Mark Moonbeam

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The Mermaid from the Lagoon: Creating without Pressure

I staffed a kids’ camp yesterday and spent a lot of time drawing and coloring, which is what I would have been doing at home. One little girl, Annabelle, a kindergartner, and I hit it off. I was teaching the kids how to make books (little zines), and Annabelle asked me to write her a story in one. She then proceeded to create seven additional blank chapters for me to write, which I was never able to finish. 

It was fun to write and draw quickly just to get the ideas out. I had no self-consciousness about my drawing because I was drawing with kiddos. They were impressed with my drawing, ha! In some areas, I get so paralyzed by feeling like the very first thing I put down has to be perfect and polished, or the idea or project has to be complete before I begin—which is patently untrue as well as impossible—that having this low-stakes and quick n’ dirty opportunity to WRITE A KIDS BOOK I MEAN THAT IS WHAT I DID was freeing. We teach students in user experience design (which I taught for years to undergrads at the University of Washington) “ideation methods,” which include writing user stories or scenarios, creating storyboards, sketching, and brainstorming sessions where ‘all ideas are valid.’ There’s a bit of an inherent oxymoron in teaching these methods—the methods are meant to help students/designers think freely and not be held back by feelings of not being good enough, yet in learning the methods in a systematic way, students feel there is a ‘right way’ to use them. I’d call that internal inconsistency. The form and the content need to be united. Teach freedom via freedom. ... But that’s another post, a book even, for another day.

If you know anything about classic children’s literature or fantasy, you may recognize the influence of George MacDonald, one of my all-time favs, in my book below. His story? “The Golden Key.”

One final thought—through teaching Comics Creation to elementary school kids, one of my current gigs, I’ve been reading about comics and about words and pictures working together to tell a story. I’d add in color, too, as I had ideas for the golden key, offered by these rainbow animals (it’s never mentioned they’re rainbow, but it’s apparent visually!), to unlock some type of rainbow for the mermaid and animals to travel in—turn the waterfall or lagoon rainbow, spring a rainbow river, who knows. It’s cool to have multiple dimensions—words, images, colors—each individually and in relation push inspire next moves in the story, or whatever the work is. 

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The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss

I AM SO EXCITED this book arrived!!! Dr. Seuss is one of my favorites, and a primary inspiration for fantasy environments. See this spread from Happy Birthday to You (1959), for example:

I have long felt Dr. Seuss was an artist proper (whatever that means), and always scour his book for fantasy environment ideas. When I happened upon the pretentious Chuck Jones Gallery in Santa Fe this summer on my arts road trip I was ELATED to discover so much never-seen-by me Dr. Seuss art!! The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss was on the shelf, and I knew I had to get a copy. SO! Mine copy has arrived. 

I like this piece, Landscape, for its fantasy environment aspects:

I especially like that pool of water with a ship in it in the upper right. As in the image above from Happy Birthday, it’s a “water in container”-type feature, which I am very attracted to and I don’t know why. I also like the railroad track running through, which, like the pool, creates dimension in the land. The railroad reminds me of Carolwood Pacific Railroad, the miniature railroad Walt Disney created in his backyard. 

But... what’s up with that naked lady lying under the railroad? I noticed a definite disturbing pattern in this secret art of Seuss: just straight-up sexism. All the female figures are either sexual objects (naked boobie bodies)—

Wtf?

—or sad because they are old, or dead.

Gosh, Do I Really Look as Old as All That! (1961)

There’s also a sense that females are risky or dangerous to be with, as shown in the untitled piece above with the mousetrap hammer apparatus, and in A Man Who Has Made an Unwise Purchase (1967):

I can’t say that birdlike animal (which is pretty, and I like it, and I like the atmosphere) is definitely female, but it could be seen as feminine. 

All this female objectification got me kinda bummed out about Seuss’s secret art, but there was also a lot of color and texture that I enjoyed. 

That last one is titled Lonely, and it’s quite lonesome. 

All in all I am still jazzed to have this book and refer to it a lot. I love you Dr. Seuss! Even if your secret art be kinda sexist. 

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A poem about designing my website

My website is new

Like every day you

It wakes up in the morning thinking, “What do I do?”

 Do I

 check my phone?

 read a book?

 drink some water?

 have a look?

out the window

in the mirror

through a portal, a revealer

 Write a poem is what I’ll do

morning me, morning you

morning website that is new

 A poem takes form

a shiny present

containing storms,

and sun—the heavens

 A poem says, “Here, feel your heart”

A poem’s outfit is its art

 So this morning, when we are new

Me, you, my website too

Let us dress ourselves in true

 Let’s match our outsides with our in

Let’s write our life-poem

Let’s begin

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What is coming out, what is coming in

I want to write and I want to write for something. Everywhere in this fucking city you can hear construction. I hear the fan of my laptop. The motor in the refrigerator. The crinkle of the gas fireplace. Phil’s talons pecking keyboard keys. Airplanes. Beeping.

My ankles hurt. My heels hurt. My shoulders and my neck hurt. My lower abdomen hurts. My muscles are tight and drawn up.

Today a child yelled and cried and beat his metal water bottle repeatedly on the table where he and other children were sitting. His mother was there. It was a frightening display of violence. After he and his mother left I sat down in his spot at the table and said, “He was upset,” and asked the others how they felt. One said, "Scared," and I touched his shoulder.

I feel that hysteria in me. I am terrified of it. My fear of it keeps me depressed. 

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The swollen wave that never breaks

I'm taking a painting class at Seattle Central that begins tonight. I'm looking forward to being back on a college campus and to being in the classroom as a student. I'm looking forward to developing new questions. I don't know what I'm going to learn or where it will lead, but I know I will learn and that it will lead somewhere new. In grad school, what led were concepts. Take a class, read papers, learn new concepts, develop new conceptual (or design) questions. I long ago tired of concept-only questions, but I am very new at non-conceptual question, questions that are not verbal, not written in prose, not about words. I feel I don't really have questions... I make things, the things reveal new possibilities to me, and I try new things, experiment, from there. The whole unfolds itself in this way. It is like being the crest of the wave, the result of all energy built up to this point, but never breaking. On the brink, but never release.

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Test

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