My four Fridays

Friday 1.
I had a huge freelance project to finish. Illustrating a picture book for a sweet guy who wants to give wife a surprise gift, her story turned into a book. So when the first hour of Friday shows up I'm still printing it out onto special Kolo pages (with borderless printing turned on, edge to edge color thank you very much and thanks to Flash Rosenberg for showing me how to do this Kolo thang) and assembling it all into a presentation binder. 32 pages of last minute hysteria to finish. Hands hurting from so much digital painting. Jim cheering me on in an increasingly fainter voice. I finally wrapped the book at 3 am and fell asleep on Friday morning.

Friday 2.
Woke at 6:30, not refreshed. Waited for employee of the man who wanted me to illustrate the book to drive by and pick it up. SUV pulls up to my building. I walk out with package. Guy in vehicle takes package and hands me an envelope containing my check. Very spy feeling. But he is nice, says the whole office has been enjoying my progress reports (I sent PDFs of work to date), and great that I made the characters look like real people, namely the boss and his family. Not feeling sleepy, yet, I clean up huge cyclone both on dining room table and in my mac. Stagger to bed at some point.

Friday 3.
Woke at some hour in early afternoon. Am feeling it must be Sunday by now. But no, it is actually and really Friday. How can it still be f*gging Friday? I ask my dog. Silly question, for dogs, it is always Saturday. Check email. Client lets me know he is very happy with the book. Now hoping wife will like it. We both hope she will. Just before dinner I lay down for a nap...

Friday 4.
And it is still Friday when I wake up. I stagger with arms out and gaze at hands that are not drawing.

And then, unbelievably, finally, I had only one Saturday and a singular Sunday.
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On Saturday I went to the New York Public Library and heard a slide show and talk by William Low about becoming a digital illustrator after starting in oils and other traditional media. One of the many events that the lively, smart, and well-connected children's librarian Elizabeth Bird organizes for people who love children's books. I was familiar with Low's lovely, painterly, approach to illustration. It was great to see how he uses a Wacom digitizing tablet, photo reference, and his many years of training to create original art digitally. He told us that some of his students at FIT fail to transform the source material, they just apply an effect in photoshop and he can still see the copyright watermark on their bits and pieces. A real artist takes sources and reimagines them with the lighting, perspective, gesture, and mood that the illustration demands. Low has a Bronx accent mixed with Chinese. His parents ran a laundry. The drawings he did as a boy are astounding. Meticulously correct super heroes and space ships. At the same age I was still doing blob heads with stick arms and legs.

On Sunday I went to Books of Wonder, one of my favorite bookstores in the world, for a reading from the new fairy tale anthology for kids 8-12, Troll's Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales. Edited, natch, by Datlow and Windling. Delia Sherman, Ellen Kushner, and Holly Black read teasers from their stories. I bought a copy for my niece and two nephews. Planning, of course, to read it myself before sending it on. I am now more convinced than ever that I want to resume my efforts to write short fiction. There is something just so delightfully unfussy about a good short story. Concision. Brevitas. As Delia said, a 3,500 word story is a lot like writing a poem, every word has to count. They all read well, I just love that, authors reading to me, their own expressions given their signature phrasing. Then it was time to buy the book and get it signed. As I waited, lucky #13, as the line wound past the shelves of expensive "older" editions. It sort of horrified me how many of them I have read (almost all) and actually own (more than half). The man behind me on line, about my age, had the same thought at the same moment. He murmured that he'd recently realized you can't take the books with you. Yes, I replied, my father recently donated his collection of genetics books to the Cold Spring Harbor laboratory library. But who will want my collection of YA, picture books, poetry, and fairy tales? Hmmm.

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I finally catch up on email and gossip. As I suspected, Neil Gaiman is dating Amanda Palmer. Despite the fact I've never met him socially and am older and, OK, I'm married, I just sort of had a baseless crush on him...and the horror is that at his book readings or signings I see all these other middle aged women who doubtless have that same wee crush. There must be millions of us. And now we can all take that big sigh. Ooooh ungh. He's with a sexy 33 year old punk rock experimental artist who used to be a living statue and likes to pull her clothing off as often as possible for Arts sake. I went to a Ramones concert in the 80s, I wore fish net stockings in the late 60s, I went skinny dipping--in darkest night--during college in the 70s...but no, not even close. Lets face it, I'm practically the face of October in the Upper Westside Mom calendar. Except I have cool glasses. Take that Amanda Palmer, I have very cool glasses.

Photo, Art, Klezmer, Word

Yesterday was amazing.

First I went to Brooklyn and met Phillip Lopate. I am designing a poetry book for him and he wanted to show me the photographs and designs he loves. He has a voice rather like my fathers, who also grew-up working class in Brooklyn, and became a writer and professor... Lopate's home is full, naturally, of books, art, photos, and comfortable places to sit. He was gracious and well informed about design. This is no surprise given his passion and expertise in the arts but he is also married to a great book designer, Cheryl Cipriani. He spread out books of photographs (including ones he wrote introductions for) on his coffee table, we talked about why certain shots went better with what he was writing or didn't seem right even if they were great photos. He told me how much he loves a Bau Haus feel in design. We looked at some of his published books, ones where he loves the designs. I took snapshots of covers, photos, interior pages to help me see what compositions and typefaces he loves. I understand why he gravitates to photography on the covers of his books. For this project, he is drawn to the immediacy of people, images of people on the streets, going about their lives, urban scenes. Upstairs I was delighted to enter the room where he writes. It was an aerie with windows opening onto his quiet Brooklyn street and had a large desk properly facing some wall. It had the expected shelves of books, piles of papers, eye-catching posters, photos, and a row of tin soldiers marching across a mantelpiece. I borrowed a gigantic Jan Tschichold retrospective book that hefted like a plate of armor.

I brought samples of books I've designed, he told me how much he likes generous white space and I heartily agreed. I gave him a copy of my book of poems, The Elephant House. Since I designed my own book, it was a little less shameless than it sounds. He liked the design of it. I hope he finds a poem or two he enjoys, but I don't worry so much about that anymore. A book of poems is rather like a box of chocolates, people find the ones they like (or tell you they never eat any chocolate, give it to someone else). I didn't sign the book so he can donate it with no hesitation.

I left his place and just had time to look at beautiful Lafont frames on sale in a eyeglasses shop and then eat a croissant with an egg at a small cafe near the subway station. The coffee was good, the croissant heaven. I rarely eat bread or any gluten products anymore. Oh god it was good. I could ode to its flaky buttery heaven...

Then I took the train to the Village and met Deborah Atherton at the Manhattan Theatre Source near NYU. We had been invited to attend a reading and discussion of The Witches of Lublin a radio play by Ellen Kushner, Elizabeth Schwartz & Yale Strom with music composed or arranged by Yale Strom. This is a radio play with klezmer! It was wonderful to be transported to 1797 Poland with three Jewish women musicians! The play feels like a fairy tale or legend (a delightful invention) and yet it is also true to history. The actors gave a moving performance. We didn't have a full musical component, Yale played only one instrument with abbreviated songs. But I got the feel of it. I really look forward to hearing it once it is done. The discussion afterwards delivered many suggestions, some brilliant and excellent, it will be interesting to hear which ones the creative team decides to use. Ellen was her usual buoyant self, she has such energy, wit, and passion for theatre. For anything she does. I love her novels, I am now a fan of all things theatrical that she brings her talents to. I was able to introduce the story teller and author Diane Wolkstein, whom I took a class from many years ago, to Deborah. Deborah, in addition to being a novelist and short story writer, has written book and lyrics for opera and musical theatre.

After the discussion, Deborah was ready to head home and I took the opportunity to go to a free PEN panel, Leaps and Bounds, Fits and Starts: The Evolution of a Children’s Book Writer, with Neil Gaiman, Mariken Jongman, and Shaun Tan; moderated by Andrea Davis Pinkney. I am a fan of Gaiman and Tan's work, I buy their books and enjoy their thinking about the creative process. I don't know Mariken Jongman's books. But I knew of Andrea from years ago when I did paste-up for Dial Books. She and her husband, the illustrator Brian Pinkney, would stop by the office. She was a very young lovely woman then and everyone knew she was going places. She is a self-assured publishing executive now. I also recognized Arthur Levine, from my Dial days, when he sat in front of me, he is the publisher of Shaun's American editions.

The discussion was just what I love. Davis Pinkney did a good job moderating. Tan was asked what books he read as a child and said his mother, who wasn't literary but wanted her sons to be literate, had taken Animal Farm out of the library, thinking it was for kids, and the boys had loved the weirdness of the story, the inconclusive ending, the dark fates of some characters, and not until college had he recognized it was political satire. He went on to say that the boring sameness of the suburbs he grew up in became a character to be explored as an adult. That he came to celebrate the weirdness under the surface.

Gaiman talked about mining nightmares for material in his Sandman decade of writing. And once his semi-conscious writers mind started saying mid-nighmare "cool, I can USE that bit about the dead killer baby!" the beings that supply nightmares gave up! Also said that as an adult, when someone loves a book they may read it every few years but when a child loves a book the parent is reading it to them 3 or 4 times a day! And I can relate to that. He memorized some bad stories his kids adored and was determined to write books for children which adults could enjoy too.

The third panelist, Jongman, did her best despite not being fluent in English and I think I must read some of her work, in translation. She seems smart and fun.

I sketched Neil and Tan. Sat next to an 8th grade English teacher named Lisa. She bought the graphic novel version of Coraline, thought it would interest her class, they don't read much...Will add the sketches to this post once I hook-up scanner. Old scanner won't work on new laptop... Neil had to leave a bit early to catch a plane. I was able to go up right after and give Tan a copy of the poetry book I designed with his student art on the cover. Levine was there and looked and said it was cool. I (re)introduced myself to him. Had a brief chance to say hi to Shaun and fill him in on my illustrating gigs. He commented I was just like him, get the go ahead to do an ambitious project and THEN figure out how to do it! I waited on line and had him sign my copy of his latest book Tales of Outer Suburbia. He also added his autograph and a pencil sketch to my sketch of him that I did while he talked on the panel. Hopefully I'll get to see him at another convention at some point.

It was a fine day.

Interstitial serindipity

It was my triboro day.

MANHATTAN, Upper West Side: It was wonderful to be in a room full of creative, accomplished, fascinating, and decidedly unconventional people discussing ways to enlarge the reach of an organization dedicated to works and artists that fall between genres. We introduced ourselves as puppeteers, editors, readers, poets, graphic novelists, translators, performers, novelists, film makers, educators, sculptors...who each do at least three other creative things. We sat in a book-lined living room--Edwardian flavor--with a view of park, piano, and walls and tables filled with art. So many of us said we had been told to do only one thing! If nothing else, we applauded our right to engage outside labels. I loved that group energy, there ought to be a name for that creative fusion. Half networking, half synergy. Creative Units? Whatever it is, it makes me want to grab paper to draw and write.

I was there because I ran into Ellen Kushner at AWP and she introduced me to Lawrence Schimel. Between us we had Irish tea, beer, halvah, and mashed potatoes as we discussed the oddness of presenting our works at both literary and fantasy/scifi conventions. A seemingly uncrossable divide. No so, said Ellen... she told me about her organization and invited me (and my friend Deborah Atherton) to come to a tea at her and Delia's home (as in Delia Sherman) and be part of a brain storming session for the Interstital Arts Foundation which she and Delia helped found a few years ago.

Deborah and I walked to Broadway, on our ways home, and agreed we felt like we fit right in. Deborah is a perfect example of a multi-talented, cross-genre artist, she's a literary short story writer, librettist (one opera was based on her science fiction novel another on Mary Shelley--with monster as a thematic character), novelist, co-author of an upcoming non-fiction book on creativity, writing coach, occasional tarot card reader, and a grants writer. She and I have been in River Writers, our writing workshop, since it was founded.

QUEENS, Rego Park: Before the tea, I had been to a baby shower for Glenn Mathes and Ryoko in Queens. I even got to wave hello to Jayme Adelson-Goldstein and Jane Spigarelli, authors of several books I designed for Oxford U. Press, because they video called Glenn (one of their editors) and watched Glenn and Ryoko open gifts. I blew kisses to California. Ryoko had hands drawn on her belly. A nice touch. Jayme and Jane held their hands out as if they could touch her and mini-man within. I also ate carmelized bacon. Who knew you could do that to bacon? It was salty and sweet and crunched like a crème brûlée.

BROOKLYN, Borough Hall: In the morning, I'd had my first pilates session with poet/editor/pilates instructor Barbara Elovic. After the workout, as I waited for my body to stop feeling like limp pasta, we talked about feminism, poetry, and the oddness that muscles have both greek and roman names. She gave me a copy of To Genesis, a poetry book she part of, four poets exploring old testament stories. Like Poets' Grimm, the old tales make a great framework to explore current lives and beliefs.

I felt as if I had traveled everywhere, my pedometer logged nearly 10,000 steps. And as promised, today I am not sore from the pilates workout.