

As a perfectionist in recovery, one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced over the years is the simple act of getting my ideas out. The inspiration is easy. It’s the other part, the “rational brain,” that’s the kill joy. In many ways it feels as if my brain is comprised of two sisters — and if the dreamy, starry-eyed, idea generator is the brave little sister, the braying voice that says, “Is that actually realistic?” is from the horse-toothed, uptight eldest who’s clearly never been asked to the dance.

 Often, before I can even get the thought over the threshold, the naysayer is already whispering:  “I don’t know if you’re good enough yet to really do it justice.”

Seriously. If you opened the notes app on my phone, dug up the crumpled-up papers in the bottom of my purse, and collected all the forgotten lists in all the forgotten notebooks in my closets and drawers, you’d find an elephant graveyard of ideas. Some of these them have simply just been transferred over to new lists, as if begging, “For the love of god, just do something with me already.”

I’m grieved at all the many wasted creative years where I was too locked up to make anything. I’m sad that for a long time the only thing I could do was write it down. But part of my recovery is finding grace and kindness for the many versions of myself.

This experience is a cousin to, but certainly not identical to “writer’s block,” which of course is not owned solely by the writers of the world, but makers of all stripes. The inspiration part has never been the issue. It’s the opposite. Shadows of stories and the fleeting tiger tails of imagination are always moving on my periphery— many are half-baked, but still, I have so many images and thoughts to work with, and yet I have so often sat at my desk and become completely paralyzed with questions and thoughts, like:

Should I use oil or watercolor? Maybe I’ll start with pencils… to be safe.  Maybe my style isn’t a good fit for this… Damn, do I need a new style? If I’m really going to do this the right way, I need to take that class I saw online, the one about making more dynamic characters…

Before I know it, I’m comparing myself to all my creative idols, and to the hundreds of illustrations and paintings I’ve saved as references. I often find myself so deep in the rabbit hole that when I look way up at the tiny pinprick of light above, where I’ve fallen in, I realize I can’t even remember what it was I was so excited about to begin with. Ultimately, I convince myself that today isn’t a good day to start this kind of project, and that I’d be better off if I made a snack, or went for a run, or answered a text message — or best of all, if I curled up in this dark little hole and died from my utter lack of ability.

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The Voice of The Oppressor

I recently discovered the writer Anne Lamott, who in her book, Bird by Bird wrote:

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.”

Researcher and storyteller Brené Brown has said, “If perfectionism is driving the car, then shame is riding shotgun and fear is the nagging backseat driver.”

These are arrows to the heart. I have felt both cramped and insane for as long as I can remember. Fear and shame are two extremely familiar road trip companions — ones who never bring the good snacks and always pick the worst radio stations, and who I’m more than ready to kick to the curb. They are responsible for too many shitty first drafts, first sketches, first passes I wouldn’t allow myself to start or ever finish (and if I did finish, I often didn’t feel like as if it were good enough to share.)

And sadly, there’s certainly lots of fun I’ve missed out on trying to make sure I landed those steppingstones just right.   When you think about it, it’s small potatoes. It’s just a drawing or a story after all. No one’s life is at stake. It should be fun, right? Right?!!!

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The Root of Perfectionism

When I look more closely, I understand that my own perfectionism is the symptom of a more pervasive condition: the desire to succeed. Which, I believe is a symptom of an even baser, human desire: wanting, very desperately, to be seen.

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die”

— Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

The funny thing about all of this is the mindset shift for these kinds of things we’ve heard again and again:

It’s the journey not the destination.

Progress not perfection.

The process is the goal.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes you hear something repeated so many times and printed on so many bad dentist office posters, you don’t even know what it means anymore. Maybe I wasn’t ready to hear it, or to look at my discomfort square in the eye, but I’ve come to understand that the best medicine for this kind of creative constipation is play, and God damnit, it’s having some fun.  

Here’s where I planned to insert a quote that I really loved when I first read it. It was by a famous writer, but I can’t remember who, and I can’t remember exactly what it said, so instead of procrastinating any further let’s INSERT IMAGINARY QUOTE HERE from someone notable. Let’s try something like, “Forget working at it. Meditate in the act of play.”

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The Magic of Personal Projects

Karl & The Terribly Fantastic Beard, 2024

It's hard to remember how to play when you’re busy being A Very Serious Creative Person. But it’s never too late to remember what you’ve forgotten (which I’m pretty sure is a real quote). So, in the spirit of play, and my rededication to quitting perfectionism, I’ve recently turned my attention back to one of those ideas that just will not go away, no matter how hard I’ve tried to leave it behind.

Karl & The Terribly Fantastic Beard is about a lonely man named Karl who lives with his cat and giant tortoise in a train car by the sea. While he enjoys his garden and his small companions, Karl very much wants to explore the world, but isn't quite sure how. When his beard mysteriously comes to life and begins entering them into beard competitions across the country, things begin getting a bit wild for Karl.

This personal project, has been a mainstay across all those many lists, and it’s been the better part of a decade that this story has taken root in my mind and my heart.

 But for a long time, the cynical older sister really had the wheel on this one… I convinced myself that I wasn’t good enough yet to really do it justice. Then, I told myself the story didn’t make sense anyways. It feels like I’ve started and restarted this project hundred times only to abandon it again because it’s been suggested by the Rule Makers and Powers That Be it doesn’t quite fit into any of the right boxes. Maybe they’re right; and yet, this small, strange story doesn’t seem to care.

Karl is far from the pushy sort, yet he seems adamant his story be told. But, on second thought, I’m not sure it’s actually Karl who keeps tugging at my sleeve. It’s most certainly Karl’s mischievous, enchanted beard (named “Beard,” of course) who’s been pushing the agenda.

In the story, Beard shows up and helps Karl save himself, and just maybe in some way Beard is doing the same for me, too.

Karl and Beard have gone through quite the evolution over the last nearly 10 years. You can see I dug up some of my sketches and “shitty first drafts,” here (this act alone was wonderful medicine, and I will likely write about post about that in the future):  

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Finding The Antidote

Anne Lamott was recently interviewed on the Ted Radio Hour, “Addiction, Motherhood, and Jesus,” which was how I stumbled across her book, Bird by Bird. It was a fantastic interview (I highly recommend a listen) about in not only writing, but also addiction and recovery. Lamott’s attributes part of her recovery to surrender.

In the interview she said, “My way, trying to nudge life and people into submission with my sensitivity and excellent ideas, leaves me exhausted. The antidote is to surrender, lay down my sorry weapons and step over to the winning side of friends, service, and fresh air. I open the windows. I savor the fresh air whenever I remember to open them. The fresh air breeze — the whole house.”

The interviewer, Manoush Zomorodi, asked Lamott to explain this philosophy a little bit more. She asked, “Is it, like, the thing where, like, you're trying so hard to get that job of your dreams, and the minute you stop caring, that's when you get the offer, that kind of thing?”

Lamott said, “Well, it's not when you stop caring because that might not ever happen. But for me, it's when I unclench my grip on it and when I start to release, and I start to breathe again. And I just have faith that whatever is supposed to happen is going to happen because it's the only thing that can happen a lot of the time. It's when I release it and stop breathing my hot breath down its neck...”

When I heard that line, I was at a stop light, and I found myself clutching my chest and laugh-crying out loud. I’ve been breathing my hot, stinking breath down the neck of desire. To have my stories and my art accepted by the aforementioned Powers That Be, and frankly I’m feeling out of breath. I’m ready (I think) to unclench the grip. To let go. To play. To let what’s gonna happen, happen.

I think personal projects are a wonderful playground. And so, Karl and The Terribly Fantastic Beard — this little personal project that’s taken root in me — is my meditation on letting go and forgetting the rules.

If you’d like to read an excerpt from my book, Karl and Terribly Fantastic Beard, head over to Patreon. Your patronage helps makes stories like become a reality.

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On Art & Mothering

Shortly before my daughter was born I typed something along the lines of “ how to be an artist and a mother” into Google. Funny how Google has become a Magic 8 Ball of sorts… and I felt myself willing the collective to tell me everything was going to be OK — yes of course you can do it all! — no, you won’t completely lose yourself to this little being — knowing full well that life was soon going to be drastically different.

I was under no illusion that my days or my time would be the same. I was excited, but also afraid… Mainly, because at 36-years-old there have been so many things that have felt out of reach professionally, and soon, I knew I’d have a whole new competing job title — one I had absolutely no pre-requisites for.

I don’t really know what I hoped to find… but I don’t remember discovering much of anything at the time that made me feel very relieved about juggling creativity and motherhood. In fact, I think what the Google Gods unearthed that day was pretty depressing.

My daughter has now been here with us for 6 months, and oddly, in these last 6 months, I would argue that I’ve been more creatively productive than I’ve been in many other seasons of my life. Yet, one of the most difficult things I’ve experienced during this transition is not only juggling creative pursuits with raising an infant — it’s not simply finding time, but time itself.

My initial fear was losing myself in motherhood. Strangely (or not-so-strangely), I feel braver and more capable in many ways, but also more afraid for different, and more unexpected reasons.

I am braver than I was because bringing my daughter here was the hardest and most beautiful thing I’ve ever experienced, which has left many of the things I worried about previously seem pale by comparison. But I am also more fearful because I feel like it will all slip through my fingers.

 On a difficult day a couple months ago, I queried Google again with a similar musing, and this time I found a true gem from the New Yorker titled, “Being an Artist and Mother,”an autobiographical comic by artist Laura Weinstein.

I found myself both laughing and crying with her insights, which felt nearly identical to my own experience.

Image Credit: New Yorker, Laura Weinstein

She seemed to understand the simultaneous exhaustion and yet overwhelmingly obsessive desire to document this experience… the experience of becoming undone and remade again into this new person all while caring for a brand-new human who is so rapidly changing. Together, my daugther and I are morphing at what feels like lightning speed and I find myself fighting to hold onto this time…

How can I capture the subtleness in her growing movements… the density of her little body shifting forward in her highchair to look at the snow falling outside the sliding glass door…

Or how heavy her cheek looks against her dad’s arm when she falls asleep.

Often, I find myself wishing there was a pause button so I could earn myself just enough time to absorb, but also to reinterpret. I think most artists feel this sort of insatiable desire to extricate their realities. To transpose and transmit our human condition. But when you’re mothering and mothering becomes part of the experience you want to express the question is…

Image Credit: New Yorker, Laura Weinstein

And then to top it all off….

Image Credit: New Yorker, Laura Weinstein

I had hoped to attain certain things before my daughter was born, and yet I’m finding that since she’s arrived, this very predicament: the making and capturing, the desire to hold onto something that can’t possibly be held, is changing my process and how I make art as a whole.

This month, on the Letterbox, my Patreon account, I’ll dive into what the creative process looks like for me today. I share some of my personal work, and offer a sneak peek into my visual journal.