Color Poem #77

hey you hot raspberry rosebuds
tucked between the rusty black
wrought iron gate and the pinky
orange painted brick wall. hello

You're Invited! Art Show Opening and Book(s) Launch Party!

Next Thursday, March 7th, there will be an art show opening for my new show "How Was Your Day? 50 Drawings by Bridget Watson Payne" that will also be a book launch party for my two new books How Was Your Day? and The Secret Art of Being a Parent. It will be at Open Studio, 780 Sutter Street in San Francisco, from 6-9 pm, and you are most heartily invited to join us! The event is being put on in conjunction with the SF First Thursday Lower Polk and Tenderloin Art Walk (I am super excited and honored to be part of this great neighborhood tradition) and Chronicle Books. There will be snacks and drinks and shopping and mingling. If you're local, I hope to see you there!

Open Studio Workshops!

I am beyond excited to be launching the first series of workshops at Open Studio! Six amazing instructors' offerings are already up on the site, with many more to come very soon. Here's what you can sign up for, so far.

CHILDREN’S PUBLISHING: THE NUTS AND BOLTS OF FICTION AND NONFICTION WITH KELLI CHIPPONERI

HOW TO GIVE THE PERFECT GIFT WITH LEA REDMOND, 3/17

THE BUSINESS SIDE OF BEING A CREATIVE WRITER WITH LYZETTE WANZER, 4/17-5/8

THESE THREE THINGS: HOW TO RELEASE YOUR CURIOSITY AND CREATIVITY THROUGH A PERSONALIZED DAILY PRACTICE WITH LISA ANDERSON SHAFFER, 3/24

THE NITTY GRITTY FOR ARTISTS/MAKERS: A CLASS ON PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND GETTING YOURSELF SET UP AND SITUATED TO BE A WORKING CREATIVE WITH LISA SOLOMON, 4/2 AND/OR 4/9

HOW TO QUESTION EVERYTHING: OPENING, ENRICHING AND EVOLVING THE CREATIVE PROCESS WITH E BOND, 4/28

Publishing Statistics

I drew the terrible diversity statistics of the publishing industry. It's a shameful thing and one we should be reminded of. Those of us with careers in the field need to be working hard to address this. Source: the 2015 Diversity Baseline Survey of numerous US publishers conducted by Lee and Low.

The National Gallery, London

The other museum I stopped by when I was briefly in London last month was the National Gallery. Rather than trying to encompass the whole thing (which is nearly impossible anyhow) I just stayed for maybe an hour and hit a few highlights. And what highlights they are!

Above is my new favorite discovery, a detail from a painting by Jean-Etienne Liotard of a little girl with her hair in curling papers, dipping her morning bread into her cup. In a huge building full of often formal pictures, the naturalness of her gesture and quotidian nature of the scene struck me forcibly.

Next, the two Vermeers, which I think may well be two of my favorite pictures on the whole planet.

A newly acquired, and hung in pride of place, thank you very much, Artemisia Gentileschi

A Van Gogh chair

Self-portrait by Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le-Brun

Andre Derain's portrait of Amelie Matisse

And then, of course, a whole bunch of Turners. Good fun.

Color Poem #76

the pink pearl in all its clean and spongy trapezoidal newness
smelling of school days and exuding a pink that’s nowhere else
a pink that abuts salmon and bubble gum and coral and hope
but is none of those is its own self and nothing else is erasure

Alt Summit!

I'm speaking at Alt Summit in Palm Springs next month! This massive, colorful, design-y conference is one I've long wanted to visit, and now to have the chance to go there as an "Expert Desk" person is pretty keen. Basically this means I'll sit at a desk for ninety minutes, and folks can come chat with me for a few minutes each and pitch me their book ideas. Then I get to swan around Palm Springs for a couple of days oohing and ah'ing at the architecture, listening to all the great speakers, meeting folks and being impressed at what I'm anticipating will be the generally high fashion level of the attendees. The event is a whole week long and absolutely jam-packed with impressive programming, so tickets are not cheap. So while I'm not going to presume to urge anyone to go -- if you do happen to be going maybe I'll see you there!

Career Day

I got to participate in one of JCYC's middle school Career Days last week and it was a truly inspirational experience. I talked to two sixth grade classes at Roosevelt Middle School about careers in book publishing and editorial (for those of you who don't know me personally: when I'm not running Open Studio or being an author and artist, I'm busy with my career as an art book editor at Chronicle Books) and man oh man were these kids on top of it! I haven't spent much time with middle school kids, and sixth graders pretty much still look like small children, right? But it turns out they've basically got the brains of teenagers. They asked the best questions! I was supposed to be there to inspire them, but I think they inspired me just as much if not more. If you're engaged in an interesting career in San Francisco, I would very much recommend reaching out to this great organization to participate in one of these wonderful activities.

Sweet Potato and Morning Glory

The sweet potato is related to the morning glory. This drawing is from a few years back and I'm honestly not entirely satisfied with it, but I do still absolutely love this as a science fact.

A Legacy of Ancient Oaks by Mark Frith

At Kew Gardens last month there was also this exquisite art show of supremely intricate graphite drawings of ancient oak trees by Mark Frith, presented in the relatively humble but very pleasing Shirley Sherwood Gallery (pictured just below). This is is a post where I'd recommend clicking the images up as large as they'll go (the drawings themselves are probably each about five feet across in life) to see the fineness of the details. Frith's pieces were simply the sort of artworks that stop you in your tracks, agape.

Color Poem #75

on valentines
day i gave in to
the temptation
of fun putting on
new jackie pink pants
and a strawberry teeshirt

S19!

Hooray! It's here! The day I get to show you everything I edited for Chronicle Book's Spring 2019 season. I love this day. Everything is so fresh and so pretty and I get to reflect on the amazing bunch of super talented authors and artists I was lucky enough to work with this time around. Here's what's here:

Feck Perfuction: Dangerous Ideas on the Business of Life by James Victore

Moon Notes 20 different notecards featuring photographs from the archives of NASA

All Hail the Queen: Twenty Women Who Ruled by Jennifer Orkin Lewis, written by Shweta Jha

Collect Moments Not Things: A Travel Journal by Sandrine Kerfante

Delicious Metropolis: The Desserts and Urban Scenes of Wayne Thiebaud

In Pursuit of Inspiration: Trust Your Instincts and Make More Art by Rae Dunn

Death Wins a Goldfish: Reflections from a Grim Reaper's Yearlong Sabbatical by Brian Rea

Just Because I'm Doodling Doesn't Mean I'm Not Working: Take Notes and Doodle in the Margins

The Future is Feminist: Radical, Funny, and Inspiring Writing by Women

Joy! Photographs of Life's Happiest Moments by Bruce Velick

Brian Eno: Visual Music by Christopher Scoats