Edition Announcement #287 - Wendy MacNaughton

Things Happen by Wendy MacNaughton
8"x10" ($20) | 11"x14" ($50) | 16"x20" ($100)

Summer swelter-y Tuesday greetings, collector friends! I'm really excited about today's edition by one Wendy MacNaughton—a diversely talented, globe-trotting woman who's put her way with words and images to good use for a startling array of worthy causes. Her do-goodery manifests itself in a big picture save-the-world kinda way via humanitarian and civic projects she's done in Africa, while her regular stream of daily observations rendered in pen and ink provide a more meditative day-to-day comfort for behind-the-desk-and-glued-to-a-monitor sorts like myself.

The distinct sense of relief I felt upon discovering Things Happen prompted me to share it on my Tumblr about a month ago and with the internet being the echo chamber that it is, Wendy noticed that I noticed and once I noticed that, we got to chatting via @replies and DMs on Twitter. The next thing you know, we agreed to create a 20x200 edition with the image, which brings us to the here and now. (And she's now very high up on my list of favorite internet friends to boot.)

Perky as my inbox persona may be, my seemingly unbreakable habit of over-extending myself means that I'm often overwhelmed, anxious, stressed-out, snippy and/or downright feeling sorry for myself about the mess I've gotten myself into. I came across Things Happen during one of those low moments, and it both lifted my spirits instantly and became something of a touchstone. Wendy finally puts one of those pesky Venn diagrams to good use, mapping out the circular reasoning that can run one's spirits into the ground in a flash, and in doing it with a bit of playful edge, she makes it easy to laugh at oneself without feeling like too much of a fool. Also, she's right—the fact is that we all divert enormous amounts of energy towards worrying about "all the things you can't do a thing about", and there's really just a very small slice of it that's worthy of our attention.

Last week was one of those weeks for me—by the time Friday rolled around, I was bone-tired and wrung out and, being a heart-on-my-sleeve kind of girl, it was hard to miss. Near the end of the day, Sara dropped the proof for Things Happen on my desk and said, "I thought you might like to look at this now." I took it home and left it out on my kitchen table all weekend, both to remind me that what Wendy drew was true, and also because it had me looking forward to this very day, when I'd get to share it with all of you.

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