#elvenwork

Today my sister is picking me up and we're going to Mom's place to just... let it sink in. Be there. I've told y'all about my mother's art and stories, but I just want to let you know how amazing she was.

Earlier this week, one of the supervisors at my work messaged me asking if I was okay and asking me to come to his desk if I had a minute. He had seen people in the polymer clay sculpting community talking about my mother's death and realized who she was and wanted to talk to me about her and about how I was doing.

I had brought the dragon on the tower sculpture from home so I showed it to him, and we talked about the amazing outpouring of love from the community, but today I want to talk about the impact my mother had.

In 2009, Disney Imagineering approached my mother asking for a portfolio. My sister, a graphic designer, helped put one together, compiling the photographs with their accompanying stories. Here's what she shared on Mom's facebook page.

Yesterday it didn't seem real that the woman who created dragons and elves and fairies with the same matter-of-fact ease of someone building their thousandth stone fence was somehow gone.

Yesterday, the mind behind the Magnificent Tuttle, that ancient scholar of all things magical and mundane, who once wrote, "that dragons are myth is a myth, itself," will write no more.

But it's true.

The story will not follow. The storyteller has gone. There are no more tales. Fantastical or mundane.

I can't call her and commiserate on the latest horrific political news anymore.

There will be no more tales of the clever merchant Buffo, who has a deal worked out with the fae, who let him sell them in easily escapable cages, over and over, leaving their buyers with lovingly-crafted empty wooden cages.

Anyway look at my mom with her creations.

By Katherine Dewey

Melindi frowned when she saw the rabbits. "Is that the pair that ruined my garden?"

Tiel said nothing. He let out a soft sigh that meant yes, then closed his eyes.

Melindi sighed as well, a heavy sound that meant she was a creature of profound patience and eminent wisdom. She understood him if all the world did not. Her husband was still lost in those small, sharp moments when the arrows had met their marks.

By Katherine Dewey

"Our Mabb," said the nurse, "loves to wander. Goes where she shouldn't, does our Mabb.

"I don't wander," Mabb said sharply. "I know where I'm going and why."

"Of course you do, dear." The nurse bent down and began to rummage through Mabb's pockets. "You have to check her for dead things," she told the orderly, "and injured things. Don't squirm, dear. You know the rules. She's a finder, our Mabb is. Just the other day she found a dead bird on the tennis court."

"It. was a hawk," Mabb told her, "a Goshawk. I wanted it for my collection." The old woman smiled at the orderly and then glared at the nurse. "I don't have a goshawk," she said, pouting.

"But you've got something," said the nurse. I know you, Mabb. I know when you've got some dead thing up your sleeve. Stop squirming and let me see your sleeves. Come, come, show me."

"It's for my collection!" cried Mabb.

The nurse sighed and folded her arms. "The cook made lemon pudding, " she said. "But if you've got another dead bird.--"

Mabb held out her hand. "It's not dead," she said softly, "just very quiet, like it's sleeping."

By Katherine Dewey

Young Warrior

His head filled with tales of valor, his heart filled with the honor entrusted to him, the young warrior prepared himself for the battle ahead. He recited the warrior's creed: "Our cause is just. Our force is strong. Our weapons wielded in God's name. Our foes are wretched. Their cause is wrong, their weapons the stuff of demon bane. Heros shall be made this day and the wretched shall be purged."