Home, jet lagged, filled with hope, anxiety, and just about every other emotion jumbled up together. Not sure I will ever be able to find the right words to describe this trip. The biggest question is…why do we wait until everything feels so uncertain to express just how much someone means to us? Maybe it’s because we assume they know how much they are loved. How they impacted our lives, or maybe we believe we have plenty of time left to say everything that is left to say. In the middle of the night when I can’t sleep (because my body still thinks it’s in Japan) there is a moment when the stillness creates a small space for peace in my heart.

After skyping with Yukiko and getting status updates from her friends, it was pretty clear that a trip to Japan had to happen. . .So armed with a best friend, her ipad (it has a language translator), train schedules, maps, prayers and good intentions we’re off tomorrow afternoon Japan bound.

Recently I had the opportunity to work with Yoga Journal Australia and they were just as lovely to work with as their US counterpart. The article was about  the different birth plans/trends that are emerging in Australia and how a yogic approach is incorporated. While researching the subject matter, I found quite a few videos on natural home and water births. Some of those (up close and personal) images really stuck with me. The strength and determination these women have is beyond belief. Not sure if I could be so brave to refuse that epidural and endure the pain using just breathing techniques. But the point of the article was that no matter what a woman’s birth plan is, acceptance in the moment will bring a joyful birth experience.

Above is the final spread along with the roughs that I sent over for the main page. When I received my copy in the mail, I was beyond excited to see that one of my favorite illustrators Scott Bakal also did a piece in the September issue. His work is incredible and I wish I could have been one of his students when he taught at the Fashion Institute in NYC.

In other news if you live in San Francisco and have a chance to stop by the Jewish Museum downtown, this exhibit was like a triple shot of inspiration. I hope to live half the life that Maira Kalman has expressed and experienced through her beautiful work

**Thanks for the e-mails and messages of support for my friend Yukiko. Please keep her in your thoughts and prayer.

Swinging on delicate hinges

the Autumn Leaf

Almost off the stem

-Jack Kerouac

The last few weeks have been a blur and I had all kinds of new work to post and fun things to share but none of that seems very important now. My dear sweet friend Yukiko has been diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. I can’t even wrap my mind around this, it doesn’t seem real. The picture above is from 2005 when I went to Tokyo to be part of her wedding. It was a life changing trip and for ten days the newly weds took me on a tour of Japan. We ate strange foods (squid for breakfast!) and went to the cherry blossom festival. My heart is heavy for Yukiko and her family. She is such an incredible person .. a wonderful mother to her little girl, a beautiful artist, a loyal and true friend. She’s been sending me e-mails from the hospital in Japan telling me not to worry, which after living together for two years she knows is a joke. The one thing that I do know is this, I’ve never met a stronger person then Yukiko and if anyone is going to kick cancer it’s her. When she was 15 she wrote her mother a letter every day for a year begging for permission to come to the U.S. as an exchange student. Finally her mother caved in and she ended up with a family in Wisconsin until she graduated from high school. She  then went to NYC to attend The School of Visual Arts. We met in Cleveland. Her cubicle at American Greetings was next to mine.  She got a job offer in California at a small start-up animation company and promised to take me with her. Two weeks after she left I had an interview at that same company in San Jose. A month later I was driving cross country with all of my belongings crammed in the back of my Honda and a bed strapped to the roof.  Many adventures can be traced back to Yukiko. She is a quiet spark that begs the question…”why not just try it.”  The night before I heard this terrible news I was in bed rattling  off all these “wants” Wanting to move forward into book illustration, surface design, and product licensing. Wanting to be a better artist. Wanting to figure out if, where and when we are going to buy a house. Now none of that noise seems to matter and I’m guessing it never did.

*assignment from class 7-classic fairy tale hansel and gretel All I can say is it’s been a very long month and a half. Juggling contract work plus school has been challenging at times but it’s been worth it. We’ve produced an eight panel action sequence, a 32 page book dummy and a finished illustration of a classic fairy tale and we still have three classes to go.  I’ve learned a lot in the class and feel really inspired to work on my book idea. The critiques have been so valuable and it made me realize what I’ve been missing working in my studio alone. In Brooklyn I shared a studio space with some amazing artists and I forgot how beneficial it is to be a part of a community. Trying not to turn this blog into a therapy session… but moving and starting over has been more challenging then I imagined. Sometimes I really miss New York, or the idea of it anyway. Hopefully my husband won’t read this because he will remind me why we left and how much I hated living there. This is such a pattern for me. The whole looking back, second guessing and idealizing the past. The “being in the moment” thing has always been my biggest challenge but I’m working on it!

Tonight I’m taking my first class at California College of  the Arts. The Tuesday night, ten week course is an introduction to children’s book illustration. In the past I’ve done a couple educational children’s books and music workbooks, but not the kind of picture book project I’ve been dreaming about. This July marks my two year anniversary of full time free-lance illustration and I’m hoping to branch out into books (covers, interiors, the whole shabang). It’s a daunting goal and I definitely have a lot to learn…this is just the first small step.

Lately I’ve been challenging myself to push past that automated voice that says, “you can’t do that” (a.k.a fear) and into new experiences. This has led me on a messy path of missteps, some accidental success and a lot of laughter. The more I say yes when my mind is screaming no, the more open life feels.