The Saga of Wild Bill and the Cookie Stealer

I have a story to tell. It is part history, part legend. It all started with my friend and pen pal in California, Jill (who I met this summer when I was a counselor at a camp for kids with Type 1 Diabetes) and a hilarious string of inside jokes that lead to us discovering our long lost Uncles, Javier "Wild Bill" Edstrom and Luis "Cookie Stealin'" Meilman. The following is a tall tale, turned into a comic for Jill, and now for all of you, chronicling their adventure. If you're having trouble reading it, click on the image and it will open larger in another window.

THE END... Or is it? 

Jill is my Dia-BFF (Diabetic Best Friend Forever) though to clarify, I don't have diabetes, I just worked at the camp and learned a lot about diabetes and met a lot of cool people who have diabetes. Just for fun, the above is a picture of me and Jill with the General Sherman Tree in Sequoia National Park. We are excited because it is the third largest tree IN THE WORLD!

 ... And, as anyone who has ever seen us together knows, we are also two highly excitable people.

The Error part of Trial and Error.

Hey friends, I just got two new pieces home from the ceramics studio that didn't go the way I had planned. I had an awesome ceramics professor in college who used to say that clay is a good metaphor for life. I think that's true-- not everything works out the way you want them to all the time. I'm posting photos of these pieces anyway because even if they aren't perfect, they're still kind of cool.

First of all, I made this bird with five smaller birds stacked on its back. Now that I am doing so much throwing, I started missing hand building, so sculpted these little guys and stuck them together.

The glaze did not come out quite like I had hoped, but it started growing on me. I think it sort of looks like the sky, which fits in nicely the bird motif.

Then I took it home, showed my mom, and she promptly dropped it and the tail broke. Oops.

It is a pretty clean break, so maybe there is a way to glue it back together?

I have learned that if you lament about a broken piece of ceramics to an experienced ceramic artist, they will shrug and say, "Make a new one." This is totally different from all the painters I have worked with, who tend to want everything to be just right. I interned with an artist who didn't want me to breathe on her wet paintings. Another artist for whom I interned monitored my every brush stroke on my first day. 

I am not exaggerating. 

I'm sure there are many fussy artists who work with clay out there, and painters who are not so particular, but based on the ones I have met, I think painters could learn a lot from potters. 

....... And speaking of potters, my Harry Potter bowl came out of the kiln as well!

I decorated it based on the test tiles featured in this post.

Ron came out awesome... but unfortunately Harry's and Hermione's faces melted.

It is a sad day in the wizarding world when the boy who lived and the cleverest witch of her age were defeated by a mere kiln and one-layer-of-clear-glaze-too-many (even after Gary warned me not to use too much!). I was thinking that maybe I could just say that it is portraying a moment from their second year, when Ron's wand was broken. Maybe his spell backfired and melted his friends' faces, then Madam Pomfrey would re-solidify them in a jiffy. 

I will draw a little cartoon of whoever can come up with the best story as to why Harry and Hermione's faces melted. Extra points for the cleverest references to the books and uses of additional characters.

Childhood Masterpieces

I am interrupting my regularly scheduled blog to share some treasures I found in an old box. My mom has been saving great works of art from throughout my life and I have recently stumbled upon some of my early creations that I couldn't resist putting on the internet.

To help you understand the context of the following masterpieces, here is me, age 5, pictured with my kindergarten classroom's resident stuffed raccoons. As I recall, my teacher was all about the raccoons. 

...And here is an early self portrait. I am wearing my favorite dress with stripes and apples. I would bet that I was wearing that very dress when I drew this stunning portrait. To this day, all of my self portraits show me wearing whatever I was actually wearing the day I paint them. Apparently it has been a long-standing tradition in my work. As a side note, I don't really have blue eyes. I don't know why I drew myself with blue eyes.

This charming sketch is an insight into how I felt about art criticism as a child. The boy is saying, "Your picture is stupid" and I, wearing my extremely puffy-sleeved dress, respond, "Is not." 

Apparently, Rapunzel rode my bus in elementary school.

One recurring theme in my early work was mermaids. I drew many mermaids. Here are seven mermaids.

This appears to be a fairy or angel(?) seducing this dude with a flower.

Here she has help from her tiny friend. The guy now has a wing with heart on it! I think her seduction tactics are working!

Here, a woman with every natural hair color you can have presents a flower to this extremely pointy eared rabbit. More seduction and intrigue?

Various animals appeared frequently in my work, like rabbits...

...mice...

...poodles (playing kidpix on reeeeeaaaaallly old school computers)...

... pet hamsters (of which my sister and I had several, as illustrated in this multimedia collage piece)...

...dinosaurs...

...and dragons, but by far my favorite animal was the unicorn:

I found many unicorn pictures I drew as a child. I was all about the unicorns! In fact, this piece with the girl riding a unicorn was accompanied by a story, an early artist statement perhaps. I can only imagine it was part of an assignment to think about what we would become if we could build a cocoon and transform into something else, like a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. I wrote the following (edited for spelling and punctuation):

"If I could build a cocoon I would want to become a white unicorn with a pink tail and a pink mane. I would save a princess in distress. If someone was hurt, I would make them all better. I like being a unicorn."

I was not aware that I had such lofty ambitions as a child until I rediscovered this piece.

Finally, I would like to conclude this post with a story I wrote in first grade about Anne Frank. I am pretty sure I didn't actually know who Anne Frank was at the time. I included my text with these illustrations (again, edited for spelling and punctuation).

"Anne Frank" by Laura Meilman

"When Anne Frank was 13, one of her friends gave her a black book. She made it her diary and named it kitty."

"She wrote in it every day and she wrote something like this, "Dear Kitty, today my friend said, 'I'm buying ice cream.'" She had lots of friends and was very, very happy but..."

"She died in France."

The back cover is decorated with a continuing birthday present theme. I am pretty sure that I just thought it was cool that she had a diary named Kitty and I sort of ignored the rest of her life story. I would like to call your attention to the funeral illustration, which shows her grave with a big cross on it. Yup, I don't think I actually knew who she was when I wrote this circa age 6.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed my early work. Perhaps it has given you some insight into my origins as an artist, both thematically and stylistically. I considered posting some of the anime I drew in high school, but I don't think I need to subject you all to that.

HARRY POTTER CERAMICS!

I have recently been re-reading all of the Harry Potter books and it has been one of the best decisions I have made in recent history. I have completely re-kindled my love of Harry Potter and the gang and was very surprised by how many details I had forgotten from many of the books. My middle school and high school self would be APPALLED at how much I had forgotten, but now the whole story is fresh in my mind and the best part is-- IT IS INSPIRING MORE CERAMICS!!! I threw two potion jars on the wheel last week: Felix Felicis and Polyjuice Potion. They aren't out of the kiln yet, but the moment they are, I will post them so fast you won't even believe it! As a side note though, I accidentally dropped the lid to Felix Felicis and it broke. I had to fix it and it is a little wonky. It was ironically unlucky for a Felix Felicis bottle (for anyone who hasn't read Harry Potter, Felix Felicis is the name of a potion that makes you lucky... and Polyjuice Potion makes you look exactly like someone else of your choosing).

I spent Tuesday afternoon at the ceramics studio with Gary Rith, my totally awesome ceramics teacher at Cornell who makes the coolest mugs and teapots and pitchers!! They are frequently beagle or elephant adorned and you can check out his website or blog to see them!! Also his blog currently has pictures of me on it. All the more reason to look at it! Anyway, on Tuesday Gary showed me how to use underglaze to draw on pottery and I practiced on some test tiles which just came out of the kiln and I am SO EXCITED ABOUT THEM!!! I drew Harry, Ron, and Hermione casting spells along with a monster, and Jenny and Aaron from Girrrl!!!

Totally magical!!

A very excited Jenny with a skeptical Aaron.

Also out of the kiln were some more things I threw on the wheel-- They all have kind of a blue/white/green pallet. I'm not sure how I feel about it.

My first lidded vessel! 

Another mini-pot. My dad requested it!

I ate ice cream out of this very bowl just last night! Love it!

Also: I have the email addresses of some important people at Cornell. If you are interested in writing to them and telling them that you don't want the ceramics studio to close, let me know and I will give you the contact info!! Don't let the studio close!!