Works in Progress.

Hello hello. It's been a while.

Today I lost my wonderful job as a yoga instructor. The gym I worked at ran out of money and closed down. Without anyone notifying me. I just went to work and was told that the gym was closed. So I have to scramble again. And try not to scream at my former employer to give me my last two paychecks.

But since this blog is supposed to be about, you know, art and stuff, I should probably show you what I've been working on. My brother, Tom, is writing a fantasy epic that he is paying me to do some illustration work for. I've started on an emblem, which you can see above. The pencil work was too light for the scanner to pick up. I like working in 2H pencils first because they're easier to erase, and then go over it in 6B.

I'm also working on a webcomic. It's still in the developmental stages, but I'm very happy with the concept. And that's all you'll hear about it until I finish some sketches of it.

Also, I have another blog about baby names from a Pagan perspective. It's called Bewitching Names.

Until later.

The Revolt Against Cuteness

I'm obsessed with names. It's a pretty common affliction for us literary/artsy types. I spend a lot of time looking at name blogs and websites looking for new treasures, either for future projects or for future kids. A while ago I was watching a name enthusiast's video blog and someone asked her what she thought of the name Rosetta. She said she didn't like it because "it wasn't cute." Months later and this still puts a really bad taste in my mouth, and not only because I love Rosetta and think it sounds beautiful and scholarly. Why does a girl's name have to be cute?

My parents named me Christina, and as soon as I was able to develop an opinion, I hated it. And keep in mind that my parents were planning to calling me Christy before I was born which would have been even worse. For most of my life I went by Tina, which seemed like the strongest available option due to the association with Tina Turner.

When I was a little girl everyone made a big deal out of my cuteness. Nice people said I looked cute, but I was a shy girl and I didn't want to be looked at. My parents would mimic how I waited and ask for things politely and laugh and say how cute I was. But I did not like to be laughed at, or taken as a joke.

My mother used to tell me, "Well, your father and I looked around and saw that all of the good looking babies were named Christina, and we wanted a cute little girl, so that's what we picked. We didn't really think that hard about it." (This wasn't really the whole truth. One of those little baby girls was very important to my mother. But by the time she told me that, the damage was already done.) My parents never stopped to think that their little girl might be more macabre, quiet, and introspective than their vision of what a "Christina" was supposed to be. Or, for that matter, not Christian!

On top of that, I noticed that many adults said, "Oh, that's cute," in a belittling way. As in, "The liberals think we can settle this peacefully? That's cute." That's a mixed message to give to a girl. As a result, I equated "cute" with "weak," or "inadequate," at a very young age. And I always wanted to be listened to and respected. But Christinas aren't respected. Christinas are cute. The adults in my life kept pushing that word, and that name, on me to show me who they thought I was, which was totally at odds with who I wanted to become.

And here's were the big light bulb went on. Maybe that's why a lot of people are giving their daughters boy's names and surnames today. Don't get me wrong, I know that there are some...um...unenlightened parents that name their daughters Barkley because it "sounds ultra-feminine." But for others, maybe it's lack of femininity is the point. After all, my generation is the one that's having kids right now. And the top 100 for the year I was born was full of cutsy names. Jessica and Jennifer, and it's accomplices Jessie and Jenny, are cutsy. Elisabeth isn't cutsy, but Lizzie and Beth are. Stephanie, Tiffany, Jamie, Brittney, Amy, Ashley, Kelly, Katie...all cute. Maybe some of them are like me. Maybe they truly think that a girl named Emerson is more respected than a girl named Sophie or Abigail. Sadly, they might be right.

I like girls names that a feminine, but still have a serious weight to them. Most people tell me that they sound like they could be witches. Mehitabel, Desdemona, Fiore, Ravenna. And my slow metamorphosis into Isadora, possibly legally.

Cute is good for an infant. But your daughter will be cute, or want to be cute, for only a short period of time. No one expects sons to be cute forever, so why expect that from the daughters? The problem, though, of avoiding "cute" is that what's "cute" is subjective and changing all the time. By the time I start having kids, would Paloma be too cutsy?

Small Post

Sorry about the lack of updates. I'm about to go through training to become a yoga instructor, so that has been occupying my mind as of late. It'll be nice to earn a regular paycheck for a change.

Holy crap, NaNoWriMo is in less than two weeks?!? How did that happen? I was thinking of doing NaNoManGo this year as a way to start my new webcomic. And it'll be about...I haven't the foggiest. I do have some vague notions about a fantasy story set in Seattle. Mostly just characters. I'll work on it.

Kitties!

So, the contest that I was working on before extended the deadline, so I was able to do it over. I'm happier with my entry now. I'll post it up here one day.

But for now: kitties! Watch it till the end, it's worth it.

Cow Tools

A couple of years ago I read a book about Gary Larson's Far Side. In that book he talked about the infamous "Cow Tools." You can see the strip made into a cute little animation here. Basically the "joke" is if cows made tools like monkeys do this is what they would look like. Or something.

Gary Larson said, and I'm paraphrasing this from memory, "The first mistake I made was thinking that this was funny. The second mistake was making one of the tools look like a crude saw. This meant that everyone reading it thought that the other tools were supposed to have uses that they needed to figure out too. Of course, they had no chance in hell."

Once the strip was published in 1982, it got an unexpected public response. A lot of people were quite angry. They didn't get it. They wanted to know what it meant. The hyper-serious messages that Larson got as a result of this little comic strip are more amusing than the strip itself. Larson said (and I'm paraphrasing from memory again, it was a very memorable excerpt), "The "Cow Tools" ordeal is something that will haunt me for the rest of my life."

Ah, the illustrator's fear of not being understood.

I was thinking about cow tools a lot while I was completing an entry into an illustration competition today. The competition was for a triptych of images for an upcoming website. They wanted three different unique homes. I think my entry was really crappy! Aside from the fact that I'm still learning how to work with watercolors (it looked okay before I started painting), I made a steampunk house that doesn't look particularly steampunk and a hippie apartment building that doesn't look especially hippie. I'm convinced that they're not going to know what they're looking at. I wasn't even sure what I was looking at after I scanned them all.



This one is the only one of the three that I'm kind of happy with. It's an earthship! With frickin' space invaders on it! It's a nerdy earthship! That's awesome! Except they asked for a yurt. But those aren't interesting to draw.

So that's why I'm in a well of depression at the moment. The point of illustration is to bring a message across. I made some incomprehensible illustrations. Which they probably can't even use because I couldn't get them down into the right dimensions on the computer. I'm gonna go drown my sorrows with chocolate now.

Inspiring Things: Secret Cinema

Secret Cinema is a film club in London, England. It's a lot like any other film club, only infinitly more awesome. First, the audience doesn't know what the movie is until they watch it. Secondly, they don't know where they'll be watching the movie until they're there. But that's not all. There are actors and singers and dancers that put you into the world of the movie.

Just to get an idea, here's their take on Blade Runner:



...And Bugsy Malone:



...And Ghostbusters:



Right now, this is only regulated in one location. What I want to know is, if this idea was replicated in other cities, would the original creators be flattered or offended? Or at least that's what I'm hoping because I don't live in England and I WANT TO GET INVOLVED THIS LOOKS AWESOME.

New Journey, New Name

I'm starting this blog in order to focus on my dream of becoming an illustrator. I'm not really sure how to start this, as I have no finished work that I would like to show. I guess I'll start by answering the obvious question. What's with the name change?

When I first came up with this new name the thought was that it would be used as my "Wiccan" name, because what kind of a witch is named Christina? Isadora is Greek for "gift of Isis". Vega is an ancestor's last name from my mother's side of the family. I then decided that Isadora Vega is a great nom de plume, and my real name is not. So there you are.

Here's to what lies ahead.