“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

He then mentioned your name when an opportunity for you was presented. This is as far as you went. You wanted the opportunity. You wanted to see if you could find work that was not dependent upon this locality. You were curious also as to whether or not this kind of commercial art could pay off, and yet be held in check.

(To my surprise last Friday, October 21, I received a call from an old friend, Bill Ward, with whom I used to do comic books about 1940-2. He asked me to help him, probably on a regular basis, with some work, and I said yes. The work, involving inking, arrived Sunday. Wendell Crowley is a boyhood friend of Ward’s, and also an old friend of mine; he was my editor in New York City for some years after World War II. I was working with him in the early 1950’s. Also, see Session 290.

(See my dream notebook. I had a dream in which I returned to comic work on September 13,1966—about five weeks ago. This dream also involved a friend at my present job, at Artistic Card Co., and that part of the dream also worked out.

(Bill Ward’s letter accompanying the artwork mentioned his recent attendance at a dinner gathering of many of the group of friends we worked with in the early 1940’s. Oddly enough, the last letter I received from Wendell Crowley, in May 1966, also described a similar event.)

(“A written note, with an appeal for an answer, or implied request.” I believe this is a reference to the letter Bill Ward sent me with the art work I received Sunday, October 23. Again, see the notes on page 116. Also keep in mind that the bill used as object represents pencils and paper stumps I bought in order to finish the job Bill sent to me.

(“The colors gray and/or white.” Another reference to the work Bill Ward sent to me. The art is to be done in shades of black to white, without other colors, and will be so printed.

(“Some connection with, is it—ablutions or washings, and with some kind of festival-type thing.” This is good data, we believe, and refers again to the artwork Bill Ward mailed me over the weekend. Again, see the notes about this on page 116. Jane of course saw this artwork when I opened it up today, and when I began work on the backgrounds today.

(1st Question: What color is the object itself? “I am not sure. I will say on the order of a gray or silver metallic color, mainly.” See the gray and white data on page 122. It appears that the above is another reference to the art work Bill Ward sent me, since it contains grays done in pencil as well as black ink; the grays can easily look metallic when a certain density is reached, for the graphite in the pencils acquires a dull sheen, similar to an aluminum look.

(We regard this as good data, in that the art work is strongly linked to the bill used as object. But of course off the mark as far as naming the bill itself goes.

(“An initiation or something for the first time.” The job sent to me by Bill is an initiation, since it is the first of its kind I have received from him—with the promise of more to come, incidentally. This also makes doing the art something for the “first time,” since I’ve never done this particular kind before. Many years ago, perhaps more than 15, I did other kinds of comic work; that was “serious” comic work.