Over the past few weeks I’ve been reworking the art for SOME DID REST, the graphic novel proposal that resulted in my being awarded a 2011 Creative Workforce Fellowship. In mid-May I’ll be heading to China to spend a few weeks visiting the site of the 2008 Sichuan earthquakes, which was the original inspiration for the story. Over the few years that I’ve been developing this book, my line work has tightened, and I realized that the proposal art I drew last year no longer reflects how the final book would be drawn. So I’ve been reinking and reworking the opening scenes pages, a sample of which you can see on the right.

In January, my hometown newspaper, the Lawrence Journal World, ran a story about SOME DID REST’s inspirations and the steps leading up to the fellowship from the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture here in Cleveland.

Storm Stories: LHS Grad Making Name for Work in Graphic Novels
“There’s something about disasters,” she says, struggling to explain her interest in them. “Everyone loses control.
“Maybe you can blame it on the tornado that hit my house and neighborhood in Lawrence.”

Another paper, Cleveland’s weekly magazine, Scene, also recently ran an article focusing on those awarded fellowships from the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture here in Cleveland, and I was one of the artists highlighted. The grants are funded with a tax on cigarettes in the county, hence the article’s title.

What Your Butts Buy: How we spend one of the nation’s biggest pots of public arts money
Fellowship judges were impressed by Smith’s initial drawings for Some Did Rest, her forthcoming graphic novel inspired by the 2008 earthquakes in Sichuan, China. While reading about the disaster, Smith was struck by reports of thousands of students dying in shoddily constructed school buildings.

Both articles talk about the origins of the story behind SOME DID REST, and why it is I’ll be making a trip next week to Sichuan, China.

In other small, flattering honors, a cover I designed last year for independent publisher Lethe Press was on Lambda Literary’s 2010 in Review: Best Book Covers in very good company. The book is DIANA COMET AND OTHER IMPROBABLE STORIES by Sandra McDonald, and it was a pleasure to work on.

I also was a part of FULL SERVICE, a show that ran last week at the Cleveland Institute of Art’s Visual Arts + Technologies Coventry Center as part of the campus-wide spring show. Full Service included work by myself and some of my fellow technical assistants here at CIA, and my piece was a print of the original first chapter of SOME DID REST. I hope some of you stopped by to see it!

Always keeping busy.

A few weeks ago I was invited to be in an alumni/faculty show put together by the VAT Environment at the Cleveland Institute of Art. I’m a recent graduate and currently work as an assistant in the digital labs, and I’m really looking forward to seeing where everyone’s work has gone since we finished school.

The show, called “Building Peers”, opens today, with a reception this Friday, April 23 at 5:30pm. It’ll be running until May 15, so you’ll have plenty of time to stop by and check it out!

My own piece is the first chapter of my current work in progress, SOME DID REST, a teaser of which you can see here. If you want see it at a size where it’s legible, you’ll have to stop by the show or wait until the book finds a home. :) If you do get a chance to visit and read it, be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think!