I think I’m going to try to devote Fridays to fabulous things because, well, what better way to end the weekdays than with Fabulous and alliteration? A better rhetorical question has never been asked you say? I completely agree!

Today’s fabulous features (heh heh…okay i’m going to stop) are artists who are crazy awesome, and who are still humble enough to take the time out and respond to their fans.

I’ll be the first to admit: art is hard. It’s not like math where you produce a solution that can be objectively agreed upon and has no part of yourself within it. In art, not only do you struggle to like what you make, you have to get other people to look at your stuff and decide it’s worth something to them too. So when artists make it big out there, I am so happy for them and so in awe of the amount of apparent talent and perseverance that got them there.

Then, if they’re really blow-my-mind awesome, I write them an email.

This seemed like a crazy idea to me pre-RISD…I mean, no one writes Angelina Jolie and tells her how amazing she was in Mr. and Mrs. Smith. But after RISD, I got comfortable with myself as an oddball and thought, you know what? it’s a cold world out there and if I add an encouraging, positive word into the great beyond who’s going to hold it against me?

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t really expect them to write back or develop any sort of friendship relationship with me. They’re amazing! They’re busy! But if they’re having a bad day maybe they’re human enough to have a folder of fan emails to read back on and keep putting beautiful out there. And maaayyyybbbeee if the stars align and there’s a blue moon and hell gets a little breeze they’ll write me a little “hey weirdo, thanks for the kind words” back during their coffee break. Then they’d be dubbed The Most Awesome Artists in D*ro’s Book EVAR for having their crazy successful art careers and still finding the time to talk to small fry like me.

Two such artists are James Jean (the insanely good illustrator who I wound up working with at Chronicle Books due to my random correspondence) and Pendleton Ward of Adventure Time fame (Nickelodeon short below). In fact, from my correspondence with Pendleton I found out that he’s going to have a series based off of that short coming out soon! I can’t wait!

Have you ever contacted any of your favorite artists and gotten a reply?