Wicked!

Storyboarded my scones off today at an agency called brandbar. This image has nothing to do with that job (I won't see those scanned in puppies for a long time, methinks). An agency I'm on the books with for called me Friday last week to pitch up at this gig 8:30am today, Monday. No brief, no map with directions...you know those gigs you dread because you've just spent the past week and weekend flogging book illustrations to be completed on the same day you start the next job? You didn't take the weekend off to relax, so now you're just a smidge grumpy by the time you've conquered (tongue firmly in cheek here) the traffic to Centurion and sat down at the conference table to be briefed.

And you know, it turned out to be one of the nicest gigs I've done in a while. Call me sentimental but I don't like working outside my studio. Today I was totally spoilt with my own office with closed door, a laptop with internet access and as many cups of tea as I could swallow in a given day. Nice people, too. And what tops a day so nicely is when the folks who commissioned you actually compliment your work and really diggit. And want you to come back for future projects. Nice one after all. Did I mention I got supper, too?

What struck me today was how often I realised I was smiling while I was drawing. Yup, I'll say it again...I really love what I do!

Bet on the Vet

When animals go shopping...funny how I've kind've come full circle in terms of bringing my cartooning back to the ol' burb where I grew up back in Durbs. All those years growing up, going to junior, primary and high school in the same 'hood and now the vet down the road from where I grew up is the one I'm putting together some animal characters for - he has an animal hospital and a vet shop he needs some fun designs added to.
If my snotty English teacher who loathed me could just see my work now...sigh.

Fear the Loathing

You can tell I went through a bit of a Steadman phase with the above version of Atomic Soda.

Dang if it ain't Hunter S. Thompson tomorrow night on Final 24. I was never enamoured with that man. Nor with his writing. There slumped hedonistic and self-centered, as well as not particularly wise in a chap if I've ever observed one.

Here's a little irony. I was chatting to a cartoonist friend of mine over in LA a couple of years back who attended the National Cartoonist Society's Reuben Awards, held every year in a different part of the States. Ralph Steadman was honoured that year with the coveted Lifetime Achievement Award for his illustration work, including the cover of the Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas book. Ralph Steadman, if you'll recall, did the artwork for Orwell's 'Animal Farm'. Not to mention a host of other amazing and uniquely notable artwork. Brilliantly talented. And what does he go and do on the night he's honoured? He gets so shickered that by the time he makes it up to the microphone, he totally behaves like a putz and rants off on a diatribe and generally p's off a number of well-known toonists in attendence. How much does that smack of Thompson's antics over the years?

Not purdy, I'll tell ya. Not purdy at aaawl, she drawls... reminds me of me back in the day. Or mostly night, as I recall.

Ex-Goth at Breakfast Meeting

I was chatting to a friend tonight who booked us tickets to see John Vlismas this coming Saturday to cheer me up after a rather wasteful submission to depression recently. Apparently I'm the only one of his friends who likes stand-up comedy. Before I knew it, he'd convinced me I was coming with him next Saturday to see The Exploited, who are finally coming over to SA to perform. I almost laughed off my chair. Granted, Johnny Rotten is still out there, making the odd rather unsettling appearance, but Wattie Buchan and the boys? Performing here? Turns out my friend possibly has an interview with him, which means all those interesting backstage politics, not to mention bumping past the groupies. We laughed about the kind of crowd this sort of gig would attract and there's no way I'm going to this thing without my camera. We're rather sentimental about The Exploited because I guess it takes us back to our punk/goth days when we lived together (see http://marciaatomicsoda.blogspot.com/2008/03/restless-leather.html. We'd walk past a busker playing a violin and Krash would ask, "Got any Exploited?"

The reason he wants me to accompany him to this gig? He rates me as one of the "cool people"...I gotta giggle at that because I hit 40 in 4 years time. Still got my tattoos and black hair and that odd little edge that either intrigues or disturbs people at weddings and baby showers, but otherwise I'm pretty harmless! Nevertheless, it's a great reason to get dressed up in the ol' leathers, slap on a bit of make-up and watch a fascinating evening of events.

And wonder at how much I've changed, actually. Thankfully.

Tail End of this Puppy

Yawn (because it's 11:44pm, not because I was bored with the project). Finally put my book illustration puppy to bed tonight. Some observations I recalled today about book illustration deadlines. The final 24 hours are obviously the most stressful but it's also when the proverbial matrix spits out a wealth of distractions and demands on your time. Felt like I was fighting off people who wanted my undivided attention, to the point of locking myself in my room and slapping a "On deadline...disturbing me would qualify as a bad move on your part" sign on my door. Oddly, I answered my phone. People who don't illustrate books for publishing houses don't get this. We all have our respective pressures, but in my little world, this kind of project is up there with the big boys. Members of the "setback committee" include Telkom and my failed ADSL line for 3 days. Which meant no research online. Bliksem.

Even though I've put the illustration pile in an envelope addressed to the artwork controller, the adrenalin is still coursing its way through my system here. Admittedly, I was so distracted with the polishing up and scanning of the artwork I almost forgot to invoice my client!

Now there's an interesting point. When I forget for a fleeting moment that I need to send an invoice with the artwork, it brings home to me why I do this. Because I love it. This is a client I've had since 2003. No complications or delays with these people. It's always been simple - they give me the brief, I do the artwork, they send a driver to collect it, I invoice them, they pay me. No comebacks, just about no changes, I've never been late with a deadline for them with the exception of a request for an additional 24 hours on one...don't we artists wish all our clients were like that? Sigh. These are the kind of clients I'll work through the night for, they can phone me with an urgent deadline and expect it yesterday and I'll do it.

Here's to the good clients...the ones who are professional, don't piff paff around and pay up on time. And well.

Whimsical about Weekends

Boy, have I missed the boat with so much this past week because I’m on deadline illustrating a book. Today, however, I refused to work with the same degree of uncompromising commitment as I generally do on a weekday...because it’s Sunday. Yes, I’m probably going to pay with hours into the night this week, making up the time I spent relaxing and chatting with friends at a braai. But it was so worth it. I don’t know if it comes with age, but I’m just danged irritated if I don’t take a Sunday off. Gone are the 7-day weeks with handcuffs to my desk on the weekend. Man, God did not say take the 7th day to rest because He was just being legalistic. It’s necessary. Tonight I scritched up a couple of illies and kind’ve inadvertently (pffffbt! hahahahahaha!) logged onto Facebook and YouTube and got lost. I notice a lot of my deadlines happen on Mondays. Hmmmm....

A Tribute to my Mom

I sent this letter to my mom recently. Thought some of you might relate to this and the season preceding the loss of someone you had a strained relationship with because of your own issues and some of theirs. I will always be grateful that, although it's taking me some time and emotional effort, I am encouraged and urged to treat my mother with what I hope is the love and honour she deserves in these, her last days. The one thing I have found impossible to do with either of my parents is tell them I love them. That's all changing now. I thank God for changing me.

Dear Mommy,
You sounded so down this weekend when I spoke to you...it prompted my heart to write you something that I hope will mean lots to you and cheer you up whenever you look at it during your time left here with us.

Here are some things I want you to know mean so much to me as your daughter that you played such a part in.

You taught me how to live my faith in Jesus Christ, even though I turned away from Him for 12 long years. I know that you prayed for me to come home all those years and He answered your prayers because, like the prodigal son, I did come back.

You taught me how to pray. Especially to begin my prayers with “thank you for...” in faith. God hears and He answers every one of my prayers in His own sovereign way, even in ways I wish He didn’t but He knows best. I trust that implicitly. He is good, even when things in my life go bad.

I still have so many items that remind me how much you care (too many to mention) – like medicine you packed together in little first aid kits for me with migraine tablets and pain tablets. And the foot care items. The little manicure kit you gave me. The clothes you sewed and made for me that Christmas you and Dad spent with me – those were special times when you measured and fitted me with those outfits and I’m so happy to wear them, knowing how you put your heart into making them for me. I often use the pin cushion you gave me. I still have that hankerchief with special oil on it. And the cushions for my lounge, even though they’re boxed away right now until someday I have my own home again. The sticky note pad you got for me. The underwear that mothers specially pick out for daughters.

Can you believe I still have that pepper you gave me Christmas 2006? One of the hardest things about losing that flat was that we spent a special time in it together as a family. Especially at the diningroom table when we had Christmas lunch together. It was my home I could share with you. I cried when I gave away that table because I couldn’t take it with because I didn’t even know where I was going. I’m so glad we got that Christmas together. Thanks for bringing the tree and decorations.

Thanks for my childhood memories, even though some weren’t good. That wasn’t your fault.

I was remembering those egg flips you made me when I almost died with diabetes. If you thought you were a sloppy housewife, you were still a great mom. I remember how you described my head rolling off my pillow when I was so ill and you knew something was desperately wrong. It takes a good mother to notice something like that. And do something about it. I know you and Dad made financial sacrifices when I had to go onto a special diet of marie biscuits and liqui-fruit, because you were struggling while I had to eat the right foods as a diabetic. Thank you for doing that for me. For all the financial sacrifices you made for me that I never thanked you for.

I showed those snapshots of you to people I talk to about you often. You were and still are such a beautiful woman. I don’t know if Roy Muller knew that properly.

Thank you for taking care of Grandpa the way you did. He meant so much to me and you made his last years here special.

I still look at my black canvas portfolio and think of how you paid for that for me, as well as my college fees. Thank you for supporting me.

Thank you for all those amazing cakes you baked for my birthdays.

There are some things I regret.

Like moving so far away from you and Dad. You learn when you’re older that you can never get those years away back again. Family is still so important. Despite the damaged years, that realisation is one of the truest things I know now.

I don’t know if you’ll meet my husband – God hasn’t introduced him to me yet. If it hadn’t been for my wasted years of foolishness, I might have been happily married already. I don’t know.

I’m sorry I never gave you grandchildren.

Mommy, I don’t know how many years you have left...maybe just those three or four the oncologist said. But I’m glad we’ve made peace with that. I hope Daddy will soon, too. I’m glad we know that you’re going to an ever-evolving Kingdom that is all peace and perfection and reunion with God and long-lost loved ones, including Granny and Grandpa and Bollie. And others.

I’m so glad for that day at the beach we had together, too. Just us. And that last day at the beach we had as a family.

You’re the reason I won’t move to Cape Town just yet, if I’m even supposed to. I’m sorry I broke your heart when I moved away from Durban.

I know you love me – it has only occurred to me how much in these latter years of my life. All those times I wasn’t coping with life and wished I was dead, I’m glad I’m still alive and didn’t let you down so that you lost both your children. I want you to know just how much I love you. I don’t want to try and say this at your graveside when it’s too late.

It breaks my heart to watch you go through the pain and physical disintegration you’re experiencing with the cancer now, but I know the eternal inheritance God is preparing for you far outweighs the pain and loss in ways we cannot begin to see. Even if it’s impossible to imagine right now. It awaits you...Jesus adores you and can’t wait to lavish it upon you! I thank God for that promise.
“...Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” 1 Cor 2v9

I love you lots and lots, Mommy.
All my love,
Muffet
xxx

Catharsis a Shmarsis (strictly off the record)

Here comes a bit of a catharsis...some relevant realisations have occurred to me this June. Firstly, it’s been a year since I started renting a room in the current house I’m in. I admit I tend to grumble in my deserts. Permit me a small whinge, Lord...honestly, I never thought I’d still be here. Sure, look, there was no definite plan. But still here? Sigh.

On this insomnia-riddled evening (early hours of the morning is more applicable, actually), I’m afraid I’m thinking too much again. This happens when all I do is sleep and work. I no longer tend towards emotional eating. There’s no cash to do that, anyway. One of the drawings for the book I’m illustrating is a bathroom scale. I never stand on those things. I just assess how tight or loose my clothing is on me and I’m either fat or dropping some weight. Maybe it was months of weigh-less as a disturbed, fat teenager where I had to weigh in perpetually and the deal with them was that, if you’d gained even 0.2g over the past week then your name wasn’t called out in front of the group, followed by your loss announcement for that week, even if it was 0.1g. How desperate are women to shed every last fibre of potential weight when you’ll clamber to get to the toilets before weigh-in to eek off 5g of urine?
As I say, that’s why I probably don’t bother weighing myself. Tonight, however, the bathroom scale for reference was sitting quietly in the corner of my room chatting amiably with my shoes when I hit an impulse and whisked it away from its new friends (the bathroom is some way off from my bedroom, it gets lonely that end, I know) and stood on it. It wasn’t pretty. I don’t want to talk about it. My clothing has been fitting more loosely over the past couple of weeks and that’s been great. Until that ratty scale smirked up at me that I weigh 2kg more than my usual. No sense there, so moving along to other irksome preoccupations this week.

There must have been a private meeting at the beginning of this week where my clients gathered around the great poker table of life, lit up fat, smelly cigars, topped up exotically overpriced cocktails and threw in a couple of bowlfuls of super greasy deep fried crisps just to mark their territory. And plotted to torture me with 12 page contracts to sign over my artwork or they would not pay me. A late arrival would decide to reject 2 of the 6 canvasses I spent a week and weekend creating with another set of ideas I can’t possibly wrap my fragile little head around until mid next week, when I finish illustrating the book.

Then there is Dubai....the bay of plenty. We’ll see what prosperous little treasures this holds. Here’s where I have to pull on my business girl outfit and get it together with logistics and symantecs and costings and turnaround times....yawn. All for a cause that’s all for my finances but insomnia now bows to little quivering snores. Let’s call it a proverbial business day, shall we?

Of Hearts and Dads Themes

Despite my official "crappy clients week" not-so-celebration today, I can still share this little product shot of some recently published greeting cards for 2008 and eek out a bit of a smile. Father's Day range is currently on the shelves. Not the best quality pic, but you get the gist!

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