Postcard Book
Chronicle Books
In shops September 2011
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Last time I was in San Francisco I spent entirely too long at the Chronicle Book shop on Union Street. They have piles of cookbooks and kitsch books and art books. All sorts of lovely little nublets I had no idea I needed on my bookshelf back in Los Angeles.

As an appetizer for the delectable holiday offerings Chronicle has coming out soon, they sent over one of their new postcard books, I AM YOURS – Illustrations by the delightfully peculiar, Joe Park. These 30 cards feature soft, squishy people and animals in the most awkward scenarios – rabbits smoking cigarettes, elephants posing for a portrait with a feather duster, bears on the subway… There are also images which are not so strange – landscapes and locomotives and princesses in danger. The unifying element here is Park’s great talent with all these subjects (reproduced from oil on linen paintings). The sharp balance between light and dark (literally and figuratively) will pull you into his strange and whimsical world until you just have to see more.

I made the mistake of leaving this little booklet on the kitchen counter and many a houseguest has pilfered the collection already. It happens.