Drawing a blank, a good cartoon idea. A square, filled with nothing at all. This would be a metanarrative cartoon. Must remain creative. Must create. Sometimes creating something is effortless. Other times, it requires work. The reward, either way, is seeing your idea come into fruition. Or, at the same time, see someone else’s ideas come into fruition.

It was a day for this, sort of. I worked with Cathy, who I met at the Senior Center some time ago, on our mutual art project. We matt pictures on matt provided to us by the local frame shop Bigfoot. I say we because I tried my hand at this today. I made two bookmarks. And I gave both of them away, one to a little girl (I also gave her a handful of books); and I gave another to a photographer who came and sat with us as we were working.

It was an unusual day at the Palmer Senior Center. Someone had arranged for indigenous singer/dancers to perform prior to the noon hour. I did not get the names of the groups, nor did I keep straight where they were from. This was a very cool aspect of the Arctic Winter games, which are taking place this week in Palmer. In addition to bringing athletes, northern countries have brought singers and dancers with them.

The first group – dressed in red kuspuks, and I am not sure from where, but I am going to find out – they were the best. Their songs, and the way they sang them, were incredibly moving. They were in harmony, and their backup instrumentation fit with what they were doing. And fortunately, they had a very appreciative audience. I do not know where they’ll be playing next, or if I would go and see them. The six or seven women were concert hall material.

The other four groups were good, but not as good as the first group. There were groups from the Northwest Territories (they wore lumberjack shirts) Greenland, and the Yukon.

One group did a conga line. I had to hold myself back from joining saying, “boundaries Alys, boundaries.” It is important to remain cognizant of this when at this particular place because the board isn’t that fond of what I do.

I felt relaxed and at peace, just sitting there in the sun streaming through the large plate glass window, first reading a given children’s book, then cutting out illustrations, which I set aside for Cathy to matt. I do feel ambivalent about cutting pages out of books, but the books that I am getting the pictures from don’t have much shelf life in them. I may take some and make prints of the pages and then matt them.

It would be quite wonderful, if say, everyone decided that books, particularly older books with no shelf life left, should be saved – and that those who had some interest, began repairing them. Most books can actually be repaired.

The matted illustrations are now souvenirs of this particular day.

Next: 73. 3/15/24: Drawing a Blank, Continued