False Spring

April has always been a cruel month. For the past few days the talk has been about the predicted six to twelve inch snow we'd get today. I woke up this morning and they were saying 3-6 instead. Still... The StarTribune writer Bill Ward wrote a clever piece about what Minnesotans should do to defy this late winter weather and they needed art for it, so I drew this surly chap in his sandals and sea monster innertube looking up at the snow. Enjoy. 

Into the Garden

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.

Celebrations

The household chore I enjoy most is that of resident artist. I am the one who draws cards for friends and family, cousins, in-laws, aunts, for birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, bar mitzvahs. I get to be my own art director––and tend to be pretty demanding. This was the second idea I painted for the occasion yesterday, and much better than the first one.

The Loafer

I notice that Lisa Birnbach and Chip Kidd are reviving a very useful anthropological study of Waspus Preppicus. Until I read it back in the 1980s I only knew chinos and loafers as my native costume, not understanding the class implications. I'd never visited the holy sites on Martha's Vineyard or in Westchester. I had gone to summer camp with children from Lake Forest and Winnetka but didn't at the time understand the sound basis for their scorn. I was like Nick Carraway. (As I've noted elsewhere, I went to the same college as the arriviste's arriviste, Jay Gatsby, though we never met, being from different decades.) Anyway, the Preppie Handbook opened my eyes. I still prefer chinos and I wear only loafers, always without socks. I have not worn socks with loafers since the late 1970s.