Gun Crazy

I've been slowly writing a memoir about my unremarkable childhood. The writing has gone on for quite a few years, not because it's painful or because I can't remember. I remember everything. It's not as if I have any buried monsters to exorcise in a rush of creativity. I've complained to my parents over the years about my upbringing. How, if they'd been more horrible to me, I might be a successful author today. But unlike Kipling's parents and Dickens's, my mom and dad were very nice people, tolerant, forgiving, pleasant to be around, encouraging, attentive. A person works with what they're given and if they are given a pleasant childhood, I guess they move naturally into a pleasant adulthood drawing pictures. The only thing violent about my youth is the contrast with the violence I saw and we still see on television and in movies, and wherever folks now walk fully armed like western hombres. One of the chapters of this memoir, published today by the Paris Review, was written a few years ago in a fond reverie but the story seems ironically, and sadly apt in the wake of each new outburst of mass gun killing. Looking back I can barely recognize my nine year-old self.

London in a Fog

I came across a photograph of London, a foggy skyline, nothing especially striking about it except the chaotic scurry of it. None of the charming rooftops; they'd been overwhelmed by boxy cooling units and concrete cubes. Almost lost in the gray were a couple of landmarks, a Wren spire, the Parliament buildings, Nelson on his column. Sometimes I'll draw things to make sense of them. The London I loved from books growing up is gone. I can't decide if the Luftwaffe or property developers have done the worst damage. I think the latter. The UK is an economy that despises history.

Consider the Common Housefly

I am the regular illustrator for an irregular feature in the University of Minnesota alumni magazine art directed by my friend Kristi Anderson. The feature is called Tweets of Yore. It takes old news clippings from university history and translates them into tweets. This one was about a professor's studies of the common housefly. I thought of this tweedy chap (glasses, elbow patches, sweater) and added the fly swatter in lieu of a pointer.

Taking Chances

This is another illustration that the client didn't end up using. The subject they needed me to illustrate was "kids taking chances", not in the sense of risking life and limb but risking failure. I thought of those "leaps of faith" we have to persuade ourselves to make. I paired two figures in two tones, one male, one female, to keep the risk an individual thing but avoid gender bias. I am still very pleased with this drawing and hope to see it published some day.

An Unused Illustration

I get a lot of work from college magazines. Good ground for me to cover: books, areas of study, ideas, knowledge; my head is full of visual analogies for these abstractions. I generally draw a lot more than is used. This is one drawing I especially liked but the art director preferred another version I did. This one was more minimal, less colorful. They also thought the figure seemed too old. Dressed too old, I think, although when I was that age I remember trying to dress a bit older. A kind of disguise.

A Poster For Steppenwolf Theatre Company

I did this poster to celebrate Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago. The project was art directed by Ogilvy/Chicago. Twelfth Night is my favorite Shakespeare play and I've seen it and read it several times. The aspect that caught my imagination was the pattern of overlapping characters and the multiple faces of the characters in the play.

Another Illustration for the Baffler

Art directed by Patrick JB Flynn.

A Desert Run

This illustration was for my regular back page slot in Macalester Today. Art director Brian Donahue let me try out this new style I'd been working in. I think it worked out especially well. This style requires clear outlines and a context that can be simplified. I also need to work from reference, especially for figures. The essay was about a marathon run in the desert, so a certain amount of my time was spent working out what actually happened; the idea of running a marathon on sand in extreme desert heat seemed so improbable it took me a while to get my head around it.

A Gelato Map of Rome

I did this map for Food + City magazine, art directed and designed by Julie Savasky of Pentagram/Austin. Having spent time in Rome eating gelato it was a delicious project. Too bad they don't send artists on location.

Creating Lots of Art Around OneTopic

I did these illustrations recently for The Mockingbird, an Episcopal magazine designed by Tom Martin Design. A particularly fun project because I was given complete freedom to create imagery on the topic of church and religious ritual. It gave me a chance to create a lot of art using this new collage technique. These are just a few.