Monthly Archives: May 2013

HEY! Are You Drawing?

Yes. Some. It is cabin season and my eyes are too old to draw without electricity. We don’t have electricity in Mineral King. You Wilsonia folks have cushy cabins, but I am not complaining.

But don’t worry! I’m on schedule with the goal of finishing all the drawings for the upcoming boook, The Cabins of Wilsonia by the end of 2013.

Sorry for being so redundant. It is supposed to help Mr. Google find this blog.

What about cabin life is the most different from your real life?

Tell me about the longest stay you have had at your cabin

Questions for You, Oh Wilsonia Cabin Owner

I’m drawing a book called The Cabins of Wilsonia. Drawing it, not really writing it. There will be a preface, an introduction and a conclusion, along with explanations of street names, and I have written most of this already.

It is my hope that Wilsonia cabin folks will do the writing.

The point of the book is to show what it is like to have a cabin in Wilsonia in pictures and in the stories and thoughts from the cabin folks.

When people are asked about their cabins, the tendency is to recite a list of previous owners by name and approximate date of ownership. Since it is my goal to shoe what it is like to have a cabin NOW, clearly I haven’t been asking the right questions!

A friend of mine helped me formulate a list of questions to trigger ideas and thoughts and memories and impressions and information and personal stories about cabin life.

I know it is a pain to write. It is a pain to email. We are all busy. So, for starters, I will just ask questions.

Perhaps over time, these will cause you to have ideas, and when we talk in person, you will have thought about or answers to a question or two. Or maybe I should mail out a questionnaire. . . or put something in the Wilsonia newsletter. . . or email those of you who have shared your eddresses?

Let us begin with several questions to ponder:

What is your favorite thing to do at your cabin?

What is your favorite month in Wilsonia and why?

How has your cabin changed through the years?

How Much For That Book??

The Cabins of Mineral King was published in 1998 by Jane Coughran and me, under the self-publishing name of Cabinart Books. The plural, “books” was optimistic, because neither one of us had plans for another. We had to buy 10 ISBNs, so we were prepared if 9 more ideas came along.

The book sold out, and now when people ask me where to get one, I send them to eBay or to Amazon. They had been going for around $100, which is quite astonishing to me! Janey and I sold them for $50 hardcover, and $30 softcover. That in itself was quite astonishing to me back then.

Now, if someone wants a book, look at what is available!

Holy cow. That is incentive to buy The Cabins of Wilsonia when it is first for sale!

Of course, these are just listings. Who knows if they are selling??

This is the link in case you are interested. Maybe you can get a better deal on eBay. If you are really lucky, maybe you can find one at a yard sale!

Ready to Draw Again

I got tired. I kept trudging along, pounding out the drawings.

Then, my good friends Sophie and Louise invited me to spend a day in Sequoia. We did Sequoia kinds of things – Crescent Meadow, Tharp’s Log, lots of big trees, lunch at Wuksachi, but our main objective was to find dogwood in bloom. We were too early for Sequoia, and knowing better, we went to Grant Grove.

Too early there also. Duh.

Sophie and Louise are both authors of local books, great encouragers and supporters of my project, The Cabins of Wilsonia. (Sorry to be so redundant – it helps Mr. Google find this blog, so I’m told.)

The first time I went to Wilsonia was in 2008 with these two dear friends. We drove around tentatively, and confirmed my decision that Wilsonia was too big and too far away and that I wouldn’t be doing a book of the cabins there. 😎

This time, I could hardly contain my excitement – “This is my favorite cabin!” “Go left here!” “That’s my favorite cabin!” “The nicest people in the world spend the summer there!” “This is my favorite cabin!” “That cabin is one of the oldest – doesn’t it look like a Mineral King cabin?” “Go right here!” “This is my favorite cabin!”

They began counting how many times I said a cabin was my favorite. I realized that Wilsonia has snuck into my heart: the folks, the location, the architecture, the project.

I’m ready to go back to the drawing board and tackle the 2nd 3rd of this year. Or is that the 2nd third? or the second third?

Never mind. I’ve got drawings to finish.

Natalie Talked Me Through

Drawing 145 pictures in one year’s time can get boring, tedious and lonely. I love to draw, but occasionally there are signs that my enthusiasm is wavering.

Last week I found myself enmeshed in a terrible web of procrastination. I did some oil painting, organizing, painting of cupboards in the workshop, blogging, reading for fun, gardening, errands, and even attempted to balance the checkbooks.

When I do stuff with numbers by choice, you KNOW there is a problem.

No worries – enter NATALIE! We met in 1986, are close in age but far in geography. We had an agreement to write letters in spite of email, and we have stuck to that agreement with some exceptions. Natalie emailed me last week to ask if there was a time she could call me on the phone, because she wanted a real conversation. What a friend!

We talked for TWO HOURS while I worked on this pencil drawing of a Wilsonia cabin:

Thank you, my dear friend Natalie, for talking me through, for helping me figure out some things, for taking the time to catch me up on your life, for the incredible gift of committed friendship for 27 years.

Why Blog About A Book In Progress?

Pencil drawing of Wilsonia cabin door. (Thank you, Captain Obvious!)

For you:

You can track my progress,
You can hold me accountable, because working on my own can get a little squishy.
You can correct any misinformation I have about your cabin community,
You can ask any questions about my process or progress
You can share this project with your cabin friends and family
You can stay current. When someone wonders how it is going or if it is going, you can have the answers or send them to my blog!

For me:

To have a record of my progress
To be held accountable
To get more accurate information if I mess up
To answer any questions you have
To share the project
To keep you current

Hmmm. That sounded a bit redundant. Captain Obvious is alive and well on the writing end of this blog.

Let Your Flag Fly (and ask lots of questions)

Most Wilsonia cabin folks fly their American flags while at their cabins. If these were commissioned drawings, I’d ask to put color in the flags. Alas, I don’t think any of us could afford the book if it was printed in color.

This is cropped. I love to crop stuff. You might have noticed.

When building a book like this, there are so many things to consider. Look at this list:

1. Color or not? Will it reproduce well? Will it cost more to reproduce? If I put color in the drawings, will they reproduce decently in a single color of ink?

2. Who will print this book? It is too soon to talk to printing companies. I tried this in 2011 and had several hungry (rabid?) sales people calling me. (Hey Printing Sales Guy – The book isn’t yet designed or drawn: I just asked the simple question of “Can you print this sort of book or not?” DON’T CALL to try and sell me something – it is Way Too Early.)

3. When can I sell the original drawings? If I let them go and find out I didn’t scan them properly, I will be in trouble, groveling to get them back, scrambling around trying to find who has what, taking them out of frames, trying not to wreck the framing. . . oh my.

4. If I crop cabins and draw them the way I like, the shapes and sizes to make the book the most interesting, will anyone want the originals?

See what I mean? questions, questions, questions.

The Cabins of Wilsonia

A picture book about a cabin community