Benefits of Friend (With Talents)
By Diana Barco (illustration from "Going On Somewhere") (All rights reserved.)
Some are blessed with beauty, talent, and a generous heart.
Others are just lucky enough to have a lifelong friend with these qualities.
I fall into the “others” category, but feel today very lucky indeed.
The talented friend is Diana Barco. In our teens, Diana was an artist, student and something of a quiet provocateur (at least of our joint mischief.) Today, she is an artist, architect, and social activist in the field of women’s health, and sexual and reproductive rights (mainly with IPPF). Diana is also a founding member of the Rogelio Salmona Foundation, a charitable foundation devoted to the work of Colombian architect Rogelio Salmona.
Despite these activities (which take her frequently around the globe), Diana has found time over the last year both to illustrate my poems, and to coach and cajole me into finalizing them. These have been major jobs; the first a showcase for her amazing visual imagination and sensitivity; the second a test of her incredible patience.
Diana also coordinated the design of the project with Sigma Andrea Torres, a wonderfully generous, creative, and gifted graphic designer. (Don’t ever let anyone tell you that putting together a manuscript of poetry is simple because it has relatively few words. Arranging those words, especially with pictures, involves a host of issues–ordering, placement, fonts, margins–it’s immense.)
The final result, a book of poetry entitled Going On Somewhere (poems by Karin Gustafson, illustrations by Diana Barco), will be coming out very soon.
It really is a beautiful book. The poems were okay on their own; the illustrations raise them to a whole new level of interest, engagement, evocativeness.
I will give more details when the book is actually out (soon!) But we seem now to have crossed a final threshold. I want to thank Diana and Andrea, my personal lucky stars.
Explore posts in the same categories: Going On Somewhere, poetryTags: Benefits of Friend (with talents), Diana Barco firefly drawing, Diana Barco illustrations, Going On Somewhere, Karin Gustafson poems, manicddaily, putting together a book of poems, Sigma Andrea Torres, talented friends
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ManicDDaily 
November 18, 2010 at 10:56 pm
Congratulations, Karin and Diana! I look forward to it.
November 18, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Thanks so much!
November 19, 2010 at 12:55 am
I remember your wonderful poems from school. I’m looking forward to the book. Say hi to Diana for me.
November 19, 2010 at 7:51 am
Thanks! I will.
September 16, 2012 at 7:58 am
[…] The full poem can be found here, and is in my book, Going on Somewhere, by Karin Gustafson, illustrated by the incomparable Diana Barco. I actually think the shortened version, posted today is better than the full poem. (I’ve never felt completely happy with the full version as it seemed awfully bathic and more than a little self-pitying.) Another great firefly jar drawing by Diana Barco can be seen here. […]