"18"

 Madeline turned 18 today. This is the card I drew.

 

I drew this M on the envelope.

An Overused Word

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.

Every Day

"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

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.

Handmade Covers

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.

3-D Chrome-Plated Lettering

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.)