Coyote Shit: A Philosophical Perspective

Taken out of context, the slide of the coyote feces on my slide talk, The Art of Business Thinking 1,  might seem like a random act of image-slinging for simple shock value. Well, maybe that slide was dog poop. But let me explain.

The subject has to do with ridding ourselves of ideas, beliefs, or viewpoints--the ones that no longer serve us, but that we hang onto anyways. Sometimes it's worth arguing the pros and cons of an issue, but that could take a lot of time. That's why an  image of coyote shit is often the most efficient solution to a tiresome debate: you can quickly get on to the next topic. The new idea.

If you think about it, you'll see that most ideas, beliefs, and viewpoints are temporary. They can easily become just plain wrong wrong as they age. The most decisive way to deal with them is quick release.

I think this is close to what Gary Hamel was saying in his book, Leading the Revolution. (I'm not saying he would use my analogy.) Hamel says that true innovation is more important than the simply new, which might just be the latest fad. Achieving authentic innovation usually means tearing down and recreating traditional concepts and whole business models. Even the ones taught in school.

Sound something like what artists do? Well, that's because quick release and decomposition of old ideas is the essence of the creative process. There is only so much room on a canvas, so quick removal, or overpainting, of the old allows room for the new.

Coyotes instinctively know this. That's why they are one of the most adaptable and successful mammals on our planet. And the subtle connection with the creative process may be why they are considered sacred animals here in the Southwest here I live.

I took some better photos of verifiable coyote poop while on a hike in the desert recently. Coyotes like to shit on the trail, where they know you will see it. It's part of the scenery.

At first glance at their scat, one can see that coyotes are omnivores, like us. Except that they really do eat almost everything, even things that are not food. Their scat is usually covered with hairs, and full of berry rinds, seeds, bones, almost anything that is not digestible. You can tell a lot about what is being served in the area by a close examination.

I looked in the literature and the oral traditions of the Tohono_O'dham people in my region of Arizona. Coyote is usually described as a character with a certain personality we'll call Coyote, with a capital C. He is a trickster. In general, when Coyote shows up in the stories, things always take a turn for the worse, go wrong in creative ways that one would never have even imagined. Everything he tries to do fails, and not in a simple way, usually in an spectacular way. Or so it seems.

Yet Coyote was one of the first beings hanging around at the creation of the Earth. Along with the Buzzard, another low-life character. And Coyote helps in the Creation. Or tries to. But sometimes, unexpectedly, some good comes of the situations he messes up. It eventually serves a purpose that no one else had thought of.

Coyotes are considered a pest and must be one of the most hunted animals in North America. Yet they are still extending their range: in the last few decades coyotes have colonized the Eastern US, as well as their traditional ground in the West.

I know because I designed a map for a book I recently illustrated, Frequently Asked Questions About Coyotes. Maybe they really didn't need that map because coyotes are basically almost everywhere.

Despite bounty hunters and the best we can throw at them, coyotes are more successful than ever. Why? Because they are both adaptable and intelligent. They do not necessarily follow the rules, even those laid down by authorities on coyote behavior. They are also cooperative--they will take turns chasing down a rabbit to tire it out. Coyotes have even been seen cooperating with badgers. Of all things. I never would have thought of that.

Come to think of it, I've draw a lot of coyotes over my career as an illustrator. I decided to pay attention to what the coyote might have to say. There is often a deeper wisdom behind folly. So I started with his shit. After all it was right there in front of me.

So back to my point in the business talk. (Remember I did have a point.)

They are smart, flexible, observant, and playful. I think I'll adopt the coyote as the patron saint of free-lance illustrators.

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Here are to several versions of these stories collected from from the O'Odham People of Southern Arizona, my home.

• Aw-Aw-Tam Indian Nights, The Myths and Legends of the Pimas, Collected by J. William  Lloyd
• Named in Stone and Sky, an Arizona Anthology, edited by Gregory MacNamee
• A good collection of books on O'odham oral traditions are listed here. 
• Don't forget Gathering the Desert, written by my good friend Gary Paul Nabhan, and my first illustrated book done back in 1985. Read the chapter on  Coyote Gourds. 

Mr. Goethe and field sketching

Outside us in space there spreads the immeasurable world. Inside us is our world of soul. We do not notice how what lives inside us flashes out and unites with what lives outside us. We are unaware of being the arena in which this union takes place.

– Rudolph Steiner, from the lecture series, "The Meaning of Life"

The painting above is the title page from Mr. Goethe's Garden, a children's picture book by Diana Cohn that I illustrated in 2003. As Diana told me at the time, (we went to Weimar, Germany together to visit Goethe's garden house in person) she had spent 10 years thinking about the book before finishing the text.

Mr. Goethe's Garden was inspired by a poem by the great German poet, playwright, philosopher, and scientist, Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe. The title, "The Metaphorphosis of Plants."

seemed a bit unusual for a poem, sounding more like a science paper. Not only was it a poem--it became a children's book. I am still thinking about the text, even a years after finishing the project. While researching my illustrations, I had read many of Goethe's writings, especially his journal from a trip to Italy, and Conversations with Goethe, collected by his secretary. Some of these ideas take years to form and to sink in, and will always continue to do so. 

So far, this is my idea: Drawing from nature is as good a spiritual path as any other. Maybe it is better. While drawing, one finds that  the personal interior world joins with the external world in an indescribable way and they become one. You become a co-creator of all that you see. And all that you see glows and hums with a fantastic beauty.

Check back with me in ten years and I may be able to elaborate on that thought.

Back to Drawing 101: Beginner's Mind

I WAS SITTING AT MY COMPUTER a few days ago, as the machine rendered out a 3d scene. I was on a deadline--I'd be up most of the coming night-- but I just sat, did nothing, and watched it create a "painting" pixel by pixel. It was a large scene and would take about an hour to render out into an image. As each little square was rasterized, I saw beautiful things and ugly artifacts appear out of the white background on my LCD screen. I had spent all day struggling with setting up the scene, and untold hours learning to do that, but still, it was odd to just sit there as a spectator as Vue did it's mysterious but astronomical calculations and created the resulting image: my artwork.

The image was surprisingly sucessful partly due to luck and some good default settings, since I am still learning this. And the good parts even had a painterly feel to them--just what I wanted. Even in a digital creation like a 3d rendering, it's those areas that look like a beautiful pencil line, or brush stroke that I look for.

I had just reached a certain level of technical sophistication that was so far beyond where I had started as an artist that I an epiphany of sorts. I had completed a painting without touching paper, brushes, or any traditional art materials. Was it a painting? Or what? It spiraled me right back to the time before I took my first beginning drawing class in college. I drew pictures for fun.

....

Also this week, an illustrator friend gave me the link to James Gurney's blog, gurneyjourney. I had always been a fan of his imaginative realism, most famously, Dinotopia.

Gurney reminded me that, as technically advanced as our media may become, the fundamentals do not change. Down there at the foundation is:

 drawing skills. 

And I don't mean drawing talent. I mean skills that anyone can learn. If you happen to be very talented, you may go farther and get better than the average person. But any Joe can learn to draw that six-pack. It's been proven.

But it was another book on Gurney's site that caught my attention: a new edition of the 1921 classic, now out of print and forgotten, Drawing Made Easy, by Edwin G. Lutz. James said he had learned from this and other books at an early age.

Here is the new edition. You can order it on Gurney's page. This is the book they didn't want us to know about in fine art school. Now it's been given back to us. Anyone from a child to a Michelangelo can get something useful from of this book.

That was just the beginning. I wanted the original edition. I found a pdf version of the scanned book.

To to make sure this book is available free to anyone wishing to learn to  draw, I put it on my own server here (pdf, 6mb). Right-click or Option-click on the book and select Download linked file.

I love this one from first sight of the cover. Don't sell it short. It's potential is nothing less than the transformation of human consciousness. Now anyone can learn to draw. Here are some of it's irresistible and charming pages.

I found more more old and out of print drawing books:

Practical Drawing, also by Edwin G. Lutz, is where you go after you know everything in Drawing Made Easy. You can tell it's a little more serious by the cover. Then after 20 years or so of perfecting your drawing skills, go back to Drawing Made Easy! I did.

You can get Practical Drawing, digitized, online at Google books.

Another classic, Creative Illustration, by Andrew Loomis. Find the html version here on my server.

You can download five other classics by Andrew Loomis at Pinwire Books. Remember to donate something to them so they can keep these priceless classics available.

I'm going back to my 3d rendering now. I'm going to keep on spending my days studying 3d modeling and rendering with the same zeal as before. But in my off hours, I will probably be drawing, maybe rabbits.

Digital Collage Series

Long Beach, 1949

TAG MIX, the most recent group art exhibit by members of TAG, came down last week from the 801 Gallery in Tucson. (TAG stands for Tucson Artists Group, formerly the Thursday Artists Group, and originally named the Tuesday Artist's Group.)  I made a series of seven 8x10 digital prints last December for the show, which opened on New Year's Eve, 2009. I didn't get my prints back, as the series was sold in the show. (They are cheap.) I'll post them here in the order I hung them, left to right. They don't tell a story, but they did fall into a sequence, at least to me, like stanzas in a song.

Just a note on the process: I work on these collages as a meditation. There is no deadline and no objective except to let my mind wander and to make productive use of all the odd things I have accumulated over the years. I scan things and put them together intuitively, trying to avoid any obvious logical story lines.

Many are from the old maps, prints and books collected by my former illustration teacher, Don Sayner. When he died four years ago, I helped his family sort through all his piles and sell what was valuable. Now I have piles of his stuff. I don't want to hoard things like Don did, so I scan them before I let them go to the recycling bin or an antique auction. I store them now on a hard drive.

I call these small works visual poems. I have been working with exacto knife and glue like this since I was a teenager and now I use Photoshop.  I can't call them a numbered print edition because every time I go back to an older one, I make some little changes, so I just date the prints.

Cloud Ear

Venus Torso

Escalier, Versailles

The Lion and the Virgin

Sun House

One Second Before Impact

................................

Since then I have made another one. To be continued...

Inlet

Interview with Maurice Sendak

LAST WEEK, Tucson hosted an informal meeting of members of Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (hereafter called SCBWI) at Borders coffeeshop. Several people drove the hundred miles form Phoenix to attend. When talk turned to the relationship between the words and illustrations in a picture book, I mentioned an interview with Maurice Sendak that I had read years ago in the book edited by Jonathan Cott, Victorian Color Picture Books. The book is a wonderful collection of images from the early days of picture books, the period when the art form was being invented. The interview with Sendak is, in fact, the only text in the book. The rest is, appropriately, all pictures.

I found my copy of Victorian Color Picture Books years ago while wandering in a bookshop in London. It's currently not easy to find. To make the interview available to the other people present for our next dicsussion, I scanned the interview and placed it here on my server in pdf form. (10.5 mb)

Here are a couple of images from the Jonathan Cott book: Randolph Caldecott's illustrations for Baby Bunting. (I have an original edition of this book. It still makes me smile whenever I read it.)

The last page needs no words...

Pak Teh passes away!

Pak Teh relaxing after a honey hunt, 2004

I was saddened by the email I got from Professor Mardan this morning from Malaysia titled, "Pak Teh passes away!" I think Mardan's note, quoted below,  speak for many people who knew Salleh Bin Mohammend Noor, affectionately nicknamed "Pak Teh." He was a grandfather, bee shaman, leader of the honey hunters, healer, Imam, and hero of our children's book, The Bee Tree, that I illustrated in 2006.

Like Makhdzir, after the initial shock and sadness, I started to smile inwardly, thinking about all the experiences I had with Pak Teh during the ten years I traveled to Malaysia working on  the book.

Dear all, 

Very sad indeed to let you know that Pak Teh passes away less than hour ago at 84 years of age. He had a stroke a month ago and he was hospitalised. He was discharged a day ago and he died peacefully at his home. Innalilla wa'innlillhiroji'ooon! 

Let us pray to God the Almighty for the well-being of his soul and in the hereafter. Pak Teh has passed and TAUGHT me very valuable knowledge, wisdom and experience on the giant honeybees and honeyhunting in the rainforest of Malaysia. I owe him a great deal in many of  my insights about the forest, the bees and the wildlife. Many times he expressed to people, liking me like his son. I feel very honoured to be treated very specially by him, that he was very helpful and supportive in whatever undertaking that I came up to him throughout my knowing him for more than 25 years. 

I remember meeting him for the first time under the bee tree then when he was as old as I am now. He was muscularly built at 56 and I can never forget that we have little rations left under the bee tree, except rice and coffee. He ate 7 plates of rice mixed with coffee right before my very eyes!!! Surely, I know that he was not a hungry monster then, but blimey! 7 plates of rice! That was a rainy night that we slept at the foot of a big tree near the bee tree. Only to find next morning that our colleague's stomach was smeared with blood because there were leeches in his sarong. We joked over the years and he never loses his cool or temper, but always has his humour intact, no matter how bad, tired and dangerous the situation we were in. 

He told me stories about how he was caught by the forest rangers and brought to court because he had a gun and was trespassing the forest. He was asked during the court hearing did he see the signboard that showed he should not be hunting in the forest. Earnestly and honestly he said that he saw it. But when asked why did he still went into the forest with the gun. He said he cannot read ! He was always cool and collected and humourous under the gravest of circumstances. I could not ask for more from Pak Teh than to share his experiences and knowledge of honeyhunting. 

I gained many insights from his observations over the many years of honeyhunting. I feel very lucky to have made the honeyhunting documentary with DISCOVERY CHANNEL, months ago, about his conveying of the cultural baton of honeyhunting to his grandsons, Nizam and Shukor. The documentary will be broadcasted again on the 11 November on DISCOVERY CHANNEL.

Thank you

Makhdzir

I think of Pak Teh as a male role model of sorts, as example of a strong and good example of a man. And I never understood anything that he said except, As-salamu Alaykum or "Hello, peace be with you." That was the only phrase I knew in Bahasa.

I remember times we would be walking in the forest on the trail to the bee tree. We English speakers would be talking and laughing about something and Pak Teh would ask Makhdzir, or someone else who spoke English, "What are they saying, What are they saying?" Makhdzir would translate and Pak Teh would laugh and start making comments of his own. So we would ask, "What is he saying? What's he laughing about?"


As a quick little memorial to Pak Teh, I'm posting for the world, some of my sketchbook drawings and paintings of him.

My first practice painting of Pak Teh with two grandsons entering the forest

Pak Teh sitting for me in the honey hunter's camp.

This is a sketch I gave to Pak Teh.

This is the portrait of Pak Teh that is in The Bee Tree.