This glorious book turned up unexpectedly in my letter box, and I just had to share it with you! The author and illustrator is my lovely friend Nicole. I had been lucky enough to read a draft copy and I totally fell in love with it.
This is a story about being human; the glory and the despair of it, the search for peace with yourself and your world. I think what I love so much about it is that this is my story too, my story and yours, because it is the journey not only of a human being but of a creative person. Am I still worth something if the world does not applaud my work? Is my art still worthwhile if the galleries are not calling? Am I enough just as I am? Nicole talks sometimes about how a tree is free to be just what it is. We don't expect it to be anything other than exactly what it is in it's purest form. Why can't we give ourselves the same kindness?
Sometimes it helps to remember that we won't live forever. As Nicole writes, "And then one day, I will die. Like a deer in the woods, I will be folded back into the earth, back into the large body of Life, along with the fish, the algae, the rattlesnakes, the air, rocks, dirt, and of course the water. I'll never be a bird or a tree. I'll never be together in one piece again. My atoms will scatter, my energy will scatter. All the particles will get mixed around, and newly they'll come blooming. I will become part star, part ocean, part light." So beautiful.
The images in Nicole's book are her own collagraphs. They have such a lovely planetary feel to them. Looking at them makes me feel like I'm floating in the milky way. What could be better?
Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful work with us Nicole. You are a treasure to me x x
p.s You are Alive will be available in Nicole's etsy shop when she reopens in mid february.
