Peg Kerr's Journal

My dear long-time friend Elise Matthesen (elisem) is having a special birthday today and turning 60! In honor of the occasion, I pulled out my soulcollage materials for the first time in a long time and made her a gift in her honor: her very own soulcollage card.

Elise Matthesen - Community Suit
I am the One who is a generous soul, loving and wise mentor, savvy manuscript critic, gifted artist, educator, and poet, hilarious Alternity teammate, and kind friend.



Elise has just won the 2020 Hugo for Best Fan Artist (see her Etsy shop here--she is having a birthday month sale!) She has served as a mentor for Delia for years, teaching her to make beautiful jewelry as Elise does. We spent years in a Shakespeare reading group together that met every couple of weeks. Elise, a gifted poet, was in my novel-writing group and was an extremely helpful beta reader for The Wild Swans. I convinced her to join Alternity, and she wrote Linus and Megan (see their icons at Elise's elbows). Linus, especially, a rather nitwitted Ravenclaw who considered himself a poetical rake, was one of my favorite characters in the whole game, screamingly funny.

The card includes pieces of art the Elise has made, including a wandering wire necklace and two pairs of earrings that I bought from her. Elise is famous for her haiku parties at conventions, where a person can pick out a pair of earrings, and if they write a haiku poem inspired by them, Elise will give away the earrings for free). Elise loves to name her necklaces evocative names (one of my necklaces is called "'Betrayed,' the Rose Queen cried, and her hand flew to her throat"). An anthology of short stories has been published based on the names of Elise's jewelry.

You can see wandering wire sculpture that makes up the semi-transparent background in her Etsy shop.

The ring pictured is one that Elise gave to me that I am wearing right now: she said that the birds on either side of the central stones reminded her of swans, and so I was obviously meant to have it.

The lengths of necklace that frame the card are images of the necklace ("Down All Those Glittering Halls" that Elise extravagantly gave away to me for free to encourage me to write, when I was writing the Ice Palace book (alas, I never finished the book and so I still feel a little guilty about having the necklace, but Elise, generous as always, insisted that it was all right, and I didn't need to give it back.)

Elise definitely deserves a card for her special day!

You may remember the soulcollage card I made to honor minnehaha K's birthday. Well, now it's her husband minnehaha B's birthday, and as he is also a very dear friend, it was time for another card. Photo credit and thanks to dd_b and barondave who took some of the pictures I used:

minnehaha B - Community Suit I am the One whose wisdom is sought by people throughout the world. I am a discerning and original thinker and astute crafter of words. I love music, travel, an excellent meal paired with delicious wine, and most of all, true friends to share them with.

(Here, by the way, is the story behind the inclusion of the penguin with the telephone).

Today is the 50th birthday of minnehaha K. We had a wonderful gathering at the W hotel in downtown Minneapolis, which is located at the old Foshay Tower. She invited about fifteen friends of hers, all women, to celebrate the occasion with incredible food at Manny's Steakhouse. In her honor, I've made a new soulcollage card for my deck, and I scanned it and gave a copy of it to her, too, for her birthday, so we'll both have one. By all accounts, she's quite pleased with it, and I'm extremely happy with how the card came out myself. In terms of composition, I think it turned out quite well.

minnehaha K - Community Suit I am the One who is rooted deeply in my own community and yet travels around the world. I love kids, the Falls, PEZ dispensers, shade gardening, food, wine, music and fellow fans. I listen and laugh and cook you a fabulous meal, served with delicious wine, and best of all, I will tell you the absolute truth.

(Click on the card twice to see it up close. Special thanks to barondave, who provided some of the pictures I used in the card.)