OK, SO I HAVE A TWISTED SIDE. No big surprise to most of you, probably. And that being the case, I have some off-color favorites in various realms…including illustration. My all-time love is Andre Jordan from the UK (don’t know him personally, but he replied to my cold-call email saying it’s OK I post this).
Jordan is a great talent, and since I had just left the city to live in the woods when I first came across this piece of his, I have adopted it as my motto. His doodles tackle life’s challenges, like love done in (or never achieved), depression, and other things that pull at my heart strings, including a popular if quite startling series for the BBC on disabilities. But caveat emptor: He can get a little wild, and is not PG. You are all grown-ups, no? So go see his A Beautiful Revolution site (or don’t, up to you), and especially his “Postcards I May Send” section, oh my.
Anyhow, he’s a hero for me, someone who hurts but smiles anyhow. :-) And I felt like taking a day off from horticulture today to just have a little smile. Hope that’s OK. Don’t girls living in the woods get to have some fun every now and again?
doodle by andre: everything in its time 
doodle by andre, wild bird of a feather 
doodle by andre: father xmas or an elf? 
One of my favourites is Edward Gorey. His little book called “The Gashlycrumb Tinies” is one of the most hilarious illustrated books I’ve come across: an ABC rhyming book for the morbidly inclined.
I’ll have to check out Mr. Jordan.
Followed the link and found “I am artistic. Please help me.” Now I’m done in.
Yes, heaven help all of us who are so afflicted! ;-)
I like “The matchstick’s luck had finally run out.” That was me when I was called for jury duty and when my septic system failed last month and……..
@ Andrew Ritchie My son learned his ABCs from the Gashlycrumb Tinies. A couple of years later, when he was four, our car caught fire and we barely escaped before it went up in a fireball. He asked me, were we like Rhoda, consumed by a fire?” “Yes. Almost.” Then he frowned, thought a moment and demanded. “Are all those children dead?!”
@mss connecting back to Brian G’s comment: Maybe it was “the CAR’s luck had finally run out,” huh?
omg – all my friends are astronauts, too!
p.s. I love you so much more in this “real” life – I never suspected from the lovely but very proper letters in Living that you were so witty and slightly wicked! Thank you for sharing this side of you!
Welcome, Dawndoll, to the Garden of Surprises. Glad you are here. I guess I behaved so long that the lid finally popped off. Oops. No screwing it back on now…
@Zanthan Gardens: I love your son already.
Boodley, I am Artistic – Please help me was the one that got to me as well. Thanks Margaret!
So this is where you’ve been hiding! I’ve missed you in the magazine but love your new life already! Those hands at the top could be mine, love it! And now you’re bookmarked so you can’t get away!
Welcome, Deanna…and yes, I was lost but now I’m found. Happy to be so.
Those who are slightly twisted are oh so appreciated!
Margaret, where can I buy raffia?
Wow, then I must be very appreciated because I am eversoslightly twisted! Just ask my sister!
@Kenn: You always make me feel so at home.
@Jim: Now I am confused (doesn’t take much, trust me)…I mean, you can buy raffia at places like this, but I think there is a reference perhaps to doodler Andre here and I don’t know that one and uh-oh, I am embarrassed and not sure what to say next…help, help!
You can buy raffia at most craft stores and sometimes fabric shops.
Margaret, you might like Australian artist, cartoonist and poet Michael Leunig.
Welcome, Mujokan, and thank you for the tip. I will go exploring!
I am laughing at this! I have told my family that if I feel the ‘big one’ coming on I am going to the woods to die! Sitting propped against a tree with the sky over my head! Some would say that is morbid but I think it glorious! Live and die in the woods!
Love the postcards!
I think, perhaps, many of us were “proper” at one time. Something happens either natural pressure (age) or simply seeing that proper isn’t always as fun.
I’m done in by the above postcard too. I also live in the woods. Have for 20 years, and yes, it is best for everyone.
Thanks for the introduction.~~Dee
And have you seen these? http://www.moo.com/readymade/pack/338
xx