What's Jaguar Up To?

I am the busy jaguar! Last week I finished Heartskein and handed it to beta-readers. I also finished drawing in and mailing the 25 paperbacks for the Major Pieces Kickstarter. Which is fantastic because it leaves me with the rest of January free to concentrate on exhibit planning.

For those of you new to the newsfeed here, my high school alma mater selected me as their Alumna Visiting Artist for 2020, and that means I have a two-week gallery exhibit, plus reception and talk, in the first week of February. I thought about just hanging some pictures and letting it go at that, but I'm a narrative artist: I tell stories in pictures and art and languages, and I feel that plan wouldn't be a genuine expression of my work. Instead, I am producing about 8-10 clusters like the one above, where there's a theme (this one was 'flaws' or 'starting over'), and a lot of supporting artwork or documentation, along with explanatory plaques. I am picking the art, printing it (if the original's been sold), selecting mounting board and cutting it to size, writing and printing the narratives, and then doing these preliminary layouts (and then photographing the layouts so that the people hanging the exhibit with me have guides).

Needless to say, this is a lot of both mental and physical work (I have about 20 pieces of matboard on my floor that I'm measuring and cutting myself, bent over, on the floor, did I mention the floor?), and I am relieved that I've polished off my outstanding responsibilities for this month so that I can focus on it.

For the next week and a half, then, I'm going to have my head down in this project. After I'm done I'll be able to breathe and look at the rest of the year with equanimity! So I thank you for your patience... Patreon might be a lot more 'here's some sketches I did recently' stuff rather than 'let me write some deep analysis posts for you' for a few weeks.

But I think this is important. Helping these teens matters to me. I remember being one of them--I have to! A lot of the modern stories and characters that support me today were born from the brain of Teen Me, so in a very real way, Teen Jaguar is still with me. I have an opportunity to tell these kids that their ideas already matter... that making a go of a creative career is hard work, but that they've already got what it takes, if they go into it with their eyes open.

I'm really looking forward to this. 

Anyway! That's where I'm at right now. More as I can!