"Surrender"

To submit is to be submissive, and that's something a lot of us have been fighting against for centuries. Submit to your parents, spouse, teacher, boss, church, God... We're told to surrender so often, do we even know what our personal will is any more? This can create a lot of unhappiness, but helps society run smoothly, and isn't society more important than any of us mere individuals?

Um, maybe not.

I was talking the other night about Dorothea Davis, "The Sheep Lady". She was one of my personal heroes, and anyone from my neck of the woods remembers her. She inherited a prime piece of property when the area was less developed, and she refused to move along with "progress" when progress absorbed everything around her. The city tried everything to get her to move on, but she fought them in the courts for decades -- and won.

Whatever people might've said about her muddy sheep pulling out the grass, huddling under trees, or wandering into the main street, The Sheep Lady was always called a "lady", and that used to mean something. She was educated, polite, and gracious. She was our librarian, and her lanolin soft hands were beautiful as she wrote out due dates on cards tucked into the backs of our books. She also had a fierce mind, and didn't give in to the powers that be who wanted her messy sheep out of their pristine suburb.

I'll never forget sitting in her kitchen and drinking tea from a fine porcelain cup while a sheep butted its head against my skinny legs, and more sheep pushed through the open doorway. I tried to balance the saucer on the little table and worried about breaking the cup while Dorothea pleasantly discussed my future and the need to follow my talents and interests. I suppose she asked my mother to bring me over because as the librarian, she knew I was different. I took as many books as I was allowed every week, and didn't stay in the children's section. Maybe she knew I was a younger version of herself? If I had a sheep farm, I wouldn't sell it to the city bullies either.

They condemned her house after a fire, and she slept in her car while volunteers rebuilt it for her, minus a fireplace. I wasn't the only one who admired Miss Davis. She died 7 years ago, and people still talk about her with warm affection. Some day I hope I can be remembered with a bit of what Dorothea left in the world. She never surrendered, and lived the life she wanted to live. She died on the land she fought her entire life to protect, surrounded by her woolly friends.

If you have memories of The Sheep Lady, I'd love to hear them!

"Caged"

What can you do if you cage a hawk?
Broken wings beating in fury against false walls
She will break herself before being broken
In an unfair prison.

A tethered leg bound to a stump,
Broken wings bound,
Glassy eyes glaring in mistrust,
Flashes of hate piercing your skin.
She would kill you, blind you, hurt you
If she had a chance.

She hangs her drugged head, and
Her broken heart pounds painfully.
Inside hard bandages and soft feathers
Longing, gasping, waiting
For her chance to break loose.

She wants more than vengeance.
She wants the songs and silence of the sky.
So close to God,
So near her soul,
Where she belongs,
Where she rules supreme.

Free.

-- The art was created for Lake Metroparks' Wildlife Rehabilitation Center as part of a fundraising campaign. The poem was not.

"Double"

My first thought for IF's word of the week was to go back to my girl with the bucket on her head of a couple weeks ago, but having 2 girls scrubbing my basement because I need a double. The plumbing disaster has been disastrous, and I have been scrubbing mold and mildew from things before tossing them in the driveway as hopeless.

The claims adjuster has come and gone, and I guess he doesn't value my stuff as much as I do. All these years of collecting has been forcibly brought back to a more manageable level. Gone is the solid oak desk I used in college. Gone are the wooden cubby holes I got from a previous job. Gone is the oak bookshelf my dad scavenged from Case Western when they remodeled their dorms. Gone, gone, gone... but did I really need any of these things? When was the last time I actually worked at that desk?

Objects that remind me of people don't really bring those people back. If you get down to it, my creepy landlord gave me that desk, and remembering him just brings back the image of him peeking in my window. But the desk reminded me of sharing the rundown party house with Pat and Matt and how they shot the wall with a nail gun. They stuck birthday candles in the holes, then nearly burned the house down while they laughed and ate Cap'n Crunch dry out of the box -- but do I need a big, moldy piece of furniture to remind me of my very accurate prediction of what would happen when they lit those candles?

I'm too tired this week to make new art, so this is something I did for the dedication of Lake Farmpark, which is a demonstration farm in Lake County, Ohio. The art was created in pen and ink then printed on linen paper. I'd like to write something sweet about my twin brothers, but I'm pretty sure they know I love them. Besides, they like to be considered singular individuals instead of part of a pair anyway. Give me time. I'll write about them eventually!

"Ripple"

There is a really nice fundraising effort going on to help with the BP oil spill, and artists can help by donating an image pertaining to the gulf on a 2 1/2" x 3 1/2" card. Jpegs of the cards can be submitted to ripplesketches@verizon.net.

Cards are available for a $10 donation (each) to either The Institute for Marine Mammal Studies http://www.imms.org/ or The International Bird Rescue Research Center http://www.ibrrc.org/ . When the cards sell, artists sign the back of the art with thanks and mail them to the buyer's address.

The Ripple blog is http://ripplesketches.blogspot.com/

I'm grateful to Penny at http://illustrationfriday.com/ for choosing this worthy cause as the inspiration for this week's word, and encourage other artists to contribute to the effort.

These seashell pictures are on scratchboard because I think the black backgrounds feel like the black oil, but I'd rather focus on the beauty of the gulf, and what's prettier than seashells?

"Ahead"

The interesting thing about what’s ahead for each of us is that we just don’t know how life is going to work out. Maybe the world will end in 2012, but more likely we’ll keep putting one foot in front of the other until we end up in a place we never knew we’d go.

Sometimes people like to tell us that life isn’t about the destination, it’s the journey. I created this piece because I was at a place in my life where I needed to reinvent myself because I hadn’t foreseen the future well enough to be prepared for the things I found happening in my career. I wrote the following to go with the picture…

Slaying the dragon isn’t slaying the beast
Because I’m my dragon too
Phoenix to ashes in the flames
To be born anew

I’m feeling that way about Adobe Creative Suite 5. A friend has sent me a number of videos and tutorials, and between grouching about having to learn more software, I am also reminded that I’ve gone through the same process every time I’m told I should spend more money and time on computer stuff. When is enough enough?

Yes, I could’ve done this picture in Illustrator, and it would’ve been more technically perfect, but I didn’t do it for anyone other than myself, and the process of doing it was part of the pleasure. It’s large, 18” x 24” and done in pen and ink on illustration board.