Drawing Commissions 2019

It’s been a while, but I’m bringing it back (and this time it’ll be ongoing and not just for the holidays): I’m open for drawing commissions! Request custom drawings of anything you want!

Misaa, 2018.

In past years, portraits have been quite popular. As examples, here’s one I did for a friend from college of her, her husband, and their two Siberian cats; above is one of a requester’s dog-niece.

Power. Grace. Wisdom. Wonder, 2017.

Of course, I’m not limited to portraits, and feel free to get creative with your requests (which allows me to get creative too)! For instance, fellow artist, friend, and former mentor Robin Rios asked me to create a cartoon of her sculptures interacting, and this is what I came up with.

Safety Lights Are for Dudes, 2016.
(Sold at the Nasty Women Chicago Art Show with 100% of the sale going to
Planned Parenthood, 2017.)

All are graphite drawings on 70lb / 115gsm Acid-Free Canson Drawing Paper. For cartoons, an ink pen may be used as well. Each piece is signed on the back, and it will be mailed to you in a protective plastic sleeve.

Night Nurse, Scruffy-Looking Nerf Herder, Force, and AKA, 2015.
(All sold at LEXICON, 2016.)

Sound good? Good! Here’s how to proceed:

1. Email me your request, specifying the style you want. If your idea involves a real person, pet, etc., include good quality photos for reference.
2. I [hopefully] approve your request, and you pay via PayPal. (I also accept Chase QuickPay and Venmo.)
3. I create the drawing and mail it to you.

Gossamer series, 2008.

Looking forward to creating unique artworks for you!

And I’m here to remind you

Reunion 2019, Columbia University in the City of New York.

As the Starlight Celebration went on into the night and all milestone reunion years (every 5 years all the way up to ’49) danced under the benevolent gaze of Alma Mater, right after I took the photo above and descended from Low I found myself sitting on the Steps with my good friend Andrew (who, until reunion, I last hung out with 7 years ago in Beijing) and had a deep conversation about—literally—our mortality; love; loss; longing to leave a legacy and pass on our stories; how we’ve reached an age where we’ve made certain decisions we can’t ever come back from and must make peace with that; Andrew saying the question he asks himself now is “What do I want to get out of life?”, which I know will stick with me; how we don’t want certain feelings to ever fade away… all the good stuff, and it was so Columbia, and I loved it, and I love my friends I made here so much. He and I talked about how we don’t remember too much about what we learned in class (well for me I did internalize everything I learned freshman year, which is when I knocked out most of the Core, but after that… yeah sorry Columbia), but to us this place has always been and always will be about the people.

Honey, I'm home.
Columbia University, my 10-year reunion.

At my 5-year reunion it felt like I never left, like I had just come back from a long summer break. At 10 years though, enough time has passed to make it seem very, very strange. It’s all so familiar, yet—as I told Andrew—it feels dreamlike. Columbia, post-graduation, has always had a dreamlike quality to me, but when I wandered around campus that night I felt like a ghost. Like I was looking at everything through incorrect prescription contact lenses (which is highly probable). I lived here in another lifetime, something I did notice years back.

Who else from Columbia remembers the school-only
Facebook group from 2005 called "I had a crush on
Alexander Hamilton" because I did when I was 16.

And the next morning my throat was sore from scream-singing (while intermittently raising my wine cup) along to “You Oughta Know” which was inexplicably the last song the live band played.

"In lumine Tuo videbimus lumen."
Columbia Reunion during the Starlight Celebration portion of the night.

(But then there’s something so perfect about a crowd of dressed up Columbia alumni singing Alanis Morissette at the tops of our lungs at midnight.)

Using Riverside Church as a guide, spot Columbia, turquoise copper roof
Lego block oasis. Goodbye again. Miss all you nerds already.