S.B.
S.B. is an artist and author known primarily for her playful criticism and her anthropomorphic graphic novels. Her writing, published in the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, The Atlantic, and Artforum, has been widely anthologized. She studied drawing at the New York Studio School and the Art Students League and has lectured at Parsons School of Design, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the American Psychoanalytic Association. This is her first book of sketches from life. She chose to publish it under a pen name to protect her son's privacy.
I AM DRAWING YOU
A Mother, a Child, a Sketchbook
Hardcover, 264 pages,
color and b&w ills., $39.95
ISBN: 978-0-88214-206-7
Paperback, 264 pages,
color and b&w ills., $25
ISBN: 978-0-88214-235-7
E-book, $9.99
ISBN: 978-0-88214-229-6
I Am Drawing You: A Mother, A Child, A Sketchbook is a deeply original and moving hybrid creation—equal parts art book and personal essay. Just ten days after she gave birth, S.B. began drawing her son as he napped, nursed, and awoke to the world. What began as a physical balancing act—supporting her infant’s head and her sketchbook with her left arm while drawing him with her right—soon became a tender chronicle of her child’s first five years. In more than two hundred spontaneous and occasionally comical line drawings, we watch this new human sleeping, crawling, and trying out possible transitional objects. In an engaging introductory essay, S.B. describes—with light doses of psychoanalytic theory, drawing pedagogy, and art history—what her practice meant to her and what it might mean to others. Sketching one’s child at close range requires a paradoxical mix of physical attachment and mental detachment—a magical elixir that can help anyone overcome the anxiety, alienation, and boredom of new parenthood. Indeed, she believes she has found the "fountain of maternal bliss," and she wants to share it with you.
A beautiful book that covers a tremendous swath of emotion and experience, being particular and universal at once.
—MAIRA KALMAN, illustrator and author
Depiction as connection device. S.B.’s exploratory drawings help establish contact. Another kind of mother and child reunion—seeing and feeling through line and form.
—TERRY WINTERS, artist
One thing about portrait drawing is that the artist can connect
deeply with the subject—even more so if the subject is your
own child. Nothing could be more powerful! Congratulations
to S.B. for this wonderful book.
—BETTY EDWARDS, author
The only thing I don’t love about this project is that I didn’t have it twenty-five years ago when I was struggling as a new
mother.
—LINN MEYERS, artist
