Finding a Perfect Beagle

December 27, 2016 Signe Baumane

On the day 5 of my Holiday Special offer to draw your favorite animal if you name one favorite thing about the animal I got a request to draw a beagle. The person's favorite thing about beagles was:

"Beagles have an understated, dignified quality about them (well, what I mean is that mine did). They’re not always serious, but they are dedicated."

A beagle and dignity. Makes sense. But how to show it in one picture? Hmm....

And so the race to find the perfect beagle begun. First I had to check if I remembered how a real beagle looked. Googled it.

Then tried to draw a beagle from memory.

After clarifying an image of a beagle I had to decide how to draw dignity. This person really admires dignity in beagles. It says a lot about the man. Lets put them all together - the man, the dog and dignity. I made a quick sketch.

The beagles are on the lookout - like proud captains of a huge ship they look for approaching dangers to divert them with a bark or bite.

Eh... I can do better. Lets make the beagle a real captain facing real dangers.

Although Beagle looks dignified now, after his ship butts heads with the iceberg, he may not. Scrap this idea. 2016 was a bad enough year for all of us, no need to remind people how vulnerable this dignity thing is. Beagle must lead the ship to a better place, or to find something that's missing. Maybe tracking a trail lost in an ocean of smells? A beagle can lead a beagle. Lets try that.

Lets see if there is a better angle to look at Beagle leading a beagle.

Yes, this beagle is right on the nose! But wait!... beagles have beautiful ears. So warm and fuzzy one could eat them. Enwrapping ears.

I have to remind myself that the thing about beagle I was asked to draw was dignity. What could be more dignified than giving a speech at United Nations?

The problem with giving a speech at United Nations is with all those people wanting to know you afterwards.

And, God forbid, they may want to bring you to strange rooms and surround you.

You try to run away but they run after you.

Even if you escape, they still send you presents.

And more presents.

Only after they leave, Beagle is able to take a good look at people.

But it is obvious Beagle has something that people are drawn to.

Finally Beagle was able to shake people off. But life wasn't the same without them. He had to find them again.

People didn't like that Beagle lost them.

To please them Beagle does whatever people ask.

Beagle soon gets tired of the chore to feed people. He puts them in a biodegradable bag with marinade and puts a weight on top.

Beagle steeps people in the marinade for three days then puts them into a pot.

He gives the pot to charity. But life without people is indeed not much fun.

So Beagle finds some seeds people left on the floor and plants them in terracotta pots. But even planted in small pots people still have their own mind.

Wait, where was I? I had to make a drawing of a beagle with dignity. Stop fooling around!

I think I had a perfect Beagle at some point but I lost him in the process.

Research II

September 15, 2016 Signe Baumane

When they tell you children are like angels - blank pages in books of purity and innocence that Life and Devil start to write on their dark messages in black ink around teen age - please do not believe them. Every fool who has held a newborn baby knows children scream when they want something. They scream for food, love, affection and toys. When they grow up they learn to push aside their competitors - other babies, small dogs and a-month-old kittens - to get to the desired goods.

One important thing about children you should really know - scientists confirmed recently that besides being cry-babies babies are also racists. If you read that article you'll find out the reason why:

“The idea of in-group bias is well established in behavioral science, and it has its roots long ago, in humanity’s tribal era.”

From the moment they are born, children learn to distinguish between the people in their group and the outsiders. It only gets worse as children grow (until their Prefrontal Cortex develops and as adults they become aware of their bias and learn to correct it). Which brings me back to my story about school uniforms.

In Russia a school uniform for girls looked like this:

While in Latvia it looked like this, a whole class:

- Ah, - you'd say. - I see no big difference! Its just a uniform!

Well, it's easy for you to say. The eyes of 8-year olds are like those of an eagle, discerning the smallest difference from the furthest distance, anything that would give them clues to start an abuse of The Other. Have you ever tried to enter a classroom, full of 8-year-olds, dressed in the wrong uniform? On September 1st, after my return from Sakhalin to Latvia, I did just that and instantly was tagged as The Other. When the teacher asked me to introduce myself to the class, and I said ... :

- Hi, my name is Signe Baumane. My family recently moved to this town from Sakhalin...

... the 35 of my future classmates detected Russian accent in my Latvian speech which gave them permission to hate me. After 1941 Latvians considered Russians as representatives of occupying powers and harbored quiet but bitter resentments towards the privileges and entitlements the newly arrived Russians enjoyed. Of course, being a second class citizens in his/her own country no Latvian could express openly their hostility towards any Russian. But I was a perfect target - a Latvian speaking with a Russian accent. And so the bottled up resentment was unleashed on me.

Or, perhaps I am giving political overtures to something that was more simple: I was awkward, ugly, quiet, not very bright and my Mom was a teacher at the same school (kids of teachers were also hated - they were perceived as having unfair advantage).

Whatever happened on that first day, I was not able to shake off the tag of The Other for the next 10 years, however I tried. Observing my sufferings stemming from social exclusion my Prefrontal Cortex grew to develop bias against populars.

But wait, I just watched Blank on Blank interview with Kurt Cobain (animated by Pat Smith) and he said: " i felt so different so crazy" in school. Curt Cobain? You'd think in high school he was an incarnate of the populars, no?

Most of my friends felt different and crazy in school, excluded from the popular circles. But WHERE are those populars? Perhaps the people we perceived as populars also felt miserable and excluded? Have they lived to tell their tale?

Research on Sakhalin I

September 13, 2016 Signe Baumane

When I started to work on visual aspects of my new project I had to make sure I get visual details right. For example, what was the standard school uniform in the USSR on September 1st when I went to school for the first time? Of course, I could fake it, after all, my story is of the fantastical sort, and who cares about old school uniforms anyway, but I wanted to see if the old times could inspire me. The matter of school uniforms is not that simple in my case.

I was born in Latvia (it was part of Soviet Union at that time) and when I was 5 my family went for work to Sakhalin, the Russian island next to Japan. Age 5 is the time when a person finally emerges from the mysterious glob of subconscious flesh that is a baby. My first solid memories are from Sakhalin. Like the first love, this island is unforgettable.

If you have been to Far East you'd know how amazing the Nature is there: overwhelming with its beauty and overpowering with its forces. The amount of snow alone could kill you.

But back to school uniforms. Despite the dangers of unsupervised childhood (my parents had to leave me and my sister alone when they went to work, because kindergartens were full and no one's ever heard of babysitters in the good old USSR) I survived and reached the mature age of 7 when by the law of the land I was required to go to school. I put on the uniform and went with my older sister.

Upon my arrival the school immediately pointed out at everything that was odd and irregular about me: I didn't know which hand was right or left, my cotton tights weren't so tight and kept sliding down in folds of an accordion and I didn't have any books nor bag with me. After all, I have spent 2 previous years in wild, like this:

But I believed in education, so I persisted. Every morning I would put the uniform on and would go to the school on a makeshift sidewalk that was supposed to keep the Forces of Nature at bay. The school eventually grew to like me. A couple of fellow classmates thought there was something special about me being a Latvian in their Russian speaking class, although by then I barely spoke any Latvian.

Then the Disaster struck: one day when I was 8 my parents packed to go back to Latvia.
(to be continued)