08.07

Ice and Snow

Some pictures from a trip to Norther Wisconsin and Lake Michigan last winter. You can see a few water droplets on some of these pictures. It was raining a bit and snowing and super windy. I had to walk pretty far out onto the ice to get the pictures, picking my way very carefully. After snapping a few I put my foot right through some packed snow that wasn't as solid as I'd thought.

In addition to spectacular vegetable stands, just as in Lucerne and in Denmark, there is a great little museum in Bologna. It is of a very old world type: dimly lit, with finely carved display cases, a minimum of signage and a slightly odd combination of displays. The first few pictures are of some of the mineralogical and zoological exhibits, which were all put together without much apparent scientific order. The displays seemed more aesthetically arranged than anything else, with taxidermied fish placed next to large birds eggs and lumpy, otherworldly rock formations.It reminds one that the hard sciences of biological and geological toxonomy really do have their roots in the much softer impulse of the wealthy, globe trotting collector of cool stuff in the 18th and 19th century.





The second room was full of wax and ceramic anatomical models. First was a large number of models of babies in the womb, showing things as they were supposed to go and showing a large and extremely disturbing number of pathological contingencies, clearly for use in the educatation of delivery personnel. The worst ones really were so horrifying that I could barely look at them let alone photograph them. Second were more general anatomical models.






Lastly, there were a number of very curious wooden constructions that reminded me of sculpture by Louise Nevelson or Lee Bontecou. Poking around for an explanation it became clear that they were models of fortifications for small cities, presumably in the late middle ages or rennaissance era. There were a couple of more literal architectural models, but the wooden structures were great works of art in and of themselves.

Italy has awesome placemats

Below are a few drawings made while in Italy. The first is a drawing of a guy who was doing an interview with Paul. Paul was on his left, but he stared forward into the middle distance throughout the interview. The second image was drawn on a placemat at dinner the second night in Bologna. We somehow got into a conversation about characters (mostly of the superheroish variety) that we'd invented as kids. This last drawing was my take on Paul's Man-Bison. Please ask Kevin, next time you see him, when the first issue of the Vagabond comes out. It sounds awesome.
The last image is of Captain America napping in the dirt.

Naples

Just got back from trip to Bologna, Italy, for Bilbolbul. Am still sleeping on a weird schedule from the jet lag. After the festival Heather and I traveled around the country a bit. I fully intend to put a bunch of stuff up here from the trip, but to start here are some photographs I took from the train on the way into Naples:

Bilbolbul

Here's a card for a show I'm going to be putting up next week in Bologna, Italy, for the Bilbolbul Comics Festival. The show is in conjunction with Kevin Huizenga and Paul Hornschemeier and we're going to be doing a panel conversation on Saturday March 8 at 11:00 at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna. I'm putting up multiple originals from almost every book I've done, along with several painted covers and a few stand alone drawings, all of which show a lot of the cutting and pasting and general indecision that goes into the process I go through in putting comics together. If you happen to be in Italy next week, come by and take a look.

Some Drawings...

...I've done recently as gifts and thank yous and a few that I've done in anticipation of a show I'm doing with Paul Hornschemeier and Jeffrey Brown at Galerie Anne Barrault in Paris next summer.