A scrap book of Bro. Joshua’s Art and photos.
Video clips concering the novels are also featured

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Changing Habbits

The Search to Serve

     I am Bro. Joshua Seidl of the Society of St. Paul. The photo to the left was taken around 1997 some few days after I made my first set of vows. I am not certain of exact dates, but give or take a year, it this is close enough. The photo was taken at the Pauline house in Ellsworth, Ohio near Canfield. I am stading before one of our satellite dishes that sends up programming for Catholic Television Network of Youngstown Diocese (CTNY) cable.

     The feather fan and medicine bag are gifts given me by Medicine Elders for the occasion of my first profession of vows. We take annual vows for five years before committing ourselves to life time, or perpetual vows.

     The picture to the right is me in a Dominican Friar habit. I had a short stint of about 1-1/2 years with the Servants of the Gospel which was a 3rd Order Regular group of Dominicans. I was stationed in Fort Covington in far Upstate New York in the early 1990’s. That religious group has since been disbanded.


     The habit in the third picture, (left), was hand tailored for me by Fr. Martin Farrell, OP. It is modeled upon the Capuchin Franciscan habit, but in gray. We used these habits as work habits around the house when I was in the Servants of the Gospel.

     The embroidery was added around 2004 by my Uncle, Charlie Browne. This is not an official habit or embroidered design of any Religious Order. It is used primarily as my bath robe as I head from my cell to the common shower room. A small group of my conferes scrutinize my web pages and other web sites and have been rather scandelized at times (due to their own imaginations). So I figured it wise to state twice in the same paragraph that this grey habit with embroidrings is used only as a bath robe - not as an official habit of a non-existing Religious Order.

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Those who served before me:

     These are photos from my paternal lineage. The first photo (right) is of my Dad, Charles D. Seidl. My guess is that the photo was taken in 1954. I would have been three years old at the time, my dad possibly age 28. He is wearing traditional Ojibwe clothes, sometimes called regalia.
     The location is at my Grand and Great Grandparents home in Washburn Wisconsin or that region up along the shores of Lake Superior.

     The second photo, (left) is of my Great Grandfather Minwahjimo Winini, (a.k.a. Rev. Dr. C. W. Browne). He is a member of an Anishinabe Midiwin Lodge and he is an ordained Methodist Minister. My guess is that this and the next photo are from 1954.
     He is standing with my Great Grandmother Olga Browne. She is from Norway, but was adopted into the Ojibwe nation and given the name of Gigigokway, or Sky woman

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The Novels: Hawk Dancer and Cloud Burst

     Kathy Johnson is the illustrator of both novels. She is a professional artist. However, I dabbled some with images and art to come up with some descriptions of the two novels, and of the places and people in the stories for use on this web site. The cover design to the left is the actual cover of the first novel, now in print, that Kathy Johnson designed. She is currently working on the cover design for the next book, Cloud dancer, that we hope will be available this year.
     The picture to the right is not the cover for the proposed book, but rather a picture to use for now while we await the actual cover design. That picture is from a photo I took in Canfield, Ohio of an approaching thunder storm.

     The next few pictures are actual photos of places that influenced the two novels. In some cases, they are pictures of actual items or places in the books. These are pictures I took unless otherwise stated; or as would be obvious if it is a picture of me.

        Some of my maternal Uncles worked in the CCC’s of the Great Depression. That is, the Civilian Conservation Corps , a government work program intended to create jobs for the unemployed. One of these uncles participated in carving three imitations of Totem Poles for H. J. Wells Park situated half way between Menominee and Escanaba, Michigan.
     I am photographed standing next to one of the totem poles at some point between the years 1981-85. I would have been 30/34 years of age. These totem poles provided a background to the ones I mentioned in Hawk Dancer that are protested by Job.

     The Churches pictured here are (Clockwise above):
St. Francis Catholic Church at Red Cliff Reservation, Wisconsin – St. Mary's at Odana on the Bad river Reservation in Wisconsin. And, right, the old Methodist Church at Odana that my Grandfathers served. That Church has since burned down and is replaced by a cedar log church structure.

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     The drawing of the kid to the left was done by me on March 8, 2008. I have no particular character in mind for the kid from any of my novels or short stories. I just found a photo of a modern day Emo kid on the internet and figured I could draw the same, make a few changes and turn it into a picture of a typical youth of the 1960’s. It makes me wonder how much has or not changed over the years.

     The subject in the original photo had shorter hair, straggly and wind blown. I decided to tone down the windblown look a few degrees and add several inches of long hippy-day era hair. The Emo’s hair probably came to collar length, where as the drawing I made of the photo now shows something more than shoulder length hair.

     I opted to make the person I drew look either White, Native or Métis, sort of non-descript from the pencil drawing. This is in keeping with the novels' interaction of the three cultures.

     The emo kid in the modern photo wore updated sport shoes. I don’t know how to turn those into period sneakers or gym shoes, as we would have called them in the 60’s, so I blocked the view of the shoes with some old boards sticking out of the ground. The tight jeans popular with today’s emos were also popular in the 1960’s and 70’s - the time period a fair portion of the two novels cover. Again, though, there is some style cut differences which I was able to hide with the same two boards and some smudged up drawing tricks. The later 60’s and the 70’s would have had a slight flair at the cuffs rather than trimmed down stove pipes found today.

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Some of my drawings concerning the novels:
and tips on how to make drawing easy

Snakes In The Out House

     I have a poem by that name, Snakes in the Out House. There is also a character named Philip Drecker in the novels who lives in some rather basic structures without benefit of electricity and running water. I tried to make this out house picture look like Philip at the door of his cabin, but it has always ended up looking like an outhouse, so I’ll stick with that.
     The photo was from one of my camping trips with friends. A photograph of me taken some 50 pounds ago provided a decent setting. I was walking into a State Park rustic outhouse (toilet) that had a sign on it, not seen in this drawing, “Women.” It’s the sort of funny stuff young people do.


Walking trail bridge designed to accomodate wheelchairs


A brief quote from Cloud Burst about Philip Decker:

     The dusty top of one shoebox was brittle. It cracked and crumbled in his hand. He lifted his diploma. It was the first time he ever examined it.
     The school mailed the diploma to him after he said he couldn’t attend graduation ceremonies. Imbedded, powdery mildew spotted the vinyl jacket of the diploma.
     He pulled out the letter Randy wrote a couple years ago or whenever, looked over the brochure and placed a call.

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Randy Vanvesterdyke

     Randy Van Vesterdyke is a major character in both novels. Hawk Dancer is vague on his origins. Cloud Dancer offers more of an explanation of his birth and the first year of his life before he literally plops into the Village of Birch Clump. He is instantly the focus of inter-cultural controversy. His appearance is a catalyst drawing our racial biases, but he also becomes a source of conciliation in town and in the general region.
     Randy (age about 14) is sporting a medicine bag he mysteriously received when he was six years old.
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      There are a few pages in Hawk Dancer that tells how a couple of teens jumped from hiding and clubbed Randy unconscious and robbed him (at age 15). Randy never saw the attackers coming. I wanted to do some drawings that could depict the shock, the disorientation and bafflement of a person who suddenly found himself painfully tied up and cast off from social contact. Such a person would have no recall that he had been unconscious, thus the added element of panic and bewilderment. The bonds holding his wrists and feet were so incredibly tight that it was impossible for him to emancipate himself of his own effort.
      I think the facial close up of Randy sporting an adhesive gag expresses his fury, despondency and agony. I wrote that portion of the story with the Gospel story of the Good Samaritan in mind. In short, The Hawk Dancer scene parallels the Good Samaritan story in that those of the so called "right" society pass him by. I went a step farther by having the "right" society members pause momentarily and gratify their couriosity and sense of entertainment over Randy's predicament. They take no pity on him, rather they run away after watching Randy struggle awhile and fail to summon any assistance.
     Help comes from a war shocked veteran that many in the neighborhood, including Randy, had feared, spoked ill of or even made fun of. The inn keepers that tend to Randy's medical needs in this accouting are tenants of a impoverished and delapitated rooming house.
     You can click here and read the section as it appears in the novel, Hawk Dancer.

  The thumnail photo of a pair of jeans along with portions of two other photos provided the model to draw the photo of the person on the right this is laing face down with hands drawn and tied behind his back.


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     The picture of Randy standing at the rails
depicts the opening scene of the later novel,
Cloud Dancer. Here, he is watching a thunderstorm roll in.

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Newer Drawings

     Here are some newer pictures I am working on. I do not have any specific scene in either novel for some of these drawings as of yet. Its just I think they some how might work.
     The “emo” kid was used in my Birch clump Gazzett pages for one of the news articles I make up for each week or each month’s news paper from the fictional village of Birch clump. This kid committed crimes twice. The first time he stole and wrecked a car that that had no breaks. He was caught on his second crime spree a couple weeks later when he tried to pawn goods he shoplifted from the General Store. This time, however, he made the mistake of approaching a person who turned out to be the grandson of the store owner, who also worked at the store.
    Local students broke up the ensuing fight and restrained the stranger until county sherriff could take him in. He certainly does not look very happy about his capture.

     The rather handsome dude to the right has not been assigned any particular role in the book, but could pass for a typical late 1960’s high school student dripping wet. Trudy and Cecelia from Hawk Dancer had their fantasies about their boyfriends comming out of the water fully clothed.
    Check out the enhanced enlargment at the bottom of this page - of this same picture.


    Right three pictures: I re-drew the far right picture Monday, April 28, 2008. It’s the same image found in the clickable link picture leading to another web page. I liked the picture, but it needed some shading in and darkening up, and besides I wrote all over the original drawing.
     I surmise this is what Dean might look like at about age 23 back in 1974 after he left the Friary, but before getting married. He’s got long hair and sporting the then popular stylilized head bands for teens and young adults. These era head bands play an important role in the second novel, Cloud Burst.
     You might notice one eye is a bit rounder, almost larger looking. That's an error on my part, but I figure it would fit Dean. Readers will recall that Dean had a temporary vision problem in one eye following his fight with Mott. Although the vision returned to normal in a couple days, he retained a slight weakness of the facial muscles surrounding that eye. It gave him an interesting intenseness to his otherwise gentle features.
     Middle (above) is Widossema Jibai, but not the same character as found in my first two novels. I did this drawing for one of the members of my St. James web forum. The name means, “Walks With Ghosts.”
     The third picture, above, is of no one in particular. I figured he looked the part of a rugged woodsman with his foot stuck in a basket or bucket.

     My art skills tend to make odd little deformities of folks, such as Dean’s eye. This can work a bit with drawing males, so they look a little ugly – they have character. I can’t do that in drawing females. They have to come out looking good. They don’t all have to be fashion plates – just not looking as deformed, beaten or scared up as a guy’s picture might. I gave it a couple tries drawing women. This is my first success, (to the right). I think she might do fine as Trudy, Randy’s grade school girl friend, and Erik’s on again, off again, on again high school sweet heart.
     Here are Dean’s thoughts on Trudy, from the novel, cloud Burst:
     She didn’t believe him. She turned her back to him. He got a good view of her tight fitting jeans. They were so tight, he could count the individual stitches straining to hold the seams together. He figured that if a stud let loose from those jeans it could dangerously impact an eye.


Left: The photo-album styed frame adds a nice touch to a picture about the 1960's. We could by a small package of those tiny triangular sleeves, stick them into a scrap book, and mount our photos and paper momentos.
    This is again, just another picture of a teen from the sixties. For my story purposes,I decided to call him Jon Swanningson, valdictorian of the 1968 graduating class of the Birch Clump village High School. He's not mentioned in my first two novels. I might work him into one of the next two books currently in the works.
     Jon's got the typical long hair and tight jeans of that generation. He's barefoot in this picture. No doubt he kicked off a pair of sandals, the kind that had car tire treaded soles that were popular back then. [By the way, he pronouced his first name just as the family did back in Sweden, almost like our english word: "yawn."]
     If he looks a bit like former teen idol Shaun Cassidy from the 70's, that's becasue I took a picture of Cassidy off the internet photo search and used it as a model to draw this yet to be named class mate of Randy, Dean and Trudy.
    I had difficulty with the fadded out hands on the original picture. His arms were angled out from his sides; so, rather than having him end up with horribly deformed hands, I rounded the arms off near the shoulder so that it now appears as his hands are tied behind his back. I guess that's OK with the kid in above drawing because he's still smiling.
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Jig Rajan Came to Birch Clump in 1968 and graduated with the 1969 Class. His part in the story is rather short, and so was he (short). He shows up (in Hawk Dancer) towards the end of the book when he accompanies some of the class memebrs on a senior picnik trip to Fayette State Park. He began dating Cecilia after she learns her long time sweetheart, Dean, is going to enter the monastery.
     More about Jig will show up in the fourth book Kathy Johnson, Uncle Charlie and I are planing to write.
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    Here are a few growing up pictures. Far left is probably 5th grade around the year 1960/61. Then me at what I would guess is age 2 in 1953. Photos to the right start with my high school freshman picture, probably age 15. The final photo is of me in Incerlik, Turkey around age 22 - United States Air force.





   



     Some samples of how I draw from photos to create fight scenes for the two novels. I added a picture of me weeding a flower garden (far left) to another drawing I have already placed else where on this site to depict a fight between two students in the Cloud Burst novel.







     The right hand side are two pictues of me at Black Castle near Adana, Turkey along with a photo of my freind Kha and I camping in Indiana some years later. Those three photos helped construct the "Reunion" that impacts the later portion of both novels. I won't give the names for all the characters as that could give away the plot of the story. The person most in the middle facing out to the viewer is Erik.

     The Reunion, as I titled the drawing on the left, comes as a complete supprize to readers of Hawk Dancer. A number of readers emailed or sent letters expressing their delight in the unexpected history the reunion represented. A few were so wrapped up in the story that they demanded to know more about the persons involved in that chance meeting that affected the course of the novel. So, I provide that history in the second novel, Cloud Burst. (The drawing is a composit of the three photo a bit above and to the right.)

    Left, in color, is the loser of the fist fight the preceeded the "Reunion." Hawk Dancer includes highly descriptive account, blow by blow, of a long drawn out fist fight between two recently graduated teens. The preliminary to the skirmish nearly enguages one pair, but the excitement and swift changeing events has two or three other potential combants are coerced to get involved, but they back off untill there are finally two boys willing to duke it out. The match is in a secluded portion of a forested state park with no authority figures to break up the fight. The inexperience of the two evenly matched eighteen year olds made it difficult to predict an outcome, which in turn increases the apitite of those who witnessed the melee to encourage the pair to carry on.
     It was, strange as it may seem, and act of compassion that one of the witnesses finaly jumped in and tied up the one kid with the assistance of the other fighter, thus putting an end to the skirmish without an actual knock out or even worse injury. Thus the winner was declared by popular aclamation of the onlookers rather than true merit.

VIDEO CLIPS
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Art work by Kathy Johnson for Hawk Dancer.         On site Photos for Hawk Dancer by Bro. Joshua
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Bro. Joshua's Drawings for Hawk Dancer         "TEA" a short story by Bro. Joshua
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Adaptation of my 2004 California speech

VISIT AGAIN - MORE PICTURES ADDED FROM TIME TO TIME

1. HOME PAGE
2. To order Hawk Dancer
3. SITE MAP
4. Reviews
5. About us
6. Read a selection
7. Illustrations by Kathy Johnson
8. Photos & art by Br. Joshua
9. Essays / Native issues
10. NATIVE NEWS (and video)
11. Ministry Links
12. Facts & FAQs
13. Village of Birch Clump
14. This Month's Short Story
15. free mini poster
16. Research & Resources
17. Quips from readers
18. Scheduale of Events
19. Why I Wrote Hawk Dancer
20. Audio Clip Messages
21. NEW: VIDEO by Joshua
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Cloud Burst HOME PAGE
The newest novel by Brother Joshua in the publicaiton process. Due out in print late May or June 2008.