Monday, September 04, 2006

tormented by the subconscious

Recently, I have been obsessed by goldfish. For some inexplicable reason, I am drawn to them. I feed them at the lake:



I spend too much money buying decorative paper with goldfish motifs:



And I eat goldfish crackers as if I'm starving:



Usually, this means there is a story idea brewing. The last time this happened was when origami animals seemed to envelop me. They kept appearing and reappearing (even though I couldn’t fold a paper crane to save my life) until I finally gave them their own book in “Lissy’s Friends.”



So now, obviously, there must be goldfish swimming in my subconscious that are demanding to be set free. Of course, I don’t know how to do this. Any ideas? Do you guys ever suffer the torment of an idea wanting to be formed?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Watch out for those goldfish crackers, Grace. First it starts with the "original" variety, then, before you know it, you're onto the "Flavor Blasted" ones. Trust me, we've seen the demise of many bags here at the studio!
I definitely have ideas that seem to loop around forever, but then they get overtaken by something more formed. I don't know what to do with the indigenous art and Celtic images that haunt me-they don't really fit into any of my usual work or styles. But there they are, nonetheless!

Agyw said...

Love this! I think one of the things (and the reason we CAN give kids a voice) is that we make new and different connections. People tend to "figure" their lives out and then slide, taking much for granted. What makes creative people different, they are constantly reinventing, revisioning the world. Kids don't HAVE a preconceived notion, one of the reasons we're a good match.

How wonderful that we get to follow these inspirations we have to see where they lead! Wallow in our senses if you well and point out what we find beautiful or disturbing! LOVE the papers and gold fish (D, the seven year old has a Japanese fighting fish I want to do some watercolors of).

On another note, we were looking at your blog yesterday and D thought your work was Ross Collins (there's a similar feel to your palettes and the figures are most sympathetic, but that's where the similarity ends. Still I was happy she was making those connections.) We pulled out "The Three Grumpies"(my friend Tami Wight's wonderful book) and your "Okey Dokey Artie-chokie". It's her new favorite book; we read it a couple of times, the last she insisted. So you definitely are building your fan base!

OH wow, OW! My prompt is 'xuif BIC" I'm gonna take that as a strong hint!

Linda S. Wingerter said...

Go with it, Grace! It's a synchronicity. Do you remember the dream you had in Rome? The one I loved so much? I wanted to write about it when I wrote about you, but don't think I should air other people's dreams in public... :) It was a good one though.

Anonymous said...

I love that feeling--gathering the floating ideas together to create something unique from them, as Agy described so well. (Hi, Agy!)

Looking forward to seeing where your goldfish take you, Grace.