Listening in the Dark Broadside

I was recently honored to illustrate and design a broadside of Portland poet Suzy Harris’s work.

This broadside was printed on 6x9” fine papers in a limited edition run.

The poem reads:

“Listening in the Dark”

Camping by Suttle Lake, walking in the dusk,

slathered in something to fend off biting mosquitos,

we see a giant metal tub on top of a fire grate.

The tub of an old washing machine, he tells us.

Chimneys the smoke right up and the light shines through.

Later, we walk by in the dark to admire the now lit up

cylinder, light spilling like thousands of fireflies

onto the faces of children circled around.

Back at our own fire pit, we add logs to the fire,

tell stories in the darkness. This time,

I set the lantern where I can see people’s faces,

and my friends, my dear friends, they lean into the light.

-Suzy Harris

Plastic

I found the pencil work for the above comic page in a drawer, lost and forgotten for four years. Since I've been especially enjoying painting lately, I decided to ink and color it.

Way back in 2014, I had planned to expand on this piece. I wrote notes for a graphic novel about plastic's world domination, starring three triplets from New Jersey. Maybe I'll get back at it? Comment if you want to see more...

Siren Soak

It started when I quit smoking about a year ago... The ambient smells of the world, previously muted and subtle,  began to scream up my nostrils. Cedars' sap, lavender's aura, the sweat of that guy ahead of me in line at the grocery store, that dumpster again. The world suddenly smelt interesting (always) and terrible (often). And boy, was I anxious. I turned to the study of essential oils and aromatherapy, and replaced the long hours spent smoking with luxurious salt baths. 

Now, according to my 'quit smoking' app, I haven't smoked a cigarette for 500,684 minutes. Tick, tick... who's counting?  I've learned a lot about essential oils in the process of dropping that bad but compelling habit. For awhile, I hid away in my house, all diffusers blaring. I dog-eared the Valerie Ann Worwood's usually grounded, occasionally flighty classic: The Complete Book of Essential Oils and Aromatherapy. That was me in the apothecary with three droppers to my nose. 

Through this journey I became a Smell Person. And, now I feel ready to share. I am excited to introduce the first product I am offering on my olfactory journey: Siren Soak, A seductive, heady mix. Here it is:

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Let yourself be reeled in by the siren song. This alluring blend of essential oils and the salts of three seas makes for a bathing experience like no other. Handcrafted in Portland Oregon, sourced from the best of the world.

Mineral-rich Dead Sea salt and Himalayan Pink salt combine with detoxifying Hawaiian Black Lava salt for a deep grey mix dappled with pink and black flecks. Siren Soak's seductive aromatherapy blend includes the therapeutic-grade essential oils of:

• Yuzu (Citrus junos)- refreshing, inspiring citrus
• Geranium (Pelargonium graveolens)- Happy, floral, see ya later PMS
• Ylang Ylang (Cananga odorata)- Sensual, flowery, beautiful
• Clary Sage (Salvia sclarea) -Clean, herbaceous, bye bye cramps
• Patchouli (Pogostemon cablin)- Earthy, sexy, resinous
• Palo Santo (Bursera graveolens)-Grounding, holy, woody
• Vetiver (Vetiveria zizanioides)- Alluring, musky, complex

This soothing, exfoliating blend will get you in the mood for for life, love, and all the rest. 8 ounces.

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And, here is where all the salts and oils in Siren Soak come from:

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Sou'wester Residency

I just got back from an artist residency at the Sou'wester,  a sweet resort comprised of cabins, vintage travel trailers, and an historic lodge in Seaview, Washington. I went with the goal of creating a little guide to bicycling the Discovery Trail; this multi-use path twists through the dunes, the headlands, and the coastal forests of the Long Beach Peninsula. 

What a great week spent bookmaking and staring at the surf! Every morning, I rode my bike down the winding trail, thinking about the history of the land, watching the changeable weather,  listening to the frogs hop and the snowy plovers skitter, smelling the sea spray, mapmaking, and plotting how to share this path I love in a little handmade pamphlet. Thank you, Sou'wester,  for this chance to focus on creating a little document about an amazing place. 

Here's what I made: 

Bicycling the Discovery Trail by Sandra Gibbons, hand-sewn pamphlet on parchment papers, 12p, fold-out map. Shown on cute table in Sou'wester's Cabin #10.

Checking the way after the rain. This hand-made map was fun to make. (Full-disclosure: I cheated on this by tracing parts of official maps.)

Clark's Jaunt, in Statues and Bones. The Discovery Trail marks the spot where Lewis and Clark turned around. They didn't "discover" anything (of course), but there are some cool statues peeking out the the Dunes to commemorate the expedition.

Tides, Winds, Time. The ocean near the mouth of the Columbia River is notoriously rough and known for shipwrecks.

Haunted(?) Beach Towns. Long Beach and Seaview, with their long histories and abundance of memorial benches, are likely haunted. 

Head to Long Beach Peninsula, visit the Sou'wester, and get a copy of this pamphlet at their utterly charming Honor Store.  Then, hit the trail!

Buttons at the Beinecke

I'm excited to announce that high-resolution digital reproductions of my project Tender Buttons: OBJECTS are now available to view and download, for free, from the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.  View the digital collection.

This library is the perfect home for this series, as their collections include many of Gertrude Stein's and Alice B. Toklas's manuscripts, letters, photographs, printed materials, personal papers, art, and objects.

It's an honor to have my comics there; I hope they can shed new light on a difficult and interesting writer. The drawings are available to view by the public, if you happen to be in New Haven. If not, the scans by the library staff are really exquisite. You can see the grain of the paper, the texture of the media, and every little fingernail indentation. Thank you, Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library staff. 

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas at dinner party; drawing comprised of various archival photos of the couple and their circle. From Tender Buttons: OBJECTS.

And, thank you, David Abel of Passages Bookshop, for making this happen! I might be a hundred years too late to join Gertrude Stein's Parisian circle, but the one I have in Portland is really amazing. Do stop at Passages Bookshop if in Portland.