…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, Time for a Visit, by Thaddeus Rutkowski.
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 
Time for a Visit by Thaddeus Rutkowski is about a son visiting his mother. What I love about the illustration is the palette which invokes a sense of calm, with a design that engages with the confusion (and worse) that may be experienced as one approaches the later years. A soothing illustration for a tender story. Thank you, Claudia.
Thank you. I felt for both characters in this story. I can see myself playing either role now that I am getting older. When I make a piece like this with layers, I feel it reflects the passing of time, with the building up of the colors, and the sometimes inadvertant patterns that result.
I love all the things that these overlapping and incomplete circles suggest in terms of the story: people circling each other, separately,then connecting; the stained countertop when the coffee spills; the swirling confusion of mental decline and of indecision.
I do a lot of loops in abstract art, I really like making them, and I like the symbolism or whatever of the indirect path everything in life pretty much seems to take. With lots of layers comes a blurring of lines, too, and that fits with the story.
So much lies between them. (K)
It seems like this parent and child share that same hesitancy in imposing on the other. The circles in the art feel like communication forays back and forth between them. I like the hopeful ending in the story.
I like the idea that they each seem to want to look out for each other, even if it is impossible or not easy.