Savanna Joy

Savanna Joy is the middle child among the three magical female 1/2 Aussie grans presently residing at Casa Claire. That’s her above with her siblings in what was once my recliner on the right side of the photo. That’s her Bo Derrick look in Skyclad below.

Savanna is the sensitive quintessential middle child wedged between her over intellectually advanced, empathetic, responsible and overachieving, mystical older sister, Scarlett, and her take no prisoners, respect no boundaries, preternaturally physical, thump anyone who crosses her, feral, she-hulk, little warrior sister, Stella.

You fine, five readers all know by now that I’ve included all three children as central characters in The Claire Saga. They’ve joined Christopher Robin Milne (Winnie The Pooh), Peter Llewelyn Davies (Peter Pan), Alice Liddell (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland) and Margaret, Mary and Katherine at The Kilns in Risinghurst (Chronicles of Narnia), in the pantheon of real children that have provided the basis for fictional characters in fantastic literary worlds.

While all three girls are compelled to spend part of their summer time at Casa Claire in creative endeavors as part of their well-rounded days, Savanna loves to spend extra curricular hours and hours and hours drawing.

Indeed, the Fairy Godmothers are constantly dropping off enough art supplies during their visits to their young charges to support most medieval art salons.

And Savanna finds her Joy in her drawing. She will go through reams of paper on any given day, and we’ve taken to carefully recycling most of it, because there are only so many walls and refrigerators to support the curation of her artwork.

Sometimes those drawings contain a single figure, sometimes many, natural and supernatural. Other times she will draw complete events or story lines, the descriptions of which she will then share in intimate detail with whomever may be most interested at the moment. Sometimes her audiences are captive, the first in the room and/or slowest out of the room to catch her eye. But those captives are always encouraging the expression of her talent.

When there is no one else in the remainder of the house to whom Savanna can display her creations, she will race into my office, always with the drawing half hidden behind her back, and a rhetorical “Guess what I have, Dude?!” introduction on her lips.

I’ve never really gotten the opportunity to guess before she has proudly presented her work. I always lower my glasses from my forehead to the bridge of my nose and ask her to hand the artwork to me and then study each mark on the page carefully like a famous exhibitor assessing it for an inclusion in my gallery. I will often ask questions about the contents to show Savanna I am really paying attention.

I have a stack of this artwork among the stacks of my legal notes and other fictitious writings sprinkled throughout my hoarder-ish office, and Savanna is always pleased when I carefully add her latest creation to another pile. Then she races back upstairs to work on her next artistic project.

Creative genes run rampant in Savanna’s gene pool. Her maternal great-grandfather, Norbert Wallen, a mystical believer in the teachings of Edgar Casey, the Sleeping Prophet, shared many of his artistic creations with his family.

He made this Kachina for Lisa.

And he was always doodling something for his legacy. This is one he created just for his three grandchildren, and hangs on my office wall.

As you can see, Norb liked to use his art to poke fun at his grandchildren and make a statement about the McCaffrey kids’ then purported and completely unsubstantiated Bronxish lack of cultural sensitivity and over use of F Bombs in their natural dialect. I blame their mother.

It was a horrible stereotype imposed on all BIC’s, especially by Upstaters.

We have evolved substantially since the last Century.

Savanna’s mom, the beautiful Georgie, is also an accomplished artist, whose artwork can be found throughout my home, including my living room and my office. I was fascinated the first time I visited Colorado and saw one of the magpies that are so common here, so Georgie painted the one that regularly visited their Boulder home.

And you know that Savanna’s daddy, Luke, is a talented writer,

Well, yesterday, Savanna’s office visual presentation deserved more serious consideration than some of her earlier work. It was a representation of Claire and Honey together again on Casa Claire. I could see my wife’s narrative hand in the printed words, a talent that she continues from her father (she was included as a cameo in the drawing).

Instead of slipping this artwork into the black hole of stacks of paper littering my office, I told Savanna just how special it was, and therefore deserved a special place to hang. Five minutes later, we were at that special place (notice the hobbitish bare feet).

And Savanna’s drawing is the first original artwork to adorn the walls of the newest version of Claire’s Wee Laire,

Savanna selected that spot because she knows the mules love to scratch their asses.

Savanna’s art will be awaiting Claire and Honey when they return to Casa Claire, hopefully tonight or tomorrow.

But before that repatriation occurs, we must all get through today.

You fine, five readers pull your socks up and responsibly embrace your working Tuesday. Take care of the heavy lifting at work. Get it behind you so you can look forward to Friday, there in the not so distant future.

Me, I’m going to go cuddle some kitties and make my abbreviated rounds. Hopefully the McQueen horses will also be home soon.

But no matter what we get up to, let us make today a great one.