A Plan in Tan’s Hand

A magazine cover is a promise that somebody is worth reading about. I drew myself onto one in charcoal and graphite at twenty-two by thirty inches, hand at the chin, and lettered the masthead and the cover lines by hand: April 26, four dollars and forty-four cents, and a headline reading a plan in Tan’s hand. The story underneath is about an unfinished journey in New York City, which is exactly what it was. I made it as a first-year drawing final in the weeks before going home to Washington State for the summer. The face arrived first, then the glasses, then the type. Putting my own name on a cover was not confidence. It was a way of asking the question out loud.