What a busy day!! Today was the launch of Auntie Bridgett’s new collection of cartoons, “Auntie Beeswax: Beehives and Cat Puke.”
Rose City Comics, on Mississippi Avenue, was kind enough to host the launch, and provided chairs, a table, and a cooler full of sparkly water. Bridgett’s Aunt Bernadette baked and decorated dozens of incredible cookies, and I made about a hundred Oatmeal Everythings. (Which aren’t as pretty, but were very popular.)
It had been raining all morning, but just as we were setting up, the sun came out and we a chilly, sunny afternoon ahead of us!
As the day wore on, strangers and friends came by to meet Bridgett, have some cookies, and buy the book. The whole day felt like a big hug.
And when our time was up, we passed out a few more cookies, packed up the books and headed home, grateful for Portland, Rose City Comics, and friends.
I’ll bring a book in my suitcase when we come to visit you this summer!
You know that Auntie Bridgett Spicer writes a comic called Auntie Beeswax, which is published twice a month in the Portland newspaper, The Willamette Week.
Well now, 182 those cartoons are all together in a beautiful new book! “Auntie Beeswax: Beehives and Cat Puke” will be available at lots of bookshops all over Portland. It will sell for $14.99, which is about 12 cents a cartoon. Such a deal!
The Release Party will be February 21st at Rose City Comics, on Mississippi Avenue, right next door to GiftyKitty, where Bridgett sells her artwork. Donna, the manager, is arranging a fine party. So exciting!!
And you know that this spring and summer will be packed with street fairs, Comic Cons, and book signing events, so lots of folks will be able to see ( and buy) the book! These are always exhausting, but we meet so many wonderful folks, it’s always fun.
Auntie Beeswax is a cheerful, quirky lady who keeps bees, chickens, and way too many cats. She spends her days caring for her critters, helping her neighbors, and trying to get her grumpy niece Mallory to see the Sunnyside of life.
I am looking forward to a busy, cheerful spring time. And I’ll bring your copy of Beehives and Cat Puke in my suitcase when we come to visit.
YEs, I know it’s too early for Valentines, but these things need some lead time.
Auntie Bridgett, our friend Cynthia, and I had a fine crafty morning last week, making Valentine cards. We cut, glued, wove, pieced, drew, and painted (as our whims and talents determined) and ended up with 12 pretty nifty cards.
This was my style… torn paper collages that I trimmed into shape. Pretty, thematic, and easy enough to do while chatting.
These cards will be distributed by Positive Charge, a group here in town who works with Meals on Wheels to make sure folks who are isolated get some holiday cheer and pretty things to look at, along with their nourishment.
These are Cynthia’s. Aren’t they nifty? That weaving took a long time! Fancy scissors helped make the edges pretty, too.
Working with Positive Charge is helping us to feel better in these difficult times. We know we are bringing happiness to folks, and the company and crafting is just good for the soul.
Auntie Bridgett, of course, used her cartooning talents to make these cuties. Sketching and watercolors are her happy place.
Today we will walk the cards down to Floyd’s Coffee Bar to be picked up and handed out on Valentine’s Day. This artsy do-good-ery is the sort of thing Bridgett’s character Auntie Beeswax would do, and I totally approve!
I continue to recover from shingles, and as with all recoveries, I have good days and bad days. On bad days I just sleep and watch architectural history videos.
But when I feel better, I do like to make a bit of something, and I use what is laying around. The other day, Auntie Bridgett brought home a great pile of old baseball cards from the 1990s. After I made sure they weren’t going to make me a millionaire, they became collage fodder.
First, I glued the cards together with four edge pieces so they’d be easier to work with. I use UHU because it dries fast and doesn’t make the paper curl. Then I collaged the four as though they were one piece, sticking bits down in whatever way seemed best.
I’d seen something like this done by Zoe Walker in our ZOOM group, and I thought I’d give it a try. I laid four of the cards face down, chose some leftover papers from other projects, and went to it.
There are so many things I love about collage. There’s really no wrong way to do it, just whatever looks right to you. I try a few bits together to see which colors play well together, and wait to put the most detailed bits on near the end.
Once I got to this point, I decided to cut the cards apart and see how they looked.
I liked them! But I was wearing out and they still needed… something.
So I hunted up bits from old magazines to freshen the color, put in dots, and I was done.
I’m not sure what to call them, or where they will go, but I managed to get some rest, stay happy, and use up some scrap paper. And sometimes, that’s enough.
Every time I get together with the ZOOM Art group with Ruthie Inman, I get so full of ideas I could pop.
This past week she showed up these: tiny, accordion folded books that fit in a little tiny box. The samples she showed were people’s’ interpretations of their high school years, with black and white photos and bits and pieces from the fifties for illustrations.
I had a good time in high school. I met Grandpa Nelson there, and Ruthie. I learned a lot about who I am and what I believe in, on the way to becoming who I am. But it was just four years out of 69, and I didn’t want to make a whole art project about it.
First, we cut some heavy paper so it fit into the little Altoid tin. Then we made little hinges from paper and joined the cards together like an accordion.
I decided to start my “Time Capsule” in the 1950s, when I was born. Some old ads and papers worked nicely. Then came the 1960s with the Beatles. I had to rework my High School years because the colors weren’t cohesive with the others. In the re-do, the horse stands for our Mustang mascot .
Since I got married right out of school, the kids came next. Sticking with the vintage ads, I showed our girl and boy….
And started in on the adventures! Traveling to France, learning French, and getting out in the world. I like how it folds up!
I am trying to choose colors that are cohesive so it looks like they belong together. Bridgett tells me this is color theory, which I have always rebelled against. Oh well.
You know how creative people are… once they get an idea, they follow it to the next, and the next. That’s sort of what is happening with my ATCs, or Artist Trading Cards.
Once I got the right size figured out, I laid down some floral bits of art from a donated calendar. To make them a softer background, I brushed on some white acrylic. I cut them to the proper 2.5 by 3.5 inches.
Then, to contrast with that lovely pastel, I searched the calendar again and found black and white photos or darker images to add. I really liked the way each one told a story.
But I’m a word person, snd I wanted words. I found them in Auntie Bridgett’s ‘French Phrase a Day’ calendar. Taking our current national situation into consideration, I added phrases. (I will let you look them up…) These were really coming along!
Then, to top it all off, Ruthie Inman suggested punching a hole in each one and keeping them on a ring! A portable, share-able art gallery! I am having fun imagining when I might share these on a train traveling through France, or sitting in a park. Of course, they have my information card on the back so folks will be able to find me on the ‘net.
Back in March, I got some books about Sister Corita Kent for my birthday. As you might suspect, Corita was a Catholic nun. She was also an artist and teacher at the progressive (as far as Catholic institutions go) Immaculate Heart College in Los Angeles back in the 1960s.
I will not attempt a detailed biography here. There are dozens in print and online, by folks who have done their research.
What I want to talk about is how some of Corita’s “Ten Rules’ have affected me and my art.
Number 4. Consider everything an experiment.
I know Crazy Quilts are an OLD thing, but mine is a NEW thing, at least to me. Combining piecing, embroidery, beading and quilting in one totally original creation big enough for two people to snuggle under was a seven month expeiment. It worked out pretty well.
Number 6. There are no mistakes. There is no win and no fail.
This is comforting to me, after years in the classroom where I dreaded making mistakes in front of my students. Knowing I can learn from everything makes me braver.
Number 7. The only rule is the work. It is people who do all the work all the time that figure things out.
For the past few years, with help from Auntie Bridgett and Ruthie Inman, I have been reading, thinking and experimenting with art. The stitches in my Crazy Quilt were an experiment. Laying down layers of collage, then tissue, then ink. Three dimensional constructions covered in paper mosaics… all experiments. I like some better than others, but I learned from them all.
And, as Sister Corita promised, I am figuring things out.
We got to spent Sunday celebrating Auntie Bridgett’s birthday! It was a lovely sunny day, just for her.
To celebrate, we went to some of her favorite places. First, we stopped at The Bake Shop up on Sandy to get some sweets. They carry a figgy buckwheat spiral that she just loves, and I got their croissant au chocolate and a chocolate chip cookie for Grandpa Nelson.
We tucked the sweets in the car for later and went for coffee at Case Study, just next door. They have good coffee and a delightful vibe. High ceilings, huge plants, and lots of people without a lot of noise. And as a surprise, our table was right by a print by Gail Owen, a talented friend from SideStreet Arts.
And just because life is sweet, right next door to Case Study is Cosmic Monkey Comics. We wandered around and found their up-in-the-loft vintage comics section where Bridgett found Le Pain, a compilation of comics in French! She absolutely giggled with delight!
We took our treasures home and enjoyed a brunch of sweets and eggs, then read and rested for a while. Grandpa Nelson enjoyed the Doonesbury collection I had brought for him.
Bridgett and I walked around the park and got a FaceTime call from Cousins Owen and Charlotte, who told us all about their baseball games and upcoming Halloween costumes.
Dinner time came and Grandpa Nelson joined us for yummy pizza at Dov Vivi. Their cornmeal-based crust makes their pizza extra special and crunchy, and the weather was perfect for eating outside. We people watched and giggled with the young family at the next table.
When we were full and exhausted, we headed home for home, where the Birthday Girl had a nice long phone call with her Mom in Ohio. Even when we are quite grown up, it’s nice to hear from our Moms!
Friday was National Cartoonist’s Day, and I celebrated it by reading my two favorite cartoonists. The first, Gary Trudeau, has written Doonesbury since 1968. I started reading it in our local newspaper when I was in high school, collecting the paperback collections as they came out.
The characters and stories in the strips were funny, intelligent takes on people very much like people I knew. Crazy Zonker Harris reminded me of one of my brothers, and Americanism zealot B.D. reminded me of the other one. The strips spoofed college sports, the anti-war movement, women’s liberation … all the hot-button topics of my teenage years.
The series of strips about Phred, the Vietcong terrorist, and his struggles during the war was enlightened and delightful.
Bridgett Spicer is my other favorite cartoonist, and your own Auntie Bridgett. She started writing her first comic strip, SquidRow, in 2002. It ran for in the Monterey Herald newspaper from 2009 to 2014.
It told stories about people I knew, too. Starving artists and their search for art supplies and folks with irrational fears of garden gnomes… people everyone could relate to. Like Gary Trudeau, Bridgett shows her characters’ flaws as well as their strengths.
SquidRow wasn’t nearly as political as Doonesbury, but every now and then Bridgett felt the need to make a comment on world affairs. When there was a controversy about cartoonists drawing the prophet Mohammed, she made this strip about a cab driver.
In 2015, she closed out SquidRow and started Randie andRyan, showing her two main characters’ adventures as newlyweds. And when we moved to Portland, so did Randie and Ryan! That strip ran for four years.
After a few months , she started other projects and let the cartooning slide for a while. Then, in 2021, her friend Jack Kent, who does the comic SketchyPeople and was working for our local Willamette Weekly, offered her a spot on their comics page. Who could turn that down?
Auntie Beeswax is a slightly eccentric lady who lives in Portland. She is always upbeat as she cares for bees, cats, chickens, and her melancholy niece, Mallory.
I love seeing our everyday life in the comic strip. A well-done comic takes real life and lets you see it differently.
PS. You can find all Bridgett’s works, including paintings, collages, and lots of comics, at bridgettspicerart.com
Your Auntie Bridgett Spicer is an amazing artist. Not only can she create delightful comics like her “Auntie Beeswax” and wonderful paintings and collages, but she can draw and vacation at the same time. Here is a page from her sketchbook of our trip.
Her brain works like that.
Mine does not. I made a really cool cover for my travel journal for our last trip to Europe,
but am only now (three weeks after we got home) finishing up my account of our journey. Here is a page showing our train ride from Amsterdam to Utrecht.
I started with good intentions, but then it just got away from me.
I happily sacrificed journaling time for time spent with family in wondrous operas, delightful museums, and fabulous gardens.
So now I’m catching up, and I’m glad I waited. Not only is my Journal a more interesting synthesis of the journey, with my own sketches and all the sorts of paper you collect on a trip, but I am getting to re-live the whole experience!
It’s like watching my favorite movie all over again.
Dear Liza 