Mothers Day 2020
Did you know that Mozart’s parents had SIX babies, but only two survived infancy? And those two turned out to be world-changing musical geniuses. What about the other four? I used to think a lot about how death was much…
karenErile
The Card in the Age of Digital Reproduction, 2.2
December, 2019. It’s been thirty years since I drew the Babar Christmas Card. And the times have changed. No more collection of India ink-filled Rapidograph pens carefully humidified with a kitchen sponge in an old pickle jar resting on the…
They’re Paper, They’re Folded; They’re Covered with Fonts: 10 Pamphlets for Recent Grads
They’re Paper, They’re Folded; They’re Covered with Fonts: 10 Pamphlets for Recent Grads by Karen Rile How to Buy a Stamp: An Illustrated Field Guide Feeling Entitled to Petty Theft? The Unpaid Intern’s Introduction to Office Supplies (Including Stamps) My Mother,…
They’re Paper, They’re Folded; They’re Covered with Fonts: 10 Pamphlets for Recent Grads
They’re Paper, They’re Folded; They’re Covered with Fonts: 10 Pamphlets for Recent Grads by Karen Rile How to Buy a Stamp: An Illustrated Field Guide Feeling Entitled to Petty Theft? The Unpaid Intern’s Introduction to Office Supplies (Including Stamps) My Mother,…
30 Days of Poetry, 2018
One a day, added throughout April. First day of April: the sky, like an empty book, and the scribbling trees. 1/30 Snow on daffodils— delicious melancholy. Press on that sore tooth. 2/30 April afternoon: the daffodils are shrieking their terrible…
The Card in the Age of Digital Everything
December 2017. A few weeks ago, our longtime friend Dick Dupuis texted me a photo of the handmade card I’d mailed him back in 1986, the year our oldest daughter was born: Remember this? Still in our ornament box! I replied…
Collaborator or contractor
“The problem is that you have the mindset of a collaborator, not a contractor.” That’s what my oldest daughter said to me last night at dinner after I’d been complaining about my treatment as a freelancer. A light blinked on inside my head and…
Text of Joyce DiDonato’s Commencement Speech at The Juilliard School’s 109th Commencement Ceremony
Chairman Kovner, President Polisi, most distinguished honorees, dedicated family, friends, faculty, and to each of the talented, ambitious, courageous, adventurous Juilliard graduates of the class of 2014 before us here today, thank you! I stand before you this morning, duly…
Tree Harmonics
TREE HARMONICS for Calla on her 19th birthday I. A modulation in the wind foreshadows the new harmonics. A modulation in color: cherry petals resolve towards green, yellow-green, as if liquid light were puddling in those thin leaf-cups. We are…
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