…is the name of today’s story at Fictive Dream.
Throughout the month of February 2022 I will be showing you illustrations I did for Flash Fiction February 2022 at Fictive Dream, an online magazine devoted to the short story.
Here’s the image editor Laura Black chose for this story, When JJ Visits His Life, by Francine Witte.
And here is the artwork with the banner. Take a look at this image. And then…
Read the story at Fictive Dream.
Claudia McGill and Her Art World 
It’s so cool that you do these covers. Love the colors and textures in this piece.
Thank you. It’s a great experience for me to participate in this event and I think it inspires me and gets me to experimenting as well.
The protagonist in When JJ Visits His Life by Francine Witte displays a certain freedom in talking to himself about himself but, at the same time, I see the compartmentalisation of a life which is why I felt this illustration was so right for the story. I love the colours and the background haziness within a firm framework. Thank you, Claudia.
Thank you. I like the idea of how we are a comglomeration or evolution of different selves over time. To me that is also a way to describe making a painting – it goes through personalities and phases to reach its end ( determined only when the painter stops painting, not because there is really is any end, I have come to feel!)
This painting is just like looking at the past. (K)
When I see this painting, or any one I have made, I remember all the phases it went through to reach the point I am looking at it now. Everything grows, it seems like, everything evolves, and memory is where we return to the earlier iterations.
it’s all in the layering.
What a beautiful passage: “Hey remember that night of Susy Benton’s Sweet Sixteen, how her hair smelled like coconuts and we were afraid to breathe because it might make time move?’” It brings tears to my eyes. I think we have conversations like this with ourselves all of the time. I love how JJ is represented in the art (I see JJ as the figure in white with the circle for a head) and the rich texture of JJ’s life. Nice meshing of written and art narratives.
Thank you. I can think of moments in my own life like this – sort of poised on a point, and one move will make it fall.
You’re welcome, Claudia.