WHAT I PUT FORTH INTO THE WORLD THIS MONTH
a 47-minute comedy album with my friend Maureen
four improv shows
one house commission :)
O, PETTICOATS!
In the deepest depths of the pandemic, my sketch partner Maureen Monahan and I creaked into action and wrote some comedy monologues and songs. Each piece is a voice from America’s past. The album is sequential, so it begins with a Jamestown settler in 1608 and ends with a Carrie Bradshaw-esque woman musing about Y2K.
Here it is on Spotify. Here on Apple Music. Is there anything else people use? I bet it’s there. You can search “Spooky Dookie.”
Our process: Meandering phone calls as we walked around our respective cities. Writing scripts in Google Docs. I recorded VO in the Jackbox sound booth and Mau recorded on her home set-up from Tooning Out the News. We roped in the wonderful Lior Shragg to do music and master the tracks. We passed .wav files and notes back and forth. Maureen ended up making our very cool album art, but first we tried to hire a man on Fiverr to turn pictures of us into paintings, wearing bonnets. This was the example of the style we sent him:
Here is what he sent back:
This made us laugh for a long time. We paid him and moved on. We asked Alex Moss to record the introduction as the historian and curator, Dr. Kermit Spank. We considered changing our name from Spooky Dookie to Doctor Kermit Spank (not kidding). Once vaccinated, we re-recorded some stuff in Lior’s basement. Then Lior had a baby and we got busy and the world spun.
So now almost four years later we have released the album and ironically it feels like a time capsule for me for 2020. But I hope for you it’s a time capsule for all of American history. And oh, Oh, O’ Petticoats! I hope you laugh.
SABBATICAL UPDATE: MONTH ONE DONE
I bounced around a lot this month. Since leaving Mainstage, I have been to Toronto, Aruba and the Twin Cities. I don’t want to stop and reflect– I’ve only just begun! So here is what I’ll say:
One of my goals on this sabbatical is to draw more freely, to start “thinking with my hand.” When I’m drawing houses and doing commissions, I am meticulous. I use a fine-tip pen and I want to get things CORRECT and to be PRECISE.
While I’m glad I can do that, I’m interested in expanding how I draw so that rather than imagining or seeing something and then trying to execute it, I actually find ideas through drawing. Can my hand “think”? Can I draw from a place that’s below words? Or off-to-the-side of words?
With that general leaning, here are some sketchbook spreads from my trips so far.
I don’t want to look for trends or reflect or improve or anything. Don’t make me! I’m just trying to draw more, open up and see what arrives.
The only trend I will note is that lately I’m drawn to the color orange and to lions. Lions keep arriving.
In a terrific art store called Wet Paint in St.Paul, I found some orange lion stickers. And an orange notebook. And later I thrifted an orange purse. And speaking of orange, I will be spending all of May in the Netherlands.
See you next month!
Love,
Claire 🧡
i love your drawings. it must feel so neat to leaf through your drawing journals. do you usually sit and draw in a certain place, like coffee shops? or outside? or is it whenever the creative juice finds you?
Princess of Orange!!🍊