LD8: From the Warmth of My Carhartt

In recent news, it seems that Lucy's Dancewill be translated into a Yup'ik language edition by one John Toopetlook of the Alaska Native Language Center. Many thanks to John and the ANLC.

Lucy's Dance deals largely with the suppression and revival of Curukaq, the Yup'ik potlatch/dance festival. In not-so-cheerful news, I have recently learned that native dancing has remained banned in certain bush villages until as recently as a year ago. Many Native Alaskans still feel vaguely guilty for reviving the tradition, as the idea that the dancing is idolatrous has been deeply ingrained. Lucy's Dancetouches only briefly on the religious aspect, but the book's message still feels more relevant in light of this piece of news.

Like last week's drawing, this week's is a gift-gathering montage. I spent some time cross-referencing photos of dogsleds. The sled I drew is not a cutout from any one photo that I found, but rather a composite of different common elements -- the flat front, the angled brace in the back, the twine-wrapped joint and handle. Because I wanted to show part of Lucy's father's structural planning, I decided to sketch dimensions around the sled. The dimension numbers are drawn from a particular "how to" guide. The curves of the sled are created either by making the sled from "green" wood, or via steaming. I imagine that finding the right wood pieces has been difficult for the residents of Stebbins, Alaska, who live on a largely treeless tundra.

This image includes a more contemporary artifact of import: the Carhartt "Duck" work jacket. Carhartts are so ubiquitous among central Alaskans that even had I included the logo, it would hardly count as advertising. Everyone in my hometown of Fairbanks knows about them, so it's really just a matter of deciding, at a young age, whether or not warm, tawny canvas is your style. I wouldn't be surprised if the cold-weather gear one day claims a special lighted glass exhibit in the UAF museum, near the qaspeks and mukluks.

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Artifact Studies and Random Notes

In junior high school I collaborated on a project with a small, mostly-female group of students. We were to design a unique, fictional culture and build illustrative cultural artifacts. We would bury said artifacts in a cardboard box filled with soil. Another team would then excavate our artifacts and guess about our culture. After several days of creative deliberation, we designed a pyramid-based matriarchy wherein men were kept underground as slaves, brought out occasionally to build more pyramids. Elvis was God. According to the artifact of my memory, middle school was a confused and hostile culture. I began this week's illustrations, again, with visual research. I still don't know everything about these artifacts, but my Stebbins Dance Festival book has some interesting statements about them. Part of what I do know I impart below. According to their cultural artifacts, the Yup'ik people practice artful dancing to drums while waving furred objects. They also spend time

Work from Home

The reference for this piece is a known work of fine art: a photograph by Peter Mitchell, a lorry driver who traversed West Yorkshire and occasionally snapped photos. The piece is titled Eric Massheder, Leeds, (1975) . Eric is the man in the doorway, a drippings refinery worker who posed in his home, adjacent (really, attached) to the refinery where he worked for 12 years. Eric woke up in his home in the morning, walked one room (or so) over, and began his shift. I have changed and omitted a few details for the sake of composition as usual. I've now been working from home for about four years, and I make a similar commute without stepping outdoors. My house even resembles Eric's a bit, though there's no factory nearby. I enter my workplace by transferring a USB cable, which joins all of my input and output devices from my personal computer to my work laptop. I stoop under my desk to make the transfer, so possibly a similar amount of exercise is involved—the digital equiva

LD10: Tricky Shading and the Backspin

In my tenth illustration for Lucy's Dance , the Curukaq dance festival is afoot in the gymnasium of an unnamed, Yup'ik village. Traditional foods--dried salmon, fry bread, and akutaq --appear on the table. The text emphasizes that the participants lack many traditional dancing artifacts and skills, so they improvise by dancing in their own ways. The row of drummers and the food constitute the central elements of heritage, unless you count the general spirit of revelry. In past illustrations, I have colored most of the characters' hair (almost solid black in reality) with purple. By request, I tried a more realistic dark brown in LD10. The result: I find it difficult to see any texture in the hair with such a dark color. In the thumbnail-sized image, texture may be indiscernible. Showing texture requires a lighter color, but would be inappropriate to show the hair as a lighter brown, which would convey a skewed image of the ethnicity. I'm still a fan of purple, but it

Design & Execution

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