FACES OF GOD: Book Project

WHAT IT IS: In April 2023, I began work on the project that'll be my primary artistic focus in 2023-2024. “Faces of God" is an exploration in poetry and art of how the Divine appears in the world—a subject that has, as many of you already know, been on my mind all the time in recent months.

What's up with God? What, for example, is God like? Where is God at? And what the heck is God thinking? For years now, I've been mulling over these questions in kitchens, coffee-shops, university libraries, forests, coastal towns, collapsing neighborhoods, international airports, and at the Boys & Girls Club. The questions came up often in the Letters From The Sea Tower—the monthly illustrated snail mail project I worked on from 2018-2022. And so I suppose it only makes sense that I'd be all fired up about tackling a whole new project to give them all the attention they deserve.

I find myself tired, you see, of the tired pictures of God that still come first to my mind when I think about the Divine. I want to find and paint God, who is everywhere, in ALL the places: scrappy kids with attitude, subway performers, transients, old ladies, the trees God cares for, the birds who make their nests there, and the buffeted boat—fast asleep.

My plan for this project is to produce a slim art book featuring twelve original gouache illustrations and twelve original poems of my own to accompany the paintings. (I frequently publish my poems in both print and online journals, but almost all the poems in this book will be brand-new creations you've never seen.)

WHAT'S NEXT: I’ll be pouring myself into this project almost exclusively for the rest of 2023, and hope to launch it via Kickstarter in the first half of 2024 since I'm leaning towards publishing it under my own imprint so as to have full artistic control.

Over the next year, I’ll be sharing progress photos, concept sketches, and updates as this project makes its way from my imagination onto the page. (Well, quite a lot of pages, if we’re being exact, and many of them no doubt destined for the trash!)

When the Kickstarter launches, you won't want to miss it. There will be a number of exclusive and limited rewards only available to Kickstarter supporters, and I plan to make some of my original concept sketches available at that point as well. If this project sounds exciting to you and you want to be in the loop while it comes to life, be sure you’ve signed up for my email list. You can do so on the homepage or near the top of the page here.