posted: May 9, 2012

I got an assignment from Outside magazine to illustrate an article about the recent spate of bear attacks at Yellowstone National Park.  The article, titled "Are Hungry Bears in yellowstone Attacking Humans for Food?" is pretty riveting, with detailed accounts from victims of the attacks.   Below are some of the sketches and a detail.   I was working with the idea of a bear destroying what would otherwise have been a beautiful hike through the woods.  Thanks to Hannah McCaughey for the assignment.

posted: May 1, 2012

It has been 12 years since I've been to Cuba to see my family and hometown.  I will be headed back soon with my father.   Since the last time I visited, my grandparents have passed away and many kids have been born.  I've been asked to be the godfather to two of them, which I wll be meeting for the first time.  They're now about 12 or 13 years old.

It's always quite emotional to go back to Cuba, to be confronted with what my life could have been if my family had stayed.   I spend most of my time catching up with my childhood friends and documenting my visit with photographs and sketches.  I feel there are so many stories to tell.

Today is May 1st, the day, 32 years ago in 1980, that my family landed in Key West, Florida, after having left the island.  There had been desperate attempts to leave before the events marking May Day, and we made it.  But that's a long story for another day.  
My first visit back to Cuba was in 1993, thirteen years after we had left.   I had taken about 30 rolls of film when I was in Cuba, traveling from town to town, much of the time while riding a sidecar on my friend's motorcycle.  When I came back, I felt that I needed to put something down on paper.  I was 22 years old, a senior in college, working as a designer for the newspaper at Pratt Institute.  I had never written a newspaper article, but was compelled to to so.   I wrote an article titled "7 days in Havana" for my school paper, which was accompanied by my photographs.   Below are some of the pages from the newspaper, along with a selection of my photographs from the trip.   I'll probably post the full article at a later time.

posted: April 24, 2012

These are some of my illustrations from the past year that were selected for this year's Communication Arts Annual, which is currently on the newsstands.   The first is a portrait of Rick Perry for Mother Jones magazine.   Thanks to Carolyn Perot and Tim Luddy for the assignment.  The layout is below.

In the books category, this cover for Random House/Doubleday was selected.   The art director on this assignment was Emily Mahon.

This last one was for The Washington Post, on the topic of America's "enhanced interrogation" techniques, such as waterboarding.  Art director - Kristin Lenz

And a note on an illustration published today on The New York Times Op-Ed page.   This is for a story about how Israel should take new steps to restart the peace process with the Palestinians.   Full story here.

posted: March 30, 2012

This is a new painting for an upcoming book from Thames and Hudson titled "Questions and Answers".  It features interviews with a number of artists, their work, and a new piece based on one word.  I was given the word "heaven", which gave me a lot to think about. 

I had no clear direction on where to go, and just began painting and making marks on paper.  Flowers started appearing and then the idea of a beaded curtain emerged as I worked.  I liked the idea of a person being welcomed into heaven and walking through a curtain of lush flowers on their way in.  I cut apart the various pieces and brought them together into the final painting.  

As I worked on this I was reminded of the time when I was with my father in Cordoba, Spain.  It was his first trip to the country and we were walking through "La Mesquita", a very large church in the center of town which at one point in history had been an important mosque.  Within the Arabic architecture there are a number of highly decorated Catholic chapels, with sculptures of saints, realistic paintings of heaven, etc.  I pointed out that Arabic decoration doesn't show any people, that heaven and things of that sort are usually depicted by natural elements such as flowers.  He thought that was such a moving idea.  Having grown up Catholic, this was like an epiphany to him.  I wanted to capture some of those ideas in this painting.

Thanks to Ana Benaroya for putting the project together and for asking me to take part.