Changes

My caricature work has always been created in response to what other people need. I’ve never carved out time to explore the subjects that I most want to do, on my own terms. I’m pursuing funding for a new body of work that does that. It’s exciting.

Katharine Hepburn was the most memorable by far. I spent quite a bit of time with her and have some very funny and poignant memories. She was sweet and cranky and completely lovely. I promised Steve Hearn that one of my presentations in San Antonio will be heavy on the celebrity anecdotes. I’ve got some good stories.

You mentioned that you’ve been assigned to draw certain celebrities numerous times. Who are some of your favorite faces to tackle?

It’s inevitable that certain figures get assigned over and over. Nicholson, Bill Murray, Letterman, Barbra Streisand, Mick Jagger and Bill Gates are faces I’m always happy to revisit. A random one I’ve been assigned to draw over and over is Kevin Costner. He’s not somebody you see caricatured that often, so I have no clue why I’ve drawn him a dozen times. One of my favorite illustrators, John Cuneo, made me beam with pride when he said that he hated me because I nailed Costner’s likeness. Costner has one of those faces that’s kryptonite for a lot of caricaturists, but he’s never given me trouble.

Tom Hanks.

Jay Leno. He’s simple to caricature. I’d just rather not.

A local farmer who goes by the name “Chicken.” Seriously, the greatest face I have ever seen.

If I seem comfortable on camera, I guess there’s some acting involved. After a few days with camera and lights around, you do get used to it, but it’s all so unnatural. Being filmed can make it tough to do good work. The overhead shots in “Funny Bones” were especially tough. Whenever I tried to forget the film setup and just get lost in work, my head would drift in front of the camera. The videographer watching the monitor would yell “SKUNK!” which became the running joke when I stunk up the shot with my skunk-like ponytail. So he set up a barrier over my desk to keep me out of the frame. It solved the problem, but I had to work at an angle. The lights couldn’t be moved once we started filming, and I kept getting reflections off of the paper and the watercolor washes. There were several sequences where I literally couldn’t see what I was drawing or painting. The sequence was supposed to show this great process, and I’m drawing sideways, blind, struggling like crazy. The final soundtrack is voiceover with nice music. The live soundtrack is swearing.

In spite of that sort of challenge, working in film is so much fun. It’s a return to the raw spark that I felt as a kid just creating for the joy of it. Film structure comes naturally to me and I love to write, so it brings several of my strengths together.

The Portrait Gallery began collecting my work in 1990. As unlikely as it sounds, one of the curators just called me one day. She was interested in a caricature of Katharine Hepburn that I had done for the Kennedy Center. The piece went through their acquisition process, and in the end they decided against it. But ― a couple of the curators and historians became interested in my work and kept in contact. Every few years, they invite me to come in with a pile of drawings and paintings for consideration. Their acquisition process is mysterious. I have something in the works with them now but can’t say much about it.

Seeing my work hanging at the Portrait Gallery is always a bit of an out-of-body experience. It just doesn’t make any kind of sense to me. It’s humbling.

Man, that is an impossible question. So many — most have no obvious influence on my own work, but they move me. I tend to be drawn to work that is expressive or elemental ... Lucien Freud, Francis Bacon, Edward Hopper, the abstract expressionists. Paul Klee. I also really love aboriginal art, and Navajo rug patterns. Van Gogh may be my favorite artist. I’m in awe of his work and even more, his spirit, his connection to life. I’m sure he was a disastrous person to know, but as an artist he was an inferno. He just consumed the world around him.

As for caricature artists who influenced me early on ... Hirschfeld, Levine, Mort Drucker, Ralph Steadman and to some extent Pat Oliphant. When I was growing up, caricature had waned in popularity. It was much less prevalent than it is today. Those artists and a few others were the main ones carrying the torch, and I gravitated to it. I remember being so excited by their work. Something in me was getting activated.

The app was created by the Joe Zeff Design studio, as part of a series of interactive iPad books called “Above & Beyond” about creative people, their art and the stories behind it.

I worked with Joe Zeff Design on a project a few years ago ― turning Justin Timberlake into a yellow M&M for an ad campaign. Zeff is a fan of my work, and after seeing my Smithsonian film about Conan, he decided I was a good candidate for the “Above and Beyond” series. Last spring, he and one of his designers came roaring up the dirt road to my house on their Harleys with an invitation to make the app. They drove from New York and got lost on rural routes that don’t show up on GPS. It was an over-the-top way to make a pitch. I had seen the “Above & Beyond” iPad app on National Geographic photographer George Steinmetz and really loved it. I was honored to be asked and excited to learn about interactive design from some of the best in the business. I jumped on it. The project, not the Harley.

Four months from the handshake to the iTunes store. Most of the work took place in 10 weeks. Very ambitious. There was a huge learning curve on my end, but Zeff wanted to debut the app at a publishing event in New York, so we had a deadline. Always a deadline.

It evolved into something different from what each of us envisioned. We lobbed the framework back and forth and kept throwing curves into the mix, up until the end. It was an intense creative collaboration.

I’m proud of the quality of the finished product. My favorite thing about it is just the fact of it — it’s an interactive iPad ode to traditional materials.

Well, we could all get together in San Antonio in November.

It’s inevitable. The voices need to be let out.