I Support Carol!

One of my Storybooks is up for auction at www.auctionforcarol.blogspot.com during the 3Day Silent Auction for Carol.

Chloe's Book

I have been working on Chloe's "Chloe Bear" book for some time now. It is taking substantially longer than I wanted but the hopes that it be perfect overwhelm.

Using photograph's of Chloe in her violet Tea dress and following the story line I first created,
the illustrations are now coming together. I use watercolor pencils and outline in black ink as medium.

The story follows Chloe Bear as she anxiously prepares for her Mothers arrival home from the hospital.

The very idea of the story came to me as I traveled the 700 plus miles back from Seattle and Carol's hospital bedside. Carol had expressed to me her heartache over the distance she felt that had now grown between her and her first born. Mother and daughter had been quite inseparable prior to Carol's tragic hospitalization and with such her sweet one-year-old found it understandably difficult to comprehend all that was happening at this time.
Carol and I both shed tears as she expressed to me on an evening I sat next to her hospital bed her wish. She explained to me her single most desire that was that of being a Mother to her daughters, to have that bond and that normalcy that now seemed so impossibly distant with her newfound physical circumstances.
Traveling along I-15, there was nothing more that I wanted to do but to help provide Carol, my dearest friend, with some sort of relief in this pursuit.

My thoughts turned to the ingenious teddy bear that was gifted to Carol for her daughters just after the Amputees Meeting we had attended together.
A fuzzy, brown bear adorned in ribbon with it's left arm shorter than the other and it's feet removable to show shorter limbs underneath. A love-stuffed teddy bear created for the little minds of Carol's sweet daughters, fashioned after their Mother's own likeness.
I imagined Carol sitting in her home, on her own sofa, far from any hospital room, with her daughters snuggled beside her.
I imagined a book resting on her broken body and this teddy bear tucked snugly beneath Chloe's arm.
A book that would tell both Chloe and Safiya how much their Mama loves them.
A story that would include a bear with her own name, in her own favorite dress.
A tale that would follow both fiction and non-fiction but would never neglect to include love. And a story that could be 'read' once by accompanying recorded mp3 and forever by memory.
The possibility of simple paper helping to create moments of togetherness, love and comfort for Mother and Daughter beyond deserving was my wish.

I am thrilled with the form that this book has taken thus far and look forward anxiously to its completion-- printed, hardbound and on it's way to Carol and her darling oldest.
Perhaps perfect was achieved with simply the idea conceived.