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The One About the Buddhist Temple

2012-01-25T10:53:00.005-06:00

I stopped by the Co-op the other day and was looking at the magazines and happened across the art I did for Shambhala Sun last month. It turned out nicely. The story was about a Buddhist monk and an old temple in Japan. Being about zen and such things there were levels behind the obvious, which is what I tried to express here. Also, being zen, there wasn't a lot of action. This wasn't a Kung Fu story.

The Lotus and the Projector

2012-01-23T15:04:00.004-06:00

There is something Platonic about the concept of reality projected on a screen. The idea dates back to Plato, in fact, referring to how we perceive reality secondhand and need to trust that it's true. The idea of a film projector was a central metaphor to a story I illustrated for the current issue of Shambhala Sun magazine, art directed by Liza Matthews.

Bagatelle Story-frame 7

2011-12-25T05:30:00.003-06:00

...and finally the culmination of what we'd been hoping for.
What had been hinted at, which is what prophets do in a vague sort of way...
Merry Christmas.

Bagatelle Story-frame 6

2011-12-24T05:24:00.002-06:00

...which becomes something surreal. This is what is called the transformation scene in the world of pantomime...

Bagatelle Story-frame 5

2011-12-23T05:22:00.003-06:00

...a tree becomes a fountain surrounded by figures...

Bagatelle Story-frame 4

2011-12-22T05:18:00.000-06:00

...A man becomes a beast, a vase becomes a tree...

Bagatelle Story-frame 3

2011-12-21T09:14:00.004-06:00

...a curved line becomes a world, a puppet theatre, a bearded face becomes a boot and a boot becomes a peninsula in the Mediterranean.

Bagatelle Story-frame 2

2011-12-20T05:10:00.002-06:00

It's interesting how the shapes grow out of the painted line, almost like flowers growing out of the stem growing out of the ground, and how similar in silhouette a figure is to a flower or a leaf or a gondola to a continent.

Bagatelle Story-frame 1

2011-12-19T17:04:00.003-06:00

I like to paint these small silhouetted stories during December, which is a time of stories. I've been doing a few this week. These are from a few years ago and comprise a story, a kind of ballet, no dialogue, just shadows. This is frame one.

An Overused Word

2011-12-16T14:00:00.005-06:00

A couple of years ago I did a lot of drawing for a retail client in New York. As usual it was more than they could ever use. Most never got past the pencil stage. Luckily I hang onto pencils. I ran across a few of them in a folder the other day and got to playing with them. How do you make a cliché like "SALE" fresh and new? How do you make it eye-catching? You play with it. Like a jazz artist playing variations on a familiar tune.

Winter Sports

2011-12-01T16:15:00.006-06:00

I remember my dad taking us to a park years ago when I was four or five. I skated and my brother took his sled to the top of the enormous hill. Rink ice was hard if you fell, but you only fell from a couple of feet. Hills were for bigger kids and much scarier. It was a windy day and I remember later on my dad took the sled out on the rink. Standing on it with us at his feet he acted like a sail and we moved gracefully down the ice among the skaters, like some kind of strange buffalo among the flamingos. I may have been remembering that day when I painted this. There was a company in the town my dad grew up in that made ice boats. I don't know if he ever tried one out. I think the umbrella adaptation shown here would be worth experimenting with.

The Balancing Act

2011-11-29T12:20:00.005-06:00

I did this illustration several months ago for the Cornell Law School magazine, art directed by Robin Awes. The topic was the difficult balance between philosophy and pragmatism. It's something encountered in law and politics but also in everyday life, in our work, even something as trivial as drawing pictures. We're always being asked to find a balance between ideal and practical, between good and bad or perfect and less perfect. What happens when the client's idea of perfect is different than our own? I used the monkeywrench to depict the practical and a Greek column to stand in for the philosophical ideal. Notice that the Greek column is a fragment from a ruin. Even the perfect isn't perfect.

When I taught professional practice at the College of Art & Design I had a lecture about another kind of balancing act. I asked my students, who were a couple months from entering the professional world: "What qualities make a successful illustrator?" We compiled two lists, one under the heading GENIUS, the other under RELIABLE. It's the same tension between practical and ideal. Work is a matter of negotiating a balance between the two...with an emphasis on the practical side.

Life is a Road

2011-11-28T11:10:00.003-06:00

I drew this for our Christmas card a few years ago. A brush and mars black on paper.

My Debut in the New Republic

2011-11-21T13:18:00.006-06:00

I did this double portrait of Bono for the New Republic that's on the newsstands now. I did about a dozen illustrations in all for the Lists Issue. Bono is on their list of "pseuds". Not having spoken with Bono recently, I can't say whether he's any phonier than other rock musicians who have political opinions. He does have nice eyewear though.

Here's another, this one depicting the overcoverage issue. Too much media attention about the usual non-topics. I've been an admirer of the design and the writing at the New Republic. The design is by the estimable Joe Heroun.

What's On Your Mind, Part II

2011-11-17T10:04:00.003-06:00

I have an exercise I do sometimes, to get my brain moving, to get the ideas from my head to my hand to my pencil. I draw a face. I draw an oval, or I draw the arrangement of features. Why are they always arranged the same, like a place setting? There's no law about that, so I rearrange the furniture, put the ear where the nose usually is, or insert a spoon or an automobile in its place. What is it saying to me? Usually nothing, but it opens a door to resemblances that we train ourselves to ignore. Rule-breaking is the first rule of art. The world isn't two dimensional but the paper is. The offbeat equations we make don't need to be outright surreal to be interesting. The brain is who we are, so why not draw it into that space? Is he asleep, or thinking, or dead? Sometimes the best drawing is inconclusive.

Pencil Line is Thought on Paper

2011-11-16T16:40:00.004-06:00

I find that the simplest line usually conveys the most. If I'm trying to create a visual metaphor (a metaphor uses a concrete thing to embody something else, a concept or an abstraction) it's best to leave it unelaborated. The less specific detail the better. In this case the shape of the head becomes a kind of Venn Diagram. A more detailed drawing would beg for explanation: what's that other head doing there? In this simple context it justifies itself. Our eye explains it for us.

How Do You Draw Music?

2011-11-14T10:36:00.004-06:00

I did this illustration for the Hartford Courant several years ago. Coming across it again reminded me how hard it is to visualize some things, like music or things heard and not seen. We resort to shorthand and code to explain music, which is what I did here. The story was about perfect pitch, who has it and who doesn't. Having it is easier to show than not having it. (It's hard to show something that's not there.)

After sketching around the idea for a while I decided to put one person right side up and the other upside down, to show they are hearing the same music differently. I had them identifying the musical pitch differently. Not just differently, though. What she identifies as "b" he says is "g" which works nicely because it's "b" upside down. Some things are simple to show but complicated to explain.

Tea Party

2011-11-11T10:17:00.003-06:00

Compared to the space age equipment and the choreography, the whole apparatus of coffee-making, tea is simple. In Japan they have a ceremony, or so I've heard. My ritual is not ceremonious. I just try to get my tea ready at the same time as my toast, something any governor of Texas would be able to do without supervision.

This item is meant to hold the loose tea leaves together to steep, but even this is more high-tech than I usually am. Most mornings I resort to a tea bag. Liptons. (I used to use Twinings but I quit Twinings when they redesigned the little envelopes the bag comes in. I have a low tolerance for bad design.) Enough. My tea is getting cold.

Coffee

2011-11-10T11:18:00.005-06:00

I've always loved the smell of coffee. It's hard to find a cup of coffee that tastes as good as it smells. I enjoy a cup once in a while, but not when I have art to do; it makes my hand too impulsive, the movement too abrupt, a bit jittery. It would be interesting to do before and after drawings of the same thing, one before a cup of coffee and one after.

I learned to love coffee years ago when I was attending English Departmental meetings and that was low-bred percolator coffee, hardly better than church coffee, although I like church coffee too. Minnesota Lutheran church coffee. (I could write a serious article about it; it's seriously underappreciated. Presbyterian coffee is good too. I don't think I've ever tasted Methodist.)

Anyway, this is a drawing I did last night while waiting for dinner. I looked around the kitchen for something to draw and realized I'd never drawn this pot. Nice shape. Function and form.

Money Trees

2011-11-09T10:29:00.003-06:00

I did these two illustrations for one of the financial magazines. Bloomberg, I think. The story was about how young marrieds can nurture their separate investments and build a future together. The idea of a money tree occurred to me and it worked well. It was my idea to have them dovetail into a dollar sign. There was nothing in the article about drought or locusts or what do do when aphids infest one portfolio but not the other. An illustration needs to avoid complications. I enforce the same discipline when I write an article or a commentary; it doesn't mean there are no complications or contradictions in life. We are living through one of those contradictions right now. One of those periods that occur occasionally, which used to recur frequently before FDR and Truman and Eisenhower moderated our economic impulses... there I go digressing into complication. An illustration is only as good as the general principles it illustrates and I suppose these two would seem oddly cheerful today. Invest, water regularly, and bingo: large green dollars. It'll probably be that way again. Trust me.

A Handbag?

2011-11-08T13:26:00.004-06:00

The question in the subject line, as you all know, is a quote from Oscar Wilde. The inflection is key, but the handbag, the purse, the clutch, is laden with metaphor and meaning. "The public purse" sounds almost dirty. Before our minds wander too far, consider the simple lines, the elegant balance, the small detail. I may be biased, but I think the drawn line has more allure than a photograph. Like an innuendo, it gets in under the radar, and plants notions in your head. Amidst all the advertising clutter, a drawing gets remembered. Here endeth the lesson.

What I Don't Carry to the Office

2011-11-07T10:24:00.006-06:00

I have briefcase envy. Because my commute is between rooms in my house I don't get to outfit myself with a briefcase, so I tend to invest them with a kind of supernatural charm. They represent the "manning up" I've never been able to do. Whenever I see someone carrying a classic attaché case I can't help wondering if it contains a million dollars in unmarked bills or government secrets or just a bag lunch, a sandwich and a bag of Fritos. Bond's briefcases had cunning weaponry in them, thanks to Q. I don't carry a briefcase but I still get to draw them. I can't recall who this was for, possibly one of my department store clients, but this drawing was never used.

Education is Key

2011-11-04T13:33:00.006-05:00

I came across this in my files, a cover illustration I did a couple of years ago for Ologie, the Columbus, Ohio design firm. I love how a deep rich color adds impact to line art. This was an Ologie publication about education, a topic that has always interested me.

Werewolf. There Wolf. There Castle.

2011-10-31T10:51:00.003-05:00

I do a regular back page illustration for the Macalester College magazine, art directed by Brian Donahue. This essay by a Mac grad was about the author's penchant for writing werewolf novels. There was no other way I could possibly illustrate this, other than, perhaps, having the author turning into a wolf herself. But, in reality, it's always the husbands of authors who turn into werewolves at the full moon. Here's the preliminary sketch I did, which I also like a lot. Horror can be funny. Happy Halloween.

Ghosts

2011-10-29T11:18:00.006-05:00

I remember painting these several years ago. I was experimenting with negative imagery, painting the dark around a lit object, around a lit face or figure, landscapes at night, using a brush loaded up with Ivory Black. The subject inevitably came around to ghosts. Cutting the eyes out of a photograph does the same thing; we are suddenly looking at a dead thing.

I can remember films using this simple idea to arresting effect, no commentary needed. When the eyes are gone, the person isn't there anymore, or that is the intent, as if the eyes are the repository of the soul. (I wrote a short story around this idea recently. I love ghost stories.) These images and several others were published in The Believer a couple of years ago. The story hasn't been published yet, although half of my published stories do have ghosts of one kind or another in them. Mostly the ones I've had published in Australia for some reason. Happy Halloween. Enjoy your parties.

Professorial

2011-10-28T10:02:00.005-05:00

I find myself asking a recurring question these days: Where are our intellectuals? Where is the Einstein of economics, someone who could speak to people in the streets one night and influence Congress the next? Joseph Stiglitz has shown up at Zucotti Park, and Paul Krugman has been right about this economy for years in the New York Times, but nobody acts on what they say. I guess Nobel Prizes don't bring the influence they used to. Or maybe we just lack the critical mass. When Einstein said "time is curved!" millions of Americans didn't pray him down. I think our problem with economic science is that so many economists are wholly owned subsidiaries of hedge funds in Greenwich, Connecticut. Too many of our financial experts live in the large, nicely furnished pockets of the expensive suits worn by market billionaires. That, I think, is what I was illustrating here.

A Little Place in the Country

2011-10-27T10:49:00.005-05:00

One of Winston Churchill's ancestors built this house to reward himself for winning a battle at a place called Blenheim. This was at a time when being a general could make you very rich. If you look at Eisenhower's modest house near Gettysburg you see that generaling has gotten less remunerative.

Blenheim Palace is larger than the house the Queen lives in. We visited Blenheim some years ago. The thing I remember is Winston's toy soldier collection which is displayed in a glass case in the hall. He was born there because his mother happened to be visiting at the time. Winston's people were poor relations. He wrote bestsellers for a living. He wasn't given huge sums or a palace for saving democracy. When he was P.M. he lived in a poky little house in a side street in Whitehall.

I classify people into two categories: cabin rich and cabin poor, depending on whether they have a place in the country. We do not have one, but I've been known to draw pictures in exchange for weekends. The Duke of Marlborough hasn't called to invite us yet.

Bang Bang!

2011-10-25T15:03:00.006-05:00

I suppose this image is about causality. The trigger is pulled, the talking head comes out and says Bang! What's so hard to understand? I drew this at a moment when Americans were confused about why triggers get pulled when they really should have wondered why so many guns were loaded and carried to begin with. But again the talking heads got themselves on TV and explained why our rights were more important than life itself. Why do we listen? Who pays them to talk? What would Abraham Lincoln have to say about the right to conceal and carry?

Irish Spirits

2011-10-24T13:23:00.006-05:00

This my the latest "Untranslatable" illustration for wwword.com, art directed and edited by Lucy Sisman and Tamara Glenny. There is a lot of the ineffable about these untranslatable expressions, which makes the drawing more fun. The topic was the Irish penchant for the no longer living but never really dead, "Neamhbeo." I won't even attempt the pronunciation. I tried first to think of some Irish iconography that didn't involve leprechauns or shamrocks. Guinness came to mind, not the strongest of Irish drinks, not really a spirit, but instantly evocative. The clay pipe offered a playful source for a voice balloon containing the ghostly eyes spoken of in the text. Allusiveness works better than concrete detail when describing the ineffable, the intangible, the spiritual. I added the crescent moon as a last touch, a bit of moonshine which is what the whole conversation is about. Sláinte! (pr. "slan-jah)

Every Day

2011-10-20T12:52:00.003-05:00

"He that has and a little tiny wit--
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,--
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
For the rain it raineth every day."

This song from Shakespeare was running through my head while I was doing this bit of lettering and decorating it with leaves and flowers. It's from Lear (although I remember it better from the Richard Eyre film version of Twelfth Night.) Whatever: it will almost suffice for a present day that has very little philosophy in it. Do your work, every day, rain or fair weather. And enjoy it.

Istanbul

2011-10-19T14:03:00.004-05:00

I did this map for the contents page of the special Istanbul issue of Das Magazin in Zurich. The art direction was by Christian Haas at Raffinerie. It's interesting to do a map of a place I've never been to in a language I've never been able to read. But it turned out rather well, I think. I especially like the letterforms I created, and the varied size and heft of them. I'd still love to visit sometime. I've read about the place enough, I think I'd know my way around.

A New Bagatelle

2011-09-29T13:23:00.005-05:00

I began doing these silhouetted images several years ago, inspired by the cut-paper art of Hans Christian Andersen (the fairy tale guy). I did one for our family Christmas card that year. I did several small narrative series for the New Yorker. I kept revising and perfecting them and inventing new ones for my art directors there. They were never used. But the form continues to intrigue me. I think they'd make a wonderful endpaper or book cover. Or scarf or area rug or wallpaper or dress fabric. This one was painted for my wife's birthday. I have no idea what it means or what the vignettes are about. A story seems to emerge as I paint, and it's always better unrehearsed, like a Rorschach seen in the patterns of the foliage outside a window.

Tristesse, Squared

2011-09-26T15:07:00.005-05:00

I did this illustration over the weekend for Lucy Sisman and Tamara Glenny, my editors at Wwword.com. To get myself in the right frame of mind for a Brazilian term I listened to Jobim and Luis Bonfa and Joao Gilberto for a bit and thought to myself that it was getting warmer in Brazil right now as it's getting colder here. Then we sat down and watched a Brazilian film ("The Year My Parents Went On Vacation", which I highly recommend.) The trick of illustrating an untranslatable word involves the same difficulty as translating it: it's complex or ineffable or, more often, a case of "you had to be there"; or it's all three. You'll understand the word "saudade" better after reading this month's Untranslatable column. The illustration is almost as helpful as a few hours listening to Jobim.

Balance of Justice

2011-09-22T16:16:00.004-05:00

Premeditated killing is a terrible crime. When it's done by the state, and with the distinct possibility that the verdict being carried out is mistaken, it's a tragedy and a stain on our national character. That's apart from the life that was stolen from both individuals, the convicted man and the original victim of the crime. This drawing was one of several sketches I did for a New York Times assignment after the Norwegian massacre this past summer. It wasn't the one they used, but it came to mind again today, after the execution last night in Georgia. Two lives are weighed in such a crime. Norway responded to murder with peace and mourning. The state of Georgia and our Supreme Court responded to murder with another murder.

Camera Setting

2011-09-21T13:58:00.008-05:00

This drawing appeared in last month's issue of The Believer, art directed by Jason Polan. I recently did a whole series of these arrangements of familiar objects. I began with the familiar place setting, plate center, tableware left and right, glass at one o'clock, etc. When I named this one "camera setting" I realized its double meaning. But there is no meaning to it. No reason behind it. The arrangement is arbitrary. We organize our lives and our belongings along similar lines, with familiar protocols, like items at our desks or dinner tables. Likewise our computer desktops, which are intangible and fugitive. Order reassures us the world is going to function even when it won't.

Hungry?

2011-09-19T10:32:00.005-05:00

I did this illustration a few years ago for a magazine called 5280. That's the elevation of Denver. Over the years, as a skier and writer for Skiing magazine, I've eaten quite a few sandwiches in Denver and its environs. Mountain air makes a person hungry.

Still Life With Pliers

2011-09-16T14:13:00.003-05:00

This sketchbook drawing was one of several that were published in Five Dials, a literary magazine from Hamish Hamilton in London. It's edited and art directed by Craig Taylor.

Two Views, One Building

2011-09-14T11:03:00.006-05:00

Elaborate architecture has always fascinated me, but it can be intimidating to draw it. All those elements. All that arrangement of detail. It was the relationship of one detail to another that made the building stand up, in every sense, or fall down. Drawing quickly helped. Simplifying. Sometimes I begin at the ground, as if I'm obeying gravity. Sometimes I start in midair. Sometimes I abandon perspective and lay the building flat. Different approaches make it a new building every time. I did the image of the tower years ago working on a Williams Sonoma project that never reached the retail stage. The quick view of the Houses of Parliament was done for an insurance association magazine. I like reminding art directors how much more interesting a page looks with a drawing on it.

A Drawing About Work

2011-09-09T12:33:00.004-05:00

First of all, this is not me. I haven't the muscle to model this kind of drawing. I did this drawing earlier in the week. Typically, I was working on Labor Day. (My European client celebrated labor day on the first of May the way the rest of the world does.) There's a bit of homage here to Ben Shahn, but also to Studs Terkel and Woody Guthrie and Springsteen and to the real working men and women all over, lifting and hauling things I don't have the muscles for. Work is why we get up in the morning.

From Sunday's New York Times

2011-09-06T10:33:00.008-05:00

For those of you who don't spend their Sunday relaxing with the New York Times, or in case you skip the Week in Review section to get to the Style section, here's the art I did Friday afternoon. The subject was The Return of Congress, and it had three topics up for debate, so the idea wasn't to illustrate any one of those topics but the return of the members. My idea was to show them herding back into the chamber. The horizontal format worked well for this. Initially I couldn't help but visualize elephants entering a circus with the trunk of each one holding the tail of the elephant in front, but this seemed too easy and too derisory. Better to show them entering in long frat-house conga lines, hands on shoulders, blindly following the guy in front of them. Although, to be fair, the teamwork on the right is more uniform and better drilled. The quick pencil does a good job of capturing the comic elements, I think.

A Drawing for Labor Day 2011

2011-09-05T14:48:00.004-05:00

(I'm observing Labor Day by working. I don't know how else to do it.)

Quality Education

2011-08-31T12:02:00.003-05:00

I did this illustration for the Oregon Education Association magazine, art directed by Deb Pang Davis. The story was about the effect environmental conditions in schools has on the learning success of the kids attending them.

Tasting Menu

2011-08-30T12:22:00.005-05:00

This was the last illustration I did for Gourmet magazine. The article was about tasting menus at restaurants. The magazine had changed since I'd started doing art for it twenty years earlier. Looking back on it, most of the art I did was cartography, fun illustrated maps, because Gourmet was as much about places as it was about the food. But I'd also been a great fan of Marvin Friedman, a longtime contributor whose wonderful line illustrations captured the interior spaces where food was prepared and eaten. This image is very unlike his, more like Bemelmans, really, but it's an homage of a kind, a celebration of the kinds of places we like to spend time in.

Deck O' Cards

2011-08-29T14:57:00.007-05:00

Earlier this year I did a set of 52 playing cards illustrated with reasons people should still have a checkbook for everyday emergencies. A really fun project. Lots of art, lots of great ideas to illustrate. The client was Deluxe Corporation; the agency was Modern Climate; the creatives were Matt Maly and Johnny Slocum.

Wired-Part Two

2011-08-25T10:51:00.002-05:00

Another drawing from yesterday. Reading postcards from friends at the beach puts me in mind of jellyfish. Jellyfish, vases, lampshades and women's skirts are all designed around a central axis.

Wire

2011-08-24T15:29:00.001-05:00

I did this sketchbook drawing today. One of a series.

Choices

2011-08-18T15:45:00.006-05:00

Illustration is a superior tool for describing a thought process, a choice in this instance. How do we choose to live? How do we travel? Do we travel light, or heavy like a princely household? For this illustration, painted for the back page column in the Macalester College magazine, I played with proportions and reality a bit. Most people's cars aren't small enough they can throw a leg up on them. And sure, the new bikes are pretty light, but I needed to equalize the two vehicles a little to clarify the issue. I kept the palette minimal but bright. A nice image, I think. Brian Donahue art directed.

Clean Slate

2011-08-17T12:00:00.006-05:00

A brand new client opens up new doors, new subject matter. New eyes get to see your art. A clean slate. A new continent. What will I write on it? What are the possibilities?

I did this for Kiplinger's, an old client of mine. Art directed by Cynthia Currie. I love doing art for business magazines because illustration evokes the creative dimension of money matters, the individuality of the issues. There's a thoughtfulness to the painted image that a photography seldom touches. (Much as I love photography.)

The Magic Hand of the Market

2011-08-11T11:38:00.009-05:00

I studied economics in college, not only in Econ classes but in History classes, where economic forces play themselves out in the rise and fall of individuals and of empires. I read Adam Smith, whose elegant explanations made a young idealist almost believe there was a kind of magic guiding our lives. I've never stopped reading, and because I'm an illustrator the reading conjures pictures, diagrams, visual analogies. This is one of those. It appears in the September issue of the Atlantic, art directed by Jason Treat.

My point in this simple drawing is that the so-called "Magic Hand of the Markets" does indeed direct and correct the forces that determine our fates. What should be obvious, though, is that the magic hand of an unregulated market corrects some fates more than others, protects some more than others, favors some fortunes more than others. Larger fortunes are more buoyant already but the market tends to nurture and support them. The fortunes of little people have less juice in them, less upward trajectory, they're buffeted more, given less favor, fewer advantages. We see it every day, every year, but we are taught not to believe it because in America everyone is supposed to have an equal chance. It's our national religion, even if we can see it isn't true.

Beasts of Burden

2011-07-28T12:30:00.006-05:00

I did this illustration for Milwaukee magazine about ten years ago, for a story explaining how upper employee costs are shifted to justify lower wages and benefits further down the pay scale. This described it pretty well, I think. I doubt the practice has gone away.

Aubergine, Tomato and Herbs

2011-07-22T13:50:00.004-05:00

I did this art for a Ginger cookbook I illustrated for Chronicle some years ago. A fun project, a lovely book, with illustrations on just about every page. Makes me hungry. You? I used to do a lot more food illustrations. I miss it.

An Anniversary Rose

2011-07-20T11:37:00.001-05:00

Yesterday was our 25th anniversary. We had a nice day.

Handmade Covers

2011-07-18T13:03:00.006-05:00

When a book I want to read has a cover I dislike I wind up disliking the book, not wanting to read it. Does this make me superficial? Am I fussy? Reading is a sensual experience, which means it's visual too. What are eyes for? When I hate a cover I redo it. I cover it up and do a cover design of my own. The manila envelope is a bit primitive, but I like the feel of the paper, and the color reminds me of all the SASE's that went out and came back with short stories I'd written. I've used some of these. I don't get elaborate. Usually it's simple penmanship––or pencilmanship. This cover obscures an ugly cheap paperback edition from the 1980s. I decided Nancy Mitford deserved better.

Happy Bastille Day

2011-07-14T21:30:00.005-05:00

This is one of the many wine column illustrations I did for the late and much-lamented Gourmet magazine. It was a delightful gig over many years. But magazines never send illustrators to France. This column was about the rivalry between French and American wines. Art directed by the suave and avuncular Irwin Glusker.

3-D Chrome-Plated Lettering

2011-07-12T14:21:00.008-05:00

There is a series of paintings in a tin box in my studio (recovered with much effort after the bankruptcy of the gallery that represented me here in Minneapolis), line variations drawn in gouache on 10" square Arches paper. I've shown them here before. It's surprising to me how abstract lines can conjure so many different kinds of complexity, botanical, metallic, fleshy, nubile, kinetic. Two adjacent lines suggest two dimensions, three lines in concert conjure space. The fun is in avoiding what common perspective wants the lines to represent.

By attaching a visible side to both edges of a letterform, which is something more concrete, and giving the whole thing a twist, you are using Picasso's tricks, which are the same tricks Frank Gehry uses with architecture. This may be why this particular lettering exercise makes me think of Bilbao. I was never very good at perfect lettering. Inability makes an artist better at breaking rules. So I like breaking letterforms apart, twisting them, stretching them. Put on your 3D glasses and tell me how this looks. (I'm accepting gallery queries for my tin box of paintings. Suitable for framing.)

POETRY magazine

2011-07-06T10:34:00.006-05:00

My bird's eye view of a suburban streetscape was selected for the cover of the July/August issue of POETRY magazine. It was art directed by Alex Knowlton of Winterhouse Design.

I have always loved doing bird's eye views, and having grown up in a leafy suburb of winding drives and midcentury houses I have an affection for the variety of domestic architecture found there. It's funny, because as I was growing up among the ramblers and mock colonials I much preferred the clapboard architecture of small towns. I now live in a city neighborhood that feels like a small town, and my drives into the suburbs are visits into a past that used to feel too modern.

This drawing was the first in a series following a road into the city, each panel beginning where the previous one left off, describing the relation of the houses to the road and each other, with the road creating a continuous ribbon through diverse neighborhoods, rural, suburban and urban residential, retail, business, industrial. I hope to publish them all together as a book some day. But looking at this one on its own, I realize there is a kind of poetry in the way the houses and the lives contained in them attach to the ribbon of traffic, almost like words assembled to a frame, but not quite rhyming, free verse.

2011-07-05T16:47:00.007-05:00

Sometimes I pick up a pencil differently, with two fingers instead of three opposing the thumb. The hand draws less well without the full group I'm used to using. When you look at the hand it doesn't seem like all the fingers even have a job to do. A couple of them appear to be doing nothing, but if you remove one the line looks odd; interesting but looser, less clear, a bit drunken. The pinky finger never does anything, but I've never considered lopping it off. If all four fingers and thumb are used to write or draw they form a fist and fists have no fluidity of motion.

I like how the line looks close up.

And closer up

My Son's Left Shoe

2011-06-29T14:20:00.005-05:00

How does a drawing make an ordinary shoe look interesting?

Office Tools

2011-06-28T15:18:00.006-05:00

One of my limbering up exercises is to draw something nearby. Preferably something with a little elaboration to it. It's as much to limber the eye and the mind as the hand. Drawing something real teaches you not to fake or anticipate or invent, and often as not the seen is intriguing enough in its native lines and construction.

The imperfection of the drawing is part of its interest. Why did I make this mistake here or misconstrue that attachment? Made things have shapes and curves that are just as sexy as the human body, or almost, or perhaps we see allusions from one to the other. Maybe designers gravitate toward the sexual when shaping things. Sometimes, though, a hole punch is only a hole punch.

Untranslatable (Verbal vs. Visual)

2011-06-27T10:27:00.006-05:00

Over the weekend I illustrated another Untranslatable feature for wwword.com. (Edited by my friends Lucy Sisman and Tamara Glenny.) Always fun; always educational, the column discusses words and phrases that don't travel well from one culture to another. Translating words into images is difficult enough in one language. Luckily the job of explaining is left to the writer. My job is to make the adjacent text look interesting, to highlight the culture it's from, write out the word and hint at the meaning. Overexplaining is a sin among illustrators, which is why we use shorthand. Gestures, icons, puns, allusions. These tricks go back to the ecclesiastic art stuck up on church walls to occupy the faithful who couldn't read and didn't comprehend the Latin liturgy anyway. This drawing is a lot like these medieval puzzle pictures, although it's more playful than complex. The smug face (are any people as smug as the Swiss?), the protective hand, the national flag, the iconic Matterhorn, the word in question, layered in colors the way language is layered with meanings.

Little Drawing, Big Topic

2011-06-17T10:22:00.017-05:00

I did some art yesterday for the New York Times op-ed page. The topic, while not as important as the sexual foolishness of a congressman, is pretty important: congressional gridlock, two political parties unable to compromise. Not a sexy issue. Given such a small space the key is to convey the essence in as few lines as possible, so I drew two angry men face to face. I drew them several ways.

To underline the nature of the confrontation I thought of overlaying the word NO in a gray tone.

I liked the look, but wondered whether it added nuance or unhelpful complexity. Did it distract? The point of this small illustration in the letters column isn't to make readers stop and make sense of it but to make them read the adjacent letters. We left the word NO out.

The word NO also conveyed a false equivalency. It implied that both parties were saying NO with equal force, which I don't think is true. One of the two parties has shown a greater flexibility over the past decade. Yes, they are both angry, but I think the one party (the one on the left) is angry because it's tired of always giving in.

I'm saying this very carefully because the illustrator's job isn't to shape the meaning but to convey it, which is also the job of journalists. I think False Equivalency is a big problem. If there are two sides to an argument a journalist is supposed to impart both of them in a fair manner. This sometimes puts the writer in the uncomfortable position of treating foolishness and intelligence the same, or fairness and bigotry, or greed and generosity. If you equate moderation and extremism equally and without any negative weight on one side, after a while the more extreme position is rewarded and encouraged.

Is it a cop-out for an artist to go only as far as the text goes and no further? Or is that his job? A lot of thought and worry goes into a small drawing.

June Sky

2011-06-14T12:45:00.005-05:00

It's one of those perfect days in June and I moved my studio onto the screen porch for the morning. There have been some strange gyres and bumps this past week but today is quiet and pleasant and the clouds in the sky are the kind that don't worry anyone. Today is plain all right. I am busy drawing, waiting for the next big project, working on some writing I'd set aside, doing what I do well.

The Corporate Ladder

2011-06-03T12:24:00.003-05:00

Sometimes metaphors invent themselves. You dream them, or daydream them, putting them together out of puns and wordplay. I did a series of drawings beginning with the little walk we do with our fingers. This drawing grew out of that. I'm not sure what it means. Is it the corporate ladder? Or is it life's ladder, a kind of Jacob's ladder that ends who knows where? Tops of ladders always seem dangerous to me.

Les belle dames sans merci

2011-06-01T15:42:00.002-05:00

I remember the line from Tennyson, but I can't remember if it is the beautiful woman without mercy or the beautiful woman who always says "No, thank you." Don't blame me for the mercilessness of these faces. I drew them after leafing through a copy of Vogue.

Eyeglasses Times Six

2011-05-26T11:09:00.001-05:00

A few drawings of eyeglasses make an interesting pattern.

Spark Plug

2011-05-25T10:01:00.004-05:00

Small familiar things are fun to draw. This image is very low res, but pencil takes on an interesting texture when it's blown up at high resolution and colored. You begin to see the rough energy where graphite and paper meet.

Spring finally arrived and left again

2011-05-10T09:57:00.005-05:00

I waited to post this till it had stopped snowing, but today it's predicted to hit 85. Summer already.

Aristocrats

2011-05-05T11:12:00.003-05:00

I did this pair for ZEIT magazine, published in Berlin. The art director was Michael Biedowicz. I had a hand in some of the captions. The English aristocracy has been a lifelong fascination of mine. The story appeared the week of the royal wedding.

My debut in Rolling Stone

2011-05-04T12:25:00.003-05:00

Thirty years ago I sent an envelope full of xeroxes to the art department at Rolling Stone. They liked the art enough to publish quite a few of my little maps and squibs on the letters page in 1981 and 82. A nice gig, but I was never named gardening editor, never met Hunter Thompson. My style has evolved quite a lot since my salad days.

Mission Accomplished

2011-05-02T09:57:00.007-05:00

I drew this cartoon eight years ago and sent it off to Bob Mankoff at my favorite magazine. Actually, I realize it was almost eight years ago today that I drew it. It was never published. America was immune to ironies at the time. I don't feel celebratory today either. It's all too somber. It's no time for hubris or cheers or feeling satisfied. We and the world deserve better. Luckily we have more serious leadership now.

Pretty Nice Company

2011-04-29T15:27:00.004-05:00

It's flattering to be included with all these book cover heroes in this new collection from AltitudeSF. I owe much to the art direction of Susan Mitchell and Mr. Waters.

Orientation (a book of stories)

2011-04-28T10:15:00.006-05:00

This is an instance of a sketchbook drawing finding a life in print. The pencil drawing has become a whole new metier, a new style for me since the cover of the John Waters book, which is nice because I think in pencil. So I can take a thought, darken the line a little or a lot, add color, shift color, create variations. I sent this pencil drawing to the art people at Farrar Straus and Charlotte Strick replied saying she had just the book for it. A book of stories by Daniel Orozco (Faber, 2011). (Faber and Faber is another imprint they publish.) I added the color to the faces, inserted a couple of women's faces (it had originally been just odd looking men), devised the colored type, did an FF colophon in pencil and a scribbled edge for the back and flap.

Now available in a store near you. (And, as one short story writer to another, the stories are pretty great.)

The Malling of America

2011-04-18T11:17:00.004-05:00

When the Mall of America opened a few miles from here I made careful plans never to set foot in it. (I'm a neighborhood shopper.) Then I got a call to illustrate Ian Frazier's piece in the Atlantic. I did eventually visit MOA, and wasn't surprised that I hated the place. Big isn't better, it's just bigger. This illustration was art directed by Mary Parsons in 2002.

Home on the Range

2011-04-15T10:41:00.004-05:00

I did this art for Bon Appetit a few years ago, and since then have written a couple of things for David Leite's blog, Leite's Culinaria. We have this same Viking in our kitchen, so I suppose the art is a bit of a self portrait. Ours was not carried in sherpa fashion.

The Zen of Snorkeling

2011-04-14T16:23:00.005-05:00

This is one of four illustrations I just finished for Shambhala Sun magazine, art directed by Liza Matthews. It makes me want to explore the underwater mysteries of Lake Harriet, which I can see from my studio window. Might be a bit cold; the ice just melted this past week. No exotic fish, mostly sunnies and northerns. Someone snagged a six foot sturgeon in the lake a few years ago. It was older than I am.

The End of the Book

2011-04-07T10:27:00.006-05:00

I am writing about books these days, working on a book about books and bookstores as endangered species. About the book as something on paper you can (or used to be able to) hold in your hand. As something that doesn't require electricity, except after dark. I did this illustration a few years ago for Mary Parsons at the Atlantic. Looking at it again it could work as a depiction of the virtual library in which fonts and words are divorced from their protective covers. Once all the books are virtual they can all be burned with a flick of a switch. It makes me shudder. Booksellers and librarians are the curators of our culture. We need them.

Ballplayer

2011-03-31T15:22:00.002-05:00

I can almost hear the crack of the bat. Hello baseball. This sketchbook painting is from a few summers ago, but the ballplayer is from longer ago when muscles were grown by hauling ice and lifting bales.

Toy Pistols

2011-03-30T11:18:00.005-05:00

On the 30th anniversary of the attempted assassination (and subsequent deification) of Ronald Reagan, it seemed fitting to put up some handgun art. It's also the anniversary of the terrible injuring of Reagan's press secretary James Brady. Brady never recovered, never got his job back, and then lost many of his friends when he and his wife began an organization opposing gun violence. He was demonized by some of the same people who deified his former boss. Irony is lost on some people. I did this drawing for a group that opposes handgun violence, but it was never used. And I see why. The guns I drew are simply too interesting, too fun, too iconic. They are like toys or playfully phallic little machines, perfectly sized to carry in one's pocket. I grew up playing with toy guns, so maybe some of this old fascination endures like a tattoo you forget you have, but I outgrew my boyhood gun fetish. It's fun to draw them and watch movies about them but I don't own one. They seem like relics of an interesting former age.

Grade Inflation

2011-03-22T12:59:00.003-05:00

I did this illustration for a Time magazine article about grade inflation, a fashionable topic at the time. What's interesting to me, and I don't hear it discussed at all, is how much smarter our kids are than we were. Since business metrics were applied to public schools during the Reagan years, and we began requiring test scores to climb by X amount per year, and Y amount per dollar expended, I calculate that our children's brains have grown to around 2 1/2 times larger and 5 or 6 times faster than ours were at their ages. So maybe grades haven't inflated enough.

Climbing Trees

2011-03-21T11:03:00.004-05:00

I watched an old home movie last week and there was one scene of a kid fifty feet up a hickory tree; myself at age nine. I was always climbing trees. With three children, my parents obviously were not terribly concerned. I was a spare. I'd given it up years before the New Yorker called me to do this illustration, but my familiarity with the sport (can I call it a sport?) made the assignment a felicitous one. There are actually tree climbing competitions, apparently. Wish I'd known this when I was nine. I think what makes the illustration work was my decision to render the tree in black and white. Black and white makes colors more colorful. Owen Philips art directed.

Playing with Real Estate

2011-03-17T09:28:00.003-05:00

A few years ago I was asked to illustrate an article about a middle aged hippy dot.com millionaire who was dabbling in real estate. I decided to depict him this way, with a millionaire's top hat, Hawaiian shirt and sandals, playing with houses. Which just about describes it.

Into the Garden

2011-03-16T12:06:00.004-05:00

At this time last year our lawn was beginning to green up. This year it's still under two feet of snow. That's March for you. But studies carefully conducted by university scientists have shown that spring does inevitably follow winter, at least in theory. Unless the melting polar icecap has found a new home in southern Minnesota. I did this illustration for the Washington Post, where they've also had their share of snow this year. But I'm sure spring is much further along in DC. I envy them.

Vacationing With Tweety and Sylvester

2011-03-15T11:55:00.003-05:00

I did this illustration for an article about vacationing with pets. A concept I've never had the luxury to explore, but, hey, there are people whose pets have more disposable income than I do.

Dreaming of playing the Saxophone

2011-03-14T11:14:00.002-05:00

I have the same dream once in a while. I'm in a jazz club, one of those places with lots of smoke and a low ceiling and the sound of ice clinking in cocktail glasses, and I'm onstage playing the saxophone like Stan Getz or Paul Desmond. In this dream, it's as easy as touching the valves on the instrument.

la Tempietto

2011-03-09T10:17:00.002-06:00

When we were in Rome we stayed a stone's throw away from what many consider the most perfect building in Europe. It's tucked away at the top of the Janiculum Hill, and worth the climb. There is something felicitous about a quick drawing, imprecise and imperfect, of a precise and perfect building.

Follow the Money

2011-03-08T13:56:00.002-06:00

I can't remember who I did this for, possibly for a magazine called Business Ethics, art directed by Mark Simonson. Nor can I remember what concept I was describing. But it could be a diagram of our moneyed lives. I see a lot of Brad Holland influence in the line. I used to do a lot of crosshatching. Also a bit of David Levine, and something of a Minneapolis artist I admired named Pete Bastianson. Wonder where he is today, possibly surfing daily off the coast of Baja. I can picture it.

A Chair

2011-03-01T18:56:00.002-06:00

A chair in a photograph in an old house. I just like the look of it. I don't know if it's comfortable.

I am not a Camera

2011-02-27T10:56:00.003-06:00

There is a stairway up to a public balcony on a church opposite the Radcliffe Camera, giving you the best view there is of Oxford. The sweep of the High, the spires of All Souls, the narrow streets, glimpses of grass-carpeted quadrangles hidden away from the foot traffic. But it is the Camera that holds the attention. A baroque church dome divorced from its boring liturgical parts, or maybe a church built for one person. I've never been inside, but a photograph taken from this ground level perspective greets my eye when I wake every morning. It is my favorite building in Europe, but most people I tell about it think it is a one-hour photo shop somewhere in Boston.

Barber Shop

2011-02-24T17:41:00.004-06:00

The sort of place I went as a kid to read Field & Stream. I'd think about looking at Esquire or Playboy but never did.

Life is a Quest

2011-02-23T13:49:00.005-06:00

I did this illustration for Buddhadharma magazine, art directed by Seth Levinson. The article was about finding ones way among many options. Sometimes a metaphor, like this signpost, seems inanimate and I want to add some life to it. I often add birds. They add color too. It's an apt choice in this case, because birds are migratory, and have an admirable sense of direction. The last thing I added was the blue drop shadows, to give it a suggestion of sunshine.

Kids and Toys and Stereotypes

2011-02-21T15:43:00.005-06:00

This illustration is one of a series I did for a book titled Rethinking Pop Culture. This chapter was about how stereotyping dictates the toys our kids play with, something majority children wouldn't notice. The art director was the excellent Patrick J B Flynn.

Love-Hate

2011-02-17T11:18:00.007-06:00

I did this illustration for Buddhadharma magazine. The concept of loving and hating the same person suggested the mirror image, and the same face expressing these opposite emotions. Art direction by Seth Levinson.

Valentine Art

2011-02-14T11:37:00.004-06:00

I drew this yesterday, in pencil, and put it in an envelope. But not before scanning it and converting it into color.

Genuine Mustard

2011-02-08T15:57:00.004-06:00

There is a thingness about familiar products. Their printed labels say "genuine" but any certainty is conferred by our own eye that recognizes the brand elements. We know at a glance that it is what it says it is. There's also the guarantee from context. Powdered mustard is less likely to be counterfeited which is why you can seldom purchase it out of the trunk of a car or from a furtive gentleman in a trenchcoat. You have to go to a grocery store, and who is more trustworthy than a grocer? It doesn't hurt to know the royal family likes it too.

The Puzzle of Egypt

2011-01-26T16:45:00.004-06:00

I did this illustration for a feature article in the Atlantic, probably something by P. J. O'Rourke, whose pieces called for an ironic edge. Despite everything, Egypt is still there, still sweeping its problems under the pyramid, so to speak. Rioting erupted this week, in reaction to events in nearby Tunisia, and the riot police were called out. The Nile and the adjacent desert appear to be unaffected.

Kids & Science

2011-01-24T17:35:00.004-06:00

I did this a week ago for Children's Advocate, a magazine published out of Berkeley, but art directed by my old friend Patrick JB Flynn out of Madison, Wisconsin. (Isn't web commerce marvelous?) It was a fun project, especially since I'd just converted some of our old family videos to DVD and we'd been watching our kids toddling around at this young age. (They are now taller than their parents.) The tilted overhead perspective is something I used to do more often. I think I probably learned it by studying Steven Guarnaccia's illustrations years ago, who probably learned it from Japanese prints. I learned from the same sources that narrowing my palette made the composition more coherent, and that gray and black made the other colors brighter.

Wedgewood

2011-01-21T08:38:00.002-06:00

I did this illustration for Shambhala Sun magazine, art directed by Liza Matthews and published out of Nova Scotia. (Who knew N.S. was a major center of Buddhism?) The story told how one man's peace and quiet was disturbed by a neighbor's rock music, and how he restored peace. The suburb he lived in happens to be called Wedgewood, which suggested the ceramic metaphor.

Lightbulb Earth

2011-01-20T10:15:00.003-06:00

I did this illustration for Technology Review (M.I.T., art directed by Lee Caulfield). Another metaphor for a technologically advanced planet, but consider the fragile filament, and the fact that the large hand (of fate? of God?) is about to turn it off.

Sometimes I Feel Like A Hamburger

2011-01-19T01:01:00.003-06:00

I did this illustration about ten years ago for the Philadelphia Inquirer's Sunday Magazine, for an article about eating habits. I probably went out and had a bar hamburger, just for research purposes. It's interesting for me to look at how much my line varies from image to image. Sometimes it's careful and controlled, almost quiet, other times (like here) the outline darts in quick parabolas. The arms are rubber and the physique is joyously oddball. This is not a careful drawing but it isn't sloppy; I like to say it's offhand. Like something drawn by Bemelmans. It was Bemelmans who gave me permission to quit worrying about all the live figure drawing I never got around to.

The Politics of Tea

2011-01-14T11:47:00.005-06:00

I wrote a little bit about the original Boston Tea Party in my book. Those hooligans were as ragtag as the current ones. They too were worked up about politics outside their control; then it was about overseas trade more than taxes to fund social programs. (There were no social programs then.) Today's tea partiers have legitimate fears, fears that many of us share. It's the way those fears are being channeled that should worry us. Also in my book is the story about John Adams, a young lawyer, who in the aftermath of the Boston Massacre, undertook the legal defense of the British soldiers charged with murder. Today he would be hung in effigy. Our early democracy was more complex and open-minded than many of today's so-called "patriots" would like to believe.