My very first digital caricature.... using Sketchbook pro done on my iPhone (that I downloaded a couple days ago). I have just been using my finger to draw because I don't have any touch screen pen to use yet. I have to admit its REALLY fun!
This was done while watching Real Time with Bill Maher tonight...and BTW.. I LOVED his analogy between football and socialism...BRILLIANT.

Gotta LOVE those Christmas parties in January!

Here's a picture of the cutest couple from Saturday nights gig....
had a fantastic time talking with them and as you can tell they loved their caricature.

Immobilized by "Too Much".

Its been snowing here....
a lot.

"Too Much" in my opinion.

A couple days ago I started to get cranky.
Then I got REALLY cranky.
Then I noticed that I was becoming mentally numb.
I thought maybe I was getting depressed from the weather (which is very odd for me).
But I just couldn't concentrate on anything.
I felt like I was suffocating.
Then this morning, it reached a point where I couldn't think at all.
My mind felt completely frozen in the snow.

Then it occurred to me, I wasn't depressed,
I was stressed out.

Since I don't often feel stress, I googled it...
and I read something fascinating on helpguide.org

Psychologist Connie Lillas uses a driving analogy to describe the three most common ways people respond when they’re overwhelmed by stress:

Foot on the gas – An angry or agitated stress response. You’re heated, keyed up, overly emotional, and unable to sit still.
Foot on the brake – A withdrawn or depressed stress response. You shut down, space out, and show very little energy or emotion.
Foot on both – A tense and frozen stress response. You “freeze” under pressure and can’t do anything. You look paralyzed, but under the surface you’re extremely agitated.

I realized I am a "foot on both pedals" reaction kind of person.
That is exactly how I felt.

But I wanted to feel like myself again.
So, I thought "Some mindless labour might help....since I can't concentrate on any drawing right now. I'll clean and straighten up the house, (since I never got to it on the weekend)."

Over Christmas, with the massive purging and decluttering I did, the house has been really easy to keep clean and organized. Even all three of my children have been taking it upon themselves, without me asking, to clean their rooms. (And this NEVER used to happen). Their rooms used to be filled with so much crap and clutter, I couldn't get them to keep it clean. I would go in there and clean it REALLY good, a couple times a year but within a week or two it was back to being a mess.

THAT'S when it hit me!

Too Much of anything causes stress.

Too Much exercise puts stress on the body,
Too Much food puts stress on the digestive system,
Too Much clutter makes cleaning stressful,
Too Much responsibility is stressful for the mind
and then there is
Too much snow.

My kids apparently now have the right amount of possessions
that they each can handle in their personal space
and so "Too Much" no longer immobilizes them.

It must have been SO overwhelming for them to feel responsible for "Too Much" stuff. And since its very natural for kids to make a mess (just like I do at the studio), it would have been very defeating for them to figure out what to do with it all when it wasn't going to be an easy task to put it away. However, now that there is far less stuff and everything has a place to go away to, it takes no time at all to clean it up.
I also think that they understand intuitively how good they feel being
in control of their own space and lives, and that is why they take care of it.

Sometimes, we have "Too Much" of something, like snow, and there really isn't anything that we can do about it, except deal with the situation as best we can, while it is happening. However, there are many "Too much" situations in our lives that are COMPLETELY under our control....
"Too much" clutter, "Too much" work, "Too much" stuff to do, ....etc.

After I finished cleaning the house (which only takes an hour and a half, once a week now), I felt SO much better and I was finally ready to tackle the task of dealing with
too much snow.

Everything in life happens for a reason.

You know, I have pretty much believed that statement my whole life.
That is,
up until exactly a year ago,
when my brother in law Danny died of Cancer at the age of 57.
And for the past year now, I have tried to figure out the "reason" for it,
desperately wanting to put some justifiable swing on it,
that could make sense to me, in my life...
but....
I haven't found any.

So....
I ammended my philosophy to

Everything in life happens for a reason,
except for those things that don't.

The one thing I have to say is,
that I think of Danny everyday now,
since he died.
He is a constant reminder to me of just how short life can be,
and how important it is to really LIVE while we are alive.

Perhaps not everything in life
needs a reason for WHY it happens,
but if we can take what happens
and attach some positive meaning to it
and to our own lives because of it...
then maybe it gives it a reason for happening.

This is a poem I wrote to Danny a year ago,
late one night just before he died, because well...
I really didn't know what else to say.....

What DO you say to someone you love who is
quickly nearing the end of their life at 57 years old?

I really don't know.

But scanning in my daughter's drawings
and writing a cheezy Dr. Suess "like" poem
felt right tonight
and gave me something to do
with the waves of sadness.

Goodbye Danny
a "GREAT" bye for you,
(as great a bye as I could do).

Goodbye Christmas tree

Goodbye smile

Hello tears all single file

Goodbye arms that held you tight

Hello memories, shining light.


Goodbye Danny, love you—I do!
Hello heart that's missing you.

Love, Cath


Thanks to my little Piper for all her drawings in this goodbye to her uncle Danny

I miss you Danny.
January 2011

Creation is a better means of self-expression than possession;

it is through creating, not possessing,
that life is revealed.
~Vida D. Scudder
Just so you know...
I despise making grocery lists.
I also hate deciding what to have/make for dinner every night and looking for lost school forms or over due library books amongst tons of clutter makes me REALLY cranky.

For a long time now, a lot of my energy has been seeping out the cracks of my ineptly constructed home management system. (Actually, to be honest, there's never been a system...we have just been existing in a state of "coping".) Over the last 5 years, as my art business increased (yet with preschoolers still at home), both Mark and I have just done our best to survive.

I promised myself this past summer, that in January, after my busy fall caricature gig season was over, I would take the time to "bulldoze" what was there and rebuild something much better for our lives.

So...I have been cleaning.
Actually, I guess I should really call it "discarding", "eliminating" or "throwing away" and now the empty spaces where all those objects, clothes, toys, files were, are suddenly filled with fresh new energy.

The next thing I did was create sustainable and maintainable systems
so that it doesn't all return to chaos in a week...

Here are some of the home systems I have figured out:
There are 5 of us —2 adults and 3 kids-13, 9 and 6, living in about 1100 sq feet with one bathroom. (Each child does have their own bedroom.)
(Some of these things may be so elementary and obvious to you but these are all new and exciting discoveries for me....)

1. A place for EVERYTHING: Every single item in our house now has a place to go away to (a shelf, a cupboard or a drawer), and so it is the responsibility of whomever was using it to put it away. If something new comes in, a spot must be found for it or it must go (or something else must leave). The kids each have one medium sized memory box in the storage room for their special momentos.
   
2. School Crap: There is one spot by the front door for all the school things; library books, Friday folders, field trip forms. Its an old wooden mail sorter and works perfectly- with drawers underneath for spare keys
   
3. Important Things: There is a filing pocket magnetically attached to the fridge for all the things like tickets, cheques, bills, forms to be signed etc. (bought at Staples)
   
4. Laundry: all the kids now have their each colour coded laundry hampers for their dirty clothes and then when the clean folded clothes are put back into the hamper, they are each responsible for putting them away in their drawers.
5. Meals and groceries: I have prepared a month of menus, divided into 4 weeks, into a word document and each week has a grocery list at the bottom of the page for that specific week....so whomever is going grocery shopping for the week just needs to print off that list.
6. Family discussion and agreement: all 5 of us have important things to do in our lives and we must work together as a team to meet everyone's needs. So, everyone must keep their personal space tidy (and clean up after they have friends over.)

So now I'm off to establish some new sustainable systems for my art studio business....

I made no resolutions for the New Year.

The habit of making plans, of criticizing, sanctioning and molding my life,
is too much of a daily event for me.
~Anaïs Nin

This is exactly how I have felt for the past 3 years...


However,
I have always managed to squeeze my life's immediate and necessary
details into my brain,
you know, tucking them down the sides,
taping them to the front,
or cramming them in, then closing the lid really fast......
that is, up until about a month ago.

Then, abruptly, my brain reached its absolute FULL saturation point
and some things just stopped going in.

Suddenly, I was hurting myself on all the unabsorbed details....
I stubbed my toe on a gig I had not recorded and then booked two other gigs for the same night,
I slammed my hip into some appointments I missed,
and then really gashed my head against the 3 different commission pieces I had
for 3 women all named Shannon.

My brain was TOO full.


A couple weeks ago I spent the entire day spontaneously painting for myself,

and at the end of the day I chatted briefly with a very close artist friend.
I mentioned how I had sort of got caught up painting
but really should have been doing all the things on that long list of things
I SHOULD have been doing....
and this was Mike's response:

"There is never anything you should have done
instead of painting, what a fallacy!
Now, the list of things that I should have done
instead of sitting in front of this desk all day,
well, that list is friggin endless."

He is right.
So...I am going to make some big changes in 2011
because my brain is TOO full
and I need to excuse myself, Mr Osborne
so that I can paint.

"She shut her eyes:
the sweet word "promiscuity" came to her mind
and suffused her;
she enunciated silently to herself:
"promiscuity of ideas."
How could such contradictory attitudes
follow after one another
in a single head like two mistresses in the same bed?
In the past that nearly infuriated her,
but today it entrances her.
Because one idea is as good as another.
Because all statements and positions carry the same value,
can rub against one another,
nestle,
snuggle,
fondle,
mingle,
diddle,
cuddle,
couple."

— Milan Kundera

Homage to a Poinsettia

Every December 1st my brother Weston sends Mark and I,
and my parents (who were also married on Dec.1),
a beautiful, full, lush poinsettia for our anniversaries...and every year,
ours is wilted or leafless or dead before Christmas day.

I don't mean to harm it.
Honestly.
But you know how some things just don't register on life's "priority" radar?
Its just one of THOSE things.
When I look at it, unfortunately I'm NEVER thinking
"Hmmm... I wonder if it needs water"

Usually, I am thinking something like...
"This thing is so huge, where the hell am I going to put it while we eat dinner"?
(because we keep it on the kitchen table)

...and then it dies from neglect.

And believe it or not, I thought maybe this year would be different.
You know, becasue I have so much more personal mental space
now that all my kids are in school.

Then, at 10:30 pm tonight, the phone rang.
It was Weston asking if the poinsettia got delivered
and it was at THAT moment, I knew,
nothing would be different this year.

I had already completely forgotten about it.

Suddenly the radar turned on and there the poinsettia was,
sitting 4 feet from me, in the middle of the living room floor,
still wrapped tight against the winter cold,
from its delivery 5 hours earlier.
As I unwrapped it, while talking to my brother
I was afraid that I had killed it already.
But I hadn't...

and its LOVELY.
And I just really wanted IT to know that,
before it dies.

"True partnership is only achieved by
separate and whole beings
who retain their uniqueness
even as they unite"
London, England, December 1, 1993.

Happy Anniversary
to the most extraordinary man I have ever known
...my husband Mark.

Thank you honey,
for the fantastic life adventure we've had so far...

from our 'almost' completely secret "backpack style" wedding in London,
with 2 witnesses we barely knew, our $25 wedding rings that we still wear,
and all the photos we took ourselves...

to our great life here....
17 years later,
with these three incredible people we now have in our lives...

Ryllan, Piper and Kieran

The luckiest thing Mark,
I have had happen to me in my life...
was finding you.

Lorrie Norrington

—departing president of eBay Marketplace
holding my commissioned painting of her. I accepted this last minute commission
just before heading to Vegas for the
International Society of Caricature Artists convention.
I knew that if I did, I would have to spend most of my drawing time
at the Convention on it because it needed to be shipped on the last day of the con.
However, I was so excited to be asked to do one for this kind of special occasion,
so I said yes.

The process...
I started with paint and collaging eBay news articles
about her into the background of the painting.

(photo by Beejay Hawn)

Then, since I was provided with lots of great stories and inside jokes about Lorrie, the drawing part was so much fun to just let those ideas evolve into visual form.
On Friday, just hours before I needed to ship it to San Jose,
I suddenly realized that I needed a colour eBay logo to collage into it
and want to thank Dan Springer for trying to get one to print, to Tracey Iverson for suggesting the packed ISCA printer and Robert Bauer and
Lorin Bernsen for letting me interupt them and for helping me.

Here is a photo of the final painting...
(Photo by Tad Barney)
Also a big thank you to my two amazing ISCA roomates Tad and Mike,
for letting me make as much of a creative mess in our room as I needed to, and for not complaining about it...:)

Perfection, Flaws and the development of a New Perspective(photo of the low winter sun outside the door of my studio at 2:30 this afternoon)

It’s really warm today. -2 C. Of course that assessment is based purely on looking at it from the right perspective. After having endured the past week of -20 C to -40 C temperatures, today is perfectly balmy. A month ago, this would have felt brutally cold, but now it comes as a HUGE relief to walk outside and not instantly feel the sharp teeth of cold, grab hold of your hands and chew them till they hurt.

I was tutoring a student in caricature yesterday and had a discussion with him about exaggerating the "flaws" (his word) that people have. In that conversation I realized, after 26 years of being a professional caricature artist, I don't view the face that way at all. I see facial features from a completely different perspective. I LOVE faces that deviate from the "norm" and would never consider those features "flaws" at all. The more unique the features are, the more I like to draw their face.

This led me to think about what we consider are perfections and flaws when it comes to our personalities. Everyday there are plenty of opportunities for us to get acquainted with what we lack in ourselves and the way those things affect our lives.

I have spent over 40 years trying to make peace with my own “imperfections”.

Then suddenly today, from a different view point, I caught a glimpse of something I hadn't seen before.....the thought that perhaps its the emptiness created by what I lack,
that allows a place for my unique qualities to grow.

On this day, where many people all over the US are thinking of what they are thankful for, I am thankful for new perspectives and this beautifully warm day.

A life built on
passion, procrastination, last minute panic
and the desire to be distracted.....

I ALWAYS have a long list of things to be done....
drawing/painting related, kid related and life related.
Up until yesterday,
I thought that I always felt behind
and was struggling to keep up with that list
because I had 3 children and so many other life responsibilities.

I was wrong.
Its because of me.

Oh, how I would love to just get up every morning
and start attacking that long list in its chronological order,
but I can't.

Instead, I realized that I approach the day
(AFTER I have dealt with any immediate,
demanding or extremely important things)
with an inescapable craving
to follow what interests or moves me
and to spend time with what or who distracts me,
because that must be the real direction
that I need to go in life.

I have always been this way.

Living this way often does make it extremely difficult
to get "real things on the list" done, and I have struggled with that my whole life.
So, to figure out more, I analyzed how DO I manage to get those things done and
I discovered there are 4 ways that I get things in my life accomplished:

1). By a complete, passionate, creative submergence initiated by a STRONG need to express something.

2). By last minute panic.

3). By having something so enjoyably distracting going on while I am doing what needs to be done that I manage to get it done without even thinking.

4). By a spiraling cycle of repetitive and predictable procrastination, or in other words, there are things needing to get done that I want to do even less than others, so I get the most appealing things done first, purely out of avoidance of the less appealing ones.

I am sure that I will uncover more about this whole process
over the next few days
but right now, I have a bit of last minute panic going on
and REALLY NEED to get some drawing done.

Nobody has ever measured, not even poets,
how much the heart can hold.
~Zelda Fitzgerald

Bound
Repression is not the way to virtue.
When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished.
Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason.
~Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Distracted by a new kind of Silence

I have been back from the ISCA caricature convention for 3 days now and something in my studio has changed. The silence is different. It used to be rich, embracing and promising. Its presence would happily greet me at the door each morning with a cup of introspection in hand, and welcome me to another day of artistic expression.

Suddenly, however, there is a hollowness and an echo in it that I have never heard before.

For the past week I have been drawing and painting with other artists almost 24 hours a day, and the companionship was inspiring and energizing. I was afraid of being really distracted there but instead, this year, I actually found myself more focused precisely because of that energy around me.

Now, I am struggling to re-adjust to the absence of inspiration close enough to caress. Apparently the silence and I have some making up to do.

Who am I?

I am not the canvas.

I am not the paint.

I am not the idea longing to be expressed.


I am the mediator,

living among them
with words,

constantly
negotiating and reconciling
a harmonious existence

for us all.

"I like a wide margin to my day."

~Henry David Thoreau

Many people have asked me how the first few days of my new "free time" has been going and so I have been thinking a lot about how to describe what it feels like. Well, let me tell you, it certainly doesn't feel like I suddenly have hours and hours of nothing to do. The fact is, I have had TOO much to do in my life, for so long.

Yesterday, I finished drawing in Churchill Square and it suddenly hit me. I don't feel "rushed" anymore. For the past decade, I have felt extremely rushed....in everything. Rushed to prepare and eat meals, rushed to make decisions, rushed to gigs, rushed to get things done, rushed to draw commission work and rushed to go pick up my kids after I was finished a gig.
Rushed and breathless.

Yesterday, it was different. I was done drawing at 1:30 and I still had time to myself before the kids would be finished school. I didn't have to rush somewhere. What a nice feeling!

It actually reminded me of the feeling of moving from our 840 sq. foot /2 bedroom bungalow (with 3 kids) into our 1300 sq foot/4 bedroom split level, that we live in now. With the move everything suddenly had a place, with space around it and there was finally room to breathe. There was an instant feeling of calm space.

THAT is exactly what my life feels like now and I love it. I know that there isn't a lot of extra time to add too much more of anything. However, (with organization) I will be able to add some things that will benefit me, as well as take care of some of the areas in my life that have been neglected for a long time.

It will be up to me to keep my time uncluttered and retain some feeling of a wide margin to my day.

Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.
~Henry David Thoreau
Today was a BIG day.
My daughter Piper, who is also my youngest, started Grade 1 today, marking the first time, in 14 years, that I will not have a child at home with me.
That's a LONG time.

I'm not really sure who was more excited about her starting school, her or I (and believe me, SHE WAS EXCITED). Piper was born "in love with life", so much so, that she vibrates with anticipation and physically shakes when she gets really happy or excited about something. I must admit for a long time, Mark and I were kind of concerned that she had some strange neurological problem :) but have come to see that its simply just that she can't contain her thrill of life inside that little body.

Today at school, after all the kids got into their desks, just when the teacher was about to give a little talk to all the parents, Mark and I looked over at her and tears were welling up in her eyes. I went over to her, sat beside her desk and quietly asked her what was wrong. She shrugged, wiping the tears.
I knew exactly what it was.
I held her hand and whispered "Its all just SO exciting, that it feels TOO overwhelming doesn't it?"

She nodded.
I told her that I feel EXACTLY the same way.

For 14 years now, I have painted, written, drawn, and done magazine layout work during their naps, in the evenings and into the wee hours of the morning. Many nights I fell asleep in my clothes, and started the next day with only about 4 hours of sleep. I really wanted to be with them AND I also really needed to do my art. It was chaotic, exhausting and draining but it was the way it was and so I just did it....for years.

Now, we are entering into a new phase of our lives.
From now on, I will have all day long to be in my studio working, drawing, painting and writing... and focusing on what it is that I need to do and will then be able to come home and really be at home.

The thought of that is just SO exciting, that it feels VERY overwhelming to me.

This morning, as I sat on the floor beside her desk, Piper let go of my hand and suddenly started softly stroking my head while listening to her teacher talk. In that moment I knew.... it was ALL worth it. When her teacher and the principal were done talking, it was time to go. So, I gave her a huge hug, we kissed each other goodbye and then both eagerly entered our new lives.

I will be drawing at the Edmonton International Fringe Festival Aug. 12-22.

See you there!