My "Subway Stores" in German Zine Show

Last year about this time, on a whim, I submitted a zine I'd offered for free on this blog (there was only one taker, eheu, who never sent me an address) to a zine exhibit open call at D21 Kunstraum in Leipzig, Germany.  The self-assembled, limited-edition zine, "Subway Stories," featured some of my iPhone drawings, with minimal text, though the images created something of an associative narrative.  I never heard anything back from the exhibit, "Thank You for Sharing," figured they were not interested and chalked it all up to experience. Last week, while cleaning up one of my email inboxes, I came across a mention of the show, and decided I would write the curator, Regine Ehleiter, just to find out if she had ever received my submission.  Things do sometimes get lost in the mail.

Lo and behold, not only had she received it, but the little zine was accepted and appeared in the May 2010 exhibit!  I never received an email or the acceptance letter, but these things happen. Ms. Ehleiter also told me that it was also listed in the printed documentation that the organizers finally finished last week (p. 37), and it will be mentioned in the publication at left, Thank You For Sharing, which will be released on Friday, January 21, 2011, at MZIN in Leipzig.  Ms. Ehleiter also kindly sent a link to pictures of the exhibition on Flickr, and to an article that appeared on their website, which listed my zine among the many others.  Although it appears that there won't be any more zine events at D21 Kunstraum, the zine collection, along with the display units developed by the four Leipzig designers, may travel to other sites in Germany and Europe. It would be great if they came to the US as well; perhaps a store/exhibition space like Printed Matter (a wonderful arts institution which I've never had even the slightest luck getting a response from) might be persuaded to partner with Ms. Ehleiter's organization. Perhaps someone (other than me!) could mention it to them.

Nevertheless, I was delighted by the news; I have never set foot in Germany, but I can now say that something I created has. Now, to "Subway Stories #2"....

End of the Quarter + 3 Moleskin Drawings

So much to say but so little time to say it. The quarter is finally over, grades are in, and it is time to thank my students for a great fall. The two classes were a lot of work, but as always I learned as much, more perhaps, as I taught.  One of the joys of teaching a literature course, especially one that you do not teach every year, is reconnecting with the texts in it, and I particularly love any opportunity to teach courses in which I can include work from across genres.

In my African-American literature class, we did read poetry, fiction, plays, essays and talks, and theoretical and critical texts, and we also listened to some music and watched three films to enrich the conversation.  And a conversation it was. I had never before taught Aimé Cesaire's poetry, so it was a new addition, as was the poetry of Bob Kaufman, Stephen Jonas, Ted Joans, Nikki Giovanni, and Carolyn Rodgers.  One new element of the class that I'd never tried before, but which appeared to work well and really engage the students was to have them create or expand Wikipedia pages, using original research, on topics related to the class. This resulted in several new pages and some expanded ones.

In my graduate fiction writing class, it was fascinating and encouraging to see about half the students submitting novel chapters or beginning them, and I hope they all will complete a draft if they can, not only for the experience of writing a novel, but to have something to revise so that they might ultimately be able to publish it. I also took a thematic tack with the readings, which I structured under the rubric of "Writing(s) on the Edge," and we read texts that thematically (for the most part) dealt with limits, barriers and boundaries of various sorts. I returned to assigning a novel for the final text for the term, after several years of critical works, and the students all finished Lionel Shriver's 400+ page, disturbing but unforgettable novel We Need to Talk About Kevin, after having read short stories by Lorrie Moore, Chimananda Ngozi Adiche, Anthony Doerr, and others. They all had purchased the American addition, which included a postscript describing the ordeal Shriver went through to publish the book, whose success utterly reinvigorated her career.  For anyone interested in hearing Shriver discuss the book and her work in general, this 2009 BBC World Book Club podcast is a fine introduction.

Now it's only a few weeks to prepare for the new quarter (which starts January 4) and the MLA conference, continue with my own writing projects, catch up on sleep and emails, and try to read the 10 or so books I've had to put off for the last three months.

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While scanning in texts for the upcoming quarter, I found myself scrolling through my notebooks for specific material for one of the courses, and came across the following Moleskine notebook that, I realized, I'd taken with me to Cuba.  Over the last year I've mostly turned to my iPhone and iPad for drawing, but on this trip, I saw that I had done a bit of sketching, so I scanned in these three pages (one of which was from a later event, the Fire & Ink III: Cotillion conference in Austin, Texas) which included bit of artwork.

I'm most interested in the coffee plantation plan I drew at the top of the right page. I had forgotten about that, but then remembered that my motivation for drawing the layout was because I'd written a story in which I was trying to visualize a Caribbean coffee plantation, and wasn't sure about the spatial layout, though I'd envisioned it pretty close to what it looked like. This map nevertheless allowed me to correct my misimpressions.

One of the museums we visited was the Museum of Literacy.  Images of Fidel Castro, as I need not tell anyone, can be found all over Cuba, but I liked one of the photos of him participating in the literacy campaign, which was one of the Revolution's first post-victory successes, so I drew him in an iconic pose, which he has repeated countless times at rallies throughout the years. The gentleman beneath him is Conrado Benítez, a "mártir de alfabetización," who died at the hands of anti-literacy forces.

This drawing is of a young man who was at the Austin conference. The text surrounding it comprises notes from one of the panels  which, I think, scholar Jafari Sinclaire Allen headed up.  I told him I'd drawn him, but I did not get his name, and so am/was unable to send the drawing to him. Perhaps he'll see this, though it really may not look that much like him, meaning he wouldn't recognize himself in it. Or maybe he might....

Recent iPhone Drawings

As I mentioned a month or so ago, I'd been trying out the iPad C'd gifted to me, and was enthralled with using the AnimatorHD software on it to create animations, but I've also used it to draw as well. I have not ceased drawing, especially life drawing, with my iPhone, however, and continue my subway portraits and outdoor sketches whenever I can.

One of the things I've been trying is different styles, colors, line thicknesses, to see what I can come up with. My very first drawings were pretty much all line, then I moved to full-color ones, and since this past spring I've moved into grayscale images, but one of the cool aspects of the digital pieces is that I can save them and rework them in different formats, so that my original black-and-white drawing of poet Bob Perelman from earlier this spring became a color portrait without being completely redone (though it did take some effort).

Below are a few of the many sketches I've done over the last month or so; I keep thinking that I may have to return to taking the El on days when I'm not so pressed for time in order to keep my practice up. Enjoy!

Update + Recent Drawings

The steamrolling weeks continue, but there have been some highpoints. (I also want to acknowledge the passing of pioneers Lena Horne and Dorothy Height, two strong, smart, beautiful, visionary black women whose courage, determination and grace have made so very much possible for all who follow in their footsteps.)

On Wednesday, Nathalie Stephens/Nathanael, whom I'd seen read last Saturday at Las Manos Gallery's Uncalled-For Reading Series (photos coming!), with Kareem Khubchandani (a grad student at the university, working with the brilliant E. Patrick Johnson), and Trish Bendix, came to speak to my class about her remarkable recent book, Absence Where As: Claude Cahun and the Unopened Book (Nightboat Books, 2009), which was revelatory in so many ways. Then, right after class concluded, I went to M. Nourbese Philip's reading, which was sponsored by the university's Poetry and Poetics Working Group and the Humanities Center. She read/performed--quite extraordinarily, I testify--from her recent work, Zong! (as told to her by Setaey Adamu Boateng) (UPNE, 2008), which I believe the UniVerse of Poetry and Chicago Public Radio audiotaped, meaning that it will be available very soon, I hope. On Thursday afternoon, she participated in a conversation sponsored and attended by members (students, faculty) of the Poetry and Poetics Working Group and scholars from outside the university.  It was as Barbara Tucker sang: I got lifted.

Amidst everything else, I've been trying to funnel my artistic yearnings into something productive, which has meant a bit of sketching whenever I can. Below are some very recent drawings. A certain developer I know very well (Mr. C-thank you!) passed on a first generation iPad, so I've been trying that out too, though I haven't figured out if the iPhone drawing app I like, Sketchbook, is fully functional, especially with layers. I'll post some of those soon.  Miriam asked in a previous comment whether I completed these all at once, and I'd say that I usually finish the monochrome ones fairly quickly, but with the full-color ones I tend to get as much done as I can the first pass through, then I return to work with them a bit more. I also tried a few different styles this time through, as will be evident. The fastest drawing of this group is the one of Gerard Cadava (a colleague in history), at his father's talk. I was taking notes assiduously, so as soon as I found a lull of sorts, I sketched him, then returned to my note-taking. The base pen tool color was blue, so that's what I went with. The two black-and-white drawings are the first I've ever done in one pass, while standing (I was waiting in line at a restaurant, so I drew people standing right near me). And then there are the drawings of the artists: Cristina (I haven't shown this to her yet), Chris Ware, and Anders Nilsen. If I can get the latter two figures email addresses, I think I'll forward them directly.


Drawing from today

Drawing from today

Gerardo Cadava

Cristina Henríquez

Chris Ware (did you ever wonder what he looked like?)

Anders Nilsen