3 Friends Agree to Make Up After a Fight
Fountain Pen and white-out on paper, 2025. 21” x 15”
My WFMU t-shirt is live
I've been a huge fan and listener of Jersey City radio station WFMU for 30 years. They're a free-form, nonprofit radio station playing all kinds of eclectic music—totally up to the DJ currently on duty. I've heard amazing things there over the years. about 6 months ago they used my tugboat drawing on stickers for donors to their pledge drive, along with a sweatshirt. Today they just released a new one - my Freeform Fluid letters.
Fountain Pen drawings
I bound a sketchbook that's just for fountain pens. It's different paper than I normally draw on, and the drawings are much different than what I make in my sketchbooks with watercolor paper for pages. Fountain pens force me to loosen up which is important for me. The drawings are non-erasable, fast, and don't allow me to perseverate over every little line. I also get to feel close to my dad when I use this particular pen, one he gave me from his cherished collection.
Images for New Artist Book
Kayrock is in the process of printing a 16 page fake firecracker label book of mine. This is a sneak peak at some of the images.
3 color silkscreen, edition of 200, hand bound.
New Prints!
I was so lucky to work with the amazing printers at Powerhouse Arts in Gowanus, Brooklyn last week. We created two editions of fake firecracker labels printed with extra-large color dots using four screens (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black). The original Chinese firecracker labels I fell in love with in the 1980s have a very similar look, and these prints really bring back that nostalgic feeling for me. There are 25 prints in each edition, and each print measures 16” x 20” on 250 gram, 100% cotton rag acid free paper. Each is $350 or $600 for both.
Oopsie Daisy Diver
I’ve made thousands of these quick, human-form-based, “non-thinking” drawings with fountain pens for decades. It’s such a pleasure to feel the pen glide across the page. I though it might be fun to try adding simple animations to them….here’s the first one.
Burn Book 3 video
I added a bunch of “drawings” since I scanned the whole dang burn book - but here’s a video walk-through with some explaining about how each page came to look the way it does. The video also has several “making-of” action shots. Email me if you’re interested in buying or showing this.
Helsinki Design Week
A handful of my fireworks were on display at the Helsinki design fair in Finland earlier this month
Sexy Trunks
I had the pleasure of spending some time with the sexy trunks of a Caucasian Elm and a Japanese Zelkova (both members of the elm family: Ulmaceae) at the always amazing Brooklyn Botanic Garden last weekend 🌳
nature finds nurture
I drew this map of my old neighborhood as a kind of case study of my own childhood, with each house and name representing someone who crossed my path growing up. Importantly, this is 100% from memory - the map, the relationships and types of people I’m depicting.
I wanted to think about which kids influenced me and which did not + why. Most “friends” I had before I got a bike and was able to go wherever I wanted were there simply because they lived nearby. Some drifted off because our personalities just didn’t mesh. Some were scary as hell (usually older kids) which made an impact on me and is probably why I remember those kids more than the nice/boring ones. Mean can be exciting! But a couple of them really clicked with me, especially the ones who were a little “mysterious.” That’s the vibe I gravitated toward, and I think I was drawn to those people because we shared something in our nature (often an interest in fireworks or other risky behaviors).
Looking back, I can see how just being around these people influenced how I thought about things and I my have influenced them too. The chart at the bottom sorts everybody by the different qualities I noticed, like “nice,” “mean,” “boring,” or “exciting”.
