Lynda Barry!!

 

 

 

 

CaTh

 

One of my favorite artists of all time. Not only is her stuff aesthetically appealing to me, but she’s also a very smart and thoughtful artist as well. Her interest in narrative and semi-somewhat autobiography makes her important to me especially.  Vice interview:

” Do you think people can really be taught how to write?

I don’t think anyone needs to be taught how to write. They just need to be reminded that they already know how to tell stories in the same way they know how to use their thumbs and fingers. The class is about what people already know how to do but most have abandoned, kind of like the way I abandoned my best ways of working to try to write a book on a computer.” 

Her illustrated book “Cruddy” came out in 1999. The original manuscript was all hand-painted in ink, though the published version replaces this with type, but painted images are still an integral part of the book. It seems to me to be one of the most unusual books I’ve seen in a long time. Her combination of text and imagery is almost always effortless and effective. I’m always trying to get to where she’s at.