Les belle dames sans merci

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.

An Interesting Face

I painted this for an African American magazine some years ago. An interesting assignment, but I remember having to repaint it because I'd gotten the skin color wrong, which surprised me. I don't know whether this was the acceptable version or not. It shows how sensitive we are to shades of difference. I did art for a Japanese liquor ad once. I remember being very careful to get the Japanese face just right, clearly Japanese but short of stereotype. The client kept having me adjust features: the nose, the skin color, the eyes. Finally they instructed me to make the hair blond. I told them I was confused; didn't they want the person to appear Japanese? No, they didn't. But instead of telling me so outright, they'd had me remove the ethnic distinctions one by one, and I'd carefully done so.

Love Thy Job

I think that was the subject described here. I love my job, even though it isn't set in an impressive office building.

Cafe Society

Friday afternoons in the summer should be spent at a sidewalk table. I did this illustration several years ago for the Philadelphia Inquirer, art directed by Sue Syrnick. It was included in the American Illustration annual for that year.

Collage With Red

I fell in love with Hannah Hoch after seeing her work in a show Peter Boswell curated at Walker Art Center. I began playing with scissors. The point isn't to nail an explicit idea to the wall but to suggest things. I don't remember what I was suggesting here. It would be interesting to start a list of what it might mean, or write a story around it.