Matter
Matter
During our multiple pandemics of 2020 my eco-nemesis appeared.
Bags.
Mandatory bags.
Mandatory bags at the grocery store.
UGH!!!
In April 2020 I stopped patronizing stores that mandated plastic bags – Market Basket, I’m talking to you – and, brought my business to markets that gave out paper bags.
Alas, these paper bags piled up in our kitchen.
Around this time I also became the proud owner of a set of Derwent colored pencils.
Thank you, John Harrison, for the generous birthday gift!
For reasons I still do not understand moving colored pencil across a brown bag delighted me.
I began created small drawings on squares cut form all those grocery bags.
Mostly heads and somewhat skull-ish.
People were dying left and right on our planet after all.
The skulls, however, made me strangely happy. And I do not mean in a Dr. Mengele kind of way…
Simultaneously I ramped up my puzzle prize production.
Puzzlers who send me evidence of their finished puzzle earn a prize –
free shipping on a new puzzle OR a custom drawing in response to my nosy questions.
Initially, I made and gave nothing fabulous. A ballpoint pen sketch on an index card.
Maybe a collage with a business envelope.
And then, I decided to stop skimping.
Why? Maybe because rampant mortality made all our labors feel inconsequential.
Maybe because I suddenly remembered Edgar Heap of Birds’ image: “Give Everything.”
So I did. I literally spent hours, sometimes days, on these images.
And then I set them free.