Happy belated Labor Day to all workers, and cheers to labor unions everywhere! I hope you had the long weekend you needed—connecting or retreating, working or relaxing, out in the world or deep in yourself. Mine was full of gratifying domestic work (I’m at the age where climbing a ladder in the alley & putting a rag on a swiffer to wash a window that hasn’t been washed from the outside for years is bone-deep satisfaction—my god, the morning sunlight!), sweet connections and adventures with my very good children, and just enough time outside in this heat wave to feel done with summer and ready for a season of crisp, cool gloom.
Last week was my first day teaching my comics class at the School of the Art Institute. My class 6 hours (3:30 - 9:30pm) but I got downtown midmorning to get my head in the game, finish some details (printing handouts and the like), and feel relaxed going into the first day. I learned that the fastest way for me to get from the train to my classroom is to walk through the museum, which feels like a gift of cosmic proportions. Excuse me, did you know that there’s a wonderful, light-hearted exhibit on the first floor of portraits (and a few misc drawings) by Ellsworth Kelly?
I got everything prepped for class quicker than expected, so after lunch I returned to AIC and spent a little time by the Triton Fountain in the McClintock Court, until I overheard some folks holding trays of food saying “all these single people are hogging the tables” and I felt ashamed and walked around some more.
I ran into my dear old friend Sam Sharpe (who happens to be teaching in the classroom next to me on Thursdays), and we got a coffee and caught up before settling in to class. Genius of our age Anya Davidson was wrapping up her comics journalism class before I got to go in and set up in the same room. The pedigree of peers I’m finding myself among gives me an electrifying charge to step up my own game.
After warm up exercises, getting-to-know-you introductions, syllabus overview and a lecture introducing foundational vocabulary & concepts and a brief survey of the diversity of narrative & aesthetic possibilities in the medium, we dove in to a series of Lynda Barry & Ivan Brunetti exercises (pulled directly from or lightly adapted from Syllabus, Making Comics, and Cartooning: Philosophy and Practice). We wrapped up the class with a longer independent comic exercise, and I got to talk individually with each of the students. Any nerves I had about teaching are gone after meeting this group of excellent people: I’m really excited about this semester.
I designed the class so most of the work can be done in studio together, because I also saddled the students with the task of keeping a daily journal (at least 5 days per week), with different formats every week. It is possible that each of the 15 art institute students will go on to a vibrant career as working cartoonists, but it’s more likely that the tools they learn in this class will supplement another creative practice, professional or personal. Regardless of their futures, I’m a huge believer in the value of keeping a journal or diary—I not-so-secretly think this is the most valuable thing they’ll learn this semester. So much of the work of being an artist of any medium is paying attention to what you pay attention to, especially in comics where we have to be [set designers & costume designers & directors & actors & writers & book designers &c &c &c]. I also set it up to transition from all-prose to a mix of text & art to all-comics, to get everyone used to thinking in comics. The journal assignment is here, if you’re interested in following along.
Of course, I’m a big ol’ hypocrite: I am a better artist and a more emotionally regulated person when I have a regular writing practice and keep diary comics, but the last month has been rough and I’ve only drawn this one spread one night when my husband was out of town and my kids were asleep. Class prep, book deadlines, kid surgery (routine but hard recovery), brutal toddler sleep regression and the accompanying ego-destroying sleep deprivation, end-of-summer lack of childcare, back-to-school logistics (last minute alert to no school bus for the year?!), etc etc have kept me from drawing. But life is settling into the new back-to-school rhythm, so I hope to be drawing a lot more this month.
Until then, off to lecture prep for me, with a departing gift of some kid art for you. Happy September, darlings!
This is fabulous.. the Pirate Penis is the best story I have read all year :D
Omg this was exactly what I needed for my break in course prep for next week! The Pirate Penis topped it off excellently! And 100% agree on a diary...daily comics for myself helps me see myself and my world