Today my aunt Margaret Ann Downs, whom we all called Peggy, would have turned 58. She died in 1982 from kidney disease. She was twenty-two years old and I was eight. She was the first person I ever lost, the first death experienced, the first funeral I attended.
Peggy was an artist, a poet, and the coolest and most stylish aunt around. She was everything I wanted to be. I went on to be an artist, writer, fashion designer and book maker. I feel like, in some ways, I picked up where she left off. I wish I had gotten to know her as an adult. I still miss the idea of her, but she is very much with me. I have pieces of her jewelry, chap books of her poetry, her artwork, her old teenage journals.
Peg book original handmade book, 1994
I wrote and illustrated this book when when I was nineteen, in college at Evergreen (her alma mater). My faculty advisor and mentor was the late great Leo Daugherty, who was also Peggy’s teacher. Leo once told me “Lorna, you have the soul of a poet.” I took that to mean that I might have more poetic soul than talent. Peg was the real poet, her work still moves me.
This book deals with a kid’s experience of loss and death. I hope it might help kids going through a death who don’t always feel they’re saying or doing or feeling the way they’re supposed to.
Peg book printed edition, 2018
I first made Exactly The Same Except This Quietness as a one of a kind, handmade with original pen & ink drawings and hand-lettering. I created this limited edition run of 50 this year for a show of artist books at the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center. I’d been meaning to do a printed edition for a very long time. It was printed by my friend Dusty at Publicide Press in NYC.
The printed edition is for sale in Shop for $10 + shipping. To purchase click here
Happy birthday Peggy