Sophie Johnson
portraits of people I admire
Oct 2 – Jan 9 (100 days)
http://sophielucidojohnson.com
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January 9
One hundred days ago, I did not know Zoe Boekbinder. My friend Willa (December 29) and her partner Josh mentioned that this cool local musician was doing a project where you committed to making a piece of art or a creation of some kind for one hundred days in a row. I thought that sounded like a fun challenge, so I e-mailed this stranger and asked to be included. Since then, Zoe has taught me a lot. For one thing, her own personal daily creation challenge was to WRITE A SONG EVERY DAY for 100 days. And she did that! She finished yesterday. Can you believe that? She wrote a song every day for 100 days in a row. I can’t even imagine. She took a picture of herself yesterday, recording the final song. Her face is expressing everything I am feeling right now, finishing my 100th drawing: kind of utter disbelief that the work is done. It was perfect that she took that picture, because I needed someone really special to complete my project, and Zoe has actually changed my life in the last 100 days. I woke up every day and listened to her song of the day, and while listening, drew my portrait of the day. She didn’t know that she was holding my hand through the process, but I couldn’t have done it without her.
Now I’m going to be selfish for a little while and write about me. Bear with me, please.
I haven’t told many people this, but drawing portraits terrified me before I started doing it every day. It was the scariest drawing assignment I could imagine. I did not think I would be able to get the eyes right, or (worse), the noses. All my drawings before October 2, 2013 of people have no faces. Seriously: I have dozens and dozens of drawings of just faceless people in billowing clothes (I feel VERY comfortable drawing clothes). I think it’s because faces are so expressive, and it’s so easy to get them wrong. Now I have this newfound knowledge that it’s OK if you get them wrong! The point is not to get the face exactly right, it’s to draw the thing that you SEE. What is amazing and beautiful about visual art is that it gives us an opportunity to see the world in the way the artist does. We learn about each others’ unique human experience that way. Walking through a museum, I feel inspired by the idea that all people walk around in worlds that are completely distinct but simultaneously shared. The overlap is tremendously powerful.
I also started thinking a lot about the qualities of people I admire. What struck me, over and over again, was that there are so many amazing people — alive and remembered, male and female, of all different backgrounds and belief systems and walks of life — who so totally embody the quality I MOST admire in humankind: our capacity to love. Everyone on this page proves, in one way or another, that there is a definite human commitment to love. It could mean love of an art form, or of a group of people, or of a single person, or of an animal, or of a self. Just look at all these people! Isn’t it cool how many people have woken up in the morning throughout the history of time and decided to LIVE?
Of course, these 100 people don’t even scratch the surface of those I admire. I recommend making a list of your own. You quickly get a sense of how vast and amazing the world is, and it dizzies you, and it helps. It can be easy to forget all the people worth celebrating.
I am endlessly grateful to Zoe — an incredible, loving artist in her own right — for bringing artists together to stretch themselves for 100 days. It was definitely one of the coolest projects I’ve ever been lucky enough to be a part of. I’m looking forward to see what this powerful, talented, beautiful woman does in the future.
January 8
January 7
Once, in Washington, DC for an Air Sex show, I was on stage with Vanessa Gonzalez (yes, I’m just trying to brag, don’t call me out on it), and some guy got up there and said something really dumb and really racist. We all imagine what we’ll say in moments like that: how we will stand up for what we believe in; how we will do the right thing. But when moments like those actually come up, we generally get clammy and nervous, and ultimately, we fumble. But not Vanessa. Vanessa came back at this guy with the kind of zinger-comeback that comedy television writers DREAM of writing, and the whole room erupted in cheers. It was the coolest thing I could imagine anyone doing, and Vanessa did it nonchalantly, like it was no big deal. When I mentioned it after the show, Vanessa just said, “Yeah, people can be dumb.” It’s crazy that a person who is so naturally gifted and freaky-brilliant can be as modest about it as Vanessa is, but you never hear her bragging. Somehow, she moves through her life with the poise and grace of a ballet dancer — but she’s ACTUALLY an improviser and actress with seemingly no fear at all. She’s the best brand of comedian: she makes you laugh until you pee, and her work can be dark and unapologetic enough to really get you to think, too. Whenever I have a chance to see Vanessa perform, I jump on it, because knowing Vanessa Gonzalez is on the ticket is about as close as you can get to a guarantee that you are going to see the kind of show you will never forget: smart, funny, and bold as fuck.
January 6
Chris and Barry are the coolest relatives. They are the relatives that I want to call sometimes to ask about love life advice. They are the ones who I always wish that I could invite to my birthday parties. I would tell them if I ever did drugs. (I don’t do drugs. Yet. But when I do them, if I do them, I’m going to tell my uncles, probably immediately. And seek advice.) They are amazing men, both of them. One, Barry (on the left — this picture is a little mislabeled, like a movie poster), is one of the most respected city planners in the country. One, Chris (right), is a brilliant musician — like, he can sing and play anything on the piano you could imagine. They are both heavily involved in their local politics. They both are active participants in many friend groups (their friends are super, super cool too). They both just TRAVELED THE WORLD (I’m not kidding — like, the entire world) in two weeks or so. But the main reason I admire them is that their relationship with each other and with their respective (and shared) families is unlike anything I have ever seen. They are so totally and whole-spiritedly loving. The REASON I think they’re the coolest relatives is because they are constantly, constantly reaching out and communicating and wanting to be a part of my life. It’s not just my life, either: it’s everyone’s. I kid you not when I say that everyone feels this way about Chris and Barry. They have the most generous spirits there are. They have hearts totally swollen with love, and it manifests itself in everyone around them. Most of all, with each other. Their partnership is a beautiful thing. Their wedding was the first one I ever really GOT. You know? Like, I watched it, and I understood why people get married. They get married because of love. Because love is this real thing that grows inside you, and fills your whole heart. I didn’t understand that until I saw Chris and Barry commit to each other because I had never seen love like that before. Their love overflows, and fills everyone around them with joy.
January 5
I think a lot about women in comedy. The comedy sphere is not always an easy world for a lady, and sometimes you kind of have to make your own way, deliberately, and sometimes in the dark. Tami Nelson did just that when she and her husband Chris Trew opened their own comedy outfit called The New Movement, which changed the lives of more people than I can name. The New Movement is a very unique network of comedy theaters. It does more than train people in improv and host great sketch and stand-up shows; it kind of grows families. If you were to sign up to take improv classes at The New Movement, you’d likely spend your first two levels of training with Tami, who embodies everything great about TNM. She’s loving and encouraging, and she makes everyone feel like a rockstar. It’s an amazing ability, unrivaled by any other improv teacher I’ve ever had. You want to do well for her, because she sings successes with a fresh voice and an addictive spirit. Everyone wants to please her. Beyond being the kind of teacher (and PERSON) who just brings people together naturally, she’s also the kind of COMEDIAN that I’ve always wished I could be. She’s spontaneous and spirited in improv — on stage, she’s a force to be reckoned with. She takes on unique projects that she believes in. She finds the soft spot between comedy and theatre that makes the sort of performance experience that you feel throughout your entire body. It’s hard to describe, but you’d know it if you saw it: basically everyone I’ve taken to see improv at TNM when Tami is on stage singles her out in their recollection: “Who WAS that person? She was amazing.” She is. She’s one-of-a-kind, and a personal hero to many.
January 4
In 2008, on a very, very rainy day, I went to meet the woman who was going to essentially be my boos. She was smoking outside (which was relief, because at the time I was a very heavy smoker, and knew no one else in the Teach for America do-gooder world who smoked), and she had this look about her that was simultaneously tiny and very fierce. That was Jayda McGough (now Jayda Cook), and the there isn’t space on the Internet for me to describe everything she ended up teaching me. She was a loving, devoted teacher, who fought tooth-and-nail for her students, no matter what. As a teacher, she, more than anyone I’ve met in the New Orleans school system, was really ONLY concerned with the rights of children. All of them. Everywhere. She was an especially amazing advocate for students with special needs, and she taught me to be, too. Once, I was secretly considering quitting my job. I was on a bus to get on a plane to visit home, and I didn’t have a return ticket. But Jayda happened to call while I was on the bus. Hearing her talk with such passion and drive about the rights of her (our) students put everything into perspective for me. I would not still be teaching today if it weren’t for her. Meanwhile, she went ahead and found a loving husband, and they had the two cutest twins ever, and recently welcomed a third. She is filled with the kind of love and fire that makes everything good happen in the world. (Oh yeah, and we both quit smoking. Because we’re SUCH do-gooders, after all.)
January 3
Matt is one of the hardest working comedians in the business, and as a result, he’s one of the most gratifying to watch. I admire him because of his tremendous devotion to his craft, but also because he doesn’t let himself be a one-trick pony. (Is that still a thing people say?) In the short time I’ve spent with him in person, I have gotten to know a brilliant thinker, writer, and performer. He is insanely well-read (which he probably doesn’t brag about much, because it’s kind of uncool to be a braggart in the stand-up world.) He’s helped put together two really amazing web series , and he goes out of his way to help his friends (his Facebook wall is a constant stream of kind endorsements of all the people Matt loves and believes in the most.) Matt is this really unusual combination of freaky hard-working, genuinely brilliant-and-talented, unnecessarily modest, and deeply kind-spirited that I have not found in anyone else in the world yet. He gives me a lot of hope for the future of humanity. Is that a lot of pressure for Matt? I HOPE SO.
January 2
I still remember seeing Cecile perform for the first time and thinking, “OH MY GOD WHO IS THAT.” I feel like everyone thinks that when they meet her. She is the kind of dynamic performer you’d expect to see in films or on Broadway, so that when she comes out on stage in New Orleans the whole world turns to watch her. But she has more than on-stage charisma: she’s also freaky-smart (the improv duo she performs with alongside Chris Kaminstein, Machine A, is hands-down the best improv act I’ve ever seen, in any city, ever), and a really really nice person. I have never heard anyone say anything bad about this person. She is genuine and not-gossipy and personable. She developed an show at the New Movement (the south’s best comedy theatre) that uniquely blends scripted theatre, acting, improv, and music, in such a way that audiences have to scrape their jaws off the floor after seeing it. It’s totally unoriginal for me to admire Cecile Monteyne. She almost doesn’t need a paragraph, because her fan base is swollen and nationally abundant. But still, for those late to the party, keep your eyes out for this girl. She is going places.
January 1
It’s hard not to admire my Aunt Susie. I just spent winter break with her, and she reminded me a lot of what she taught me while I was growing up. She has cerebral palsy, which affects her only insofar as it makes other people in the world look at her a little differently. In all areas of her life, she has shown that she can do anything she wants to do. My mom likes to tell the story of how doctors told Susie’s parents that she would never be able to walk, but they took Susie to the beach again and again, where she was safe to fall, and eventually, she defied everyone’s expectations and was not only walking, but maintaining a job as a cashier at Safeway. My aunt is also REALLY good at the Internet. She plays games all day long in chat room game atmospheres, where no one knows what she looks like, or that in person they might treat her differently. She makes these very loving friends online, who are loyal to Susie (they send her pictures of cats, because, obviously). She is a force to be reckoned with on Words With Friends. She can read lips and spell huge words and hold her own in conversation. She is the person I am most grateful to have had in my life, because she’s AMAZING: funny, beautiful, warm-spirited, and totally unique.
December 31
I chose to draw this picture of Susan (holding her grandson Cormac, whom I also admire), because it says a lot about the kind of person she is. She is EXTREMELY attentive and deeply loving toward everyone in her life. You feel a little guilty having a conversation with Susan, because she listens like a therapist, and asks all the right follow-up questions, so before you know it, you’ve talked at her for an hour straight, just about yourself, and your life, and your dreams and desires, and you feel like a better person for it, but you have not asked any questions to SUSAN. Which is a shame, because if you DO ask Susan questions, she has great answers; she is an exquisite storyteller, always pulling out the loveliest and most emotional details, making you hang on every one of her words. But she doesn’t flaunt that; she’s composed and demure most of the time: exactly the person you would want at any party, social gathering, or family function. I am fortunate, because Susan is at most of the parties, social gatherings, and family functions I go to (she’s in my family, so that’s lucky). When I go to them, everyone is always trying to be the one who gets to stand by or sit by Susan, because that’s the place to stand or sit. Also, you should know, Susan is a crazy-good cook. There’s no other way to say it. I would literally kill someone have a slice of her berry cobbler. I know that sounds rash, but you haven’t tried this cobbler.
December 30
This is my dad. My dad is a genius. I know you might think that is very sweet of me to say, and that every daughter thinks that of her father, but my dad is actually a genius. When people ask me what my dad does, I say, “he is a professor and he writes books about Darwin and Plato and stuff.” And then people get quiet because that’s a very intimidating job description. When I was young, I watched my dad deliver a lecture called, “Why Be Virtuous?” to a room of people who worshipped him. And then, when I was older, I sat through some of his classes and watched kids worship my dad again, hanging on his every word. He likes to sit at the dinner table and ask challenging questions. In Greece he asked us, “What is the meaning of meaning?” That infuriated me. These questions infuriate me in general. But it’s hard not to admire the people who infuriate you — because he wants people to talk about difficult things; he is interested in the great philosophical challenges in the brain. Only recently did I realize that my father is less interested in answers than he is in questions. I always thought there were right answers to all his quandaries, but there aren’t. He just wants to ASK. He wants to challenge. He believes that makes people smarter. And, I have to admit, so do I.
December 29
I met Willa Conway this year. At first, I thought it was possible that Willa was going to be Just Another Cool Person that I met, who I would like from afar, and admire the cool glasses of. But very quickly, Willa became MUCH MORE THAN THAT. She very diligently texted me with more regularity and promptness than most people you just meet, and eventually, we got to actually hang out. When I started to actually hang out, I started to realize what a special human being Willa was. Willa is deeply interested in how the mind works, and how the heart works, and how humans connect. She is thoughtful. She thinks about and reads about and talks about and writes about: race, racism, privilege, gender, sex, women and men, love, aging, relationships, the human mind. She is crazy about James Baldwin. Crazy about him. She is careful. She is constantly digging and reading and doing everything she can to make informed, thoughtful, loving choices. When I am around Willa, I get the sense that I am growing as a human being. It is possible that no other human beings have ever really made me feel that the way she does. She is a light in any darkness. She is a flower from the sidewalk.
December 28
Kim Neer is an unstoppable force in the universe. She has done everything and can do everything, and most of all, listens to her own very creative and well-intentioned heart, all the time. In the years I’ve known her, Kim has empowered women through yoga, taught very young children, taught slightly older children, gone to grad school, moved around, lived in Chile, choreographed beautiful dances, mastered karaoke, written scads of poems, and cared for people coming to the ends of their lives. I’m glad I ended on that one, because it has a word in it that very closely matches what is deepest in Kim’s heart: CARE. She has lots of best friends. Kim is a caretaker of everyone in her life: she makes everyone feel loved, wanted, beautiful, special. She goes out of her way to always make everyone in her life know that they are taken care of, and in effect, the people in Kim’s life would unanimously go to the ends of the earth for her. I have never felt more sure that at the end of my life, a person I am not related to will be there, alongside me. Kim keeps her friends for life; her entire person is full of the deepest, most profound love.
December 27
I have personally always been afraid to jump off bridges. I don’t mean that literally of course: I mean that I fear making big, scary, life-changing decisions. I fear change, even when I am unhappy. I think, “Maybe the tide will shift; I’m going to stay put, because it is safer.” Kyle Sheehan, on the other hand, does scary, amazing things all the time. He consistently says “yes” to life, and never settles for Just Good Enough. He went to a big, scary graduate school a ridiculously young age; he dropped everything and rode his bike across the country; then he picked up his life and moved to New Orleans, because it felt like the right thing to do at the time. If there is anything in your life you ever wanted to learn because it seemed cool — graphic design, web coding, bike repair, podcast-making, filmmaking, guitar playing, LITERALLY ANYTHING LIKE THAT — Kyle can do it, and is great at it, because when HE got to the part in his life when he thought, “That would be kind of a cool thing to learn,” he actually learned how to do the thing. He has read all the great books and seen all the great movies and been all the great places, and he is still always, always striving to do more and be better and live life to the fullest. But the greatest thing about Kyle is his boundless loyalty and deep capacity for love. He holds on to his friends for his entire life, because his heart is big and has lots and lots of space for all the people he meets. It is a rare and true gift to know this person; and if you are lucky enough to, you will necessarily know that he will be your friend through thick and thin.
December 26
You walk into a room that is the most perfect room you have ever seen. It’s built of olive wood, and full of stacks of beautiful, time-worn books, and only the most elegant, French-looking cream-and-black furniture. You walk into the bedroom and it has exactly the kind of bed you always described when describing your dream house as a kid: cushiony, feathery, huge, lots of white pillows. There’s a porch and an accordion, and you just know the person who lives there is an amazing, brilliant artist who you want to know intimately. That room belongs to Ariana Rampy, and you’re right, you want to know her intimately. She is a genius among men; her ideas lend color to the black and white. She keeps her friends close, and they would die for her: she has the same best friends now that she had when she was a kid, because she is fiercely loyal and lives to love. She is also a very talented actress, writer, thinker, breather. She is the person you want on all your adventures. I can’t explain why, exactly; it’s a jena se qua that’s hard to put into words. Trust me: Ariana Rampy is a truly special woman. She breathes new life into dirt.
December 25
Ben is the person list as an emergency contact, even if you don’t know him that well, because you know that if something bad happens, Ben will always be there, and he will always be exactly the person you WANT to have there. When I met him in high school, I could not have imagined what an incredible force in the world he would turn out to be — but I think that at times I had glimpses of it, even then, because Ben really didn’t go through one of the phases where he wasn’t jaw-scrapingly smart. The amount that this man has his shit together would make anyone jealous: he just finished grad school with an advanced degree in engineering, and he has a nice, cushy job that will lead to other nice, cushy jobs, doing work he genuinely believes in. But most importantly, Ben is a man of loyalty and of love. His deep love and respect for his parents is unparalleled: in the decade-plus I have known him, he’s never said a single mean thing about either of them. And he loves his girlfriend Jen with all his heart; their partnership makes even the sourest cynics believe in love. Ben has it all because he has always been honest, and has worked hard, and has consistently listened to his heart and his conscience. Anyone who knows him is very, very lucky.
December 24
Paris is my favorite person in all of the world. When we met, she was a biter: she bit police officers, other kids, her siblings, her parents, and me — she really didn’t discriminate. She threw these huge tantrums which resulted in broken computers and smashed book cases. She was all of five years old. To understand the trauma Paris has gone through in her life is impossible, and so I won’t spend time telling her story here. Instead, I will tell you that this little girl picked up all her own pieces, figured out her own passions, and turned into the most talented and creative visual artist I know (her giant paintings of abstract representations of different feelings have filled every room I’ve worked in or lived in since we met; they’re breathtaking and invaluable). She’s funny and astute; she’s surprisingly caring and very, very smart. Sometimes I’m having a bad day, and I call Paris, and she is the singular person in the universe who can always, always turn it around for me. I look up to her resilience; her unyielding fight against all that is wrong with the world. Now she is nine. Someday she will be 25, and by that time, I just know that the rest of the world will know her name, too. She is that special.
December 23
Some people suck it up, put on a suit, and enter into the world of adulthood as an adult. Charles Lewis refused to do that. He has fought the “adulthood” thing tooth and nail, probably since the first time he was ever asked to grow up, and I couldn’t admire him more for it. There are some people who, in rejecting adulthood, party til all hours of the morning and eat chocolate cereal while watching marathons of “Adventure Time,” which they facilitate by moving back in with their parents. Charles Lewis does all of those things, except he DIDN’T move back in with his parents — rather, he has a full-time job, where he works every day to make the world a better place for the technical kids in it (he’s a teacher). He pays rent, cleans his house, and washes his dishes. But he also owns his own Laser Tag gun, is best friends with the karaoke guru at Lost Love Lounge, and is the residing Dungeon Master over a hardcore DND campaign. I wish Charles would run for president of the world: he, more than perhaps anyone I know, understands the necessary balance between seriousness and fun; the love that must infuse all you do in order to truly change the world for the better.
December 22
December 21
December 20
December 19
December 18
December 17
December 16
December 15
December 14
December 13
December 12
December 11
December 10
December 9
December 8
December 7
December 6
SINCEREST APOLOGIES! I’m in Greece until December 16, and there is NO SCANNER! I promise I’ll catch up.
December 5
December 4
December 3
December 2
December 1
November 30
November 29
November 28
November 27
November 26
When I first met Aminisha, I was intimidated. She was unbelievably beautiful, like she had just walked out of a magazine, and very forthright. We were supposed to collaborate on a reading lesson — she was a theater arts teaching artist, and I was a second grade teacher. I had no idea how this was supposed to work, as I had never collaborated with an artist before, but I wanted to impress Aminisha. Within the first ten minutes it was evident that Aminisha was NOT impressed. “You seem uncomfortable. Maybe the plan isn’t going to work out like this,” she said. Or something like that. And I promptly started to CRY, because all I wanted in the world was for this woman to like me. Here’s the thing about Aminisha, though: you can’t really fake your way into being liked by her. She sees through dishonesty like a lie-detecting TSA body scanning machine.
As time went on, Aminisha and I DID start to work together, and I learned that she is extraordinary outside what is immediately apparent. She’s gifted. She’s an incredible actress, an amazing teaching, and a beautiful presence in any room. But that is not what is really special about Aminisha. She is perhaps the most open person I have ever met. You have a conversation with her and you know she is really listening to you, considering what you have to say. She is constantly thinking about what she should do to be a better human on earth. Almost everything I’ve ever written that I am proud of has come from a long conversation with Aminisha. She is a loving friend. She is self-loving. She asks difficult questions; she tries to find the answers. This is a person who stretches people around her and challenges them to be better. She has impacted more people of more varying walks of life than anyone I have ever met. She crosses into every part of every Venn Diagram and makes herself at home, and then reports back to the other parts. She is a peacemaker, a creative spirit, a cheerleader, a loving friend.
I have never met anyone who has anything bad to say about Aminisha, which is a testament to all I am saying. All you can ask of a person is that they try their best in life. They try their best to love; they try their best to stay open-minded; they try their best to seek truth; they try their best to fight for justice. Aminisha does that all the time, even when it is difficult. She is a role model and a guiding light to everyone she touches.
November 25
November 24
November 23
November 22
November 21
If I had to have one of those “WW” bracelets, I would go with the classic “WWJD” — but it would stand for “What Would Jordan (Flaherty) Do?” Jordan exemplifies everything I believe in: he consistently fights for what he believes in; he embarks on adventure after adventure, no matter how scary the adventure might be to the everyday average citizen. He somehow has the time to go to amazing places, write ground-shaking books, and meet all the most intelligent and glamorous people in the universe. Here is a person who is so completely alive that he his lived a thousand lives already, and he still seems to have the curiosity and celebration-driven spirit of a kid.
Yesterday, Jordan posted on his Facebook that he had just lost his job at Al Jazeera America (for doing the right thing, in case you were wondering — he posted a complete, unedited comprehensive analysis of Project ROSE online. The piece, at least in part here, is brilliant, unbiased, and important). At the end of the post, Jordan wrote, “Though my time at Al Jazeera has ended, my dedication to this work continues. I’m excited to keep pursuing these stories, through different outlets. And I wish my former colleagues the best as they navigate a challenging situation.” It continues to stun me how classy and badass Jordan is in the face of all the ugliness of the world. All day after I read this post, I thought, “If Jordan can continue to fight, I can too.” It echoed through my brain as I turned every corner, reverberated in the car when I closed the door, and continues to resonate as I write this now. Thanks, Jordan. I just know you are about to do something even bigger.
November 20
November 19
November 18
November 17
November 16
November 15
November 14
Everyone needs great teachers. I have had lots. It’s difficult for me to put into words my love, admiration, and gratitude for Jean Carwile Masteller, because she has been so much more than a great teacher to me. She has an uncanny ability to treat great books and poems like so many treasure chests. She talks about the writers of early America with the fervor of a mathematician who has been working on the most complicated proof: she takes words apart and treats them with the seriousness and curiosity of a scientist. Writing has never come alive to me the way it did when I spoke with Jean about it. Sometimes now, I speak silently to myself about the books I am reading and pretend I am discussing them in a class with Jean. It takes someone with great patience to teach a child how to read; but it takes a truly brilliant mind to teach an adult reader how to read.
In 2008, when I graduated, we got the news that Jean had breast cancer. Now, after battling it with the stubbornness and fierceness with which she does everything, her life is the kind of story they make Oxygen Network movies out of. For years she nurtured the garden of orchids at Whitman College; and now she is the primary chairperson at the American Cancer Society’s Walla Walla Cancer Resource Center. Everything about her is extraordinary and inspirational; she is a woman who, every day of her life, lives.
November 13
Everyone needs great teachers. I have had lots. When I took my first creative writing class from Katrina Roberts, I fell a little bit in love with her. She is the kind of person who mesmerizes. You could listen to her talk for hours. Her poetry is weird, and dark, and sexy, and broken, and indescribably wonderful. She has a growly lilt to her voice that makes everything that comes out of her mouth sound simultaneously excited beyond reason, and a smoothly bored. In reality, she is much more the former than the latter: curious and interested in the way everything happens around her. Katrina is one of the main reasons I still want to be a writer, and every year when I send her an e-mail with my perennial concerns about the insecurity inherent in a future in writing, she continues to tell me that if I want to write, I will be great. And I trust her. Because she is great.
November 12
November 11
November 10
November 9
November 8
I’m pretty sure Salim Muwakkil has no idea what he has meant in my life. Here is all I will say: Salim has been the single biggest influence on the person I have become — specifically relating politics, journalism, racism, and basically everything I believe is important in the world. I have no difficulty saying that. This man has changed the world — quietly, calmly, and deliberately — in more ways than he could ever know.
November 7
November 6
November 5
There are exactly two teachers whom I have watched teach and thought to myself, “That’s the best that teaching can be; every child on earth should have a teacher like that.” One of them is Alex Kerr.
The first time I saw Alex interact with children was more than six years ago, in someone’s living room. Alex was doing community organizing at the time, and he was working with families to demand a better police presence in their neighborhood. I was covering the story for the local paper, and so I had come to a meeting at this family’s house. The family had several children, and as soon as we opened the door, they gravitated toward Alex like he was an ice cream truck. Alex did this funny trick with a water bottle, and the kids — all of them — basically fell over with laughter. I remember thinking, “Whoa. This guy is like the grown up version of the kid that everyone wanted to hang out with when they were little.”
Then, years later, when Alex moved to Memphis to be a teacher, I had the chance to visit his classroom. I rarely cry in classrooms — except, of course, when I am teaching in them and things are going particularly badly. In fact, I can’t remember another time this has happened to me: I sat in that room for six hours and watched the kids help each other and say please and thank you and give lots of hugs and talk about feelings, and I just started sobbing. Alex had built a classroom community that felt more like a family than an actual family feels like a family.
At the end of the day, he has the kids sit in a big circle (you’d think the transition would be a nightmare, but it’s quick and quiet and smooth and just not a big deal at all), and they all compliment each other, or talk seriously about what they want to work on. He gives them space to apologize, or clear the air about stuff that went wrong that day. And they do it! They do it with startling complexity of thought and depth of understanding. The kids in his room worship him. You ask them who their hero is, and they all say it’s him.
That’s because Alex is the perfect mix of Kid and Grown Up. So many grown ups rush into being an adult way too fast, and they un-learn everything special and amazing about being a kid. Not Alex. Alex still loves Batman, and gets depressed when the 49ers lose, and plays — really plays — games with everyone around him, all the time. But he’s also an adult: he takes care of what needs to be taken care of; he thinks seriously about consequences in his own life; he is deeply invested in honesty and being the best person he can be.
I wish everyone could be a little more like that, but the truth is, the balance between “kid” and “grown up” is really hard for most of us. It’s easy to fall off into a childlike spiral of self-loathing and hiding under the covers; it’s equally easy to commit too seriously to adult no-nonsenseness and accidentally begin to equate “fun” with “getting wasted on Friday.” When I need to remember both the importance of being selfless enough to be a competent grown-up, and the creativity necessary to be a lifelong kid, Alex Kerr is the person I look to, and probably always will.
November 4
There are exactly two teachers whom I have watched teach and thought to myself, “That’s the best that teaching can be; every child on earth should have a teacher like that.” For the last five-and-some years I’ve been watching people teach with great interest, hoping to improve as a teacher myself. Teaching is a science and an art all at once: there is nothing in the world, I am confident, that is more difficult and requires more skill than being a teacher. I have seen a LOT of great teachers, and I watch them all in awe, with my jaw scraping the ground: how do they do that?
But there are two teachers who pushed my admiration into worship, and one of them is Carrie Bevans. I don’t know how I got lucky enough to teach with Carrie for a year at Langston Hughes Academy, but somehow I did. We co-taught second grade for a year, and it was the best year of my teaching life. Carrie lives, eats, and breathes teaching. She is open-minded and thoughtful. Unlike me, she is not loud, and she does not brag about her accomplishments. She genuinely doesn’t want to teach for political reasons, or to climb a ladder. She wants to teach because she believes in children, and she loves them, and she thinks all children should have glorious lives filled with love and wonder and safety.
Carrie is the reason why Langston Hughes Academy has a playground, and chickens, and goats, and bright murals on the wall, and long recess. She’s the reason why kids who are in Kindergarten through second grade don’t receive developmentally inappropriate consequences. When she is in front of children, you watch her transform. She is excited about commas, and multiplication. Her face lights up, and she is totally present. It’s like watching a flower bloom.
When we taught together, Carrie stayed late every night, and was at school every Saturday. She did that because she liked it; she loves teaching, and she enjoys having it at the center of her life. Mostly, she loves taking care of people; she loves making people (and animals) feel special. She never forgets a birthday; she regularly buys everyone on the school staff candy bars, or spends the afternoon baking dozens and dozens of cupcakes for the entire staff.
I would do anything for my kids to have Carrie as a teacher. That probably won’t happen, because I don’t see myself having kids any time soon, and Carrie is a vice principal now. But her heart is so big and her hand is so firm, that you don’t doubt for a minute that the world isn’t a better place because she is in it.
November 3
November 2
copic multiliner one point zero
November 1
copic multiliner
October 31
pentel pocket brush
October 30
green glitter crayon
October 29
Rachel Lee has taught me more about love in the past year than almost anyone I know. Every time I sit down and talk to her, she is calm and gentle; she listens with her whole heart and nods and honors everything I have to say. But she has her own opinions, and she is brilliant. I feel like over the course of the past six months I have heard more people say, “I have a crush on Rachel’s mind” than I could possibly count.
Mostly, Rachel is representative of the way I wish the world worked: she is open-minded and thoughtful; she is engaged in important conversations and not afraid to grow or stretch or learn. She is emotional and strong; she is a unique and singular voice around conversations about art, and queer culture, and race, and theatre, and Robyn. I have learned so much from her, and I look forward to continuing that practice as I go forth in my life.
pentel pocket brush
October 28
pentel pocket brush
October 27
October 26
October 25
micron one
October 24
micron oh five
October 23
Feelings are strange. While they’re real and big and sometimes the only thing we have, they’re impossible to describe, almost always. 99.99 percent of the time, I have no idea how to explain to a stranger what is going on inside of me. My mind’s eye is complicated and my emotions are all their own.
There has only ever been one thing that has ever even come close to approximating what all my feelings and hopes and dreams and nightmares and indescribables look like, and that things is Sam Alden’s art. I remember the first time I saw it; this was five years ago, and it physically took my breath away. This was the drawing I saw, in case you were wondering. After I saw it, I spent the next four hours with Sam’s art, fawning over it, dizzy from it, crazy in love with everything that this person made. Then, I wrote him a fan letter.
Writing Sam that fan letter was one of the best things that I ever did, because it was the beginning of one of the greatest friendships I’ve ever had. For all his brilliance, Sam is also disarmingly kind, inquisitive, gentle, and funny. He’s the kind of person you want just always around, no matter what the circumstance (I, for example, would want Sam around at a housewarming party, at a surgery, at a cat adoption, and at the end of the world).
In the last year, Sam has gotten famous enough that I really no longer need to sing his praises personally for you to know how great his work is — you could just read a glowing review about him in a comics journal, or listen to the guy on NPR laud his work as some of the best that is is currently out there. But beyond his work, Sam is the single person I am not related to who has taught me the most about myself, about love, about trees, about laughing in the face of ugliness, and about insisting on drawing in a world that wants everything to move faster than a pen can.
I would trust the future of the world to this man. You should look at his intimidatingly vast and beautiful body of work. In the meantime, rest assured that there are really amazing human beings out there, just quietly being the best they can be, every day, right under your nose. Sam Alden is proof. And today is his birthday.
October 22
two different kinds of pen.
October 21
micron oh one
October 20
crayons
October 19
pentel pocket brush
October 18
pentel pocket brush
October 17
There has never been a year in my life when my mother hasn’t told me that I could do anything I wanted to do or be anything I wanted to be. She has always insisted that my life is my own, and that I am capable of anything and everything.
I didn’t realize that not all mothers did that until very lately. There are some mothers out there who want to live their children’s lives for them; who believe that to take care of a human being, you have to force her to not make the mistakes you did. Some mothers think their children give them a second chance to have the life they always wanted to have.
My mother’s life was already fabulous, without me. She has a Ph. D., for example. When she was twenty, she moved to Japan to become a model and to woo my dad. She was always beautiful, brilliant, and obsessed over by everyone in her life. So (and this is just my theory) she didn’t need me to do those things. She let me screw up all I wanted to screw up. To this day, I’m still screwing up, and she’s still encouraging it.
My mother, Loretta Johnson, loves animals and humans and food and gardens. Every lesson I have ever learned in my life at least indirectly came from her. She is amazing. I know everyone thinks they have the most amazing mom; but that is because they haven’t met mine.
micron oh one and prismacolors
October 16
brush pens
October 15
pentel pocket brush
October 14
micron one oh
October 13
prismacolor pencils
October 12
pencil
October 11
My biggest hero in the world is my sister Alexis. When I was three and she was born, I was NOT pleased about her. There were other times in life — particularly times when I was an overweight misfit outcast, and she was blonde and pretty and popular — when I was likewise unimpressed with Alexis Johnson. But at some point, I learned these things about Alexis:
Alexis Johnson is brave beyond all reason. She says yes to life more than anyone else I know. She’s played the bassoon, climbed rocks and scaled mountains, snow boarded, been a Dungeon Master, mastered baking, beaten every Zelda game, traveled to Belize and Costa Rica, ice skated in an ice show, designed and sewn outfits for a fashion show, eaten a bear, and worked as a yoga instructor. You have never met a person more multifaceted and experienced, and she’s not even 25 yet.
Alexis Johnson is crazy-loyal. She spends entire Saturdays composing 15-page letters to her friends about how much they mean to her. People rarely return that favor, because it’s a huge commitment. But Alexis writes the letters anyway, because Alexis is committed to love with her whole heart. She is the only family member I have who is an active participant in every aspect of our family. She visits grandparents. She babysits nieces and nephews. She believes in her family; she loves unconditionally.
Alexis Johnson is brilliant. She knows, like, everything about science and computers and math and all the stuff girls aren’t supposed to know anything about. Every time society has put a rule in front of Alexis, she has figured out a way to break it. She’s a feminist and a badass and a good reader. I am looking forward to her first book.
I know how lucky I am to know this person. I know how lucky I am, moreover, to call her my sister and best friend. Most people don’t get that. That’s enough for one’s entire life, I think.
micron oh five, crayon
October 10
orange colored pencil
October 9
Hannah and Derek, for those of you who do not know me, are my best friends. They are are also my heroes and my biggest personal role models. Because I may be the luckiest person alive, they are also my roommates. I knew immediately I wanted to draw Hannah and Derek for this project, but I couldn’t decide which to post first.
From Derek, I learn commitment, boldness, bravery. Derek stands up for what he believes in he. He is not afraid of confrontation or conversation. He is a dissident out of love. He makes beautiful foods out of strange things (ferments are a specialty), and he does amazing workouts in the back yard. He meditates; he goes for runs with his notebook in his hand. He is an incredible listener; a voracious reader; and he is always available to give the best possible advice for every situation.
From Hannah, I learn humility, kindness, commitment. Hannah is singularly honest. She works tirelessly on projects she believes in. She knows all the best books and theories and articles. Hannah wakes up every morning and is the best person she can be. She doesn’t brag about it; she doesn’t ask anything in return. She is wildly empathetic. She is the person you want with you on a desert island, because she is a brilliant gardener, and she can build things, and she does her own plumbing. She is the woman all feminists talk about when they say, “Women have conquered the world.” Do feminists even say that? Well, Hannah has conquered the world. In a loving, peaceful, giving way.
But I decided to post them together, because the thing I admire most about them is their love. Not just for each other (although that is powerful), but for everyone in their lives. They love completely and wholly, and they do it even when it is scary and painful and hard. Their partnership is at times unconventional, but they make me believe in love.
sharpie and crayon
October 8
October 7
someone else’s pen
October 6
micron oh one
October 5
green crayons
October 4
crayon
October 3
blue staedtler
October 2
ink, colored pencil
daily creations gallery 