THE ARTIST PATRICIA OWEN worked for the Peace Corps in Senegal.
“They give you a mission, and when you get there, you find one
for yourself. I decided to teach the villagers how to save seeds. They
do now.”
One bad day, her dogs were killed. It seemed to bother only her. “I
shut the door of my house, turned on the kerosene lamp and I drew.
DOGS DEAD was the headline. It was cathartic, life goes on.”
She proceeded to draw a daily journal every day for two years.
She teaches this model of creating a graphic memoir in the
schools. “It is a way of honoring the day, the simple things that
happen to us.”
To begin her days now, Pat draws portraits of the guests on the
news program Democracy Now!