Drew this list of the 39 melachot (categories of work forbidden on Shabbat) for a friend! I will hopefully be appearing in a Shabbat zine in the near future. Get psyched for the Sabbath, yidn. If you’re interested in the history and interpretation of these, the Torah Tots breakdown is good for babies like me.
<3 jb
Check out these teenage sharks of punk, their new demo is up on bandcamp and they’re probably playing in a basement near you.
<3 jb
Drew this pigeon for a supporter of my fundraising efforts! I’ll be traveling for the next two weeks but feel free to send me emails about commissions or make donations while I’m on the road, I should have some email access and will definitely be catching up when I get back.
<3 jb
Another donation request painting, that I mailed out earlier this week! I included some process photos below…for this one I sketched the design onto computer paper and used a lightbox to transfer it to coldpress watercolor paper (to avoid too many pencil marks). I used Dr. Ph Martin’s liquid watercolors and a Faber-Castell pens on the finished product.
EDIT: here’s a slightly better final image…
I love the opportunity to foray into adorableness.
–jb
Drew up this piece today for someone who donated to my summer donation campaign. This actually wasn’t a request, it was just what I was feeling at the moment, but if you donate, you can request things! I refer you back to ye olde summer projects “I need some money real bad” drive, a few posts down.
Anyway, interspecies bud stacking is basically the salve my heart needs right now.
<3 jb
I was so excited when amazing Toronto-based illustrator Clara Bee Lavery asked if I wanted to do a portrait exchange with her, and even more excited to actually get the results in the mail! My portrait of Clara Bee is above, her portrait of me (as a sexy lumberjack, no less) is below! It’s kind of like we actually get to hang out…
This has been a good month for art–so many of my dear friends are gearing up for exciting summer projects and producing amazing pieces that will look so good hanging on your wall. If you have some cash left over after contributing to my donation drive, or you don’t really want to support my work but are looking for someone else to throw some bucks at, Elle Perez is producing beautiful photography and selling prints to pay their MFA position placeholder at Yale (YALE!). Also, photographer and printmaker Amy June Breesman is graduating and being thrust into the wide world and also making some gorgeous pieces that would look so good in your life.
Hope wherever you are is warm and sunny, and that we can collectively emerge like a 17 year cicada brood and fly into people’s hair.
<3 jb
Dear Internet Community,
Everyday I am grateful for you, for the inspiration, support, and friendships I have found in you. Here, especially, I feel that I am a part of a creative community, and I am overwhelmed by the incredible work that I have access to and humbled by the opportunities and love that I am given, in small and large ways. As tacky as it sounds, I am grateful for every reblog, for every like, for every enthusiastic comment. I am excited by every zine trade, every art exchange, every amazing project that my friends dream up and make happen, through these networks we have built.
This summer I have an incredible fellowship opportunity to travel to Poland to do research that will both help solidify my doctoral research and will hopefully result in a visual multimedia piece, that explores memory formation and self-making through image and data capture technologies in the context of Holocaust tourism. I also have the opportunity to collaborate with the talented and singular playwright MJ Kaufman on a graphic novel project that I am bursting with excitement about, based on one of MJ’s extraordinary plays. I hope to also continue work on “Love, The Furies” and to continue putting out zines including Doykeit and the new Long-Distance zine.
In addition to needing to sustain myself while I embark on these many projects during this very busy summer, I am also realizing that I will need to obtain access to a wide variety of equipment and resources that include everything from pens and paper to train tickets for trips to archives to (dream big) a more functional computer. Being a grad student isn’t a very high paying gig (and during a non-teaching summer, a non-paying gig), and I have been feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the financial and logistical burdens I expect this summer to represent.
This is not a Kickstarter or a similar funding platform because I can’t provide you with a final product–this is research and development, exploration and potential. I am asking, if you read Sassyfrass Circus in all its guises, if more zines and writing and comics and workshops and new directions from me sound exciting to you, to consider donating any small amount to help make this possible. If you have access to any non-monetary donations/suggestions/loans that might help, this would also be greatly appreciated. These would include, most urgently, use of a large-format flatbed scanner (will travel within reason), at-home photoshop access, and a remote shutter release for a Canon Rebel T3.
I have created a donations button that links to paypal, which you can find in the right hand column of this blog as well as at the bottom of this post. I will be offering small tokens of gratitude for folks who are able to support this project, detailed below (so please include your address and requests when you fill out the paypal form)! I will be accepting donations and sending out rewards until I leave for Poland at the end of June.
1-5$ donations will receive a heartfelt thank you and link.
5-10$ donations will receive a handwritten thank you note and a set of 5 postcards (pictured above!). Also, I will follow you on twitter (see Melissa Joan Hart’s kickstarter campaign).
$11-20 donations will receive a a thank you note, set of postcards and a copy of my zine Doykeit (or request a different zine).
21-30$ donations will receive a small original drawing (requests are fine!) and a very heartfelt thank you.
31-50$ donations will receive a small original watercolor painting (requests are great!).
I will also discuss larger commissions for interested parties!
Thank you so much,
<3 JB
Someone told me to draw a chorus line of dancing donuts:
Someone told me to draw “Mitt Romney as he who shall not be named from Harry Potter. Maybe drinking unicorn’s blood.”:
My roommate Matthew comments, “too political!”
My mother comments, “How about [you draw] Obama running back to school to learn how to run a country . . .”
Keepin’ it fair and balanced, people. Just kidding, smash the state.
Someone told me to draw a unicorn eating Malcolm Harris’s cigarettes:
Someone told me to draw “a gorgeous pic of a bearded lady”:
–jb
Yesterday evening while I was dozing off while watching Kids in the Hall and eating asparagus wrapped in surryano ham I came to the realization that I don’t want to stress out about finishing Sassyfrass Circus #8 before the Chicago Zinefest. Sorry suckers, no new zine.
However, as one of my last ditch attempts to finish said zine, I told people on the Internet that I would draw anything they asked me to. So I will be posting those on here in batches for your amusement and/or derision. Also I just watched that SNL sketch about how my generation is really into being Internet famous and remembered that I don’t actually have to do anything except post things on the Internet that get a lot of hits. Har har har.
Without further ado…
Someone asked me to draw a banana wearing sunglasses:
Someone asked me to draw a taco running:
Someone asked me to draw myself eating things with a favorite person:
I’ll post more of them later.
Cheers,
jb
