how ART you ?

After graduation (which means getting a diploma), the artist had to work for eight years as a waiter in a restaurant to support himself. In May, he could see students in their ceremony (commencement) outfits with their proud parents . This inspired him for this cover.

Polar bears have long been the poster animals for climate change. Melting sea ice threatens their eating and migration patterns; some scientists believe that the species could be nearly extinct by 2100.

Climate change is horrible, and heartbreaking. Dark humor can help. My picture shows how bleak the situation is. Climate change is real. For example, ticks do not die anymore in winter. The artist has been inspired by masters such as A. B. Frost and T. S. Sullivant. Here,the fact that bears can walk on their hind legs made it easier to draw this picture.

Artist Tom Gauld has spent the lockdown in London and he enjoys seeing more his neighbours as they walk along the street—usually, many of them would be at work all day. And, when he takes walks, he sees a lot more people sitting by their front windows, often working on a computer. The idea for this cover started when he walked past a building and noticed that there was a figure in almost every one of the windows. He tried to imagine an everyday event that might attract the attention of everyone in a building.

He usually works at a studio but this year he’s spent more time working from home. It’s fine, but the thing he really missed was going out to think. He often spends time in coffee shops, museums, and galleries, doodling in his sketchbook.

The people he draws are featureless silhouettes. They are all looking in the same direction.The magic of cartooning! It’s careful positioning, so that the little circles suggest a head held in a certain orientation. It’s also about leaving space for the viewer to fill in the blanks, to build these simple shapes into figures that tell a story. The ball is just a small circle, but placed in the right position, with a line under it: it’s a ball in midair. And when we see a stick figure with an outstretched arm and a dog, we imagine the movement and create a story. This is how cartoons are drawn.

This image is a gentle critique of consumerism. The artist himself does not buy too much stuff as his parents taught him not to spend too much money. He never throws anything away, be it paper or plastic bags. He recycles and reuses them over and over again.

Listen to NPR’s programme on Christmas and sustainability here

Definition of sustainability : the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance.

Find the estimated waste per capita here

Read here the packaging waste statistics

Find how to reduce waste

Autumn (fall in American English) can be a bittersweet season. We can enjoy the beauty of the changing leaves and fear the lack of light. This year (2022), there’s a long list of anxieties: the war in Ukraine , climate change, and some American politicians endangering democracy. In his new cover, Adrian Tomine illustrates a worry that has never really left during the past few years, and that could come back as colder weather pushes us back indoors. One characteristic of his art is how he can just focus on a moment or even a mood, and then try to figure out how to convey that on paper.

October 31st 2022 will be a first experience of trick-or-treating for some children, after long covid restrictions : dressing up, walking from door to door, and getting chocolate bars and the candy corn. The artist Sergio García Sánchez brings fresh eyes to a halloween scene; his Grand Central Terminal in New York is haunted by an unusual crowd.

The artist did not celebrate Halloween when growing up in Spain, although there is a holiday honoring the dead, around the beginning of November. People go to the cemetery to paint the tombs of their relatives with whitewash (encalado) and decorate them with flowers. On November 1st, Día de todos los santos, people remember the dead by attending Mass and visiting the cemetery. Nowadays, culture is more global and young people in Spain also dress up for Halloween.

When it started to become popular in Spain, everyone would dress up as monsters and zombies—Spaniards love zombies. Now there is more variation, and we see pirates, nurses, clowns, superheroes, and a lot of supervillains.

This cover shows Grand Central terminal in New Yorker with many people. This train station is a familiar landmark for New Yorkers, and has been featured in many movies or series.

Here is a list of such movies :

• The Fisher King
• North by North West
• Superman
• The Avengers
• The Cotton Club

Anita Kunz has centered a lot of her work on celebrities. She is not really interested in their personality, but she wonders about the concept of celebrity : why are these people famous ? do they really matter ?

Mona Lisa may be famous for her mysterious smile. People want to ask questions about her life and her identity. All the questions might be what makes her famous.