Hello, drawing book readers! Sorry I neglected to post a newsletter last week. I had to choose between work deadlines and self-indulgent, mostly-unpaid projects like this Substack newsletter - and the work won. But, I’m back!
This week we’re back into the pages of my old sketchbook journal series, written around twenty years ago. We’ve been working through a drawing book from the summer of 2001. It picks up with a drawing of me, at a swingstage certification course! I had already taken that course a few years before, in order to be able to paint a really big mural on a Calgary wall. I wrote some comics about that mural, which you can see here and here. That mural is STILL THERE today! That blows my mind.
But on this day, I wasn’t taking the course myself. I had three employees who were taking it, so that we could work together painting another big mural. But, spoiler alert, that mural project didn’t end up happening. It was too ambitious, and I wasn’t quite sure how we were going to pull it off. So I was kind of relieved when the project got cancelled.
Later that day (long after the early-morning swingstage course), I ended up at a hangout for Calgary night owls called Rendez-Vous. I don’t know if I even remember where this place was! Maybe on 12th Avenue SW? Anyway, that page has a reference to a line from Persuasion (a line I also quoted in this episode)… a mention of Maurice Sendak (hopefully you know who that is) and his wonderful cross-hatching… and Smoke, a movie I didn’t watch that night. I did watch it eventually, though.
On the next page: time for another movie! Lawrence of Arabia. If you haven’t seen it, go see it right now! Ideally, on a big screen, like the one at the Plaza Theatre, where I saw Lawrence for the first time around 1989, and again on its return in 2001. Wow!
The “little inside joke with myself” about desert power, is a reference to Dune. It was more of an inside joke in 2001, back before that story became as popular as it is now.
More inside jokes on the page above: a quote from Bob Dylan’s song Senor, which came into my head when I woke up after sleeping on a couch outside of a very run-down house on Edmonton Trail. That house is still there… but I think its days are numbered.
If you’ve been reading the drawing book at all, by now you’ll probably know that the scene at the bottom of that last page comes from A Room with a View. You tell him, Lucy!
The next page was drawn at “Karma” coffee house. It used to be in the Calgary neighbourhood of Marda Loop. I think it was destroyed in a fire. Too bad! These days, it’s just an empty lot. But back then, I recorded a conversation that mentions another great Bob Dylan song, Dignity!
There’s a lot going on in those panels above. I remember driving to work in that thunderstorm, listening to Richard and Linda Thompson sweetly singing “Just the motion…” and not really believing that, only a short time later, I’d have to get out of my car in the pouring rain and walk all the way from the parking lot. It seemed somehow quite surreal. But, it happened, of course. I got soaked… but I survived. (And, I mentioned another great Bob Dylan song, “Sign on the Window.”
A couple of references in that last panel: Well, The Third Man, another movie you should watch! And the Peter und Paul Fest, symbolized by a ceramic mug. That’s another story, but maybe you’d like to hear it?
In the town where I lived in Germany, there’s a festival every year on the Feast of Saints Peter & Paul. It’s supposed to commemorate a medieval victory over some besieging enemies, but in modern times it’s also just a big medieval-themed party. You can drink Wein-Schorle out of these ceramic cups stamped with the town crest. I still have those cups!
And here’s a poster from the festival that I stole from the wall of a bank.
Ok, here’s the last page for today. On this page, I’m remembering one year earlier, in the summer of 2000, when I was trying to figure out how to survive getting my heart broken by my then-boyfriend. What did I do? I said, “Time to ring some changes” (the title of an excellent song by Richard Thompson - I couldn’t find it online, but here’s a live version), and I went to Edmonton. Not sure if the latter is necessarily the best thing to do when you get your heart broken, but that’s how things went for me.
Back in the summer of 2000, I signed up to be in the Edmonton Art Walk, which back then meant displaying your work for sale on Whyte Avenue. I was right outside a coffee shop which might have been a “Grabba Jabba,” I think. Back then, I had a bunch of oil paintings. I remember I didn’t sell anything, but got a couple of commissions.
One year later, in 2001, I returned to Edmonton to visit the famous art supplies store, The Paint Spot, to talk with the owner, David Bradley. I had called ahead to tell him I was coming to Edmonton, and wanted to ask him about mural-painting advice. Back then, it was hard to find people in Alberta who had experience with large-scale mural painting! But then, as now, people in the Alberta arts community were always welcoming with their advice. I remember that David drove me over to the university campus to look at a mural, so I could see what kind of paint and varnish worked best. He was such a nice guy.
Yes, on both my Edmonton trips, there was record-breaking weather. Back in 2000, I literally drove though the tornado that hit Pine Lake, Alberta (there was no internet!!! There was no way to know! Also, I think I drove up at about 4 AM, so the sky just looked… dark!) And in 2001, it was just… hot. Hot as “the sun’s anvil!” (Another quote from Lawrence of Arabia.)
But by the time I drew all the things on that page, I was on another airplane. You can see this from the oval-shaped window in the last panel. Back then, my life was full of travel adventures. These days, I’m usually at home, having fun in my garden for as long as I can, before the weather gets too chilly. My only travels these days, are travels back in time, to rediscover the long-ago adventures of the drawing book. Thanks for joining me today!