I Illustrated A Poem
Ages ago I spotted a poem by Nicolette Sowder and it resonated with me as poetry very rarely does, so I saved it. Then as with nearly everything I randomly stick on my computer, I promptly forgot I had saved it.
Which brings us up to about a week ago when I rediscovered the file on my desktop while doing some routine fluff clearing maintenance.
The past few months have been rough ones and I’m still living in a dense, anxiety filled, exhausted brain fog. As a result, I’ve been having a difficult time focusing on anything and I was going to write about that, but I don’t have it in me right now. The reason why I mention it however, is because I tend to get a lot of creative things done when I’m feeling this way, so when I re read the poem I decided to have a go at creating illustrations to accompany the words.
I tried to talk myself out of it as it was a lot of work, but I lost the battle and completed the 9 paintings last night to get the project out of my system.
This is the first time I’ve ever attempted something like this, and I am really happy with how it all came together.
I had to break the words down a bit differently than the original to suit the pictures that presented themselves on paper as I was drafting the set.
In the images I tried to incorporate British wildlife as it’s what I’m surrounded by. There is a crane fly, fireflies, slugs, snails, worms, spiders, dandelions, nettles, caterpillars, wild roses, bees and a random chrysalis like one I found in my garden last autumn.
The mother and child characters are something I have been repeating a lot in my drawing over the past couple of years. I call them Stagboos and they are nature spirits. In my mind they represent myself and my two daughters whom I encourage to have an appreciation of the natural world every chance I get.
May we raise children who love the unloved things-
The dandelion, the worms & spiderlings.
Children who sense the rose needs the thorn
& run into rainswept days
the same way they turn toward sun…
And when they’re grown & someone has to speak for those who have no voice
may they draw upon that wilder bond,
Those days of tending tender things
and be the ones.
