trading cards, rain, the difficulty with endings, tarot, getting back to the school of creation
🌤 It's September !🌤
Hello! Thanks for coming back as we slide into the change of season. This month I’ve got my thoughts on playing cards, tarot, stickers and collage, a continuation on endings and new beginnings, some sketchbook sneak peeks, and more updates on Antherda of course!
https://open.spotify.com/track/3G9l0CsH7HCkr0SqDE1juj?si=5C4A93MESAGN8DzyFTc2RQ
I haven't been at school for years, but every September I get a wild urge to start something new. Replace my old fountains pen. Find the coolest notebook. Making endless to do lists. Start watching Gilmore Girls from the beginning for the fourth year in a row. And every year, (being the easily sunburnt goth that I am) I am gleeful at the cooler temperatures and the rain. (It is raining right now !!!)
I am starting to notice how the plants I’ve only just gotten to know are disappearing again in preparation for the winter 🥲 and it’s instilled a mild panic that I will not have enough yarrow flower to last me through the winter. This sense of running out of time has been with me for a few weeks now, especially as I am nearing the completion of the draft of my book! (More on this later). Part of this mild panic I felt looked a lot like me standing at the side of the road in the pouring rain, ripping an especially invasive vine off of one of the mugwort plants I pass regularly on my way to the studio.
It doesn't rain very often in Berlin (weird for a place that is built on marshland!?) but when it does, I find myself feeling completely at home. Probably something to do with growing up in a place where you take an umbrella as an essential every month of the year. I like that there's less people in the park, and I like the sound of it on a roof or outside the window. Today it rained all day and I took both boys out in it, and the small one, rain dripping off his nose, asked me "Why are we going out when it's not a beautiful day!?".
Since it's the end of the summer holidays, I'm back at my part time job as nanny/babysitter/honorary auntie/sister with the wonderful family I work for. One of my favourite things about my job is experiencing second hand the crazes and phases the kids go through. I mention this here because the older one, a creative, smart, and sincere 7 year old, is currently completely obsessed with Yu-Gi-Oh cards and I've a couple thoughts on it.
If you don't know, Yu-Gi-Oh is a Japanese trading card game based on a fictional game featured in a manga by Kazuki Takahashi in 1996. The fact that the game itself was launched in North America in the early 00's and is still taking over the minds and wills of children in 2022, tells you a lot about the popularity of this franchise. The older one has friends who are Yu-Gi-Oh experts, with whom he can regularly expand his knowledge of how best to drive your opponents' life points down to zero. I think he's even made notes. It's definitely got both boys hooked, and what I find interesting, is that while the older one can read the (ridiculous) titles of the cards and has an idea of what the cards can do in a "duel", the small one (he's almost 4) bases his entire judgement (aside from what his big brother chooses to tell him) on the image alone, because that's all he has.
He will greatly treasure the cards based on how much he likes the picture, how cute the character is, or wether the card has a shiny or sparkly element, over the cards that are actually "strong" (please note here that I am absolutely as clueless as he is, if not more so- Yu-Gi-Oh is a very complex game that requires much rule learning as well as MATHS and STRATEGY!). It makes me think about the nature of trading cards, or card games, or tarot cards, and the importance we can project onto the mere images in these examples, regardless of their intended meaning, and as children, how before we learn to read, it is the primary way we understand the visual world.
I bought myself a tarot deck a month or so ago, the regular Rider Waite sort. I’ve come to view tarot almost like a game at the moment, which is of course what it was originally for when tarot came into use around the 15th century. The divination aspect was introduced fairly recently, when 18th century occultists began to make some interesting claims about the history and original meaning of the cards, making esoteric links to ancient Egypt and other older, mysterious organisations from around the world. From a quick Google, I found that general playing cards were invented in China around the 9th century AD, using wooden blocks or leaves as well as traditional parchment or paper.
Cards have seemingly always had this ‘playful’ aspect, due to the element of chance, and I felt that excitement when I got my tarot deck that I also see in the boys when they get new Yu-Gi-Oh cards; what does this one do? what does this one mean? What I'm enjoying is that you can take meaning from it in so many ways, and what is most relevant to you, is your own interpretation. This method can of course be expanded to many other art mediums, visual or otherwise. At a certain point, the intended meaning of a creation becomes separate from the creator. And I think it's supposed to.
Even with all the shared symbology we have collectively in the many spheres of society, there are certain symbols, images and even words that have specific meaning to an individual based on their own experiences of the world.
I wonder wether children often reflect the collective much more because they have less of their own experiences to draw from, less of their own concrete opinions, and because of their tendency to learn about the world through images.
When I did my art foundation years ago, (a 1 year course intended to help those seeking higher education in a creative field to choose what the hell could become of their pretentious photo realistic paintings or sculptures of fruit suspended from the ceiling- I was the former) I did my final project entirely in collage. I'd been so used to painting and drawing and making everything so traditionally and delicately at school, that discovering collage was a special kind of freedom for me. It allowed me to make things 'ugly' and disjointed and weird, whereas before I’d been making very safe, ‘pretty’ art.
I continued collage after uni when I moved into a warehouse in London and met a friend who made smaller collages stuck onto sticker paper. Collage stickers. (He made very intricate collages using a scalpel and they were beautiful). Inspired, a few of us in the warehouse would make an evening of it, sitting around the big table in the shared space and cutting out pieces from the stack of 90's 'The Face' magazines that were slowly rotting on one of the damp windowsills of the hallway.
It's something I've continued to do since then, either with friends or alone, and I've always considered the words, pictures and colours that you choose from all those books or magazines to reflect something about your current state of mind. I keep all my stickers in a silly little mini folder and offer them to people (usually people Ive just met, but often friends or family too), and always find that their choice will tell me a lot about them, too. What they think about, what they're drawn to, their interests.
I love that small bits of paper with words and images can hold such varied and vast meaning. They carry concepts individually, but that concept can be continued into a narrative when put alongside other images. It’s basically how a comic works. 😉
Which leads me to talk about the current challenge that is drafting the end of ‘Antherda’. The ending of the story has always been in my plan. I’ve known what needs to happen this whole time. And yet, now that I’m here at the closing part of this story, I can’t quite figure out the HOW. Endings have always been an issue for me, I love getting into the process of writing, and drawing the story and the characters, but I get overexcited at the idea of finishing a project, and the end gets all rushed and anticlimactic. I’m doing my best not to fall into that trap this time.
The problem is, is that there's been so much build up for me with this story. As soon as I'd finished my last Martin and the Witch story 'The Mirror' in late 2019, I already knew how the story would continue, but like I mentioned in last months post, a lot of things happened in a personal sense that made this process difficult. It's been so long in the making, and is a story and a world so close to my heart, that I naturally put a lot of pressure on myself to make it the best thing I could possibly make. Martin deserves it. Hell, the Witch deserves it. This can be a good thing, in that I'm putting a lot of effort and thought into each stage of the process, but it can also mean that I get super impatient. I want it to be done! I want the glory! To send it out in to the world in the knowledge that I've made something I'm truly proud of. And also, to have space for all the other projects that have taken a back seat all this time. I'm trying to let my ideas around the final scenes of the book stew. I'm giving them space to ferment and move around until they're a little more solid. That sounds like the worst kind of soup, but you get the idea.
I suppose the trick to a good ending is to tie up the loose threads, but also to leave just enough space to imagine the ways in which the characters and the world could continue outside of the narrative you’ve set out. Right?! It sounds right. I’ll go for that. 😅
I was recently invited to a comic and zine fair by art collective Art Horse towards the end of August. There was live music, a bar and a cafe, and some really amazing artists with their comics and creations. I had a really good time and it gave me a chance to talk about my work with people face to face! I got such a confidence boost from the day, and I felt really inspired to be involved in the comic scene in Berlin. Thank you to those that organised the event and those lovely people that came and chatted with me about my book! 😌 I am always so happy to hear from people who have read my comics!
I posted the following little comic on my instagram already but wanted to share it here too.
I also wanted to share some of my favourite pages from my sketchbook from the last couple weeks, which I carry around with me most of the time, and use to explore ideas which sometimes end up fuelling a lot of other creative projects.
Now for some teasers from the more completed parts of Antherda!
While I am reaching the end of this book, a new season is beginning and the winds of change are blowing through Berlin. Shout out to my parents for having successfully gotten themselves and all our stuff to Germany 🇩🇪 to start the next chapter of their lives among old friends and hopefully soon, in a new house!
So that's it from me this month! Wishing you all a pleasant continual drift into the best season (spooky season) and until next time for the halloween edition!
