New Drawings at Post Script

Just a quick note to let you know we've refreshed the assortment of my original drawings for sale at the adorable shop Post Script here in SF. All of the above are for sale should you want them!

Color Poem #115

when they put the
red with the pink
and the gold with
the yellow and the
forest with the mint
you think you know
what’s coming with
the blue but you are
wrong with the blue
you get brown and
a tiny band of coral



image source is here

Shack 15

I'm speaking tonight at Shack 15. This is a new social venue, tucked away on the upper floor of the Ferry Building, and it is gorgeous. The windows alone would be worth the price of admission -- especially since this evening's event is free! You do have to register to attend, though, by 2pm today, right here. The event is from 6:30-8:30 and it's going to be grand. I'll be interviewed by the inimitable Lucie Charkin about time and art and How Time is On Your Side, and there will be books for sale. Hope you can join us!

Fashion Gals #4

It occurs to me that perhaps it is a tad excessive to post all 100+ of my early-90s fashion gals here. But then it occurs to me that I don't really care. I like having this site (in an era when, to hear the pundits tell it "no one blogs anymore") not only as a daily update but also as an archive of all sorts of stuff that I can look back on in a thorough manner whenever I please. Plus, when you get right down to it, I'm a bit of a fan of excess. As these drawings themselves suggest, maximalism has always appealed to me for more than minimalism. So here we go. Batch 4 (of perhaps 6). Previous batches: 1, 2, and 3.

A Suitable Boy

I drew the cover of Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy onto a paper book-cover that I'd fashioned onto a used copy of Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy. This is so fun to do.

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963 - 1983 at the de Young

Yesterday I went and saw the show Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963 - 1983 at the de Young and it was fantastic. Featuring a wide range of art in a wide range of media, made almost entirely by Black artists in response to the Black Power movement of the 60s and 70s, a good deal of it in the Bay Area, the show celebrated artists whose names you might know (Betye Saar, Pirkle Jones, Faith Ringgold) and introduced lesser-known practitioners who made remarkable things in this era. 

For instance, the painting above was one of my favorites. Emma Amos' "Eva the Babysitter" from 1973. Amos, the wall text informs us, was the only woman artist in the important Spiral Group. As such she faced sexist expectations around who would handle domestic and child-rearing responsibilities -- to which she responded by foregrounding the woman, her child-care provider, whose "labor enabled her own artistic practice."

And here are more of the great many things I saw and liked:

Betye Saar

Betye Saar

Charles White

Charles White

Marie Jonhson Calloway

Raymond Saunders

Joe Overstreet

Carolyn Lawrence

Emma Amos

Alice Neel's portrait of Faith Ringgold

Faith Ringgold

Barbara Chase-Riboud

Barkley Hendricks

Noah Purifoy

Noah Purifoy

Phillip Lindsay Mason

Gerald Williams

Reginald Gammon

William T. Williams

Wadsworth Jarrell

Phillip Lindsay Mason

Kay Brown

Barkley Hedricks

Sam Gilliam

Richard Mayhew

Richard Mayhew

Phillip Lindsay Mason

Norman Lewis

Frank Bowling

Charles Alston

Barkley Hendricks

Ming Smith

Ed Clark

Sam Gilliam

Romare Bearden

Bob Thompson

Pirkle Jones