How long have you been a volunteer here?

I’ve been here for 15 years and have always volunteered in merchandising. The staff in this department has always kept me very engaged.  Sometimes I do mundane tasks like pricing new merchandise or dusting or even folding gift boxes–wherever I can help out. But I also get to do more interesting things like writing product descriptions.   Products sold in the Shop are to be connected in some way to the Museum’s collections or exhibitions. So my test is to write a product description card that makes the connection…it’s kind of a personal challenge for me.

This is all a fascinating change from my first life as a school teacher. Teaching can be a very structured environment, and now I have a lot of flexibility and variety in my day-to-day tasks here in the merchandising department. Plus, everyone’s really open to new ideas so conversations are lively.

Where are you from originally?

I’m from the midwest, from a small farming town near Chicago. A really small town. I arrived in Brooklyn in the 1960s for my first teaching job and never left. Moving here was really the escape I longed for, to get away from the confines of  my small rural home town…New York City was just a big adventure and  I’ve had a great life here.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

I always wanted to be a teacher. It was a common career for women in those days before liberation. You could work and have a family without sacrificing too much.   But also, I came from a big family and I was naturally bossy, so teaching was a good fit for me.

Why did you want to volunteer at the Brooklyn Museum?

While I was a Brooklyn teacher, before there was much of a school program at the museum, I used to bring my classes to fill out the study of Ancient Egypt, Northwest Coast Indians (remember those totem poles), African ritual art and other topics.  The Brooklyn Museum is such a gem and it used to be passed over by teachers who had to develop their own on-site experience.  When I retired from the school system, I called the volunteer office thinking I might do docent work, but the merchandising department contacted me and the rest is history.

What are you working on right now?

Right now I’m working on the Children’s Book Fair. A few years ago, Sallie Stutz (Vice Director for Merchandising) had a connection with a professional colleague who had been doing a book fair at the Portland, (Oregon ) Historical Society. They are locally famous for their book fair which make use of many volunteers, so we looked to their example and started planning to hold  a children’s book fair here at the Museum.

How long has the Book Fair been going on?

This is the fourth year. We started working on the first book fair a year in advance by looking for  authors  and illustrators to invite to participate. Our good fortune was to have contact with  two children’s book authors/illustrators who were on staff: one was Keith Duquette, who was interviewed for Brooklyn’s Finest, and the other was Sean Qualls who used to work in the merchandising stock room and has since gone on to be an important illustrator. They led us to other children’s book authors/illustrators who might be Brooklyn-based. So we started to develop a list of some twenty Brooklyn authors and illustrators. That was about the same year that the annual Brooklyn Book Festival started at Brooklyn Borough Hall and we looked at what they were doing and scoped our event to include only recently published children’s books.

How many authors participate now?

This year we have 37 authors and illustrators. We have a core of author/illustrators who have retuned most years but each year we are led to invite new people. We have pretty specific guidelines: the participants must have published a new book within the last 18 months or if it’s an older publication, it must have a Brooklyn theme. Through the years we have brought together authors with the illustrators whose names appeared together on the book, but had never personally met each other.  The author Nancy Krulik of the Katie Kazoo adventure series was surprised to meet John & Wendy, who are the illustrators of that series.  They continue to collaborate and John & Wendy have gone on to get their own books published.  The success of the Book Fair has also led the way to our Eco Fair Event and author signings in the Museum Shop.

What do you like about this event?

It’s a free admission public event that coincides with the museum’s mission. The book fair is about reaching out to the community and over the years we’ve expanded to reach out to many ethnic groups and cultures. We’ve also connected with different Brooklyn neighborhoods and gotten in touch with individuals who bring their peers and community with them to the book fair and sometimes to the museum for the first time. All of this keeps the museum’s mission on education and community involvement in focus.  One author/illustrator who is a parent, publicized the event at his children’s school where he is a local hero and many families attended the book fair and experienced the Museum for the very first time.

What’s your favorite work of art here?

The Burghers of Calais series of sculptures by Auguste Rodin, which I’ve always admired since taking trips to the Musśe Rodin in Paris. I am also fond of any art work that includes the Brooklyn Bridge.

Finally, what’s your commute like?

I live in Carroll Gardens so it’s pretty close. It’s easy–I just drive my car into the parking lot.

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To meet more of our staff, visit the Brooklyn’s Finest Flickr set.

According to Dennis:

My project will link tags from the museum collection to daily photographs I take for my personal blog. This will allow the museum collection to directly inform and inspire my personal photography.

Brooklyn Museum tagged “Red”

Starting with an item in the museum collection, I will review the tags, and the daily photo I take for my blog will match one of these tags. Next I search for other items in museum collection with this tag, from the search results I will pick a new piece and begin the cycle again. At the end of the project I will resend the images and tags in a chronological collection.

Dennis Bass, Red

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The 1stfans Twitter Art Feed is no longer a benefit of 1stfans membership, but the original feed in its entirety has been archived on the Brooklyn Museum website.

Where are you from?

I grew up in Republic, PA which is about 2 hrs from Pittsburgh. When I lived there, the town had about 2,000 people, so everyone definitely knew each other.

What were you doing before the Brooklyn Museum?

I was the Associate Curator of Film and Video at the Whitney Museum of American Art. That’s actually why I first moved to New York- because I got a job there.

In the evenings, I was doing some freelance set and costume design at the La Mama theatre and one of my designs won a Bessie award.   So the Whitney asked me if I’d ever thought about doing exhibition design, and I tried it out. One of the first shows that I designed was the Joseph Stella retrospective in 1994 and I continued to design shows like the 1995 Biennial and others, on a freelance basis while I was curating.

Then, I had a career “refocus” and decided to focus on design. You know, film curating is really time consuming (because it’s a time-based art).  So, when I first started working here, there was an entire year when I just didn’t go to the movies! This was after ten years of watching 10 or 12 films a week. I really loved doing it and loved making film series, but the reality is that people end up seeing one or two films from a whole film series…it’s not like an art exhibit…people rarely see the big picture.

What do you do here?

As Chief Designer, my biggest responsibilities are one, to design exhibitions; and two, to manage the design department and all of its activities: exhibition design, graphic design, and all print materials.

What exhibition have you enjoyed working on the most?

I always tell people, my favorite exhibition is the one I’m working on now . . . and right now that’s Tipi: Heritage of the Great Plains. Some exhibitions are easy, and others are more complicated. Where you end up at the end of the design process is one thing, and when the exhibition opens is another. You see it by yourself and it’s one perspective because you’ve been in this cocoon with the curator for so many months. But then you start to look at it completely differently when it opens because often the public has other expectations…

So by the end, I’m never really sure if an exhibition is a favorite because I’ve enjoyed designing it, or because the public had a positive response to it. It’s hard when you put a lot of effort into a show and it’s not well attended…it’s just hard to know what people will be interested in. You have to be a fortune teller almost.

You spent a lot of time working on Who Shot Rock. What was that like?

Who Shot Rock was exciting because I love music and I enjoy film and pop culture. I love working on shows that bridge the focus of my various careers. Yeah, I have to say, I really loved working on Rock.

When designing exhibitions, it’s all about the relationship between you and the curator. I really just love working on different topics. That was really appealing about coming to work at the Brooklyn Museum. I’ve traveled a lot (I’ve been to 45 countries) and I started traveling because I wanted to see art in person. I didn’t want to only be reading about it. And here, I get to work with different experts in so many different fields. It’s not just American art. It’s not just 20th century art like at the Whitney.

Tell me more about your travels.

The first year I moved to New York, I went to Paris, Milan and Venice . . . and I’ve been traveling ever since. I think of traveling as my continuing education.  A really well-known artist that I used to hang out with told me that you can either read about things, or you can actually go out and do them. That was really good advice.

One of the most interesting travel experiences I had was a recent trip to Ethiopia. It was really eye-opening because I hadn’t ever been to sub-Saharan Africa, and I chose it because they have a lot of cultures that live as they have been for hundreds of years. There was a lot of camping involved…and I have to say, I’m not such a good camper. But at a certain point, I realized if I didn’t learn to camp, I wasn’t going to get to see certain things. I learned so much about people’s creativity there . . . especially with their appearance: hair design, jewelry design… Everyday it was like going to an Ethiopian Fashion Show. Let’s call it “Tribal Couture…” Now, that would be a great exhibition.

Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2009

Do you have a favorite work of art at the Brooklyn Museum?

Oh, that’s hard. I like a lot of things, especially after being here so long. There’s a Songye figure in the African Art galleries which I love. I look at it all the time.

The Arts of Africa galleries were actually the first galleries that I designed here. I had never worked on anything like that before, so a lot of it was just learning about African history, architecture, and culture. There’s just something about those objects.They have this different feeling about them…maybe it’s because the art and sculpture is made for completely different reasons than why we make them. But they seem to have this spirit in them and a particular energy…it’s almost magical.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

When I was little, I said I was going to be a doctor. My first year in college I was pre-med. I actually still find it interesting…I watch Discovery Health Channel all the time.

But I think the moment when my focus changed was as a pre-med student, I was required to participate in a lot of extra activities, and I worked for the school’s crisis hotline. It was really traumatic, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to continue doing that kind of work. I was always really good and two things growing up: science and art. So the next year, I called my mom and decided to do art, and eventually, majored in film.

I think if I ended up in medicine, I’d probably be a plastic surgeon or something…brow lifts, and what not. It’s the design part of medicine…

What’s the design aesthetic of your own apartment?

As far as furniture design, it’s all modern. And there’s really not much of it. There’s also no art on the walls. You know, I look at amazing art all day long, so when I go home I kind of need to clear my eyes.

And finally, what’s your commute like?

I live in midtown, so I have a reverse commute. It’s great because I always get a seat on the subway, and can drink my coffee and read the paper. Then, I feel ready to go when I get here.

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To meet more of our staff, visit the Brooklyn’s Finest Flickr set.

Her proposal for the Twitter Art Feed deviates from her current studies, however, and instead touches on her training and love of photography. In her own words:

In high school, I discovered a passion for photography. I continued this passion while working on my Masters in Arts and Humanities. This is when I realized my hobby and passion was more and meant more to me than something I just did for fun. I decided to take my art into a new direction. As a photographer and artist I’m always looking for new ways to take a photo of something. I want to spark conservations with my images, and I want to explore and share the things that I love. I love food, so why not combine the two. My feed will include discussions of food for 1stfans. Since food is a very broad topic, I will have weekly themes: week one will be about calories, week two about sharing and discovering recipes, week three  will include photos while dining out, and our final week will be random food topics inspired by 1stfans. This can include anything from photos of food to Halloween candy, the topics are up to you.

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The 1stfans Twitter Art Feed is no longer a benefit of 1stfans membership, but the original feed in its entirety has been archived on the Brooklyn Museum website.

Where are you from?

I’m originally from Dallas, TX, and I’ve lived in New York for, let’s see… 30 years! Hm, I guess I can call myself an official New Yorker now.

What do you do here?

Essentially what I do is share information about the programs and exhibitions of the Brooklyn Museum with our community.  I share this information by attending street fairs, festivals, career days, community board meetings, and neighborhood association meetings, and I try to form collaborations with various community groups so they can have increased access to the Museum.

One thing I’ve done recently was to enroll the Museum in the Cool Culture program that captures families, such as early childhood day cares, low-income, or foster care families, and gives them free admission to cultural institutions in all five boroughs. It’s great because it allows us to invite non-traditional museum goers here and encourages parents to use the Museum as an educational resource.  Often, it’s social workers or PTA members who are trying to encourage these families to participate, but they’ve usually never been here, so we also host orientations so they can fully experience what they are offering.

Overall, I spend about half my time out of the office meeting with community leaders, and the other half here hosting events for different groups, such as the MTA hearing earlier this year or community board meetings, among other things.

And this time of year, you’re busy getting ready for the West Indian-American Day Parade.

Yes, it’s the calm before the storm right now…it starts on Thursday and continues for 4 nights of concerts, which all lead up to the big Labor Day Parade on Monday. During those four nights, there’s a steel pan competition where 15 different bands (each with 30 to 100 members) play a few songs and synchronize them … Then there’s the King and Queen Costume competition–people spend months and months making these huge elaborate costumes with sequins and feathers. There’s also a Soca and Calypso music night, featuring local and international artists.

All activities take place on our premises so my role is to help implement the activities around Carnival and ensure the safety of our community and the site.

Schawannah takes matters into her own hands on the Festival’s concert stage.

How did the Museum get involved with this event?

The West Indian-American Carnival Festival Association formed a relationship with the Museum 40 years ago because the celebration of West Indian culture centered here in Crown Heights. Brooklyn actually has the second largest Jamaican population outside of Jamaica (though in the Museum’s immediate neighborhood, it’s primarily Haitian and Trinidadian). The celebration started out small, but has lasted through many evolutions and challenges into what it is today. People now come from all over the world for Carnival: we have over 5,000 people here each night and about 3 million on Eastern Parkway for the parade. All of the West Indian island cultures are supposed to be represented during this event.

My favorite part is seeing the excitement of the crowd during the Steel Pan Competition and the friendly rivalry between the bands. And one new thing I was introduced to last year was getting to try a shark sandwich, which is a Caribbean delicacy.

How long have you worked here?

I’ve been here for 10 years…it’s a bananas milestone!

What were you doing before coming to the Museum?

I was in TV and film for 15 years: I started at ABC news, then the Maury Povich show, and also HBO sports (working on World Championship Boxing was pretty exciting). I’ve actually had a lot of pretty crazy jobs…at one point I managed the bridal registry at Macys on 34^th Street…Oh I witnessed it all there: mother-daughter fights, crazy brides… one couple even tried to return china with spaghetti sauce still on it!

At one point I was also an assistant to Diana Ross, which was very cool. In the beginning, you’re in awe because you’re in the presence of an icon that you’ve watched on TV, but then all of a sudden you’re sitting in front of her having a normal conversation. She was actually pretty down to earth…I remember she liked to make her own salad dressing.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be an anchorperson. So I tried it, but I really did enjoy it. I just didn’t like all those people looking at me, and then I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that all these other people were out there looking at me too.  So that didn’t last too long…

Do you have any hidden talents?

I’m a fencer, though I haven’t done it in a few years. I wanted exercise and wasn’t so great about going to the gym so I thought this would be a good exercise outlet. Plus, it turned out that it’s a pretty great conversation piece. I fenced for 8 years and I really enjoyed it… I even managed to make it into a couple of tournaments (which mostly just let me know that I needed to take more classes).

We actually had a lot of diversity amongst the students… I fenced at the New York Fencers Club, and Peter Westbrook, who’s an Olympic athlete, runs a non-profit out of there that trains young kids in fencing and provides them with college scholarships.  There’s even a brother-sister team from Brooklyn who won the scholarship recently.

Finally, what’s your commute like?

Well, I’m now a proud new homeowner (yay!) in Harlem, so I take the train right from my corner and I’m here in about an hour.

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To meet more of our staff, visit the Brooklyn’s Finest Flickr set.

Whether it’s through tweets, photographs, or ruminations that sometime exceed 140 characters, this character is intriguing not only because of the seemingly omnipresent reports on art and museum happenings around the world (though primarily focused on New York), but also because it reflects a highly personal, and unadulterated, take on everyday experiences with works of art. For the Twitter Art Feed this month, Museum Nerd launched a community project that is an ode to-what else?-museums that will unfold throughout the month for our followers. I’ll let Museum Nerd explain further:

“This month, I’m extremely excited to be Brooklyn Museum’s 1stfans digital artist in residence. Initially I conceived of this project as a collective “love letter” to “museums.” I posted a message on twitter asking if anyone who “loved museums and could lick a stamp” wanted to be involved in an art project and used the hashtag #MuseumArt. Since the 1stfans artists are kept under wraps until their project launches, I wasn’t able to explain exactly what #MuseumArt involved, but people were excited nonetheless. I asked them to send me postcards showing museums and to write what they loved about the museum on the back.

Since @MuseumNerd is a secret identity, I enlisted the help of museum world friends who tweet for their museums. They received the postcards on my behalf and I went on several #SecretMission operations to meet them and attain the postcards. On one #SecretMission I visited four museums in four NYC boroughs to pick up postcards. In part I wanted to give recognition to the real people behind museum twitter feeds and remind folks that museums are not monolithic unapproachable institutions.

This project falls into critic Ben Davis’s “Greimasian Semiotic Square” as a “social art collaboration,” and was partly inspired by artist An Xiao’s explorations of the relationship between digital and analogue communication, especially in her 1stfans twitter art feed. What started as a brief digital message evoked dozens of analogue communications (postcards) which will now be posted again as digital scans, but with my own creative intervention. These will be in the form of simple word bubbles which reflect my obsession with words and words in art (e.g. Ed Ruscha). This is part of a body of work that celebrates “museums” themselves as the wonderful inspiring places they’ve been for all the participants in #MuseumArt and millions of others.”

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The 1stfans Twitter Art Feed is no longer a benefit of 1stfans membership, but the original feed in its entirety has been archived on the Brooklyn Museum website.

Where are you originally from?

I was born in Harlem, but lived in Jamaica for many years growing up.

How long have you been working here?

I’ve been at the Museum for 4 years: For the first three years I was a security guard on the floor and I’ve been operating the freight elevator for the last year. When I was offered this position on the freight elevator, I wasn’t sure about taking it. As a security guard on the floor I operated the Schapiro elevator from time to time, and I used to love meeting everyone. You’d have all kinds of visitors coming through, from all over the world. But I tried out the freight, and discovered a completely different and interesting mix of people: art handlers, contractors, maintainers, engineers…

What’s your commute to the Museum like?

I live in East Flatbush now so I have a very short ride on the subway and bus. But I take a cab several mornings during the week. It’s my one taste of luxury. And the same guy comes to pick me every day: Sebastian from Trinidad.

It looks pretty luxurious in the elevator as well. You’ve got quite the set up.

Well, in the beginning when I first was getting comfortable in the elevator, all I had was a chair (It was a regular chair. Not a fancy one like this one), and I had milk crates which served as a desk for my books. I kept bringing in more milk crates and set them up all over this side of the elevator as a desk, a coffee table…it looked like a studio apartment in here!

So one day, Filippo Gentile, Supervising Maintainer here, offered to get me a cart. The art handlers are always touting around these carts you know. Jason Grunwald, another art handler (and an artist himself) crafted this one especially for me, so I can have all my things in here with me.

Besides your mini library, you’ve got a considerable CD collection in here. What do you like to listen to?

I almost have a routine now: classical in the morning (Handel, Bach, Mozart), jazz in the early afternoon (Sonny Rollins, MJQ), and salsa and reggae later in the day.

What’s the most interesting experience you’ve had while operating the freight?

Last year, I was asked to work overtime for the Director’s Reception, which took place one evening on the fifth floor and in the sixth floor storage areas, and they used the freight elevator to shuttle the guests from one floor to the other. We don’t usually have passengers in here, but the guests came in and were all dressed up, and the elevator was packed like sardines. I had my music playing as I usually do, and it just happened to be so perfectly appropriate for the occasion. Everyone just seemed to be so charmed by the space.

The same evening, another staff member brought some Japanese guests on the elevator, and for them, the whole thing seemed like a big event. I still had my jazz playing and they were just fascinated with the whole experience. They started taking pictures of me and the elevator, and were really having a grand time in here. It was just one of those nights…

You know, after writing fiction, the whole world starts to seem like a procession of characters parading through your life, including yourself. It’s just like Shakespeare  said… all the world being a stage… and all of us merely players…

How long have you been a writer?

When I was in the army, I read a lot of Hemingway. He said that in order to be a good novelist, you have to be a good journalist. So I followed his advice after I got out of the army, and I went around to all the newspapers and eventually got a job at Time & Life magazine. Of course, you can’t just walk in and start writing, so they made me a file clerk…after a succession of jobs, I ended up becoming a reporter.

Rumor has it you wrote a somewhat controversial story on the Black Panther Party.

Yes, somewhere along the way, the magazine asked me to do a story on the Black Panthers, but I wasn’t eager to do at first. It seemed too similar to a story I did on the Blackstone Rangers, a street gang in Chicago, and I had a very bad experience doing that. The story went about in the standard Life magazine way with the interviews and photographs, but I was working with another reporter who had a nervous breakdown in the middle of it because it was so intense and dangerous to work with this group. They were gangsters and, you know, very dangerous. So I thought the Black Panthers was going to be a repeat, but I also didn’t want to turn it down. It was what they called a “plum story”- the chance to make headlines and also an opportunity for me to go to California for the first time. So I hooked up with a photographer out there, Howard Bingham…for months Howard and I followed them everywhere and conducted interviews: we went to their rallies, their church, and also to jail to see Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Party, who had been accused of murdering a policeman. This became a very big political case at the time, because it was essentially the politics of the Black Panthers that was on trial.

Eventually, I wrote something, but after many revisions and a lot of back and forth with the editors, they either just didn’t want to print it or they didn’t want to print it the way I had written it….When I realized it wasn’t going to be published in the magazine, I decided to take a leave of absence and devoted my time to writing a book which wound up being called A Special Rage.

What is A Special Rage about?

It’s about my experience trying to cover the Black Panthers, and the contradictions of being a black reporter while doing so.

Did you always want to be a writer?

Well, I was all set to become a black Frank Sinatra until puberty came along and ruined my voice. After that, I decided I wanted to become a writer because of an English teacher I had when I was living in Jamaica.

What were you doing between writing your book and working here?

I’ve had a series of jobs, all to support my writing. When you’re writing, it takes up all of your time and energy, so everything I’ve ever done has been to support that. At one point I was a doorman in New York and in Chicago at a psychiatric hospital, I taught English at Rutgers University and Livingston College…I’ve had a whole series of gigs that have allowed me to focus on my writing.

Can you also tell me about the Sugar Hill Historical Society?

In the 80s, while I was living in Chicago I became really interested in historic preservation…and after I moved back to New York, there was a big issue over the Audobon Ballroom building in Harlem. Way back in the day, the Audobon was the place you went to dance on a Saturday night with a hot date, but later on it became a space where there were a lot of political rallies… Malcom X used to speak at the Audobon and was assassinated there. Years later, Columbia University purchased the property and wanted to build a brand new facility. Of course, there was a big uproar not only because of the Ballroom’s historical significance, but also because of its architectural importance. So, I got involved and started my own group called the Sugar Hill Historical Society to help preserve these kinds of spaces (Sugar Hill is a part of Harlem). I wrote and published a newsletter for the group; in this way, I could also continue my writing.

Are writing anything at the moment?

I’m actually finishing up work on two books: one non-fiction, a memoir called Days of the Demon.  The other is a novel called The Flight of the Black Swan.

Is there a particular work of art here that inspires your own work?

I’d have to say The Philosopher by Jaques Villon.

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To meet more of our staff, visit the Brooklyn’s Finest Flickr set.

Despite popular belief, museums are not proverbial ivory towers situated high upon hills, filled with curators and staff meticulously tending to their objects in sterile offices worthy of forensic crime television. In fact the truth is quite the contrary: the offices of a museum are crowded, cluttered and storied places often as interesting and convoluted in appearance as objects in the collection.  Throughout August I will conduct an exposé, wherein “portraits” of various museum offices will be posted to twitter.

Danny’s “self-portrait”

This idea came about through a conversation with a friend about the Brooklyn Museum.  Without a museum background, this friend assumed, as I think many people do, that museums exist in a bubble.  It was clear that people’s perception of museums as clean whitewashed spaces full of beautiful, pristine objects protected by high security extended to the perception that curators and staff work in similarly pristine conditions. This project is an opportunity to show that the reality is quite different and that often the work spaces of the collectors can be as interesting as the objects they collect.”

Please feel free to tweet your own desk to compare.

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The 1stfans Twitter Art Feed is no longer a benefit of 1stfans membership, but the original feed in its entirety has been archived on the Brooklyn Museum website.

What do you do here?

I am the Library Preservation Associate. I am responsible for overseeing the physical care of the diverse and wonderful research collections of the Art Reference, Wilbour Libraries and Museum Archives. On a day-to-day basis, I do book repair and rebinding. I construct a wide variety of protective enclosures for the books, sketches, photographs and other formats in the collection. I am also responsible for constructing cradles and supports for any of the Libraries and Archives collections that are displayed in the museum and any of the collection that’s included in traveling exhibitions.

So what were you doing before you worked at the Brooklyn Museum?

I worked at the MoMA Library. My last job there was microfilming selected books and files.

What’s your commute like?

I am really lucky because I live very close to the Museum so it is a short walk.

Where are you originally from?

I grew up on Long Island, but I have been a proud resident of Brooklyn since 1983.

What did you want to be when you grew up?

I was an impressionable child. At various times I wanted to be a pet-shop owner, an architect, a painter, an anthropologist, a cartoonist, a naturalist and a center fielder for fielder for the New York Yankees.

Did any of those come true?

In a way. I am the author and illustrator of seven books for children both fiction and non-fiction. But I have also been trying to free my approach to my drawing and painting and to find new audiences. So on April 21 last year, I posted a drawing and gave it a title on Facebook, and I have continued to do so on a daily basis since that day.

EEK! by Keith Duquette

I’m thrilled with the interactive nature of this posting: My friends’ comments are a joy to read each day. I also like how this project has made me investigate my own drawing archive. And yes, it has lead to me loosening up my approach. After I completed an entire year of drawing posts I decided to see what I could make of this in print. Just how do you show a year’s worth of drawings in a printed document? I experimented with different binding forms and came to the conclusion that an accordion book was a simple and wonderful way to do this.

These drawings are so charming and clever. Tell us more about the accordion book.

You can look at this book page by page, each page representing a week, or you can look at it in total as a year, in which case the book opens up to a 12-foot long document. I love the idea of finding different ways to deliver daily drawings to people online and in print, so I’m continuing to explore a wide variety of ways to do this.

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To meet more of our staff, visit the Brooklyn’s Finest Flickr set.