INVISIBLE CITIES: Leonia

The 40th of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities and my fourteenth overall, Leonia. You can see the entire series of illustrations so far, which includes work from my collaborators Leighton Connor and Joe Kuth, at our tumblr Seeing Calvino.

"Nobody wonders where, each day, they carry their load of refuse. Outside the city, surely; but each year the city expands, and the street cleaners have to fall farther back. The bulk of the outflow increases and the piles rise higher, become stratified, extend over a wider perimeter. Besides, the more Leonia’s talent for making new materials excels, the more the rubbish improves in quality, resists time, the elements, fermentations, combustions. A fortress of indestructible leftovers surrounds Leonia, dominating it on every side, like a chain of mountains."

10 inches by 8 inches
acrylic paint and ink on watercolor paper
December 29, 2014