Santa Nutcracker, Q. Cassetti, 2010, pen and ink, from the Second Advent CalendarColder than cold. Freezing nose. Freezing toes. Shady loves it (this is her season) and the cats have all searched out all the hotspots on the floor and are perched on top of them, soaking in the heat. Rumor is talking lots of snow today/tonight…upwards to 8” for us. There is lots of buzz around that. I walked home from Yearbook class and relished the sharp sparkle of the cold and the astringent quality of just being in the moment.

I think that Mr. Mel is coming today to sweep the stovepipe on the little cricket stove (cricket on the hearth) so we can ramp up two stoves in the kitchen/ t.v. room. Additionally, we are going to see the piano tuner, Eileen, to tune the Hermon Camp piano in the hallway for the Sing. So, we will def have our stuff in gear at the end of today.

We scaled the mountain of work yesterday…to my delight as there was a ton to do..lots of think stuff which is rough on this girl. Hate thinking. Love slothfulness. Need my teenagers to help me with the office holiday cards….and need to get the final box of stuff out in the mail. I sense everyone else is as bogged down in details as I am. There is more for today along with some fun sidebars such as entering the Communication Arts show (due 1/07), get the images to the Society of Illustrators for the opening and get the paperwork together to start thinking about refinancing the house. So, plenty to do.

We are swinging into the season of the Hangar soon. We are meeting on Monday with the communications team and wonderful Peter to make plans around what needs to be done, when. I am looking forward to having some time around the holidays to get the art done for these posters….Five or six pix. Quite a bit. There is a brochure, posters, handbills. I hope we can get it organized so as not to be the insane thing it was last spring. I am pulling some of the images out of the archive…and need to do some that are big, bold and graphic…and everything does not have to be the hour upon hour of doing the vectorizing that the portrait work demands. The simpler the better. Looks so good and strong on the banners etc. I have two in the can….and am thinking that Ragtime might want to be a line drawing. Rocky Horror will be a graphic close up of a face…very Liza Minelli simple. Maybe I should give myself an hour to do that to cut to the chase? You know, that sounds like an idea.

Thinking some more about portly Mr. Penn. Noble and humble, honest and true, Mr. Penn. This could be a very silly little exercise. A colonial fantasy and fairy tale.

Angels of Light, Q. Cassetti, 2010, sharpies, from the Second Advent Calendar ProjectHoliday fun. Rob worked on decorating yesterday (I did a little but mainly cooked and fretted). Rob was far more productive. The whole staircase has fresh swags and lights, we have two wreathes trimmed a bit more, the chandeliers are trimmed and decorated (nutty)….(I used red Mardi gras beads which surprisingly looks good despite the garishness). So, we are working against Friday being the big concert here chez Camp….with Kitty and Mandy under the roof too.

Today its work work work and get the financing on the car squared away. Its that time of the year to account for one’s accomplishments and time, so Erich and I are reviewing all the file folders we have and personally, I am seeing where all the time went. Wow. busy.

As I keep working on this advent calendar project, old nuggets seem to surface with some odd ones right out the blue. So, with this frantic drawing project, I have found two subjects I want to settle down with in January and work out. The first one you know about, the Green Man. The second, truly just slammed me in the head, was a fantasy interpretation (based on Fraktur, on colonial illustration, on the Lubok style and of course, dear dear Edward Hicks)…but a series of fantasy pictures (and stories) around Mr. William Penn. Penn was essentially, the landlord for Britain with this state filled with heathens and savages (I am sure that was the British thinking)…and Penn, the Quaker, had to manage and secure this little kingdom…which he did. My perception of that ideal kingdom is where the imagery could go…an American Garden of Eden would be great…along the lines of Hicks’ depiction of this perfect native world.

I almost laughed out loud when I really focused on Penn in one of the many Hicks’ illustrations of Penn making Treaties with the Native Americans, to find out that he was not portrayed as a heroic, handsome man, but a lumpy, real man who honestly tried to do his best to create harmony in the New World.