How did you get started in illustration? I’ve always drawn, but when I went to art school to study fine art and advertising, I (like a lot of art students) quit drawing and started making really bad conceptual art. After I graduated, I worked as a copywriter and campaign strategist, created educational campaigns for elections in East Africa and got a master’s degree in international social work. At that point, I hadn’t drawn in about ten years, and I was living in Oakland, commuting to San Francisco on the subway. I started noticing the people around me: they were holding really still, like figure drawing models. I started sketching them, and immediately I was hooked. I made the decision to put drawing at the center of my career. The transition took a ton of hard work, working full time at an ad agency and freelancing at night, but within a few years I’d made the switch.
What personal experiences or circumstances have most influenced your work or style? My social work training had a huge impact. The field is focused on understanding people through systems—family, race, class, politics, social structures—and through personal narratives, or storytelling. That is how I understand the world and the place from which I create. I make a lot of diagrams and charts, systems to make complex structures and relationships approachable and human.
What is the strangest assignment you’ve ever received? I did a piece about a Sumo wrestler’s daily dietary intake, which, though not that strange, was quite shocking.
What would be your dream assignment? My book Meanwhile in San Francisco was one. I got to tell the fascinating stories of the city that are often overlooked, about the old swimmers at the Dolphin Club, or the people working at the library, or dog walkers, or bison. The first story I did was on chess players on the sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. I’d always been curious about them so I started hanging out with them, drawing. I was a little scared at first. The guys could get a little hot-headed. But after a few days they got used to seeing me and we established a good rapport. I learned a great deal about their lives and what chess means to them. It was so much more than I expected.
How did you develop a journalistic approach to illustration? When I was drawing on the subway, I would write little captions for my pictures of people, making guesses about who they were, where they were going and what they were feeling. I was basically projecting my own thoughts onto them, but I decided I wanted to tell true stories and give people an opportunity to speak for themselves. So I started to hang out with my subjects, spending anywhere from a week to a month with them, drawing and writing down everything they said. I call the stories illustrated documentaries because they are heavily edited and don’t adhere to the rules of journalism, but the process is journalistic.