Nobody Panic (Kelly McFadzen)

Take the time to smell the flowers, swim, or cast a line and fish.

No need to panic-

Making new memories while reflecting on old

For this month, I worked in Heather Rodocker's sketchbook. Her theme is "Childhood Memories". I love seeing the sketches before mine and how our lives can be so similar, even in our differences. 

It was challenging to settle on one. Should it be a happy, a sad, a weird memory? Which one is actually important to me enough to draw? For some reason, I keep coming back to the memory of playing Monopoly with my sister. The whole range of human emotion played out: joy, frustration, trust, taste of victory and defeat. Epic battles that would last days during the summer. The next summer, she moved to another state. 

I started with the Monopoly board and didn't know what to do next. My sister and I were skyping when she suggested changing the street names to places near the house. I looked up the address on google. How was it that my whole world existed within a few block radius of each other? What a different life my son is having!

Then, thinking of that house, our neighbors, and the massive fig tree in the backyard, I knew what to draw. My sister and I would push each other to go higher and higher, we were in charge of picking figs for my mom's jam. How normal a life we had.

I drew the house with marker, then finger-pained with acrylic paint. I figured finger-painting was the best way i could connect to the theme of "childhood memories" . 

Many years later, my sister moved back into that house with her own family. When i visit, board games are still time well spent with loved ones.