It began innocently enough as a brain integration exercise. One of many depicted on a Brain Gym poster I’d glanced at a hundred times but never quite seen: a little girl holds a pen in each hand to draw two like images simultaneously. The idea lit a wildfire in my imagination; I could hardly get home fast enough to try it.

From my first attempt, I found the process itself exhilarating, the images entrancing. For months there was nothing I’d rather do. I drew with both hands and both eyes; I drew with one eye closed; I drew with both eyes closed! The physical act of bimanual drawing was feeding some part of my psyche that had been hibernating—all my life, apparently—and giving expression to it.

Some time earlier I found a scrap of paper next to my bed on which I’d scribbled a snippet of a dream long forgotten. I nearly tossed it, but loved the phrase so much I placed it on my art table for…I don’t know. One day I looked down at the phrase, then over at a drawing, back at the phrase, and the drawing and, oh, god, yes—they were born for each other!

And so began the thrilling process of mining notebooks and journals, unfinished poems and unedited life for words to pair with my creatures: captions that bring the images into meaningful focus, or graphics that enliven the words in an unexpected way.

Meanwhile, the doubling itself invites us to ask: Are they talking to each other, to themselves, or both? Who, indeed, are any of us talking to whenever we speak, write, or think?

I call the form Doubloon for doubled cartoon, and, riffing off the original meaning of the word, for the wealth of delight they give to me and, I hope, to you.

There is a Japanese saying that art is the tracks, not the animal.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr!