The 100 Ladies Project

Tallulah and her pug Georgia, who, if truth be told, are my pug Delilah and I…

I have been trying to find my place in the world. I just turned 64. I have been a writer all my life. In 2013 I started drawing and painting (Hundreds by now!) funky little ladies under the auspices of The 100 Ladies Project. Many of them came with their own stories, most of them were meant to be in a book that has never materialized, Tallulah and Georgia above were meant to have their own book, but in the end I have been so shy about the fact that though I always wanted to be I was not “a real artist.” I have Ladies lined up from here across several continents but I have never known what to DO with them. After the fire I offered a package wherein I would create a Lady specifically for the recipient and write a story to go with her and a person would have their own unique Lady and story. A gift package of sorts. Two people bought them right away and I was thrilled, delighted, and terrified. I ended up returning their money with sheepish, grateful thanks. It was too soon after the fire, I was deeply traumatized, and frankly, I was scared to death. The Ladies disappeared in my life for months. At the end of 2014 I started drawing them again but in the main I was drawing Tallulah and Georgia. I planned a book about them. I have shared this before but here is a mock-up of a potential cover…

(As I put this up I remembered a very dear friend saying that I shouldn’t use the “agoraphobic, bipolar” etc. angle because lots of people who were neither could relate and be helped by my work. But you know what, being agoraphobic and bipolar may sound specific but really almost everything I write about is universal, thousands of people have told me that over almost 11 years on this blog. Within the universal is the personal, we all have our struggles. I am not ashamed of mine.)

Between October 2016 and January 2017 under the auspices of challenges that required daily drawings I did a Lady a day and wrote her story. They were in the moment, off the cuff, imperfect, heartfelt drawings and stories. Funky. Odd. You can find them here if you would like to see them [The link “here” takes you to my Facebook writing page. You need to click on the link there for “Photos” and scroll down and down and you will find them…]. You’ll have to scroll back to that time frame but they are there. There are also a lot of them on this blog done at different times from about March 2013 onward. Despite my best efforts to shelve them and stop drawing them they have continued to pop up, wave their hands at me, and ask to be made manifest. I have drawn more of them sporadically in the last months but still not had the courage to devote my life to them. Until now. And only because of a serious need.

Today someone contacted me to buy one of these Ladies, or perhaps a special, one of her very own, based on her own likeness that she could use for an avatar on Facebook or elsewhere, and I thought, “Could I do that? It could pay Pugley’s vet bills. Am I scared? Yes. Can I DO this? Yes I can.

I’m not sure how the Ladies and the pugs and I will figure this all out but we will do our best, we will find our way…

[This was a really long post. At 6 a.m. this morning I deleted most of it. If you read the previous version please disregard. Sometimes we lose our way, yesterday I lost mine. I hope I can go back to sleep now…]