Chiwenmo Giye Ngom

Hello everyone who stops by! Happy Mother’s Day to all of you Mothers out there. I wanted to post a picture of my dearly departed Mom for the day on FB, but my pix are still in storage with the rest of my belongings so I settled on the pic of my daughter and me. 

I was trying to sleep, but my mind was racing and then I remembered something my Mom had told me a long time ago. I have been drawing since she showed me how to draw faces out of the number 3, and when I was a young adult she told me that someday one of my pictures would come alive. 

I’ve  wondered through the years how that would happen. So that brings me to this picture which I am going to call “Mezodanek” which means family.

This is drawn from a picture of some of my family at one of my nieces wedding reception. I forget how long ago it was taken though, at least 15 years ago I guess.

The hand on the left is my Dad’s hand and the man on the right side is my brother. That’s one of my sisters next to my Dad, and when I first drew her she looked just like my Mom, so I erased her and re-drew her until she looked like my sister. I maybe could of left her in place of my sisters face because I know that she looks in the mirror these days and says “hi Mom’ because she really does look a lot like her these days. That’s me on the other side of my sister. 

The arm with the glass in it belongs to my younger brother, but the face is my Mom’s! When I began drawing my younger brother he too started looking like my Mom, and I think I even tried to redraw him, but it was so clearly my Mom that I figured that she just wanted to ‘be’ in the pic, so I said hi Mom and left her in it even though she wasn’t in the snapshot! I know it’s not really alive, but it sure reminds me of when she was…and even though its not her arm or body I wanted to post it on her special day. It also happens to be my firstborns birthday and my Mom said what a great Mothers Day gift she was. She still is a great gift too Mom...

Anyhow Mom, I know you're there with the rest of the Mothers who are angels now, so say Happy Mothers Day to them for us too, will ya? Chiwenmo Giye Ngom (Happy Mother’s Day) 

Love and miss you <3 rip

This drawing is licensed to the Midwest Institute for Native American Studies and is called ‘Neshnabek Today’ in the Potawatomi Foods book. I told you I like to include people I know in these drawings, especially my  “Mezodanek.”

Who, what, where, when, and why

Hello everyone who stops by! 

I've been wondering what project to blog about and since I have so much time invested, I am going  to start blogging about the project that I’ve been working on for over 10 years.

So, where should I start? Should I tell you what I was doing recently that helped me dicide or should I start at the beginning of the project? Well, since some things are fresh on my mind, I will start on some more recent drawings and work my way back. Hopefully I can remember enough to fill in the blanks, after all it really has been over 10 years since I started and even longer for the writer!

I just finished researching for one of the final drawings for the final book.  Really, it probably won’t be the final book, but it is for this part of the project, and that means I will be finished illustrating the original set of books. In the years since we began this project, I know the writer has come up with more ideas for books, and guess what, so have I!

Before the research, I e-mailed somebody who hopefully can help me set up a show for all of these illustrations. Also wrote to another friend who might have a venue to ask if they would do art shows. And the first e-mail was to Linda, the lady who wrote the books I am illustrating. I had a couple illustration prelims for her to review and a lot of questions for her today.

Before the e-mails, I had spent hours going through the collection of illustrations I have done for these books.

That got started from deciding to sit down and work on one of the drawings. There are only a handful left, but they seem to have evoked my ‘block’ and even though I thought I had some good ideas, nothing was appearing on the paper.

So, as I went through the books, I put them all in the order they appear and as I did, I thought about a bunch of possibilities for the remaining drawings, and I finally settled on a format, hence the research.

As a guideline as far as my blog is concerned, I have decided I will write something every day, telling you a little about the artwork I will be sharing here.

So let it begin...

 

This first one is Titled “Nin Nechis…”

The Title is Potawatomi, and I am not sure if it is how my Dad would title it is he were here, but its as close as I can get to describing the drawing. To you that know better, you can correct me if you wish. I plan on titling all of my pieces in my own language. Nin in Potawatomi means ‘me’ and Nechis  is ‘fingers’ the next word should describe what my fingers are doing, ‘weaving’. 

Me Fingerweaving. Circa 1992

 I forget exactly, but I know it was down in Indianapolis at a Library there. I had just finished up an Artist in Residence at the Eiteljorg Museum and was invited to do a couple more programs while I was down that way. So I took a belt I started working on at the Eiteljorg and showed the audience some fingerweaving. I still have the belt, it is still unfinished, and I still have the vest, which I also made. This illustration is for Midwest Institute Native American Studies, Potawatomi Crafts/ Potawatomi Today. 

This was completed in 2012.

All of these drawings are 8x8 graphite's