I had fun making these fat crayons.
Obviously, this was not my most creative or rigorous set of boards. I didn’t have a lot of motivation, and it was so incredibly hot and sticky that I did not want to be working outside. But everyone said they loved them.
The only thing I really have to add Is that I decided to go with red decorative elements, because when I just put up the letters on the first bulletin board, I realized I inadvertently recreated the Best Buy logo.
This one actually blew off the night before the first one blew off. And it’s the ugliest (oldest) corkboard and the one that most requires covering.
I came in the day after finishing it, and noticed right away that it wasn’t there, and crossed my fingers that someone had found it, because I didn’t see it in the courtyard. In the past, I have a few times found my blown away bulletin board in the courtyard, and a few times other people have found it and brought it in, and one time it blew away completely and was never seen again. That was sad.
So I was happy to see that it was laid out in the library, because the librarian had found it. I went to examine it more closely, to see if there was any damage, and the first thing I noticed was that there was a very healthy wolf spider just chilling between two layers of paper.
I casually mention, “Hey, here’s a big spider, here” and the librarian says something like, “I’m usually OK with spiders” in a voice that frankly did not convince me she was OK with spiders. So she comes over and sees it and adds, “I DIDN’T THINK YOU MEANT THAT BIG! I THOUGHT YOU MEANT A DADDY LONG LEGS! WHAT DO WE DO?”
I say, I’m going to take it outside, and she says, “HOW? WHERE?” And I say, “I’m going to catch it in a cup and then release it in the Mexican Bird of Paradise.” (I thought: cool spider should live in a cool bush).
So I scoop this little monster to and take it to the cool plant and the spider is like OMG YES I LOVE THIS PLANT and JUMPED out of the cup to get to the plant. So I’m like, have a nice life, then, and I go back in the library and the librarian says, “So I brought that spider inside? And it was in here with me ALL MORNING???”
Hopefully the trauma subsides.
Anyway, I hung it back up and continued decorating.
Yes, it’s that time of year again! The time of year when the monsoon winds blow so hard they tear my work off the wall before anyone even sees it 😭. This was the worst year yet. This photograph was actually taken before the whole board got ripped up by a weather system that apparently caused tornados in southeastern Arizona, a region of the world absolutely not know for the presence of tornadoes.
I spent 4 days on these 3 boards. I lost some time on the first time because they surprised me with MY OWN BOOKCASE in the library. Granted, I think the librarian was just tired of my stuff being stashed everywhere behind the circulation desk, but it was a very nice gift. After 21+ years, I actually have a space that isn’t “jammed under the circulation desk.” Anyway, I spent a while moving my stuff—all my book repair supplies, all my writing club materials, and all my art supplies—to this new space. It took a while.
The second bulletin board had already blown off (I’ll tell that story in the next post) and I had actually reinforced everything before I left Wednesday (the day before school started). Thursday, I was taking an early morning walk (really the only kind of walk you can realistically take in Tucson in the summer) when the librarian texted me a picture of my SHREDDED work.
i texted back that I was 1 minute away from the school and would be in to fix it before realizing that I was wearing a VERY GAY (like, literally advertising a queer event) off the shoulder shirt and no bra, and then quickly texted that it would actually be 20 minutes, because I had to go home and don some more appropriate attire.
I did manage to get it all buttoned up before the bell rang but it’s kind of sad looking, all stapled and taped and patched. Not an auspicious start to the best year ever.
So obviously I had to go beyond my normal sources to get this many different greens. Fortunately, I knew where to go and had many different options available. In the end I think it was something like 15 different kinds of paper: butcher paper, printer paper, construction paper, origami paper, tissue paper, and specialty paper.
The attribution to JRR Tolkien was actually yellow paper but I did the lettering in 2 green marker outlined with green pen and then colored the rest of the paper with a different green marker.
Even though I was just going for strips of green, a lot of people saw a forest in this design. One person even specifically suggested a birch forest.
All 3 of these bulletin boards took about 14 hours.
I’m just posting these all at once so they don’t slip my mind again, because I actually finished them Friday and now it’s Monday. So this is part two of the verse.
This panel was in fact the second one I did, and it was fun cutting a million trees and tearing up paper for the river, at first. After a while it got onerous and I had to throw away so many pieces I messed up. I couldn’t help but think of the giant mallorn trees, but this forest was supposed to be about GREEN and in any case what I saw in my mind’s eye was pine.
I recently reread Lord of the Rings, which I think is more relevant now than it’s ever been, being a tale of unlikely heroes compelled by honor and duty to do the right thing in the face of certain death. Like every single character knows their enterprise is doomed to fail but they march grimly toward their own putative demise because that’s what you do when evil threatens to overwhelm your world.
But they have some nice moments mixed in with the doom, like Lothlórien, where the grass is festooned with the golden, star shaped elanor flowers and the white, snowdrop niphredil.
Even though this panel is the first of three, I did the image last.. The flowers and letters are cut paper but the stems and leaves are markers. The font is based on Aniron.
The quote is from a poem of Bilbo Baggins sings to Frodo in Fellowship of the Ring, an old hobbit wistful with nostalgia, watching a young hobbit prepare to make a journey beyond any he can imagine.
This is probably the latest winter holiday bulletin board I ever did: Friday is the last day of school and I just got it up yesterday. I’m not thrilled with the fact that the flags are just suspended in space but I needed to be done. I spent a lot of hours on it but I never have enough time.
But this is a very Tucson kind of scene. I love that chiminea on the left and wish it were real and in my back yard.
I noticed the kinders all putting their hands up to the fires like they were trying to warm up. I must add that, even though it was cold when I had this idea, it was 82° when I finished and the kinders were pretending to warm their hands by the fire. That’s Tucson for you.
I’ll post more chimineas tomorrow. The third bulletin board just says “STAY WARM” in big letters. I probably won’t post it at all because it’s not that interesting.
So, the thing about true cryptids is that they’re all made up. Some cryptids turn out to be real animals, but most of them reside in the collective unconscious, inspired, I believe by the intersection of the natural world with the boundaries of human knowledge. The jackalope, as far as I can tell, is a 20th century cryptid, created, I’m guessing, to sell southwestern merchandise, and perhaps to share the mystique of the desert and inspire romantic thinking about the region. It may not have the same glorious history as some fantastic creatures, but it holds a place in the hearts of many.
I was asked to create banners for the seven columns in the library, and when I asked what I should depict on the banners, I was told “I don’t know. A mix of realistic and magical?” What’s a more appropriate mixture of realism and magic, than a taxidermied bunny with antlers sewn to it?
I wish I could say there was a greater meaning behind this mythology, but I just don’t think there is. I think someone just made it up for marketing purposes.
But I love it, and the kids seem to like it too. One of them told me his nickname at home is Jackalope, and he was quite touched by the homage.
More to come, of course.
Threw this one together in record time. Last night I thought I would get up early and go in and do this work and finish early and leave. But then I thought, “Hey, it’s August 1. I should look at the calendar to see what I’ve got going on this month.” And I realized I had a doctor’s appointment in the morning. And then I didn’t get to sleep until almost dawn and had to get up and run to this appointment and then have breakfast afterward, around the time most people are finishing lunch.
Blah blah blah, didn’t get in until 2:30, the air conditioning still isn’t fixed so it was 90° in there, and it was “Meet the Teacher” day so it was a total madhouse with hundreds of people wandering around.
Still managed to knock this out in under 4 hours. It’s not fancy but it does the job.
I knew last night I was going full rainbow on this one. I showed the background to the librarian before I did the letters and she loved it and I said, “I’m being very subversive” and then her daughter said, “You made a Pride flag,” and then I said, “Shh, we can’t say that,” and she said, “Why not?” and I said, “Because some people are humorless.”
“Humorless” in this case is a euphemism for “bigoted asshats.”
Anyway, the office manager loved it and it really makes huge impact on the space. And also, little queer kids will know.
If you can believe it, school starts Monday.
I can’t quite believe it but I decided to act like I did and get the breezeway ready. Originally I intended to come back today (Thursday) but then in Monday I decided I didn’t want to be rushed, and good thing, too. Because it turned out that not only would I be decorating all 3 bulletin boards in the breezeway again, they also wanted me to do the one by the principal’s office.
I didn’t have any huge inspiration but I decided I wanted to make a hibiscus and then it just made sense to go along with that theme. Which is hilarious because the breezeway is, of course, in the Sonoran Desert. But it’s frankly as humid as a tropical rain forest this week. So that’s cool.
I could have made MORE FLOWERS or made the flowers fancier or added smaller leaves or other design elements, but I had to go feed the Bear’s cat and then I had to give Miss Kitty a yoga lesson and ALSO I still have a whole day of work on that fourth board tomorrow. A dragon’s gotta pace dragonself.
The lettering is based on the De Latto font. The leaves are monsteras.
qwertyvsdvorak 