I am a poet, I am an artist, I am many things some of which seem contradictory – after the head bang last year the question of identity reigned large in my vision of self – not just my identity but everybody’s and societies reactions to identity issues – so I started working on a series of images.
I was learning how to draw again and the ideas were appearing faster than I could create them, I spent 3 months working on the visuals for A Stranger Dream. And mainly I have had positive feedback though some people do hate the style and that is fine it is stark, it was meant to be.
But what is A Stranger Dream? Well for a start it is not A Stranger Dream it is A Stranger Dream: Love but it’s not it is
Love: A Stranger Dream…
or both or neither or something…
It is a non-linear visual poem on identity, gender, our place within family, our concentric non-ecludian intersecting and exclusionary circles of all the cultures of us – it is the distorting mirrors within our own heads – the fitting and the not fitting – the fires within.
I know it doesn’t look it but it was a hell of a lot of work.
Then someone said “it says colouring in book to me” and I thought… why not?! I thought people colour to relax, to sort thoughts, to just be themselves and that is fitting – plus colouring in book is on the list of to-dos and I have been producing colouring in sheets for my kids workshops for ages.
So I started by popping the images up as individual sheets for download and colouring – they are still there and they are free.
Then I made ring bound ones at home for shows and events… people far away started asking how they could get hold of them so I have created a colouring in book complete with purple spine and title box because… I am the Purple Poet!!!!
Here is a picture of the spiral bound ones at The True Believers Comic Book Festival earlier this year.
And this weekend (April 22-14 2016) I am having a launch party – sadly I am only running a virtual one but it is going to be epic!!!
I will be pinging around the internet – of course hoping people will buy the book but as I said don’t feel you have to because I put the individual sheets out there for free download and I know times are tight (having said that I need to buy more art supplies… to you know produce more art!).
There is a Facebook Event, a Google+ Event, a twitter hashtag # astrangerdream and my patreon account (which will have hidden extras in it for patreons only). There are also the blogs namely this one and Turquoise Monster which is my poetry blog 🙂 So I think that is pretty much everyone covered – I am hoping to do a little film thingy too but we will have to see how the laptop holds up!
The colouring book is already up on Amazon and Book Repository etc… it is appearing as £10 odd – I meant it to be roughly £7 if you’ve bought the £10 copy let me know as I have a little goody bag to post to you containing some lovely tie-in items 🙂 (yes I am trusting people to be honest here! Thankyou 🙂 )
Oh and there should be a gallery unveiling where people can post pictures of their colouring in – if they wish 🙂
There are going to be give aways but there will also be merch for sale and special offers etc… (sorry guys I would love to give you everything for free but I do need a new computer!).
I am actually stupidly excited about this and am even making myself an outfit out of the art work! The poetry cards have arrived and are beautiful in a way I was not expecting 🙂
Most of all though regardless of weather you buy or take for free or just look – mainly I hope everyone will be enriched by the work itself, it was very important to me whilst creating it. It’s kind of an imprint of the soul, maybe a darker one than people would like but it is… something – I’m not quiet sure what.
I hope you will join me for turning the starkness into a rainbow.
a non-linear visual poem as a colouring book but… well people have been asking about other books – now I have a long list of other potentials but thought I’d see what people want 🙂
