Explosive Inspiration

I find a great deal of confusion in being an author/illustrator when the world wants you to specialize. But I believe that art and words are inexorably linked. And then I spotted the feature article in this month's UNM Alumni Magazine, Mirage. It was an interview with Leslie Marmon Silko, the author of Ceremony. She said that she turns to painting when the novel she is writing misbehaves. It was an "ah" moment for me.
Ms. Silko is inspiring to me not just for the fact that she weaves art into her creative process, but because her story touches my story in a real way. She attended Highland High School in New Mexico at the time my Dad did. The two established a friendship based on a mutual interest in pyrotechnics. Dad told me they used to booby-trap each other's cars and he got invited to participate in fire works displays on the reservation.
There is an emotional reality there for me. It made me sit up and pay attention to what she said in the interview--in a way I might not have.