Keri-
been reading your blog for a while now-love your illustration style, will admit to jealousy of your career. I am a closet illustrator. My profession is teaching art in a public school, but i am curretnly on extended maternity leave. I mostly draw in my daydreams while I am caring for my 3 year old fairie girl and 3 month old buddha boy. I collect stuff for collage, sketch here and there, and love to look at nature and other artists work for inspiration. But the funny thing is, what I am really responding to is your writing on reading. I belong to a book club and often sacrifice sleep to read, like i have that much to go around. sometimes i wonder why i can stay up all hours reading, but cannot draw when it gets dark. I think its the escape factor, and the curiosity about what its like to live somewhere else, be it another time, another age, another place, even another gender or creature. Ican live in that for a while if its a good book. And finding the universiality of humanity, our experiences and emotions so connected. It helps me to wade through some of the tough moments in motherhood, marriage and everyday stuff. I also think reading enhances my creativity, I want to draw some of the people or express a theme in a collage. favorite book is a tie- Ahab's Wife and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Mary

key words: "as i get older..." and "you have to be really paying attention or you have to be wanting to find them" isn't that the truth! love the picture and that you leave words for seekers to find.
good books and interesting people are like that, so much more that what is obvious... huh?

an i echo rachelle, are you making t-shirts yet?

Keri-Have you thought about making any of your illustrations available through Cafe Press or something like that? I would love a t shirt with this entry's drawing on it...

Keri that's such a beautiful way to look at reading. I find when i try to explain my compulsive reading, (and it's funny how often people find it strange) that depending on my mood, or perhaps the audience, I will either say one of two things. (I will pretend I am that cut and dried and succinct for the sake of brevity :) Maybe I'll say I love love love good books because it's my way of cheating. When I've read it I feel like the narrative is now part of my life experience, whether it's living in a country I've never been, experiencing a loss I never had...I could recount the story as though it was my own. They have let me see something I may never see - whether physical or emotional and that is a real gift.

The second thing I try to describe is that there is comfort in reading because you often recognise an emotional space or experience. A superb piece of writing can almost feel stolen, like someone took a literary snapshot of what you felt at some moment in your life. A heartbreak, a joy, a love or a loss. And rather than feel violated you realise that there is a common human experience and that you are part of it and probably ok.

I read whether I'm happy or sad, angry or depressed, busy at work or a sloth on holidays. I've come home and read after so many beers that I have to read with one eye closed to focus. Tragic really but I HAVE TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS. Love your site and love your work thanks

I've been living in LA for the last 2 years. Two of the things I miss the most about my life in NY is reading on the subway and watching people read on the subway.

once I overheard someone say, you will never be lonely if you love to read. I always think of that- it's so true.

That tree looks *so* much like a poster I have up in my music room. It is one of my absolute favorites. It is called "Early Morning Chorus" and has a quote which says, "If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing." Sir James Barrie.

The idea of words moving on the breeze reminds me of my interactions with Native Peoples. They have always known that words carry power and that power lives and moves everywhere amoung us. New ways of seeing indeed. Native American practices and knowledge (knowledge, not beliefs)have always fascinated me.

there's nothing like being sucked into a book so much so that you can hardly stand to do anything else but READ... one of the great joys of living, I think.

your words here are nothing short of gorgeous.
about reading, i find although i could always read well, okay since about 7 or so, i find i am always becoming a better reader, i think it might have to do with my understanding of language, reading and patience.

Keri you put into words exactly how I feel about reading fueling my creativity - I have found that hard to explain to people in the past. Thanks so much!

Your bird tree is a damn delight.

I printed it out and put in on my wall.

I too, have been taking shelter in the magical blanket of good books. I've struggled with incompletionitis and hardtimefinishingthingsyndrome for most of my life, resulting in more unread books than I have fears, but lately I've started reading and completing again.

Books are a wonderful escape hatch from earth school, and as you so eloquently said, we can take the characters and the descriptions back into the living world with us and see that world with new eyes.

Yay for books!

As I Lay Dying. I love that book. I read it a few years ago and now I can't find it. So yesterday I picked it up while browsing through a bookstore and flipped through the pages. I remembered again how much I liked it. Enjoy!

sari,
i write them with a pen or a marker (sharpie). something slightly permanent so it last for a few months at least.

What a beautiful and magical experience of the world. I love the idea of a breeze bringing life and words into our world and our homes.

I am wondering, when you leave words on trees, how are you doing it? Are you carving them in? writing them on paper? I am so curious. I know I am too far away to find your words on trees but maybe somewhere near me someone has left something for me to find!

Magic, whimsy and hightened awareness - here comes the breeze.

Love the quote! Also the bird tree pulled me in to your blog immediately. Very sweet!