Monthly Archives: October 2019

Cute young artist folx at Kino Babylon for Spit and Ashes!

Young artist at Spit and Ashes screening Babylon Kreuzberg Oct 26 2019 by Suzanne ForbesI went to celebrated cinema Babylon Kreuzberg for the screening of my friend Sadie Lune’s new movie from Maria Beatty, Spit and Ashes.

The whole scene was like Planet of the Invasion of the Sexy Young Queers. Basically no-one had any gender binary and no-one had any hair on the sides of their head. If I hadn’t already been dizzy and exhausted I would have been knocked into a chair by the sheer gorgeous life and freedom of the young people. I drew this blue-haired artist while they were waiting in line.

Waiting for Spit and Ashes screening Babylon Kreuzberg Oct 26 2019 by Suzanne ForbesEveryone was looking fantastic and fearless.

While waiting I got to IRL meet and talk to Sara Niedorf, co-founder of Final Girls Berlin Film Festival, Berlin’s marvelous showcase for horror films produced, directed and written by women. As the crowd lined up for Spit and Ashes, I saw an old friend from SF! He had wanted to let me know he was in Berlin but decided to respect my mentioning health issues on my twitter. It was so good to hug an old friend who understands the challenges of my life with disability.

When Sadie arrived, she was in full Witch regalia and breathtaking! Director of Production Jo Pollux was gleaming like a fey creature, spooky and ethereal.

I hugged them and then I had to leave, because I have been having a crushing Hashimoto’s flareup; I was feeling like hammered shit. I am so damn sad I couldn’t see their gorgeous movie on the big screen with that amazing crowd. But I had already done one event that day, live-drawing Shine Louise Houston teaching film-making, and then gotten mixed up and gone to Moviemento (where I had drawings on display this year btw!!!) instead, and had to cab it to Babylon. I was in spoon debt already.

I didn’t have any trouble at all accepting that I’m an alcoholic and an addict and that addiction is a lifelong, incurable disease. But I am having a terribly hard time accepting that autoimmune illness has permanently changed my life. Every time I get better I think I’m better for good; every time I get worse I feel consumed with guilt and grief for the work I’m not doing and terrified of a future where I may be able to do less and less.

I am so grateful to my Patrons on Patreon, whose support makes everything I do possible.

If I didn’t have this monthly financial support, I wouldn’t be able to work at all. The flexibility of being supported by Patrons is so critical to my work. I’m writing this flat on my back on the couch on a Halloween night when all over town my friends are doing beautiful events I desperately want to document – but at least, thanks to my Patrons, I can take the time to scan, edit and post these drawings of cool young folx, and share them with the world.

Portrait of the artist’s mother in West Berlin.

Portrait of Pat Ketchum by Suzanne Forbes work in Process Oct 11 2019Got a chance to paint my precious mama on this visit, which was her longest so far.

I did a drawing on each of her previous visits – here and here– and this time I wanted to try a painting even though I have very little strength these days.

Painting takes a lot out of me physically, and with the endless upper respiratory infections I’ve had on top of my Hashimotos this year, I am always at zero physically.

I was willing to go into spoon-debt and suck up the recovery time for this though!

We did the sitting on the last night of her visit, so I could collapse after taking her to the airport the next day.

Here she is sitting in our salon, reading her Kindle.

Books are such a huge part of my mom and me’s life together, from the beginning. We shared books when I was a teen – Ed McBain, Dean Koontz, Elmore Leonard, Robert B. Parker, and most of all Dick Francis. In the 80s, we read every single thing every one of those writers had written.

And every Christmas there were stacks of paperbacks under the tree for me, all the Anne McCaffery and Isaac Asimov and Larry Niven and Heinlein. (Problematic as hell, but geek teens took what they could get!)

My mom still reads voraciously and lightning-fast, though I no longer do – I am too tired most of the time.

She discovers new writers, or new to her old writers, and burns through their work. The Kindle is great for her, as it is for another power-reader loved one, my Friend-Muse-Patron Barbara North.

My mom wore this pink striped sweater earlier in the week, and I asked her to wear it again for the sitting, I thought it would be nice against the pink model chair and the purple of her Kindle.

I need to do some finishing work on her sweater and paint in her hands properly, but I’m well satisfied with the likeness and how much I got done in the two-hour sitting. I took some photos of her jewelry and sweater for reference – as you all know, I never take reference photos for faces.

Even if I didn’t have a principle against it, I got enough of that on Star Trek!
Portrait of Pat Ketchum by Suzanne Forbes work in Process Oct 11 2019 detail
I did some work on the backgrounds of two other paintings in progress the next day, even though I was dazed with tiredness – the portraits of Shakrah and Cadbury are now much closer to done. Having a palette with fresh paint on it was too much to resist!

I’m so grateful to my Patrons (including my mama and mom-in-law!) for supporting my work and making paintings like this possible.