Because he was a dog, I did all the typing for him.
All these entries are completely true.
FOOD OR NOT FOOD
Current Mood: Hungry
sometimes i eat things that aren’t food. i ate a cassette tape, a bilbo baggins action figure and a stuffed alligator head. then i go for a ride in the car to visit the vet.
FLOOR TREATS
Current Mood: Hungry
everything that falls on the floor is mine to eat. i can hear a crumb drop from the other end of the house. sometimes i find small pieces of paper, pen caps and furballs instead. i eat them too because they are on the floor.
DIGGING HOLES
Current Mood: Hungry
i like to dig big deep holes in the backyard. then i stick my head in the hole and bark.
EATING CACTUS
Current Mood: Hungry
when i was a puppy, i ate a row of aloe cactus. they tasted pointy. the vet said that the cactus didn’t hurt my mouth at all and that my fur was very soft and shiny.
OUTSIDE TREATS
Current Mood: Hungry
i like to bark at pigeons. i eat birdseed and gravel in the backyard.
CHRISTMAS TREATS
Current Mood: Hungry
i have a cat friend. last christmas she pushed a chocolate santa off the table and onto the floor for me. it had crunchy tinfoil on the outside.
GARBAGE TREATS
Current Mood: Hungry
i like peanut butter. i like to eat things out of the garbage. i have one head, three legs and a tail.
UNDERGROUND TREATS
Current Mood: Hungry
i can smell mushrooms growing deep under the ground. i dig them up and eat them and then i get in trouble.
GOAT TREATS
Current Mood: Hungry
i chewed on my goat hoof all day long. it had peanut butter in it but i licked it away. i take hoofie outside with me. i hold it in my mouth when i pee. hoofie smells good and stinky.
RECYCLED TREATS
Current Mood: Hungry
i ate dog food and some carrots. when i threw up the carrots were back so i ate them again.
ALLIGATOR TREATS
Current Mood: Hungry
i ate a taxidermy alligator head i found on the bookshelf. it was crunchy and tasted like a mummy. mama thought it was a chicken carcass or maybe one of the cats. she screamed and took it away.
SHINY TREATS
Current Mood: Hungry
i ate a sheet of aluminum foil covered with chicken grease and crunchy burnt things. the vet said i would be okay, but to call them if i threw up or made sparks.
BREADY TREATS
Current Mood: Hungry
i found a piece of bread on poppa’s plate. i had to jump up to reach it. i ate it real fast. poppa got another bready piece to make his sandwich.
REFRIGERATOR TREATS
Current Mood: Hungry
i push people into the refrigerator so they will give me food. i know that’s where the carrots live.
BEGGING FOR FOOD
Current Mood: Hungry
this is my begging face. if i do this long enough someone gives me food.
My dream was not to be some rich and famous artist..
Not to win awards or have my paintings hanging in museums.
I just wanted to be good.
I remember staring endlessly at the pictures of the beautifully illustrated books I grew up with. The people who made those pictures had somehow managed to capture their imagination on paper and make it real. My mind was filled with pictures, too – and there were worlds inside me that had to come out. The urge to create was irresistible.. and it ignited a fire inside me that will burn forever.
Exposure to art at an early age is a powerful experience. It can change your life. My husband Richard talks about this in his recent post, The Fine Art of Childhood.
Art is a lifetime commitment. The endless months, years, decades invested to get my skills to match my vision. Always pushing further – I love every step of my artistic journey. This is what I was meant to do. I have dedicated my life to bringing my unique vision out into the light. Truly, art is the soul made visible.
It seems only fitting that I have become the author / illustrator of children’s books..
A couple of years ago, I experienced a home invasion.
I was alone when a man kicked in the back door and entered our house.
To make a long story short..
As we confronted each other in the middle of my living room
I did not feel fear – I felt anger.
And in that moment of fight or flight.. I chose to fight.
Eventually, we ended up in the laundry room where I tried to chop his face off with a pair of branch loppers.
He managed to stumble outside, shouted “Sorry, wrong house!” and ran for his life.
When I started working on The Secret Kingdom, I faced an even greater enemy…
Myself.
Not a physical fight, but an intensely psychological one.
This enemy had powerful weapons: Self-doubt. Procrastination. An arsenal of laziness, distraction and fear.
What was at stake was not the death of my physical body, but the death of fulfilling my life’s work. The loss of my creative life.
Every day I worked on my book was a fight to the death.
The day The Secret Kingdom was published, I realized that I had won… for now.
Truthfully, the fight never ends.
In The War of Art Steven Pressfield writes: “Fear doesn’t go away. The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.”
This is so true.
Now I am fighting for the life of my second book.
Having lost before, it seems the enemy within has stepped up her game.
Just got back from The Secret Kingdom book signing event in the beautiful state of Virginia.
Being that we were so close to Washington, D.C., we hopped on a train and spent the day sight-seeing, visiting the museums and walking around our nation’s capital surrounded by cherry trees in bloom.
I must admit I was a little anxious, because I knew at some point I would encounter the dreaded Lincoln Memorial.
Yes, dreaded.
It is a little known fact that I have a bizarre and somewhat embarrassing fear of unnaturally large things.
In an attempt to lighten the mood, my husband Richard told me that the giant Lincoln comes alive at night and eats tourists. Although that mental image actually made me shudder, I figured we’d be okay as long as we got out of there before nightfall.
Standing at the base of the stairs leading up to giant Lincoln.. my heart was pounding, my legs felt weak and I broke out in a cold sweat.
In this picture, I seem to be leaning slightly to the right.
Actually, I was cowering in fear at the terrible sight of enormous Lincoln.
It is always good to conquer your fears and do something that scares you..
I volunteer to teach art to a group of inner city kids in downtown Phoenix. As we sit at a table drawing pictures together, the kids often bombard me with questions: How old are you? Are you married? Do you have kids? Do you live in a house? What’s your favorite color?
I answer every single question… simply and honestly.
One afternoon, I noticed a young girl leafing through the copy of The Secret Kingdom that I had brought to class with me.
“You made all these pictures?” She asked.
“Yes.” I replied.
She looked at me very seriously and asked, “Do you ever get frustrated when you’re drawing?”
I knelt down so I was face to face with her when I answered:
Richard Bledsoe, my husband and co-author of The Secret Kingdom, does a lot of writing on the subject of art and culture. Apart from containing major spoilers on the first 3 seasons of the series, his article “Clear: Artist Symbolism of The Walking Dead” also includes a peek into my creative process…
“My wife and I are both painters. Because art is such a priority for us we’ve converted the front room of our house into our art studio. We spend many happy hours there, working back to back, her sitting at her easel, me standing at mine. We play music and talk and laugh a lot; we’ve found interacting with each other while we work does not break our concentration on our art. It’s a very creative environment.
Our methods of making paintings are very different. I work from visions—my imagery comes from fully formed pictures that suddenly appear in my mind, usually with a title attached. My wife Michele Bledsoe on the other hand generates her subject matter using a stream-of-consciousness approach. She just starts painting and lets and the forms arise spontaneously.
Since Michele’s pictures come from a more intuitive process, they usually don’t suggest a specific title. What we often end up doing is naming her paintings after whatever we are experiencing in our lives while she is creating them. Her paintings have been named after oblique references to song lyrics we’ve been listening to, or quotes from movies or books we’ve been obsessing over, or private jokes we share. It’s part of our secret language as a couple, and also documents the moments in time that the painting happened in.”
My sister is a Hospice nurse. Several months ago, she gave her copy of The Secret Kingdom to one of her patients: a 90-year-old man who loves poetry.
She tells me that this gentleman reads The Secret Kingdom every night before he goes to bed, and often has her read the entire book aloud to him during her visits. He shares The Secret Kingdom with everyone he knows – from family members to the CNA who comes to help him bathe.
When my sister told me this, I was practically speechless…
When she showed me this picture, I was moved to tears.
Truly, art is for everyone, and The Secret Kingdom is a place that welcomes children of all ages.
