1. At this desk I design books, album covers, theatre and music posters, write, look at my photos and other people’s photos. I didn’t realize what a mess my desk is til’ I took pictures. I was feeling everything I draw, design or make is FOR a certain project and hadn’t been sketching much. I took out that red box on the chair and called it The Orphanage images without a home, words without a context, stuff maybe I’ll throw away or maybe I’ll someday “use” for something. A place to send useless art.
2. I’m from Kentucky; riding horses since I was 7 years old. I miss riding, now that I live in Brooklyn. I brought back these little guys to keep me company. Plus, I think they help the plants grow.
3. If I’m working hard on a graphic novel. I draw about a page a day. There’s some inked but not-yet colored pages of my work-in-progress, The Undertaking of Lily Chan. I keep my bike in my studio or in my bedroom, where I crawl over it to get into bed. Then I snuggle with it. I was trying to learn Chinese brush painting, but those rolls of rice paper take up so much space.
4. My urban garden and the edge of the drafting table where I do most of my drawing. I don’t know if it’s organic to grow plants over a bus and train depot.
5. 860gb of storage, nest of wires, and wolf hair.
Danica Novgorodoff is a painter, comic book artist, writer, graphic designer and horse wrangler who currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. She received her B.A. from Yale University in 2002. Her comic A Late Freeze won the Isotope Award and was nominated for an Eisner Award, and her graphic novels Slow Storm(2008) and Refresh, Refresh. (2009) were published by First Second Books.
FROM YOUR DESKS: Being a Kentucky girl, did you go to the Derby?
DANICA NOVGORODOFF: I went to the Derby twice — the first time when I was 15 and won a poster contest. The next time, I was a senior in college and drove 15 hours straight with 3 of my friends to get to Kentucky, go to the muddy infield and drink mint juleps, and drove 15 hours back to take our final exams.
FYD: Do you remember which horse won those years?
DN: The winning horse in 1996 was Grindstone, and in 2002 it was War Emblem.
FYD: Can you talk to us about your new graphic novel; what is the premise?
DN: It’s based on an ancient Chinese tradition of “ghost marriages”—the marriage of two dead people. A young man, Deshi, is sent to find a “wife” for his dead brother, and ends up kidnapping a girl.They travel through the mountains of Shanxi—it’s a sort of adventure/western/ghost story.
Danica – Thanks for sharing your creative space. I love seeing a Kentucky girl living her dream!
Best,
Melony
Louisville, KY
P.S. – Have you seen the new Secretariat movie? Very well done!