Welcome to the Don’t Let The Sun Go Down Book Club. This is the first and only planned entry of the Club. In this entry I will be discussing Dawn: Winter Journal by Phil Elverum and The Journals of Sylvia Plath.

This winter I went back-and-froth between two books: Dawn: Winter Journal by Phil Elverum and The Journals of Sylvia Plath. Each of these books are unedited journal entries by creative people; Elverum being the musician behind The Microphones and Mount Eerie (wiki), and Plath being the well-known American author (wiki). These two artists have 50 years between the times they are working, but the correlations are immense. Going back-and-forth between their intensely personal journals, I began to fantasize they were in this journey together, holding hands through the winter of life.

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Spent the weekend at my parent’s cabin in Minnesota for some reclusive art-making and relaxation before heading back to Baltimore for school. These are the trees between the house and the frozen lake which I drew as warm-ups in the mornings. The branch on the far left is the same branch in all three drawings. It’s from a hundred year old oak.

Been thinking about intimidation and judgment in relation to the people in my life, especially how they perceive me perceiving them. I was going to write something about it but I talked to my friend on the phone and who said they never saw me as intimidating, just standoffish, which the dictionary defines as “aloof and reserved.” Intimidating, standoffish oak branches.

I’ve hated drawing with pencils for a while, because of the impermanence; the ability to erase. I’ve drawn with ink for years now because nothing can be retracted, and I like the mental place that puts me in when I draw. Everything has to be there. But lately I’ve seen the value of pencils, because the saturation quality of the mark can vary. Ink is consistently dark. And I’ve also learned that if you draw in pencil and pretend erasers don’t exist “permanence” isn’t an issue.

On the bottom image it should say “self-mythologizing.” I wasn’t quite sure how to make “mythology” a verb…

Welcome to my new online journal, Don’t let the Sun go down! I’m going to be posting sketches, images, updates on current projects, and lots of other things! CathyBoy.com is serving as my steady portofolio website, and Don’t let the Sun go down will be serving as an updating platform. Hand-in-hand, they’re here to keep you guys informed and illuminated. I’m excited!

Go to CathyBoy.com to check out the update!

Also should mention the Travel Journals Blog has been updating every Monday and Friday. It’s scheduled to keep updating until February, but the archive will still be available once all the pages are up.