Ashley Mary

I found out about artist Ashley Mary through her collaboration with Nooworks (from which I purchased "Jogger Party" and "Dahlia Candy") and have recently very much enjoyed falling down the rabbit hole of buoyant colorful artwork.

Color Poem #117

the moon is cream
and the shadows
are charcoal

Business Books

I've had these three business books sitting on the shelf in my office at work for several months without getting around to reading any of them. If it were you, which one would you read?

Fashion Gals #5

I've been posting these 20 at a time, so here's where we arrive at 100. There are still just a more to come. Previous batches: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

One interesting thing I get to consider when drawing book covers on book covers is which book cover to draw. Many, if not most, books have more than one cover design -- be that just hardcover and paperback, or for older titles different covers over the years. I generally try and go with the most iconic, or the first edition, or sometimes the one I myself read and loved. Sometimes that's the cover on the copy of the book I'm using and sometimes it's not. Or sometimes, like with this one, I just go with the one that feels like it will be the most fun to draw. A solid background is interesting because all my painted surfaces both are and are not solid flat areas (because, on the one hand, I'm not much of a one for shading and shadows, but on the other hand I've got brush-strokes, so nothing is ever going to be truly solid). And the more typography the better, as far as I'm concerned -- because drawing typeset text is a super pleasing thing to do.

Sam Gilliam at the de Young

My favorite thing at the Soul of a Nation show at the de Young was this enormous piece by Sam Gilliam. In the 1960s, Gilliam started painting canvases without stretcher bars, draping his paintings into something more like sculptural objects, rather than flat rectangles on the wall. This one was enormous and insanely beautiful. I was shocked that I had never heard of this artist or seen his innovative work before. But then again, I was not so shocked after all -- Black artists having been shamefully omitted from the Modern Art cannon. Nevertheless my heart leapt getting to see it now.

Color Poem #116

the sky is clearly blue
fading to a lighter blue
then a lighter blue then
an almost yellow white
then to a pale pink and
finally to purpley gray
but what the hell color
is the water? pink and
blue and black at once

The Shack 15 Event

I had a great time last week being interviewed by Lucie Charkin at Shack 15 about How Time Is On Your Side. The event organizers had gathered a bunch of comfy chairs around a sofa where we sat, with a view of the Bay Lights out the big Ferry Building window behind us. And though the entirety of their gorgeous space is gigantic, they dimmed the lights in most of it, just leaving our area lit up, so the forty or so attendees could sit in cozy comfort for our chat. Lucie asked great questions and it was lovely to get to discuss the book's contents in detail, in person. The fine folks from Book Passage sold copies of the book afterwards and I signed them and, I believe, a good time was had by all.

Saturday with Mabel

In the apotheosis of a long-held dream of hers, we took the girl child got her ears pierced this weekend (see below). Afterwards she and I bought matching dresses at Nooworks. It was a good day.

Middlemarch

This is a drawing of the cover of the first edition of Middlemarch, rendered on a paper book cover I wrapped around a crummy old copy (that in no way resembles the first edition, except insofar as, like with all books, the words inside are the same) of Middlemarch. I wrote my graduate thesis on George Eliot and this remains one of my all-time favorite books.