A couple months ago I came across the soon-to-be-launched Uppercase Magazine. The cover immediately drew me in; it was credited to an illustrator by the name of Blanca Gómez. This promptly led me to her blog and etsy shop for more.

Monsieur, set of four prints - by Blanca Gómez

I couldn’t resist ordering a set of her prints. Can’t wait to get these hung up. She has such a wonderfully honed aesthetic and her work is simply delightful. I don’t think I ever actually say that word in real life, but it’s so fitting in this case. Delightful!

And incidentally, Uppercase looks like it will be amazing – anxiously awaiting the first copy!

The supply pantrySo I was recently recalling an old ’80s infomercial for a fabulous little kitchen appliance dubbed the SNAKMASTER. It was essentially a small electric sandwich grill that presses your creation into little triangular pockets.

I think they’re fairly commonplace now, but whoo boy, it seemed like a real innovation to me at the time. Somehow my brother and I must have convinced our mom to buy one. At least for a few years there it seemed like we were always sitting around after school, cookin’ up some sort of glorious (read: disgusting) pocket creation.

In memoriam, I present a Choose Your Own Sandwich sketch, featuring some of the ingredients that most dazzled my ten-year old tastebuds.

My fave combo probably would have been The Breakfast Pocket: 4 + 5 + 6 + 9 +2

Aside: I can’t even believe it, but the original infomercial is actually on youtube. Thank you, Internet!

This is a page from a little storybook I drew for my sweetheart. It stemmed from a lovely random morning conversation about something in the world we needed to take care of – view the whole set to find out what!

Parallel Universes

All sentiment aside, it was fun to make. I really, really like working in more of a sequential format and have been tossing around some petite book ideas for some time now. I still have the two burning Vertical Cities follow-ups burning up a significant portion of my right brain, though. We’ll see!

Le Ballon Rouge

Ahhh, this. It’s beautiful and you should watch it. It’s about childhood and balloons and Paris and colors and more. ‘Nuff said.

Directed by Albert Lamorisse in 1965. According to imdb, the only short film to win a non-short film Oscar, ever (it won Best Original Screenplay).

Svefn-g-englar

From fat cat’s site:
Director : Agust Jacobsson and Sigur Ros
Date : January 2001
This unforgettable and award-winning clip, conceived by and supervised by the band with direction by Agust Jacobsson features the Perlan special-needs theatre group acting out a simple but beautiful play about the elements.

Springtime in Austin

Things have felt especially sensory-spiked the past week — could be that it’s finally started raining again. That loamy, damp spring smell is always a bit of a high in and of itself. Incidentally, Demeter has a fragrance called “Wet Garden” that almost kinda approximates it (unfortunately the scent evaporates way too quickly, as [...]

Hot pink, an ode

Inside closed eyes lies the canvas for day & night dreams: pools of milky black offset by the ghosting of blood vessels, nerves, and other assorted arithmetic patterns that point to a greater natural language. Faintly purple bursts fade to strawberry whorls.
A fingerprint, a blot, a parade of sunspots.
Even entrenched in the neon faux-glory [...]