St. Luke's Attic

I need some sleep.

My 3rd grade son really enjoys looking through my drawing books. He has his favorites and likes to tell me about them. He told me that his absolute favorite was the drawing above, My Drawing Books Preserve Me because, well, I guess he found the title funny. How can a book “preserve” you? Now this is funny because, as you will notice, the text actually says My Drawing Books Pursue Me and Intrude Upon My Dreams. (I had made this drawing because of an anxiety-laden dream I had about my books being destroyed in a fire no matter if I kept them at home or on my bookshelf at work. Either way I had to run into the burning building to save them. This idea of a burning book gave rise to another drawing that I will talk about on Thursday.)

So of course I started to turn that phrase over and over in my mind. What does it mean that my drawing books “preserve” me? How could I show that? I decided to further a theme that I’ve had going in this book for some time – that of things coming out of my head. On a yellow background. So I went with that and came up with this image.

Wherein books spring, fully formed from my head.

I showed it to my boy; he laughed a little and then went about his business of playing. Oh well, perhaps I thought it a more profound question than my 8 year old did.