A spread of the Amazon’s Rainforest (with marmoset) in Endangered Animals was an example of areas and species under threat when the book was published in 1995 but remains threatened today, 30 years later.
The great and venerable Western Publishing CO. sadly, was bought out by St Martin’s Press in the 90s but not before I got the chance to work with them on 5 books and a few pop-up book covers.
Their series of Golden Books Pocket Guide was hands-down my absolute first pick, top publication on my list when I was aiming to "break into" freelancing. My portfolio samples were made specifically to appeal to the art directors of this company and it was with their books in mind on which I’d put my crosshairs for getting work. My initial mailing “blast” contacted Western and 19 other publishers and I got responses from 5, a return rate which is unheard of in today's industry. Ah, the 90s were pretty exciting for lots of reasons.
The wonderful Art Director at Western, Remo Cosentino, really took me under his wing and I learned a great deal about design and layout and how to best submit sketches and keep finished work clean. With this project (and others in the first handful of book projects) I developed my strategies for efficiency, many of which I still use today.
I have fond memories of driving to NYC and meeting Remo who took me to lunch— Italian with antipasti with little octopi. This young 24-year-old kid from Lancaster PA, was utterly fascinated by the novelty of it all, the bigness of the city, the variety of the people…. and had the unshakeable feeling that I was destined to be living this artist’s big life.
The cover image of a jaguar for the first printing of Endangered Animals.
A sidenote, but not unimportant: The art to this book was “lost” for 30 years, shuffled between the various imprints of St. Martin’s Press and MacMillan companies. Finally it surfaced — Odd Dot Inc. sent it back to me in Dec 2021. Only recently have I begun digitally archiving all of the images. I’ve been enjoying the process of looking at them again and remembering how I made them, and the very specific memories of my time creating the work.
Page 4 of Endangered Animals was a T-Rex! /rawr!\
Edit / update 4 Dec: the original artwork for this book is currently being offered for sale through the art representation of Jane Frank at https://www.wow-art.com.