VOL . 1, I S SUE 1
A RT S
a t WA S H I N G T O N U N I V E R S I T Y I N S T . L O U I S
Illustration by Shannon Levin, BFA17
S A M F O X S C H O O L O F D E S I G N & V I S UA L
Illustrators Explore New Terrain Armed with pen and ink and imagination, MFA-IVC students unearth the wild, the wondrous, and the unknown. Cont. on A2 Our program draws from tremendous facilities and resources, starting with our home in Weil Hall. See A3
Our special 8-page Student Work Feature Section highlights the range of visual work you’ll produce. See B1
Get to know our faculty — distinguished scholars and practitioners in illustration, design, & visual culture. See A7
ABOUT THE PROGRAM
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Build your illustration practice at a top research university, studying with worldrenowned faculty in the field.
T
he Sam Fox School’s MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture program explores the idea of illustration authorship by combining studio practice in illustration with curatorial training in visual and material culture. This program is ideal for illustrators, designers, and those interested in working with popular visual matter of the modern period: how it was made and by whom, who it was for, and how it remains relevant today. This is a two-year residential program. Graduates will be prepared to work as author-artists of graphic novels and picture books, professors of illustration, critical writers on popular culture, and curatorial staff in museums, libraries, and auction houses. The MFA-IVC program is built on the strengths and expertise of the School’s illustration and design faculty, and the vast visual culture resources of Washington University, including the D.B. Dowd Modern Graphic History Library, a preeminent site for studying the history and culture of American illustration. About the Sam Fox School The Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts offers rigorous degree programs in design, art, and architecture; an outstanding collection of a world-class art museum; and the unparalleled resources of a leading research university. With a nationally and internationally recognized faculty, innovation and collaboration are at the core of our mission. Through the work of our students, faculty, and alumni, we are striving to create a more just, sustainable, humane, and beautiful world.
YEAR 1 FALL Illustration Studio 1: Drawing & Voice 6 CREDITS
The Illustrated Periodical 3 CREDITS
Special Collections: Research Methods 3 CREDITS
illustration % studio work
50
Elective 3 CREDITS
YEAR 1 SPRING Illustration Studio 2: Artist / Author / Audience 6 CREDITS
Graduate Drawing Studio
visual culture % history & theory
20
3 CREDITS
Comics & Cartooning: A Critical Survey 3 CREDITS
Special Collections: Exhibitions & Engagement 3 CREDITS
YEAR 2 FALL
hands-on 15-20% archive work
Thesis Studio 1 9 CREDITS
Readings in Visual & Material Culture 3 CREDITS
Advanced Archival Practice or Elective 3 CREDITS
YEAR 2 SPRING Thesis Studio 2
10-15% electives
9 CREDITS
Local Archives Internship or Elective 3 CREDITS
Elective 3 CREDITS
O U R FA C I L I T I E S
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View of Anabeth and John Weil Hall from the Jordan Charitable Foundation Central Plaza. Peter Aaron / OTTO.
Our Home in Weil Hall
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pened in fall 2019, Anabeth and John Weil Hall is a hub for our graduate programs in Illustration & Visual Culture, Visual Art, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design. Designed by the architecture firm KieranT imberlake, the 82,000-square-foot facility includes the state-of-theart Caleres Fabrication Studio, which supports complex projects and digital fabrication; exhibition and project spaces; a two-story indoor court with a living green wall; and an experimental studio for video, film, and time-based media.
The design studio is a gorgeous space. There’s amazing light and lots of areas to work. It’s a very communal space, but you also have the privacy to focus on making great work.” —John Hendrix, Professor and Chair, MFA-IVC Program
Located on the building’s main floor, the Roxanne H. Frank Design Studio—a.k.a. the Roxy—is home to the MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture program. Each student gets their own studio space, and there are numerous other areas to work and read. The light-filled studio space also includes plenty of pinup and critique areas, as well as community equipment such as a dedicated printer, scanners, Wacom tablets, cutting boards, and central AV. Weil Hall offers ready connections to the rest of the School’s facilities and buildings. Among them, the School has a new, integrated printmaking atelier for letterpress, etching, lithography, and illustrated books. The space includes the Dubinsky Printmaking Studio, which features etching presses, a lithography Continued on A4
MIDDLE: View from Weil Hall of the Gary M. Sumers Welcome Center (foreground) and Brookings Hall. Peter Aaron / OTTO. BOTTOM: Professor D.B. Dowd and assistant professor Heidi Kolk with student Madeline Valentine in the Roxanne H.
Frank Design Studio. Joshua White / jwpictures.com.
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O U R FA C I L I T I E S
Continued from A3 press, and very large electrically powered etching presses, and Island Press, a research-based printmaking workshop that creates and publishes innovative prints and multiples by many of today’s most influential artists. A collaboration with WashU Libraries, the Nancy Spirtas Kranzberg Studio for the Illustrated Book is a working book and print production facility that includes equipment for letterpress and intaglio printing, photopolymer plate, and silkscreen printing. The suite is an ideal space for MFA-IVC students to explore significant connections between the disciplines of printmaking and book arts through individual coursework and means of thesis production. Directly across from Weil Hall, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum is a significant resource for students and faculty across campus. After a major expansion, the Museum reopened in fall 2019 with the exhibition Ai Weiwei: Bare Life and a Q&A with the renowned artist and activist. The Museum offers three floors of gallery space to showcase its world-class collection and exhibitions of leading modern and contemporary art. Located on the lower level of the Kemper building, the Kenneth and Nancy Kranzberg Art and Architecture Library holds more than 105,000 volumes in various media, and subscribes to the foremost electronic article indexes, e-book reference works, and digital image databases. It is part of the Washington University Libraries system, which features 12 distinct sites, vast print and electronic collections, and expert librarians whose first priority is helping students and faculty find the information they need. And, of course, there are a wealth of other University resources, ranging from dining facilities to an alternative transportation and commuter hub. Located just outside Weil Hall, Ann and Andrew Tisch Park serves as a welcoming gathering place for students while also providing greater connectivity between the Sam Fox School and other portions of the campus. TOP: Kuehner Court in Weil Hall. James
Ewing / JBSA. MIDDLE: (left) Student Madeleine DeMichele
works in the Kranzberg Book Studio. (right) At Island Press, student Adrian Gonzalez and master printer Tom Reed look at monotypes by visiting artist David Humphrey. Joshua White / jwpictures.com. BOTTOM: (left) Professor John Hendrix par-
ticipates in a pinup session outside the Frank Design Studio. Whitney Curtis / WUSTL Photos. (right) Gertrude Bernoudy Gallery in the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. Virginia Harold.
Take a 360Âş tour of our spaces! Get an inside look at some of the Sam Fox School's facilities and maker spaces without leaving the comfort of your couch.
>> samfoxschool.wustl.edu/admissions
OUR LIBRARIES
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The D.B. Dowd Modern Graphic History Library collects and preserves periodical illustration of the late-19th and 20th centuries. Pictured here, DMGHL curator Skye Lacerte inspects the Walter Baumhofer Collection, which showcases one of the few artists who successfully moved from illustrating low-paying pulp fiction to mainstream magazines. James Byard / WUSTL Photos
What is the D.B. Dowd Modern Graphic History Library?
T
he D.B. Dowd Modern Graphic comprising original illustrations, periHistory Library (DMGHL) is a odicals, books, and magazine tear sheets tremendous resource support- from the 1860s-1970s. ing scholarship and teaching Meet Our Library Team related to illustration and visual The MFA-IVC program works closely culture, featuring the most with the DMGHL and the Libraries' comprehensive archival collection of peri- Department of Special Collections, whose odical illustration held by any academic faculty co-teach courses in research methinstitution. Established ods and curatorial practice. in 2007 as a collaboraThey foster the discovery tive effort of Washington of new materials and new digitized tear sheets University Libraries and perspectives, and are an the Sam Fox School, the indispensable part of DMGHL aims to acquire, Team IVC. preserve, promote, and illustrators represented Skye Lacerte bring sustained academic in the collection D.B. Dowd Modern consideration to the culGraphic History Library Curator ture of illustration, with particular emphasis on the Skye develops and mainyears of illustration illustrated periodical. tains archival collections represented The growing range of specializing in illustration
ACTIVITY ZONE!
151k 111
149
the collection extends from book, magazine, and advertising illustration to comics in all their forms, caricature, poster design, and virtually every aspect of visual culture. A particular focus is 20th-century periodical illustration, including the collections of some of America’s premier illustrators such as Al Parker, Robert Weaver, Henry Raleigh, and others. The collection also includes the Walt Reed Illustration Archive, a distinguished resource
1,000+ linear feet of archival materials Featuring:
Seymour Chwast Jack Unruh Rose O'Neill Robert Andrew Parker John Held, Jr. Bernie Fuchs George Carlson Herbert Matter R.O. Blechman Atkin Family Collection of WWI Posters
of the late-19th and 20th centuries. Her goal is to elevate the visibility of the DMGHL and the legitimacy of visual culture in meaningful scholarship. Joy Novak Head of Special Collections Management Joy oversees all curatorial and collection management activities for Special Collections, including collection development, instruction, reference, processing, cataloging, and space management.
Al Parker, for The Saturday Evening Post, June 1, 1946. From the D.B. Dowd Modern Graphic History Library Collection, digital archives.
EXTRA-CURRICUL ARS
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Visitors Bring Inspiration, Big Ideas
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ach semester, the Sam Fox School brings nationally and internationally recognized illustrators, designers, architects, artists, landscape architects, urban designers, historians, and critics to campus, promoting new ideas in practice, theory, and technology. Invited speakers often interact with students during workshops and informal gatherings, in addition to participating in studio visits, where they conduct one-on-one reviews of work. Our MFAIVC program also brings in visitors for special talks, critiques, and workshops specific to our students. Past visitors include illustrator Chris Buzelli, graphic designer Seymour Chwast, artist/designer Keetra Dean Dixon, MoMA director of design Rob Giampietro, graphic novelist Kevin Huizenga, author/illustrator Vesper Stamper, illustrator Kyle T. Webster, and author/ illustrator James Yang. In addition to these individual visitors, our faculty and students advance discourse in our disciplines as active participants in symposia and other conferences. In 2019, the Sam Fox School and D.B. Dowd Modern Graphic History Library co-hosted the Illustration Across Media symposium with the Norman Rockwell Museum. This year, MFAIVC student Taylor Dow was selected to present at the 2020 Rockwell Museum Symposium at Hunter College in New York City. And MFAIVC program chair John Hendrix served as a past president of ICON—The Illustration Conference.
MFA-IVC VISITORS IN 2019-2020
WORKSHOP FEATURE
Fox Fridays Fox Fridays is a weekly, low-stress Sam Fox School workshop series that introduces students, faculty, and staff to overlooked or under-known tools, resources, and processes. It is an opportunity for students across programs to expand their creative practices by trying out new processes, media, and tools. Workshops in 2019-2020 included: • Photoshop: Animated GIFs • Woodworking: Make a Ping-pong Ball Crossbow • Augmented Virtual Reality: A-Frame • Mold-making for Casting Clay
Vesper Stamper
• Pulp Fiction: Painting with Paper
Author & illustrator
• Shibori Textile Dyeing • Alginate Body Casting • Drone Photography • Prototyping: How Google Learns Quickly • Scan Your Head: 3D Scanning and Printing
Kevin Huizenga Graphic novelist ACTIVITY ZONE!
MY FIRST DAY OF GRAD SCHOOL Chris Buzelli Illustrator
Last night I had the started out
studio, all my a
noun
, but then it got really weird. First of all, when I got to
drawing implements
were
, and my
Kyle T. Webster
a
Illustrator and Photoshop brush maker
because that’s when
noun
part of the body
patter n
same animal, plural
animal
Ping Zhu Illustrator
say
ing a than
turned
article of clothing
color
plural noun
. The Cintiqs
, which is exactly when I
. No matter, I thought, and grabbed
walked in singing
p lu r al noun
plural noun
favorite childhood toy
exclamation
object on your desk name of your nemesis
,
and some
earworm noun
same famous illustrator
and
and draw
? I thought, Maybe they
instead. But that’s when the
letter of the alphabet
started
. Of course, there’s nothing I fear more than
, but how do you tell that to
really hit the fan. I hit Cmd-
UPCOMING IN 2021
famous illustrator
won’t notice, and I drew dozens of
, and I couldn’t find anything but
out of my pocket and put that on instead. Not a moment too soon, either,
told us to take out our
least favorite color
. When I finally found my desk, I bumped squarely into
snack food
discovered I wasn’t wearing my
a
to draw on. The printers had been replaced by
large object
dream about my first day in grad school. Things
superlative adjective
adjective
were made of a
verb ending in
noun
.
to print my work, like usual, but then -ing
same famous illustr ator
from the risograph. Before I could was
verb ending in
- ing
over me wield-
, yelling You know less about illustration and visual culture
’s
type of pet
. I’m so glad I’m going to the Sam Fox School because
now the only thing that frightens me more than
same animal
Text by Stephanie Schlaifer
is
same famous illustrator
.
STUDENT WORK FEATURE SECTION
Taylor Dow. Final Rose, 2019.
B1
B2
STUDENT WORK FEATURE SECTION
Alex Schubert, Paper Fight, 2020.
INSTRUCTIONS : Two players begin,
each with their own coloring book, featuring a different fighter. Players color in their fighters, then roll the dice in a race to add accessories to their fighters (Round 1). Once their fighter is fully equipped, players begin dealing damage to their opponent until only one is left standing (Round 2).
Taylor Dow, Castle of Tears, 2020. Jonathan Smith, selected pages from Thank You For Coming, 2020.
STUDENT WORK FEATURE SECTION
Racheal Bruce, Paradises Lost, 2019.
Taylor Dow, From Life: Feb + March 2020.
B3
B4
Jonathan Smith, Run Lola Run, Pages 57-62, 2020.
Alex Schubert, Art Comic, 2019.
STUDENT WORK FEATURE SECTION
STUDENT WORK FEATURE SECTION
Jonathan Smith, From Blossoms, 2020.
B5
B6
STUDENT WORK FEATURE SECTION
Austin Ickes, Combined Abominations from Monstronauts card game, 2020.
Stephanie Gobby, Founders of Tiki Culture, 2020.
Austin Ickes, selected drawings from Apologia, You Can Draw Every Object in This Book, 2020.
Weike Liu, selected spreads from Nepal Trav-log, 2020. [below and opposite page]
STUDENT WORK FEATURE SECTION
B7
STUDENT WORK FEATURE SECTION
B8
A POLOGI A
An investigation of authorship
Students in D.B. Dowd’s graduate drawing seminar were charged to write an apologia, or a defense of practice, addressing the questions of what, how, and why they make art. After an editorial process that incorporated peer feedback, each student designed a booklet to present their essay, integrating text, image, lettering, and typography.
Racheal Bruce
ONSTAGE Racheal Bruce
Madeline Valentine
she’s got hubris an apologia
Alex Schubert
Madeline Valentine, selected illustrations from Spring 2020 Ready-to-Wear Viral Fashion poster, 2020.
O U R FA C U LT Y
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Meet Our Faculty
What Does Your
Mark-Maker Say About You?
LY HT IG AL! L S ER F
DI
AB
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I MAKE MY OWN CHARCOAL
L!
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ADULTERATED SHARPIE MAGNUM
Keep an eye on me. Maybe both eyes. RD ! HA SED NO
#2 & #4 ROUND WATERCOLOR BRUSHES, “MEDIUM-CHEAP”
Not here to win any popularity contests.
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OR
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CARAN D’ACHE NEOCOLOR® II WATERSOLUBLE PASTELS
So, I use crayons!
IM
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SI
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!
Professor and Chair, MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture Program John Hendrix is a New York Times best-selling illustrator and author of many children’s books including Shooting at the Stars, Drawing is Magic and The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler, which won a Gold Medal from the Society of Illustrators. His illustrations have appeared on book jackets, newspapers, and magazines all over the world, including Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Esquire, and The New York Times, among many others. John has taught illustration at Washington University for 15 years. jhendrix@wustl.edu
POSCA PAINT MARKERS
I answer to Banksy. AL
OO
I ghost people. I
C NS
AB
LE
!
PRISMACOLOR® COL-ERASE NON-PHOTO BLUE COLORED PENCIL
I beat the system. N
E! NO NS E S ON
PR ENS S
E!
N NO
PAPER MATE SHARPWRITER®
LY ET C R GY ! E S UD J
BO
TICONDEROGA #2
Just the facts, ma’am. O-
E RD
RL
IN
E!
You just found 12 pencils in the bottom of your bag. And your car keys! GENERAL PENCIL CO. KIMBERLY® #525 9XXB
The single-source, 82% extra dark chocolate of pencils. Undertones of fig and wine. KURETAKE NO. 55 DOUBLE-SIDED BRUSH PEN
I have a ritual.
D
I
O EB
O ND
NA
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!
BLACKWING® 602
I’m not just an illustrator in real life… I also play one on TV.
OR
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!
PIGMA® MICRON PN
I wear ties on the beach. EN
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IS
I
A literary historian by training, assistant professor Heidi Kolk started her career as a student of art and poetry, and has long gravitated to cross-disciplinary research. Her current work focuses on the politics of memory in the United States, especially where it intersects with matters of race and space, heritage and public culture, and the history of American cities. Her 2019 book Taking Possession: The Politics of Memory in a St. Louis Town House (University of Massachusetts Press) engages several of these subjects. Heidi also teaches in the American Culture Studies program in Arts & Sciences. hkolk@wustl.edu
F!
PRESTO!™ JUMBO CORRECTION PEN
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Assistant Professor
! NG
APPLE PENCIL
There is a KyleBrush named after me.
Professor and Faculty Director, D.B. Dowd Modern Graphic History Library D.B. Dowd is an illustrator and writer who lectures and curates exhibitions on the history of illustration and cartooning. Through his award-winning travel zine Spartan Holiday, he documents his engagement with the social landscape through a blend of reportage, memoir, and history. His book Stick Figures: Drawing as a Human Practice tackles the history of mark-making from prealphabetic times to the cloud-based present. D.B. also holds a courtesy appointment in American Culture Studies in Arts & Sciences. dbdowd@wustl.edu
Assistant Professor Shreyas R Krishnan is an illustrator-designer from Chennai, India. Rooted in research, her nonfiction work takes the form of comics, zines, and documentary drawings. She is interested in the intersections between visual culture and gender, as well as personal and collective memory. Her comics Becoming Rosie, Standards, and Maqsood-i-Kainaat were acquired by the Thomas J. Watson Library at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for their collections. sravikrishnan@wustl.edu
SUPPORTING FACULTY
SCHOOL LEADERSHIP
Heather Corcoran Chrissi Cowhey Jonathan Hanahan Audra Hubbell Ben Kiel Edward Kinsella III Skye Lacerte Penina Acayo Laker Rebecca Leffell Koren
Amy Hauft Director, College of Art & Graduate School of Art Jane Reuter Hitzeman and Herbert F. Hitzeman, Jr. Professor of Art Carmon Colangelo Ralph J. Nagel Dean, Sam Fox School E. Desmond Lee Professor for Collaboration in the Arts
Joy Novak Frank Oros Jeff Pike Aggie Toppins Dan Zettwoch
ACTIVITY ZONE!
M.Y.O. Comic
CHOOSE ONE E Awkward Introduction / From the Frying Pan to the Fire / Bad Date / Peekaboo!
Using one of the prompts above, create an action sequence involving two or more characters. No words allowed. Draw in the space provided, or go nuts and work outside this publication. If you are bold (and so inclined), share your finished work with us on Instagram: Based on an actual assignment from professor D.B. Dowd @samfox_mfa_ivc.
O U R FA C U LT Y
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Drawing and Citizenship Excerpted from Stick Figures: Drawing as a Human Practice Having worked as a printmaker, illustrator, cartoonist, and online animation producer from the early
documents my travels and blends reportage, memoir, and history. These are glyphic procedures. I look at something.
1990s onward, I generated my share of social satire. But the bloom came off the rose. Over the course of a D.B. Dowd decade, I lost faith in the editorial mode, especially as it turned into an industry. I got sick of people shooting their mouths off, as arguments began to arrive prepackaged for approved audiences. Enough opinions, I thought, especially my own. I closed up my studio and put everything in storage. I went outside and started looking at things. Material facts. Cars. Buildings. People. Nonfiction. For two years I filled up sketchbooks with no real sense of what the drawings were for. I see now that I was working out a way to situate myself in a landscape in defiance of placelessness, resisting what would come to be called “the cloud.”
I draw it, to understand and reconstitute that thing. I build an equivalence between what I see and forms I make—somewhere between a pictograph and a photograph. Eyes in my skull, hand fixed at the end of my arm, pencil begripped. I am on the scene. Drawing is an act. A simple tool, a tangible frame, a modest surface. The larger forces that will shape this unfolding century are exactly like those that have shaped earlier eras—they are indifferent to us. The human predicament has not changed. Meanwhile, the visual magicians and agents of distraction who wield the power of illusion are always upping their game, and threaten to overwhelm our repose at every turn. But we are capable of action, of sensemaking, of sticking up for ourselves. The simple means of engaged citizenship remain close at hand.
Look hard. Describe first. Interpret second.” I labored to re-embed myself in things and stuff as a bulwark against gaseous, disorienting chatter. Under the circumstances, a heroic materialism. My argument for the primacy of embeddedness in the study of cultural history turns out to be identical to my argument for confronting the social landscape as a visual journalist. What is, is. Look hard. Describe first. Interpret second. Today all my work engages the social landscape. Not the natural landscape, but the fashioned one: crappy architecture, signage, vehicles, holdover statuary, people making do. My illustrated journal Spartan Holiday
What are you working on now? I am working on an illustrated alphabet book for the Trump era, and a book of art criticism on 20th-century American painters, illustrators, and cartoonists. Look for issue #4 of Spartan Holiday, my illustrated travel zine, in 2021.
ABOVE: D.B. Dowd,
Development of the Roman A. Illustration for Stick Figures: Drawing as a Human Practice, Spartan Holiday Books in association with the Norman Rockwell Museum, 2018. RIGHT: D.B. Dowd, Pancake Girl, illustration for Spartan Holiday No.2: The Five Pagodas. 2013.
Exploring Public Memory As a cultural historian who began academic life as a visual artist and poet, I have long gravitated to cross-disciplinary study. I work primarily on 19th- and 20th-century subjects, tracing the Heidi Kolk persistence of established narratives, visual imaginaries, and materialities across time, and seeking to understand their power as a kind of invisible or unacknowledged cultural patrimony. In recent years, my research has explored the politics and practices of public memory, especially where they intersect with matters of race and space, heritage and public culture, and the history of American cities. My book, Taking Possession: The Politics of Memory in a St. Louis Town House, encompasses many of these, focusing on the Campbell House, an 1850s mansion near downtown St. Louis that became the unlikely exception to a much-lamented pattern of destruction pursued in the name of urban renewal. What has interested me most about this fetishized historic site is how exaggerated the physical and imaginative work of its salvage has been—and also how keeping it intact has been a palliative for devastating social and material changes that have occurred during the 20th century, and a broader anxiety of decline. My goal has been to understand the processes by which memory is materialized not only through keeping, caretaking, and acts of consecration, but through their seeming opposite: acts of forgetting, erasure, and even symbolic (and sometimes literal) violence. The book argues that heritage and humiliation, owning and disowning, possession and dispossession, are intimately connected—they are dark twins. What are you working on now? I am working on a book about “negative heritage,” which examines the problematic histories of sites such as desecrated burial grounds, slums, and asylums. I am also collaborating on a research initiative with a colleague in Architecture on the public memory of internment and its legacies in post-war design.
FAC U LT Y BO O K S H E L F HENDRIX
DOWD
A cinematic romp through the annals of history and the author’s mind. The only zine I’ve ever binge-watched.
A BOY CALLED DICKENS
ABE LINCOLN CROSSES A CREEK
SPARTAN HOLIDAY, VOL. 1-3 D.B. Dowd
FF S TA K ! PIC
HENDRIX
RUTHERFORD B., WHO WAS HE?
NURSE, SOLDIER, SPY
MCTOAD MOWS TINY ISLAND
HOOK’S REVENGE:
FF S TA K ! PIC
T H E P I R AT E C O D E
Sparking with fiery tritones and masterful hand-lettering, Hendrix brings to life this historic battle between good and evil for readers of all ages.
HOOK’S REVENGE
THE FAITHFUL SPY John Hendrix
O U R FA C U LT Y
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Finding Your Voice... In a Sketchbook I can’t remember a time when drawing wasn’t a part of my life. I have a box of sketchbooks going all the way back to John Hendrix grade school, and I still carry one everywhere I go. I can credit
most of what I value in my work to the habit of drawing in a sketchbook. A good sketchbook doesn’t just involve rendering objects in your sightlines, but translating ideas into visual concepts. The best sketchbooks are portable vessels of visual improvisation—a responsive compass for raw and risky ideas. My favorite time to draw in my sketchbook is on Sunday morning at church. While sitting in a creaky wooden pew, I listen and create. Of course, you can draw anywhere—at the airport, in a meeting, on a train, at the dentist’s office. Many days I don’t find much in my sketchbook excavation. But there are
moments when something magic happens. A sketchbook can unlock new ideas through a very simple notion: if you find what you love to draw, you’ll find your visual voice. What are you working on now? My next book is forthcoming in January 2021, a retelling of some of Jesus' parables
called Go and Do Likewise! On the drawing board now is my next long-form graphic novel, The Mythmakers, about the friendship between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Both will be published by Abrams Books for Young Readers.
Examining Culture, Comically I am an illustrator and designer from Chennai, India, and I am interested in the ways visual culture Shreyas R Krishnan and gender studies intersect. At the core of my work is memory—both personal and collective—and this translates into nonfiction zines, comics, and documentary drawings, often centered on women. Drawing, for me, is a way to remember and record the world around me. It’s absolutely fascinating to me that images can be so instantly accessed by different audiences. When I began making comics, I felt like I discovered a new language that made it much easier for me to communicate using both drawing and writing. I joke often that I’m on a #comicscrusade. I want to equip more people to not just read comics, but to actually make them. On an individual level, they help
people navigate their emotions and responses to external events. At a community level, comics have helped report and break down societal issues. When more people make comics, we have more voices heard, more representation, and more normalization of the diversity that is constantly around us.
ABOVE: From Alphabreasts (2019), Krishnan’s A-Z zine on the anatomy, process, mythology, pop
culture, and language around breasts, made in collaboration with Akhila Krishnan. LEFT: From
Becoming Rosie (2015). Krishnan’s award-winning comic explores Rosie the Riveter and other wartime imagery of women, alongside Judith Butler’s concept of performative gender.
What are you working on now? I am co-editing the Bystander Anthology, a first of its kind South Asian graphic narratives anthology, releasing this year. While I have a few zines cooking that move across research and nonfiction, a longer (and slower) project I am embarking on is a comic essay on visual depictions of violence.
MOUND CITY TATTLER Dan Zettwoch
KOLK
KRISHNAN
FF S TA K ! PIC
FF S TA K ! PIC
KRISHNAN
TAKING POSSESSION Heidi Aronson Kolk
BECOMING ROSIE Shreyas R Krishnan
Through the story of an 1851 St. Louis town house, Kolk’s timely and revealing volume unearths the nation’s systemic failures by exposing what—and whom—we choose to protect.
With illustrations that charm and text that challenges, Becoming Rosie puts a mirror to our gazes, making us question what we see in others and ourselves.
ZETTWOCH AMAZING FACTS & BEYOND! WITH LEON BEYOND Dan Zettwoch & Kevin Huizenga Amazing is insufficiently superlative. Leon’s extraterrestrial knowledge is comic transportation to a gobsmacking, brain-busting, gravity-defying realm that is—truly—beyond belief. FF S TA K ! PIC
T R AV E L & L E I S U R E
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An Illustrated Guide to St. Louis St. Louis is one of the most affordable, culturally exciting cities in which to launch your career. Here are a handful of highlights.
Our Next-Door Neighbor Located just across the street from campus, Forest Park is home to the Missouri History Museum, the Saint Louis Zoo, the Saint Louis Science Center and Planetarium, the World’s Fair Pavilion, and the Saint Louis Art Museum.
Great Green Spaces With an expanding light rail system, hundreds of city, county and state parks, and the Great Rivers Greenway—125 miles (and counting!) of bike and pedestrian pathways—St. Louis is made to explore.
Foodie Heaven St. Louis has been named a top food city by outlets ranging from Zagat to Yelp. Famous for local treats like Ted Drewes Frozen Custard (brain freeze warning!) and toasted ravioli, we’re also on the map for great tacos, dim sum, bubble tea, and gastropubs serving up farm-to-table eats.
Out-Sized Cultural Scene All of the city’s art museums and most of its major cultural institutions are free. This includes the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, the Saint Louis Art Museum, and our very own Kemper Art Museum. Illustrations by Audrey Westcott, BFA12
ODDS & ENDS
I have made a series of 729 illustrations of cheese. Can I include all of them in my portfolio? –Churning in Cheddar As much as I’d like to see (and sample) the entire fromagerie, I’m afraid you’ll have to narrow it down to your top wedges and wheels. If you happen to experiment with other things, like cracker GIFS, motion graphic crudités, or wine zines, we’d love to get a sense of the full range of your abilities. Send 12-20 images of your best, most recent work that is most representative of your practice. When you say writing sample, do you mean I should, like, handwrite a fiveparagraph essay? Or, wait, do you just want my autograph? IDK, DM me? –Inky in Indy I do loves me some quill pen lettering! But what we really want is to get a sense of your writing style. So, if nonfiction essays are your jam, then we’d love to read that! Or maybe you’re more into short stories, critical reviews, or even poetry. (I’ve been known to dabble in verse, myself.) In any
case, writing, authorship, and scholarship are major components of our MFA-IVC program. Show us a sample of your work that demonstrates how you communicate your ideas in writing. I’m used to living with 6 roommates in a 472-square-foot efficiency apartment that costs $$$/month and overlooks both the sewer and a dumpster. (Inexplicably, we also have pets.) BUT…it’s only 90 minutes from anyplace we like to go! Does St. Louis have good living like this? –Crowded in Crown Heights Oh, my. I’m not sure we can find you a comparable sitch here, Crowded, but how would you feel about something with a different olfactory profile? Would living close to restaurants, parks, and free museums be a deal-breaker? St. Louis is one of the most affordable places to live, and there are cool neighborhoods all around the University, like Tower Grove, the Central West End, and University City. ICYMI, see A10 for some of our favorite things to do.
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GRAPHIC VINDICATION By Stephanie Schlaifer ACROSS 2. Holy protagonist of prof John Hendrix’s comic 5. Famed “collar man” campaignD by J.C. Leyendecker; also, a directional symbol 7. Printer’s approval 11. Experimental poet & painter who kept things on the lc 14. The writing on the cave wall? + 16. N.C.D who illustrated Treasure Island, 1911 18. 99% Invisible or Make It Then Tell Everybody, for example 20. Social distance, typographically 21. Digital sketch? 23. Illustrator’s org. 24. Comic exclamation 25. A way out, briefly 26. ReedD or Disney 30. Pilot of a Sopwith Camel doghouse 32. Riveting subject of prof Shreyas R Krishnan’s comic 35. Biannual illo conference 36. Hit ⌘-S 39. Definitive edition of definitions 40. Shadowing someone, linearly 43. 4-part alternative to RGB + 44. Prof Heidi Kolk pens hers with a Pilot G2 Premium Gel Roller, Ultra Fine (.38 mm) 45. A pen’s business end
46. IndividualD who secretly illustrated an entire issue of Cosmopolitan (full name) 49. Engrave, acidically 50. Fin, in other words 51. Famed studio of GlaserD, Sorel, and ChwastD
I think my application is pretty rad and am hoping to save a few bucks on tuition. What kind of financial aid and scholarships can I apply for? -Frugal in Fresno I get it, man—I am always low on the Benjamins (my face is only on the dollar!). And I have great news for you: all MFA-IVC students received financial support from the University last year. We offer competitive assistance, based on a combination of need and merit, including full-tuition scholarships such as the Sam Fox Ambassadors Graduate Fellowship Program (which also includes an annual travel stipend) and the Sam Fox School Graduate Scholarship, along with the Catherine M. & Stanley R. Miller Scholarship, which covers 75% of tuition. Check out our full list of opportunities on our website. I see you have a swanky new studio just for MFA-IVC peeps. But, what else ya got? –Scrutinizing in Scranton Well, Scrut, we’ve got all measure of swank. We have our own world-class art museum, an integrated printmaking suite that includes a book studio, a digital fabrication lab, wood and metal shops, an art and architecture library, and more… and that’s just in our six-building Sam Fox School complex! (You might want to pull up a chair and pour an espresso if you want to hear about all the additional resources at the University.) Check out our facilities spotlight on A3.
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Felix, Hobbes, and Garfield WUSTL’s namesake Printing on the edge? Like Vermeer’s View of Delft, to prof D.B. Dowd + 6. Visual journalism, categorically speaking 8. Rose O’Neill’s D impish baby dolls 9. Dietrich, of prof John Hendrix’s book, who plotted to kill Hitler 10. Trench-coated official of many a propaganda poster 12. Alt to et al 13. Metal frame for type, or high-speed action between Tom & Jerry 15. Italian, but not italic, maybe 17. Foghorn Leghorn’s beginnings, essentially 19. Helpful meaning of dot dot dot dash dash dash dot dot dot 22. Standard ligature 27. Soft lead pencil, possibly a fave of Hamlet 29. Name hidden in many of Al Hirschfeld’sD caricatures
What does one do with an MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture? –Pragmatic in Presidio I admire your brevity, P, so I’ll come right to the point of the pencil. Our graduates will be prepared to work as author-artists of graphic novels and picture books, professors of illustration, critical writers on popular culture, and curatorial staff in museums, libraries, and auction houses. We know you’ll go far! Can you show me how to make lightning bolts come out of my eyes? —Curious in Curitiba Can’t be taught. But, MFA-IVC students have a statistically higher chance of becoming positively electrified with knowledge than any other sector of the population. Got a question about the MFA-IVC program? Hit me! mfa-ivc@wustl.edu
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I am writing a graphic novel about a self-actualizing garden snail who casts off his earthly bounds and heads to space. It’s slow-going. Can I enroll in courses in other disciplines at WashU to help fortify my fiction with facts? –Discouraged in Des Plaines You bet! You may take courses at the 400-level and above from across the University—in subjects like writing, philosophy, art history, and the sciences—as long as you have the proper prerequisites. So, fear not, D—It sounds like you and your Astropod are already well on your way.
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31. Hansel and Gretel denouement 32. Hybrid printers that take it one color at a time 33. NYC loft district once home to many artists 34. Magazine page, on the loose 36. Author of Blobby Boys comics; also, prof D.B. Dowd’s standard poodle 37. Sigh of satisfaction or relief 38. Van Gogh, to his buddies 41. Elemental symbol, from the Greek for “carving”
See back page for answers.
Official MFA-IVC spokesperson Lightnin’ George answers your frequently asked, white-hot questions about the program.
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42. Outdoorsy illustratorD who gave some fine advice on living in Texas 47. Earthy residence of Sam, the Sam Fox fox 48. Sometimes, they pay the bills +W ith the yellow squares in 14-across, 4-down, and 43-across, the acronym of this MFA program D
Represented in the collections of the DMGHL St. Louis native! WashU alum!
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CU T T HIS OU T A N D M A IL IT B ACK TO R ECEI V E A FR EE PIECE OF M FA-I VC S WAG! Name__________________________________________
Get Vindicated (Graphically)! Please, contact us with any questions you have about the MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture program. Check out our website for complete details on how to apply as well as information about scholarships and financial aid.
Address________________________________________
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City______________________ State____ Zip___________ Email address____________________________________ School(s) attended________________________________ Year of graduation______ Desired term of entry__________ MAIL TO: Washington University in St. Louis, One Brookings Drive, Campus Box 1213, St. Louis, MO 63130
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CL A SSI FI E D S
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ANTED— Sam Fox School seeks new class of amazing i l lu st r at o r s / w r i t e r s / v i sua l c ulture make rs
for MFA-IVC program. Other interests may in- clude drawing, painting, sketchbookery, motion graphics, typography, printmaking, storytelling, comics, animation, writing, art, bookbinding, viz journalism, Americana, illus. history, zine-ing, hand lettering, kerning, archivescouring, et al viz nerdcetera. Must be willing to relocate to bustling cosmopolis w/ good eats & EZ livin’. No curmudgeons, snoots, or malcontents need apply. Excellent qualifications req. APPLY WITHIN! E mfaivc. samfoxschool.wustl.edu
The SAM FOX AMBASSADORS GRADUATE FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM provides exceptional graduate students with full-tuition scholarships and an annual $750 travel stipend for research. All MFA-IVC program applicants will be automatically considered. mfaivc.samfoxschool.wustl.edu ANSWER TO TODAY’S PUZZLE G H O S
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Washington University encourages and gives full consideration to all applicants for admission, financial aid, and employment. The University does not discriminate in access to, or treatment or employment in, its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, age, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, veteran status, disability, or genetic information. Applicants with a prior criminal history will not be automatically disqualified from consideration for admission. Inquiries about compliance should be addressed to the University’s Vice Chancellor for Human Resources, Washington University, Campus Box 1184, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130.
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