Two years
      ago, I was working with a writer who had taken some ideas of
      mine and written the text for a children's book. I was dissatisfied
      with the results and ultimately had to abandon the project because
      I felt very constrained by the need to adhere to the text; there
      was no room to stretch and use my imagination and intuition.
      Then, in response to my complaints, someone suggested that I
      should create the illustrations first and then have someone write
      the text to go with them.   When I connected with Leslie Powell and read her writing, I knew
      she was the right person to collaborate with, as I felt our work
      shared many similar qualities. We are both very intuitive creators,
      reaching into distant and strange places to bring forth works
      that are ambiguous and multi-layered, filled with meaning and
      energy, but never completely spelled out in a linear fashion.
      We also both tend to be very honest emotionally in our work,
      and address the wounds of the heart and the soul with a clear
      and compassionate eye. 

								
      It's a rather unique approach, as far as I know, to collaborating
      on a book. I created a series of images with graphite, ink and
      photoshop, based on the theme "personal childhood mythology,"
      which means the stories I told myself as a child about my world
      based on thoughts, feelings, experiences and dreams, and Leslie
      created short prose poems and poetic pieces of prose to go with
      them. It's a reversal of the usual process where a writer writes
      something and then an illustrator embellishes the writing. 

								
      But it was more than a reversal; it was a true synthesis. It
      seemed as if Leslie and I were meeting up somewhere in the realm
      of the collective unconscious, because without her knowing the
      "meaning" of the image (I usually didn't know myself),
      she would come up with a story that illuminated and expanded
      upon the layers of symbolism in the piece in a quite remarkable
      way. I often felt as if Leslie were explaining my pictures to
      me. The combination of image and words became an entity that
      was much richer than either image or words would have been on
      their own. Apparently, when Leslie and I were sleeping at night,
      our muses were getting together in some dreamworld cafe to discuss
      just what the hell this book was all about...

								


								
      David Aronson

								
      August 2006