I have been on the road a bit lately. I visited the Gates Foundation in Seattle to open the exhibit,
Let Every Child Have a Name, and was at the
Western Washington SCBWI conference in Redmond to talk to - and draw with - children's book authors and illustrators, and to the
Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, to speak about measles during World Immunization Week. The first day home I visited the Berkeley Carroll School in Brooklyn and shared pictures and stories with first, second and third graders.
I have been fed and feted, seen such sights as the
gum wall in Seattle and the Emergency Control Room at the CDC, spent time with esteemed
Lions and
Mac Barnett, and admired the drawings of artists aged 5 to... well... it wouldn't have been polite to ask.
And
now, tomorrow I am off to India. My daughter, Olive and I will be
accompanying the Measles and Rubella Initiative and Unicef on a mission
to Uttar Pradesh to observe routine immunizations.
I have never been to India, but have wanted to go for ever. Mark Twain called it,
India! the land of dreams and romance, of fabulous wealth and
fabulous poverty, of splendor and rags, of palaces and hovels, of famine
and pestilence, of genii and giants and Aladdin lamps, of tigers and
elephants, the cobra and the jungle, the country of a hundred nations
and a hundred tongues, of a thousand religions and two million gods,
cradle of the human race, birthplace of human speech, mother of history,
grandmother of legend, great-grandmother of tradition... the one land that all men
desire to see, and having seen once, by even a glimpse, would not give
that glimpse for the shows of all the rest of the globe combined.
I
can't imagine all the things we'll see, but we'll be documenting with
camera and pencils, and I'll try to post some of it here, (and on
facebook and
twitter.)
I am thrilled to be collaborating with the Design Company, Whigby, on a series of Missed Connections greeting cards. Whigby, in the design team's own words, "is all about pattern and paper; eccentricity and authenticity;
cheap cheeriness with a dash of cheekiness; lovely uncoated recycled
broadsheets and perfect printing. Whigby adds to the pleasure of giving
and receiving. Whigby is about concealment and revealment. Whigby is
crisp, tailored, torn and tattered. Whigby is memorable, forgettable,
timeless and ephemeral. Whigby!
