a new point of view
where I'm going somewhere I've never been, and leaving my baggage behind
When I began writing this newsletter, I imagined it serving as a sort of a journal, or news page, where I could let anyone interested know what’s going on in my orbit. I would write about new books, new drawings, book signings, and so on. I also imagined it as a place where I could think big thoughts — about illustration, or writing, or life in general — and write about them.
Today’s issue sort begins as the former, because I have two pieces of news I want to share. And as I write about these two things, I realize that it sort of lands on the latter. I see a theme. Something these two things have in common, which is important to me right now.
First, the news.
I have a new literary agent. A week ago, I signed on with Jennifer Rofé and the Andrea Brown Literary Agency to represent me and my work in the big bad world of children’s publishing. I’m over the moon about this, and about the potential that working with Jen represents. She’s smart, she obviously has good taste1, and it’s already clear to me in the short time we’ve worked together that she’s incisive, seeing through the foggy edges to what’s vital, there in the middle. This is, certainly, important in trusting someone like an agent to find the right home for one’s stories and illustrations. It’s also necessary for negotiating terms and contracts for those projects with a clear eye and a firm handshake. And for me, especially at the beginning of this relationship, I like it for helping me make sense of the piles of drawings and book ideas that I’m carrying around right now, not sure what the best direction is to start moving in order to get where I want to go.
As an artist, I fall in love with everything, all the time.
Look at this clever sentence I wrote, isn’t it special? I think it could be a novel.
Hey, you want to see a cool drawing of a truck? I’m making a hundred of them for a picture book idea!
Picking out which ideas and what sentences and the best drawings to use to reach some particular goal is, to me, like trying to choose things to toss out from the boxes in my basement. I kept all this stuff because I am emotionally attached to all of it. As Jen and I discuss what to put on the ABLA website, and how to update the portfolio on my own website, and where to put this creative energy for the next six months, I appreciate the voice that can cut out the bullshit and tell me what works and what doesn’t. It’s a new set of eyes, a new sensibility, and a new voice, and one that I already trust.
More news.
Next Wednesday I’m heading to London! I’m taking part in an artist’s workshop residency called The London Collage Project, put together by Contemporary Collage Magazine where, along with a fifteen other artists, I’ll be spending seven days in a Hackney Wick studio cutting and gluing and painting2.
As you know, collage has become a really important side-hustle for me. It hasn’t appeared in my illustration or publishing work, yet. But the process of planning a collage and the limitations induced by its methods and materials have informed the “regular” work that I do with pencils, pen and ink, and the iPad. I spent much of the fall surrounded by cut paper and glue as I made new pieces and prepared for my show at Chapter House cafe and gallery but I hadn’t touched an X-acto or opened up my bins of magazines and paper until this last Tuesday, when I made the three collages I’m showing here. These will be going with me to London, where I’ll be swapping collages with the other artists in the residency.
I’ll be keeping a journal of some kind, both written and illustrated, and I’ll publish some of it here. Expect Random Orbit to become somewhat of a travel log for the next few weeks.
Big thoughts
The thread that ties these two bits of news together is illustrated by a constraint that was sent out as a sort of rule for the workshop.
From the organizers:3
The week-long residency has a very simple concept. Each artist arrives in London without any collage materials. Your challenge is to spend a week creating collage only with materials found or sourced in London.
The most valuable thing to a collage artist is the enormous pile of crap that serves as materials for one’s work. Typically, this pile has been collected and curated over years, and in many ways defines the look, texture, and color of an artist’s work. Behind me here in my studio, I have a large shelf that holds about 20 bins full of scraps of paper, book, old postcards, photographs, maps, magazines, and postage stamps.
This stuff is valuable to me. But it can also be an albatross. I find myself going to the same old issues of Life magazine from the 1960s, and the same comics, and maps, to find the parts that make up my insects and fish and robots. This constraint dispenses with that. Come to this new place to make art, and use only what you can find here. I love it. In fact, I tacked three days on to my trip in front of the workshop to walk through London’s flea markets and old bookshops, as well as just keep an eye out for “trash” on the sidewalk, as I look for a new London-specific pile of stuff to use.
Similarly, I’m trying to work the same way with my new agent, Jen. I’ll be honest. The search for and signing with a new agent wasn’t remotely as difficult and traumatic for me as the decision to leave the old one. I’d been with the same agent for 21 years, since I began working in children’s books, and much of my career and success was facilitated, and in many ways defined, by being represented by him. I had a hard time imagining making new books and writing new stories without that familiar voice and eye that for so long I had relied upon. When I told him I felt it was time to leave, he wrote that he understood, and he felt that maybe a fresh perspective would be good. As a writer and illustrator, I knew exactly what he meant. He meant a different eye, and voice, to help see through the fog, sort through things, and move forward.
As a collage artist, what I read was that it’s a good time to leave that beloved giant pile of ephemera behind, to open my eyes, and make something new.
I spent an hour last night going through all of my favorite pens, picking out which would make the trip to London with me. Yes, it’s a collage workshop but don’t think I won’t be drawing, every single day. As I considered fountain pens and uni-balls and fineliners, I started playing. This always happens.
Cat content:
Do you know about “Cat YouTube?” Sacha is showing Cat YouTube to Basil here. He can’t get enough, though he finds it very frustrating when the bird leaves the boundaries of the iphone and is not underneath, or behind, or over there.
Thanks for reading. See you on the other side (of the ocean!)
Obvious because, duh, she wanted to represent me. But also because she represents quite a talented stable of writers and artists, including Dev Petty and Jacob Souva, who were both a big help in getting me to this point.
It’s going to be like the best part of your favorite summer camp, for a week. And in London.
The organizers are two collage heroes of mine: Cecil Touchon, and Les Jones of Contemporary Collage Magazine.
"As an artist, I fall in love with everything, all the time." - never has a statement rang so true. Those that think in the linear don't understand why everything has a meaning and can't be tossed out and forgotten. Eyes of an artist, heart of a poet: the mundane can create music in our soul.
Congratulations on getting a new agent! I know exactly what you mean. It's hard to weed out your ideas when you feel a connection with them and can see the potential in each one. Having someone in your corner who can help you separate the wheat from the chaff is everything. And I love the bit about constraints, too. That's a big part of my focus these days.