It was a very long flight from Columbus to Minneapolis, and then from Minneapolis to Portland. The boredom was mitigated by the breathtaking view of what I believe are Mount Rainier and Mount Hood from the airplane window as we descended into Portland's airport...
My wife and I, very excited to be finally in Portland...
Two views of the headquarters for my publisher Tin House. This is actually a three story tin house in the northwest part of the city. It's quite a beautiful building...
On Wednesday, we spent a great deal of time with our boots on the ground, wandering the streets of Portland and getting a feel for the city. There are trees everywhere, and since it was fall, there was a constant tide of dead leaves flowing by our feet. We discovered this strange sight - a massive tree so old that its roots had actually grown up and around the fire hydrant, completely enveloping it...
Tin House and publicist Nanci McCloskey worked very hard to get one of my favorite illustrations, a piece showing Queequeg after his brush with death and miraculous "rebirth," on to the cover of Portland's free weekly paper The Portland Mercury. Everywhere I walked in the city I saw my own art staring back at me, larger than life, on the covers...
Me, pointing at my own art, and shouting "I own this MF!" on the streets of Portland...
Finally, after an early morning, a long day on airplanes, and a two mile walk, my wife and I arrived at the legendary Powell's Books. I had been hearing about this store for years and years and it is almost legendary, even in Ohio. I was quite excited to finally see the place for myself.
Walking up the stairs to Powell's Pearl Room, which would be the site for my gallery exhibit, reception, and book signing, I saw this little facsimile of my book cover on the wall. Things were starting to feel real...
I was not at all prepared for what greeted me at the top. 140 of my original illustrations hung in order along the walls of Powell's gallery space. It was almost overwhelming to see my art like this, all the pieces in context as part of a greater whole. I was deeply moved.
The span of art seemed really vast. Here is an image of my wife, in the center, to give some idea of the scale...
A self-portrait, proudly surrounded by art of my own making...
And a photo my wife took, showing even more of the work...
The next day, Thursday November 3, was to be a very very busy one. I had six events throughout the day, starting with a 9:20am conversation with Dave Miller, host of the Oregon Public Radio show Think Out Loud. This is us driving up to the Oregon Public Broadcasting building...
In the parking lot, walking in. Ahead of me, from left to right, are my wife, Desiree Andrews of Tin House who acted as our official escort for the entire trip and shared some very tasty food carts with us (more on that at the end) and Tin House publicist Nanci McCloskey who somehow wrestled all of these events all over the city into one logical itinerary. All with a smile, too!
I was so excited to be on the radio, and so thrilled that they had already prepared a nametag for me, that I took a photo of it. Which caused the man behind the counter to remark that in all his years, he had never seen anyone take a photo of a nametag. But here it is...
In the green room, nervous but getting ready to go on the air...
My editor at Tin House, Lee Montgomery, was planning an extravagant party for later in the evening that would involve floating fish and air-swimming sharks. Here is her car, looking like a rolling aquarium of death...
At 1:30 it was off to speak to a Professor Daniela Molnar's class of senior illustration students at the Pacific Northwest College of Art. This was a very fulfilling experience for me because I was able to distill my experiences into something a bit more succinct and really focus on the practice of illustration, what it means to me, and what experiences shaped that...
After a late lunch with many people from Tin House, Desiree and Nanci drove me to Portland's Literary Arts for something called Delve, a one hour conversation about Moby-Dick and my own art, hosted by Christopher Zinn with questions from a crowd of intimidatingly brilliant people. Here I am, just before the event, with Literary Arts executive director Andrew Proctor...
Delve is about to begin. That's me, gathering my thoughts, and seated to the right (oddly blurred) is Christopher Zinn...
Delve. I was initially intimidated by the entire event but Christopher Zinn was a very skillful conversationalist and things felt very natural and comfortable. We were able to discuss the project, the book, and several pieces of art in great detail...
Delve is done, and I have reached the halfway point. Three events down, three to go. Pausing a bit, here I am with, from left to right, Tin House's Nanci McCloskey and my wife...
On our way back up to the Pearl Room at Powell's, I was greeted by this cart very well-stocked with my book for the evening's events...
And then, surprise and shock! One of the great highlights of a trip that was full of them was meeting Portland's own Matt Kish. Matt is a journalist and writes for the Portland Business Journal. I don't often Google myself, but on the occasions I have, I have seen his name come up in link after link in the bylines to his articles. I've even seen his picture and wondered what he would be like. All my questions were answered because he showed up at the event and honestly, he turned out to be an incredibly cool guy. We had a great talk, shared a bit about our backgrounds (he is also originally from Ohio) and had some good laughs. I really liked this guy. Here we are, Matt Kish and Matt Kish, me holding his business card (which was a thrill to get)...
At the 6:30 gallery exhibit reception, I was only able to talk to two people before someone asked if I could sign their book. I sat down to get started and instantly a line began to form...
...which got longer...
...and snaked around the entire gallery!
Although I did get to sign a copy for Matt Kish too!
Finally Marci, Powell's gallery coordinator among other duties, was able to gracefully extract me from the line so that I could begin my 7:30pm book talk which I was able to give standing against the backdrop of my own art. Again, a deeply humbling and thoroughly moving experience for me...
Finally, after hours of drawing and literally dozens and dozens of books signed, it was time to head to the final event of the day. My editor had been planning something special for the party, and she did not disappoint in any way. The party was absolutely surreal, in a wonderful way. The band for the evening was three members of The Decemberists, a member or two of The King Charles Trio, and Peter Buck (from the now defunct R.E.M.) backing up the phenomenal John Wesley Stace. They put on an unblievable show, full of songs from Harding's excellent new album The Sound of His Own Voice and a few new ones like "Moby Book." Here they are...
There were drinks named in honor of Moby-Dick with descriptions using my own art...
The room was filled with floating fish...
As well as a lethal flying shark that flew all over the room...
During the band's brief intermission, I read from Moby-Dick, the ever-wonderful Chapter 10: A Bosom Friend...
The party was the perfect way to cap off the incredible day because I got to spend a lot of time with old friends and new. This is Debbie Jayne, who I first met through Tin House since she was handling all of the publicity for the book. She has since made the leap to freelancing but, better yet, she also runs an exceptional Etsy shop called Paper Jayne where she sells gorgeous handmade books and other paper goods...
After our whirlwind conversation in the book at Oregon Public Radio, it was great to be able to talk to Dave Miller without the pressure of being live on the air with station breaks looming...
I got to spend some time with Peter Buck as well, who was really down to earth and very cool. He had some very nice things to say about my book which was great to hear. This man was responsible for the soundtrack of my entire undergraduate college experience...
John Wesley Harding is every bit as mad and delightfully unhinged in person as he is on stage...
Finally, long after midnight, Tin House's Desiree piled my wife and I in the minivan and took us across the city. I stumbled in the dark a bit since I was starving and had consumed nothing but vodka for around 7 hours...
And we eventually made our way to an amazing cluster of food carts that Desiree knew about. We all sated ourselves on Limonata and fig, prosciutto, goat cheese and honey crepes...
And finally, a well deserved night of sleep. Portland is an incredible city, and my wife and are already looking forward to going back there. So much more happened that I didn't think to take pictures of, but I think this is enough for now. Next up, events in Columbus OH, Lexington KY and Dayton OH. Then a brief lull and it's back to New York, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia for the first time.
2 comments:
Peter Buck? What? Holy Shit!!! It's weird that I began reading this and listening to the new REM comp on NPR.
Yeah, Peter Buck! I was completely starstruck, but he was such a genuinely nice guy it was very easy to talk to. So weird, meeting one my heroes under these circumstances.
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