Launching the "Dear Pippin" blog

After writing my “Dear Pippin” post last year (see previous) it occurred to me that I wanted to write more letters to my little white horse and so I decided to launch an entire new blog dedicated specifically to this ongoing project. It’s growing slowly and lives over on the Substack platform, although I will always keep a copy of the most recent letter on the “Dear Pippin” page of my website. I even came up with this little hand-drawn graphic to illustrate the title…

Head over to my Dear Pippin Substack page to watch the video from our first Christmas show together…

Read about a new dream…

And take a peek at photos from Pippin’s 2023, including goofball moments:

… and quiet ones.

If you’d like to subscribe to Dear Pippin and read our letters in your own inbox, you can do so right here:

Dear Pippin

Pippin, trying out some decorations.

Dear Pippin,

I think we’ve FINALLY come up with the pieces and parts that will make up our routine — our very first liberty freestyle routine! — in Luke’s Christmas show.  It is such an honor that he invited us to perform, and I want us to make him proud! Choreographing this routine is tricky, though, because in my brain everything goes perfectly according to plan, but in real life, transitioning from one thing to another is tough— you either take a while to switch gears, or you get a little overly rambunctious and make one of your signature springy runs around the arena.

I’ve made a few trips to JoAnne’s and Michael’s, looking for a few Christmas-y things to decorate you with.  After some trial and error I’ve decided on red poinsettias: elegant yet festive! They look stunning and they’re so bright they even make the rest of you look less dirty!  Now I’m just trying to figure out how to get them to stay in your mane without flopping over or you trying to shake them out.  We will definitely need a trial run.

I bought some spray glitter and some jingle bells too!  But maaayyybe that’s too much?  I won’t know until we try it all out together.  And I said I wouldn’t get myself a new outfit, buuuut I saw that red taffeta dress at Anthropologie and knew it would be perfect— it matches your poinsettias!  I can even wear it again at other non-horse events, so it doesn’t feel like quite such a splurge.  When I was in the dressing room the attendant asked if it was for a special occasion and I told her I was in a performance. “Oh?” she said, “What kind?” It felt so strange to say “I’m doing a routine with my horse for a Christmas show,” — who says that??!! — but I explained and we chatted for awhile.  Turns out she had horses when she lived in England. She asked where she could get tickets for the show— it would be so fun if she came!

I will say, I’m a little worried that you’ll be nervous the night of the show.  Luke says over 150 people already bought tickets — yikes! — and even though it’s your home and we are in that arena every day, it’s never been filled with sooo many people and chairs and spotlights and clapping.  Ooof! You have to pay attention to me and trust that I’ve got your back, my little friend.

In the end, though, I don’t think it really matters what winds up happening, and I have to remember that. You’re a unicorn after all, and everybody loves a unicorn.  We’ll look fabulous together in our matching reds, and as long as the Christmas spirit shines out from our hearts and brings even a small amount of joy to all those people, that’s what matters most.

My new red dress.

Figuring out what color combinations to use for the presents we’re using as props.

100 Days Update

100-days project © Claudia Retter

At the end of March I thought it would be fun to try my hand at a 100-days project (read that post here).  A writer & artist whose newsletter I subscribe to launched her own 100-days project as a way to mark time during her cancer treatment. She invited anyone to join her with a project of their own.  I thought I’d give it a go with some sketching.

Ooof I knew i wouldn’t make it through, but there’s something to be said for forging ahead anyway. And so I think, did I doom my efforts from the start by not really believing I could do it?  But I think it’s more that I had a faulty plan B. I thought I had built in a failsafe: On days when I didn’t really feel inspired to draw, or if I put it off until waaayy too late at night when I was too tired, I was allowed to draw stick figures or even just make random marks on the page.  It didn’t have to be a “sketch.”

The trouble was that I couldn’t bring myself to do that.  I envisioned the rest of my book filled with stick figures and halfhearted doodles and it just filled me with dread. Why spend energy agonizing over drawing something just to fill a self-imposed quota? So that was the end of that. It felt soooo satisfying to let it go.

I will say though, that when I open this little book to the 16 drawings I did make, I feel really proud of myself. They marked little moments in time, and it makes me happy to see them.  My first sketch was of leaves I saw in the snow while walking on our land in Vermont for the first time. I drew the neighbor’s barn through the trees. The view across the road.

Three leaves in the snow.

Barn through the pines.

There’s a doodle of an idea I have for an art project. And a sewing project. And a drawing of things in the blind school art classroom.  There’s also the Walgreens bandaid that covered my covid booster shot— I drew that late one night when I was scrambling for something to draw, and I thought it was ridiculous at the time but now I love it.

So I guess this project wasn’t for nothing.  No, I didn’t finish my 100 days, but it wasn’t a “failure” — whatever that even is.  I liked keeping this tiny notebook with me, and it makes me wonder about carrying it around again without the pressure of a daily quota.  It’s different than a journal.  Maybe it’s a sketch or maybe it’s ideas for a project.  Or words about something.  A place to remember the small-big things when they appear to me.

Bob, the papier mache robot at OSSB

Paper fish at OSSB

Walgreens bandaid