This is a poster I made for an upcoming Noel Stephen & the Darlings show.
“Don’t ever let me catch you in the rowboat with that silly owl again,” said the girl to the pussycat. “You might have drowned! Now let’s return home.”
(Source: afternoonpityparty.com)
One of the projects I recently finished is a series of seasonal cards involving crows and striped clothes—this is the summer card. I wish it were summer now; the pollen is making it impossible to enjoy spring!
“He cheated at Scrabble,” whispered the rabbit.
This girl walked into her bedroom to find that it had been overtaken by cockroaches! I wonder why she doesn’t scream? I wish I could be that brave!
The inspiration and text for this piece came from an Anne Sexton poem called “Cockroach.” The poem perfectly conveys the panic I experience when I see a roach, but it also makes me feel just a little bit sorry for them, in a weird way.
COCKROACH
Roach, foulest of creatures
who attacks with yellow teeth
and an army of cousins big as shoes,
you are lumps of coal that are mechanized
and when I turn on the light you scuttle
into the corners and there is this hiss upon the land.
Yet I know you are only the common angel
turned into, by way of enchantment, the ugliest.
Your uncle was made into an apple.
Your aunt was made into a Siamese cat,
all the rest were made into butterflies
but because you lied to God outrightly—
told him that all things on earth were in order—
He turned his wrath upon you and said,
I will make you the most loathsome,
I will make you into God’s lie,
and never will a little girl fondle you
or hold your dark wings cupped in her palm.
But that was not true. Once in New Orleans
with a group of students a roach fled across
the floor and I shrieked and she picked it up
in her hands and held it from my fear for one hour.
And held it like a diamond ring that should not escape.
These days even the devil is getting overturned
and held up to the light like a glass of water.
From The Complete Poems of Anne Sexton
(Source: afternoonpityparty.com)
This little guy is wearing his special hat, but he’s still not in the mood to fly. Maybe he’s afraid that if he leaves his perch, a mean old crow will steal it!
“You are the only one who understands.”
