Nadine's private island

You may not know that I'm a huge fan of David Zinn. If you are on Facebook or Instagram, YouTube or TikTok, I'm quite sure you have come across his work before.

A little warning or apology now. I love David's art so much, but I don't know if I will be able to find the right words to explain that. Sometimes I'm full of words, but not the right ones come out. Please also keep in mind I'm not a native speaker. Both of that together may be leading to something that totally makes sense in my head, but not so much written down.

This is from David's website:
"Now, thanks to the temptations of a box of sidewalk chalk on an unusually sunny day, Mr. Zinn is known all over the world for the art he creates under his feet. David's temporary street drawings are composed entirely of chalk, charcoal and found objects, and are always improvised on location through a process known (to almost no one) as "ephemeral pareidolic anamorphosis."
According to his TEDx talk, this isn't what he calls capital A Art, but small a art.
It's art that doesn't last for long, art that requires you to look at it from a certain angle to get the picture right, art that is inspired by detecting a meaning or picture in something that originally has nothing to do with it, like seeing something in a cloud that makes sense to your mind, a cow or a car.

We all know the last one. I regularly see faces, dragon heads, and more in my bathroom tiles and it doesn't worry me as long as they don't start talking to me out loud.
What I have never done, however, is work with that pareidolia and use cracks, lines, chewing gum spots, leaves, bushes or metal covers in the street to create something funny, whimsical, heartwarming. I have made a few jewelry pieces that started as a kind of doodle, for example a piece of bent wire, and turned into something recognizable, but not that often. I play, but the results are mostly abstract.

David, however, is sharing a world of creatures with us - like Sluggo, the green monster with the stalk eyes, or Philomena, the flying pig, gnomes and trolls, bunnies and dinosaurs, dragons and hamsters. All of them are adorable, even the grumpy ones, often their fears and joys and quirks are very relatable, and sometimes I feel like wanting to hug or talk to a piece of street art. I know I'm not alone in this because although I try to follow my own advice to never read the comments on social media, there are posts where I know the comments won't be a dumpster on fire and they show how much these little creatures speak to people.

One of my regrets is that I will never see one in person. David shares not only his art in pictures, but also does videos of how his creatures come to life, and there are books, prints, calendars as well which is wonderful, but no matter how good a picture is, I don't think you get the exact same feeling from them.
Of course one point is the idea of stumbling upon it unexpectedly. In one of his books, David says that usually only a few dozen people get to see his original art, festivals or events obviously being an exception to that. That's no surprise if you see people running along without looking around them, myself included, no doubt (except for the running part, my walking slowly should give me a slightly better chance).
There was a time when I consciously looked up on my way home and noticed stained glass windows, initials on houses, even mosaics that I hadn't seen before. I don't think, however, that I look at the ground too consciously while walking but only if I'm sitting somewhere, and of course these days I don't get around much, anyway.
So how big would my chances be to even notice art that doesn't jump right out at me like a big wall full of graffiti, for example?
The other point is that in the pictures you mostly get the right angle from the start and you don't have to discover it yourself. Would I even recognize what I'm looking at?
Would I see Nadine?

Yes, we're finally getting to Nadine.
She is my all time favorite, a small mouse in a blue dress (here you can find just a few pictures of her). David calls her "a mouse of adventure".
Nadine makes friends without reservations, like cats, big frogs, sheep, Sluggo, and even dragons and the Chalk Ness Monster.
She likes adventure, but she also enjoys quiet and solitary times with a book or a nice cuppa.
She tends to plants, she uses a crystal ball, she dances, and she seems to be living very much in the moment, enjoying what she's doing.
I'm a grumpy old cat lady ... and I think I envy her a little for getting to be Nadine 😉

I couldn't get this picture of her out of my head from the first time I saw it.

"Nadine's Private Island"
With permission of David Zinn

This isn't the only time I have seen Nadine with a book, but this is a really private spot compared to the hammock or the tree.
Don't we all want our own private island sometimes? Especially nowadays? A spot where the world can't touch us at least for a little while? No phone (although my cell phone is hardly ever on, my landline is still going strong), no technology, no neighbors, no noisy cars, just us and a book. I hope there were no annoying boats coming by, but knowing Nadine she probably would have been ready for that, too.

Anyhow, I started getting this nagging feeling of a need and a challenge.
The need was wanting to turn this into fan art. The challenge was the decision what exactly to do and how and it wasn't that easy. In the end only embroidery seemed right.
So I grabbed a 9 cm embroidery hoop - as Nadine is a small mouse - and spent a few fun days embroidering.

My palm tree isn't quite as high and I couldn't fit the whole island on, but Nadine doesn't seem to mind.
The leaves were a bit of a problem at first because I had never tried stumpwork before and struggled with the small size. After four or five attempts I finally called defeat and went back to familiar terrain meaning I beaded the leaves instead (taking the artistic license of making them lighter in color because I didn't have enough dark green beads left).

Unfortunately my brass frames are a bit too small to work with the beaded leaves and my wooden frames are too dark for this scene.
I'll find something eventually.

When I was done in the middle of the night, I took a quick and not very good picture, and before I could start overthinking it as usual and chicken out, I sent an email to David asking him for permission to share this piece publicly.
Can you imagine how I felt when I got a reply the next day already? Of course I had hoped for one, but I wasn't sure at all and definitely didn't expect such a quick one. And as you can obviously tell from this post, it was a yes which really meant a lot to me.
To use David's words from the TEDx talk when he told the story of the earless Mickey, I was "childishly happy".

This is just for myself, a little reminder to try and perhaps be more like Nadine sometimes. I'll let you know how it goes 😉
Also I'm sure I will never not smile looking at her.