It is exciting to me to see a gifted artist move closer and closer to a wonderfully creative space.
Abrah Griggs just sent me her latest rough idea for a banner for the new bedlamfarm.com under re-design. I love the type and font, the “Bedlam Farm Journal,” and I love the two belly dancing sheep.
I told Abrah I think two of the same animals dancing is too much, it looks too much like a belly dancing blog or music or dancing site. Too much of a good thing.
I think we need another animal up there peering over the top or lounging over a letter or something but not dancing – a donkey, a chicken or a dog even (yes, I know, I said, I’m not looking for a dog, but it is another animal…consistency is for fanatics and ideologues.)
This is very exciting for me, though, I can sense Abrah is locked in and getting very close. I am much enjoying my interaction with her, she wrote about this project on her blog today. She said she froze initially – I think I sometimes have that effect on people – but then we started going back and forth quite honestly with each other.
I sensed she froze a bit, but I knew she would melt, and she did.
I know that honesty is what she wants, because it’s what she gives, and I know she thrives on that, as I do.
Collaborations like this always turn out well in my experience.
I love her work and sensibility. She does wonderful work almost every day.
I love that I can talk openly with her about what I want and what I don’t want, and she will take it and make it her own. She’s not made of crystal and I love the process.
A banner is a personal thing, an expression of the center of my work and creativity. The blog , more than my books, is my voice now, my living memoir, my face to the world. This banner promises to be modern, smart, different, arresting, and irreverent. Just what I want the blog to be.
It is wonderful to collaborate in that way and every time I get a sketch from her, I get more excited. I love my blog and work hard on it. I think every true creative freezes a bit on a new project at first – I know I on my books, I always think this will never happen, I can’t do it.
And then it does happen, and I can do it.
It takes great courage to put one’s work out there again and again, for people to love…or not. We are close enough to touch noses.
It is always better to have an odd number in an artistic piece. So three animals would be better than two.
I have followed you off and on for years. And it is good to see where you are now. I can understand about reactive attachment issues. I have worked on that for myself. In many ways you are doing things I would like to do myself. One step at a time.
Thanks, I get what you are saying but three animals is too much for my banner..I don’t want it to look like farm animal blog…
Please put a dog in your new blog banner! (That’s why the sheep are there!)
Kaaren, thanks, I appreciate your feelings, but I don’t want a dog there. The sit was once all about dogs, and now the topics have broadened, as I wrote in the piece. There will be plenty of dogs on the blog but dogs are not the only thing, the Bedlam Farm idea has become wider and more complex. I need to convey that in the banner, and I think this will do it for me…Its a personal thing, and dogs are what I often love to write about , but I have worked to free myself from the notion that dogs are only what I write about. So think no dogs in the banner…the sheep and donkeys look on my life with bemusement, not devotion, and that’s what I want to convey.
love the new artwork for the header, Jon! I find 2 sheep to be too much? LOL! I love the one on the left…….perhaps the right sheep could *become* a hen or a cat?
Love that you are always moving forward with your blog and ideas. 10 years of reading now…..and it is never boring. Thank you for that!
Susan M
Thank you Susan..maybe there should be a dog!