Nothing is the same: What will happen

A lot of this comes from working as a librarian in a public library, really. The rest came from Portland. Maybe Brooklyn, in September, a bit. But mostly libraries and Portland.

See, in spite of how this illustration project, the book it became, and all the places I've been going to talk about the book, this really isn't the biggest part of my life. It kind of feels like it right now, and at times I feel like it's going to devour me completely. But ultimately, I spend the majority of my time either with my wife (during our 3 hour commute, after work, or in bed) or at my desk at my library. Those are still the things that shape my life the most. They were here long before the book, and they'll hopefully be here long after.

Oddly enough, there are parallels. I hope I can explain this in a way that make some sense, and is still interesting enough to read.

Public libraries are changing. Bookstores are changing. The book industry is changing. My job is changing. I can have any kind of opinion that I want, but ultimately the digital world is going to win. I've made no secret of my vast distaste for digital art. I've made no secret that I consider it cold, soulless, and ultimately just a product. Certainly I understand the need for it, especially in terms of label design and marketing where creating images quickly and efficiently lowers the overall cost and enhances profitability. But, and hopefully this will come as no surprise to anyone reading this, marketing, lowering overall costs and enhancing profitability just don't enter my mind at all when I am making art.

That sounds elitist. I guess maybe it is. I could tiptoe around this and pretend I'm just a nice guy, ho-hum, and this is just my opinion, but I have to cop to it. It probably is elitist, and I do judge this kind of thing. Harshly. Sorry. It's just not for me.

Still, I have to contend with it. I have to contend with it in my job, where we, as a library system, are moving toward a larger and larger digital collection and a smaller and smaller print collection. I have to contend with it in my personal life, where the books I value and seek out and treasure seem to drift out of print more and more quickly or seem to not matter more and more often. I have to somehow come to terms with the fact that so much of what has informed me, inspired me, and driven me is becoming, for lack of a better word, obsolete.

Wait. Let me re-write that. Not inherently obsolete. Obsolete in the eyes of a free market that values frictionless shopping, portability, and digital content over everything else.

You know, it's been an incredible honor to have a small but mighty publisher like Tin House lavish so much attention and care on creating a book of my art that simply could not exist as an eBook. This thing, Moby-Dick in Pictures, absolutely has to be held. One has to feel its weight, touch the pages, and see how every detail of the book is the final result of hard work and deep care. I am deeply humbled by that, and it hews so directly to what I personally treasure.

There is a part of me though that sometimes idly wonders if my own book will somehow be one of the last books. If, after what will certainly be a furiously overspent holiday season dominated by news of Kindle Fires and color Nooks and brand new iPads and so on that the book as a physical object will soon limp away for good.

Ha! All that is so dramatic, isn't it? Totally overwritten, I know. Forgive me. I usually draw, so getting the chance to be histrionic and write something this purple...well, I can't pass it by.

So, after this home-invasion by technology, where does what I want to do stand? I don't use any digital effects at all in my art. I draw it, I scan it, I may slightly alter the color balance so that the image on my computer more closely resembles the real art, and that's all. I have a lot of friends who make comics, some for a living, and it shocks and horrifies me how much digital crap they dump into the finished product. I mean, these people are brilliant artists, and instead of using a brush or a pen, they sketch something out on a tablet, drop it into PhotoShop, and start playing with "textures." And they get excited about it. It makes me angry. Art should be held. Art should be on walls. Art shouldn't just be JPGs.

There I go again. I can't seem to stop myself from being ludicrous and elitist.

Portland was transformative but challenging. Not in terms of the people, all of whom were wonderful, or in the way I was treated, which was with absolute kindness. It was transformative because of what I saw, the conversations I had, and what I learned. What may be one of the greatest strengths of this Moby-Dick project of mine is that it was conceived of and executed in total solitude, total obscurity, and absent from any real connection with any kind of art or literary scene. Yes, these illustrations absolutely show the influence of a lifetime, especially a childhood, of looking at images, but somewhere in the 80s or 90s that stopped. I simply stopped paying attention to what was popular or hip or dominant and began in some very real ways to cut off some of my contact with the rest of the world.

Looking back on that now, I can see that as being what was probably not the best way to deal with a lot of problems I was struggling with. But it is what it is.

Now that I have begun to get out into the world again, and to read magazines and to pay attention to books that are coming out RIGHT NOW and to talk to people who are making art and stories RIGHT NOW, I can see how much of an anomaly I am in danger of becoming. How obsolete I might really be.

Publishing this book has truly been one of the greatest experiences of my entire life. But I know how dangerous it can be to, in a sense, "get used to" this kind of thing. I may be lucky enough to publish again and to continue to share my art in books or galleries or journals. Or I may never have the chance to do this again. I know it's dangerous - lethal, really - to embark on some kind of creative endeavor because it's what I think people, or the market, or a publisher might want. I guess you're just a whore if you do that.

But in spite of all that, I actually am a bit tired. I am tired of looking backward. I am tired of feeling like all I do is drop lines into the past and pull something forth. I read and look at what people are doing now, and I am interested. There is good, and even great, work being created RIGHT NOW. I want...I need to look around me more. Not backward. Maybe not even forward. But all around.

I'm also a bit tired of other people's stories. I'm not sure what kind of a storyteller I am. I suspect I'm not very good. But I think it's in me. Somewhere. I still have no regrets. I don't for a second regret this Moby-Dick thing, nor do I at all regret doing the illustrations for Conrad's Heart of Darkness or Minichillo's The Snow Whale or Kloss's The Alligators of Abraham. Not at all. But when I'm done, and that will be soon, it's time to do something for me again.

So I can tell you what, for now at least, I absolutely won't be doing. I won't be illustrating another book. Not A Voyage to Arcturus, not The Worm Ouroboros, not anything. Someday, again, yes, definitely. But not now.

First, I am going to paint. I am going to paint about this whole experience with Moby-Dick and the book that came out of it and what it all meant. There is a chance I may be able to show these paintings in January, in Fargo, North Dakota of all places. It will be a series called "Leviathan" and will, I hope, be the most personal thing I've yet done.

Beyond that, I'm really not sure. I never forced it in the past though, and I won't do that now. Something will come, I am sure of it. And these "Leviathan" pieces are absolutely hammering at my skull to get out, so there is that to contend with. I think about what matters to me. I think about how so much of what I am seeing and reading now, how so much of what I saw and talked about in Portland, seemed to come from some very deep personal places for those creators. I sometimes feel like it's too easy for me to ignore that, to cover it up, to retreat into a world of fantasy that may be delightful and full of wonder but is as forgettable as a children's cartoon.

I'd like to do something about my wife, really. When I really sink those lines deep into my own brain, my own life as it is now, she is the one thing that really shapes me, fascinates me, inspires me, frightens me, and fills the world for me. She, however, is even more fiercely private than I am though, so something like that might never see the light of day on a blog or a gallery wall or in a book. But it would mean a great deal to me, and she has often given so much of herself for my own happiness that who knows. It would be her choice though.

So did this all make sense? Did you understand? I hope so. There will be work. There will be art. There will be books, of some kind, even if I have to self-publish. Just be patient, promise to try and work hard, and go ahead and let me have it if you think I'm falling short.

Soon now. "Leviathan." Thanks for reading.