Suite Valley

I just got an amazing package in the mail. My mom sent me some of my old Sweet Valley High books. I had an idea last week in regards to my artwork. I was thinking a lot about how my work had to do with young love and crushes and a kind of naive idea of romance. Now it's hard for me to think that way because I'm in such a different place in my life. I'm engaged to a great guy and even though I definitely still have a crush on him it's a much more mature kind of romance. But I'm not quite ready to get rid of the things I was thinking about it my past bodies of work.

I remembered reading these Sweet Valley High books and how much they shaped my ideas of what being a grown-up (well, high schooler) and being in love was all about. As a young tween I romanticized everything and still kind of do thanks mostly to this upbringing. Every time I go back to my parents' house I re-read these books and am always blown away with how out of touch they are with real people but at the same time they seem to really shape a lot of young girls' ways of thinking.

Anyway, blah blah blah... all of that to get to this... My plan with my work is to start reading these books and construct worlds based on the ones in the books while incorporating my own awkward characters like my ghost girls. I don't have all the answers about this work yet but I feel like I will find some things I'm looking for while I'm make it. I think I'm really just excited to start reading Sweet Valley High again. I recently read the new book put out that follows the girls ten years later. Can I just tell you that the tween in me was shivering with excitement when I bought the book? And while I didn't exactly love the book once I read it I could definitely keep reading more.

Those Wakefield twins... Can't live with them, can't live without them....