The Art of James Castle, Created With Spit, Scraps, and Soot

I find this fascinating. James Castle was born September 25, 1899, in the small mountain town of Garden Valley, Idaho to Francis J. Castle and Mary Nora Scanlon. Profoundly deaf from birth and did not attend school until he was ten years old, when he was enrolled at the Gooding School for the Deaf and Blind in southeastern Idaho.

At a very early age Castle began drawing and making things with found materials. Throughout Castle’s lifetime, nearly everything that crossed his path inspired or influenced him. His daily ritual included checking all the trash containers in the home and throughout the immediate neighborhood. 

Depending entirely on his ingenuity, Castle fashioned materials such as sticks, apricot pits and broken fountain-pen nibs into tools he could use to create. He discovered he could scrape soot from the wood-burning stove and spit into the powdery substance to mix a black ink suited for his diverse imagery. He often derived color by squeezing pigment from saturated crepe paper. Family members gave him store-bought art materials such as oil sticks and watercolors, and he incorporated these new materials into his own self-made concoctions to produce the many subtle textures and colors found in his work.

On paper scraps, he captured even the details of doorknobs, windowsills, washbasins and framed portraits of ancestors. Over the years, he tucked batches of his drawings into crannies around the house and the outbuildings.

In the 1950s, Castle’s nephew, Bob Beach, came home on a break from the Museum Art School in Portland, Oregon. Beach suggested to family members that Castle’s drawings, handmade books and constructions could be called “art.” Beach was allowed to take some of his uncle’s drawings back to the Portland art school to show his professors. This introduction launched the beginning of Castle’s recognition as an artist in regional museums and art galleries. 

Throughout history, how many other James Castles have come and gone without ever having been "discovered"?

To read more and find links to his archives click here.  

My First Dinosaur

I recently unearthed what may be my earliest surviving drawing…at least that I’m willing to show. Ironically, it’s a dinosaur. Apparently I drew this at age 3 and a half, while watching my older brother draw dinosaurs for a school project. 

With my next book being about a girl who sees herself as a dinosaur, I thought it was fitting that I share it. 

When speaking to groups, I often point out that young children- when drawing, singing, dancing, or doing whatever floats their boat-don't care whether what they’re doing is worthy of publication or slot on America’s Got Talent. 

At that age we all draw, sing, dance, etc. simply because it’s fun…it feels good. Somewhere along the way, we begin to pay attention to criticism from others and start to become critical of ourselves. 

There is nothing wrong with this, as it tests our love of a particular activity, and helps to spur growth in a talent. 
At the same time, it signals the end of doing something (bad or good) purely out of the joy of doing it. 

As an exercise, try tapping into to that mindset, when you were 3 and a half-completely free from any critical thinking-and create something simply because it’s fun…because it feels good.

A Tightrope Walk Without A Net

I first posted this picture on my Facebook page in May of 2016 with the caption, "staring at a blank page, beginning the long-sometimes painful-but always exhilarating-process of turning a spark into a story..."
I then struggled for two months only to create a hash of a story which I subsequently buried next to the many other "misses". 

Having gone through this process many times, I know the best thing you can do sometimes is to put the story away in order to let it "ripen"...for a month...a year...sometimes ten. I probably have a hundred stories, or pieces of stories that I worked on for days, months, or in some cases years. Sometimes when I pull them out again, they will have indeed ripened. Other times...not so much-still rotten.

If there is one thing that separates an amateur from a professional, it is the massive amounts of time invested-with absolutely no guarantee of a positive outcome. It is understood going in that it often won't end well. iIt's a tightrope walk without a net.

That said, if you put in the work, learn from the gazillion mistakes you will make, and stay with it, you get better at generating ideas. You get better at fleshing them out. You get better at sensing whether you have something that is worth the investment of your time. You also start to love that tightrope. 

So, the story I posted about last May-and buried last July...well, I dug it up last month, ripped out much of what was rotten (most of the story), and just put the finishing touches on a new version-and Sue likes it!!!! (which is always the first test). Time to send it off to my agent. I'll let you know if anything happens.