I sure like the Calgary Herald, but this opinion piece by Naomi Lakritz reads like a paid advertisement for urban-sprawling development projects - except that they can't have paid that well, because there are just so many holes in what isn't even really an argument.

Well, it's an opinion, which is just fine. I don't usually like to criticize other people's opinions, to which they have every right. But this one was published by a newspaper that claims to represent our city, for a readership of thousands. These readers should know that there's another side to the story, right here in Calgary.

At the time of writing, it looks like there are already quite a few Calgarians getting their dander up about this closed-minded piece. But I can't resist adding my two cents, a little bit of ink of paper, and a firm belief in the possibility of a walkable city:

Some excerpts from Ms. Lakritz's article (to all of which, I say: phooey):

(*I don't know the context for this remark, but it doesn't leave me with a great impression of Alderman Keating's vision for the city.)

I know I've referred to this comic strip story in a few other places, but just in case anyone would like more details about my weekly Lakritz-defying walk, here's the map of my neighbourhood walk in Ramsay (also published in the Calgary Herald back in December 2011).

My walk to the market engaged me with my community in a way I'd never experienced before (back when I was a flight attendant who never spent any time at home). It was the first step towards a local artwalk (pictured here) that livened up my street in 2012. It was the first step to reassuring me that it would be safe to let my son walk to our local school when he's old enough to attend it - after all, he's already friends with almost every neighbour between the school and our house.

But think about this... the fact that the market was THERE, 800 metres from my door, gave me a destination, a place to do my shopping, a place to make friends, a place to take my toddler that came complete with indoor bathrooms. (Actually, I've also drawn a comic strip about that evolving relationship with the Crossroads Market.) The point is that I am lucky to live in a neighbourhood in which this option is available.

Yes, I still head to Superstore about once a month to buy a big package of toilet paper and a few other things that fit in my trunk. But if more neighbourhoods were premised on "walkability", I'm guessing we'd see more positive changes than just a higher rank on the Walk Score.

And by the way... for those of you who are just waiting to point out that not everyone is as mobile as I: don't get me started. Or, if you'd like to get me started, please let me know.

I just read that the bouncy castle at the Kingsland Farmers' Market is all set up and waiting for bouncing children. My son will be happy to hear this! I took him there for the first time last summer (he was three), and it must have made a big impression on him, as you can see in this comic strip from a few months ago:

This comic strip is part of a new little series that seems to have been unfolding since Alec's birth. It started with "Alec's First Year Book" and I'm now on the fifth. The idea was just to draw simple, quick strips once a while, so I'd have time to actually spend with my son rather than just spending all my time drawing pictures of him. You can see the early ones here on my website. The first two books are finished, in print, and for sale! (Well, right now you can find them at Edmonton's Happy Harbor Comics, or you can just send me a note.) The next two still haven't been printed, but I've been thinking I might get them ready for the 2013 Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo... what do you think?

Here are some photos of a graphic recording I had the honour to create today at a really cool local speaker series hosted by the ever-dynamic team at Calgary Economic Development. "Soul of the City" is presenting speakers on a whole range of subjects. Who's invited? Calgarians who are passionate about what's happening in Calgary - and who want to contribute to the discussion.

Today's talk, entitled "Weaving Public Art & Architecture into the Fabric of our City" featured four speakers, each of whom contributed a unique take on the concept.

My job: draw what they said!

I'll post some more images from this great event soon. After I've had some sleep. (6 AM wake-up call, power-drawing session and subsequent long day with an energetic 4-yr-old have left me no choice but to conk out without further notice. Stay tuned!)

Update: Here's a link to a time-lapse video of me making the graphic recording, edited delightfully so you can listen to the talks, too!

Apparently, it's National Hat Day. I guess the nation in question is probably the one south of the border. but do I need any more excuse that that, to post some hat pictures? No, I didn't think so.

These are pretty similar - the first one is a page from The Drawing Book vol. 1 (1996), and the next one is a kind of oil-painting-reprisal of the same theme, from around 2002.

Here's Anita Silvey's post about the classic tale Caps for Sale (which I just read last week, as it happens...) in honour of the day. Thanks Anita!

I heard that Calgary's Signal Hill Library will be getting some new public art. I thought that sounded exciting, and I went down to take a look at the library. Although I have some good friends in the neighbourhood, I hadn't actually been in the building before. It was a lovely spot: bright and spacious, but inviting and cozy, too. And there was a lot going on in there. I liked being reminded of how much the Calgary Public Library is about more than just books. It's a gathering spot for familes, seniors, students, and all sorts of Calgarians.

Since that visit, I've been thinking about about how much libraries have shaped my life. A lot, it seems.

Why did we count in French? I'm guessing my mom was trying to come up with ways to improve our minds, of which, in a life of walking back and forth to the library with a two-year-old in a small prairie town, there were probably relatively few.

When I was a student, I worked for four years at the University of Toronto’s Trinity College Library. During the first three years, I was actually attending Trinity College - then I took a break and came back to work there again while I was a student at OCAD. I always worked the 6 PM - midnight shift (and these are still my favourite working hours). Things weren't very busy then (as now) and there was lots of time to sit and draw.

Strangely enough, when I look around the internet for photos of the old Trin Library, I can't find a single one. It was in a century-old basement, and rather dark and dingy. The whole thing has been moved to a shiny brand-new building (pictured here - and not even that new, anymore). I knew the library had been moved to this new and improved location, but I'm surprised that there isn't a single picture of the old one to be found.

Incidentally, I'm also surprised that I can't find a single image of U of T's old Sig Sam Library, either. The stacks were built of metal grilles. You could see through the bars. The floors and ceilings were made of it, too. So if you stood in the aisle between the stacks, you could look up, down and all around and just see rows and rows of books. It felt as though you were in a kind of surreal 1950's book-filled cage.

As a university tour guide, I made a point of taking new students through this library just so they'd get a feeling for how university would soon immerse them in books. Well, partly it was just to freak them out a bit, too.

Somehow, it seems no one's taken a picture of this.

However, I did find this picture of the Hart House Library, a cozy spot in which, according to both my dad and my grandfather, students used to come for a nap. If you Google "Hart House Library Nap" you'll find quite a few pages of testimonials from other erstwhile nappers. (Incidentally, the picture was part of an article in which the author mentions that she, too, used to take naps here.)

The only image I can find that has anything to do with my four years at the Trin Library is this picture of a library bookplate. These were glued into the inside front cover of library books. When I look at it, I can still smell the glue paste.

At the same time I was learning to read in rural Saskatchewan, Margaret Mahy began working as a children's librarian at the Christchurch City Library in New Zealand. Mahy went on to write the myriad of wonderful stories we know and love (although, alas, we don't know them very well in Canada. Today, despite Mahy's literary accolades such as two Carnegie Medals and the Hans Christian Anderson Medal - children's literature's "Little Nobel" - I can tell you exactly which of her works can be found on the YA shelves of Calgary's Public Library. Maddigan's Fantasia (also published as Maddigan's Quest) (fun, but not her greatest novel); the soaked-in-Gilbert-&-Sullivan and luckily-still-popular Great Piratical Rumbustification; and her last great work, The Magician of Hoad (which I've also seen under the title Heriot). Publishing restrictions must have something to do with this serious lack of Mahy. It's not the fault of the library. But if not for second-hand bookstores (see above), I'd never have discovered Mahy's The Catalogue of the Universe. Enough said).

Luckily, I discovered it, wrote about it, and was invited to come down to the Christchurch City Library to speak about Mahy's impact on my life and work. I loved being in the place Mahy herself had worked. And I loved meeting Margaret Mahy. Despite my Bob Dylan groupiedom, I'm really not much of an autograph-seeking kinda person. But that was one in-person meeting I will always remember.

This is my only picture of Margaret Mahy and me. She was signing my old copy of The Catalogue. As I wrote in a tribute to Mahy published in Storylines' online newsletter following her death earlier this year: she reminded me of an Ent. It was fun to see that we were both wearing long drapy scarves around our necks. (It was freezing. But so was my whole trip to New Zealand. A intelligent-seeming graduate student asked me the following question about Canada: "Don't you have some kind of special houses up there to keep the cold weather out?" Well, we have insulation, if that's what you mean. Anyway.)

Here's a bit about Mahy and libraries from the comic-strip portion of an essay I wrote about Mahy.

By the way, I suspect that the reason you can always find The Great Piratical Rumbustification on the shelves of a library is that it's usually published with a companion story, The Librarian and the Robbers. This fantastic tale of a heroic librarian is one that Mahy clearly wrote from the heart, just as it warms the hearts of librarians everywhere. The fact that it's illustrated by Quentin Blake just makes it all the nicer. I wish I had a picture or a quote from it to add in here, but as soon as I find a copy I inevitably give it away to someone. Oh well - if you want it, you know where to get it.

Well, and last of all, my own hometown library. I have many fond memories of growing up with the Calgary Public Library. Maybe the strangest one is being part of a kids' summer reading group that used the following method to encourage youngsters to read: Every time you read a book, you'd report on it to the librarian, who'd make a mark on your chart. When you'd read a whole bunch of books and the marks reached the bottom of the chart , you received some kind of a prize.

I know - that doesn't sound too strange. The strange part was that the charts depicted oil derricks pumping oil out of the ground. (I have tried to draw a picture of this big chart here.) Each child got an oil derrick (and was allowed to name their own oil company. I can't remember what I called mine, except that it ended with the words "In Company," which I thought was what "Inc." was short for. You can see my future wasn't in business). At the bottom of the chart there was a picture of an enormous underground pool of oil. As each book was marked off, you got a bit closer to the oil. When you struck oil, you hit the library jackpot! I can't remember what the prize was. But I remember loving the big wall-sized chart on which some creative librarian had glued construction paper to represent layers of sand, rock, and other stuff you had to "drill" through to make the reading journey more exciting and suspenseful. I remember thinking, "when I'm grown up, I'll make a big wall-sized poster like that."

Well, that was Calgary in the oil boom of the late 70's/early 80's. It didn't occur to me then that there was anything unusual about oil-pumping library incentives. I also thought that building cranes were a regular feature of any city skyline.

Can you believe it, the wonderful folks at Calgary is Awesome wrote this great photo essay about our 23rd Avenue Artwalk & Street Celebration, and I didn't even know about it until recently! I will have to put this lovely montage up on the artwalk site. But for now I'm just putting it here because it is so nice. Thanks a million, CIA!


A COMMUNITY THAT CARES:
Last weekend the community of Ramsay exploded at the seams with great art and I got to take some of it in on a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Known as the Artists’ Avenue, 23rd Ave SE in Ramsay threw open its doors, lawns and garages for an epic art stroll last weekend. Everyone was so friendly and more than happy to share their passions for art and gardening with everyone who came by.

Photos by Amy Jo Espetveidt, Quadrophonic Image

1. Vienna, 6-years-old, shows off her artwork. 2. Everyone gathers to chat and share. 3. Brenda Taylor’s Taylor Made Glass. 4. Laurie & Jack the 23rd Ave Resident Scientists display their work. 5. San Gimigniano by Sam Hester. 6. Paintings by Matthew Page-Hanify. 7. Sam Hester Comics. 8. Sierra Love ROBOTS! 9. Artwork at the Leaf Ninjas’ table. 10. Painting by Mariah David. 11. Ceramics by Andrew Tarrant. 12. A couple checks out the Leaf Ninjas’ table. 13. Filmmaker Andrea Mann plays her work. 14. Knitting & Yarn-Dying by Franki Morgan-Fenemore. 15. Heather Stump’s Printmaking. A whole rundown on the artists and artisans that took part can be found here.

I just read this tweet: "do people still make dream comics? can't think of the last time i came across one."

Well, here are some old ones from The Drawing Book's web comics series. That's my ex-boyfriend in the first dream, by the way. Hope you enjoy!

By the way, that Montreal ghost dream was probably the scariest thing that's ever happened to me before or since. Yikes!

Making a Christmas card just wasn't in the cards for me this year. So I made a New Year's card instead. Happy 2013 to all!

And last but not least (for now) - a Christmas card from 2014!