Calder at Hauser and Wirth

When I was in LA the other week I saw this great Alexander Calder show at Hauser and Wirth. The selection of nearly all monochromatic black pieces subtracted some of the colorful playful element you typically associate with this artist's work, and instead left you much more floating in a place of abstract forms. I liked it.

Color Poem #68

a brown
with so much orange in it
so much gold underneath
that it resembles
a color of the
rainbow

How Was Your Day - Advance Copy!

The fill-in journal I wrote and (oh my gosh, oh my gosh) illustrated, How Was Your Day? is now physically here in my hands! This is, in every sense, a dream come true. If you'd asked me, between the ages of three and thirteen, what I wanted to be when I grew up I would have answered without hesitation "An artist." Then I got sidetracked -- first by being a theater nerd, then by literature, and then by having a career and a family and stuff. Though I continued to dabble with drawing over the decades, only in the past four years have I come back to making art-making in a meaningful way. And now, to have this be a culmination of those endeavors, well, it's pretty mind-boggling. I am immensely grateful to the fine folks at Chronicle Books for the opportunity. In the months to come before the journal comes out in the Spring I'll show you some of the drawings from inside. But for today I'm just going to be over here fondling my advance copy and telling you that you can pre-order it here or here.

Things That Happened in October

What with one thing and another I haven't shared the marvel that was Mabel's Harry Potter Halloween costume here yet. As family tradition dictates, Bill and I dressed up to go along with her -- in this case as Hagrid and Professor Sprout. There was also a dreamy trip to the pumpkin patch a week prior. And, in an effort to play catch-up, I'm also tucking in, down at the bottom of this post, our other favorite late-autumn day (heck, as I've said many times before, possibly in fact my favorite day of all the year) the annual SF Public Library's Big Book Sale at Fort Mason. Where we went, as the final photo reveals, even more overboard than we sometimes do. We have no regrets.

The Oaks Theater

An older drawing I made of the Oaks Theater on Solano Avenue in Berkeley -- my neighborhood theater growing up, since sadly shuttered.

James Turrell, Three Gems

When I was at the De Young for the Muslim Fashion show the other day I also spent some time in James Turrell's "sky space" Three Gems -- something that, incredibly, almost unbelievably, I had never done before, despite the fact that it's been sitting right there ever since the museum opened in its current building in 2005; despite the fact that I've visited the museum several times a year throughout that entire 13 year period; and despite the fact that I really really enjoy the work of James Turrell. What the heck?! I don't know. I really just don't know. But now I've done it and it was absolutely delightful. It strongly gave me that warm, peaceful, tingly feeling that so much of Turrell's work does. There's a pink terracotta circular path, and a round white minimalist room, and an opening up to the deep blue sky. I like to think maybe that those three spaces/colors are the three gems in question, but of course no one can say for sure.

Color Poem #67

 
the new yellow
is not the same
as all the other
yellows

as I knew it
would not be

but it is a
very good
yellow

maybe
even

I wonder
could it be

the best
yellow
of
all

The Secret Art of Being a Parent - Advance Copy!

I now physically have my hands on a real live finished copy of my next book: The Secret Art of Being a Parent. SO EXCITING! People often ask why, in publishing, we get these copies, known as "advances," so very early? I mean, after all, the book doesn't come out until next spring. But the reason is so that the publisher can send the book out to magazines and retail stores and other places that plan their content way in advance -- so that by the time Spring 2019 rolls around you will (fingers crossed) see this book in the press and in stores and all over the place. In the meantime, though, I just get to enjoy holding it my hands and looking at Rachel Harrell's super charming design and illustrations. Yay! And, if you're so inclined, you could go ahead and pre-order it here or here.

Inktober 2018 - Week Four and Beyond

I finished Inktober and really did do one ink drawing each day all month. Not all of them were great, by any means. But nevertheless I find I am extremely pleased with myself. Here are the last ten:

Day 22: Expensive -- printing out a manuscript at the copy shop

Day 23: Muddy

Day 24: Chop

Day 25: Prickly

Day 26: Stretch -- rubber bands

Day 27: Thunder -- storm clouds

Day 28: Gift -- my special gift is to know where every object in the house is, including this tiny box of tiny staples

Day 29: Double

Day 30: Jolt -- a bottle cap from the mostly forgotten 1980s super-caffeinated cola Jolt

Day 31: Slice

Two Baby-Sitters Club #1's

Here's a drawing I made not so long ago of the covers of the original Ann M. Martin Baby-Sitters Club book #1 that I read at the age of ten, and graphic novelist Raina Telgemeier's Twenty-Teens (if we're being honest, way way better) reboot. Years back I talked here about my love affair with these books, and now I have drawn them.