My latest project—illustrations for a friend’s book—has quite a backstory: my friend is Harry Gordon, a retired high school English teacher whose American literature class i attended as a high school junior at Westminster High School back in 1988-89 (!). He’d been one of my favorite teachers and I’d kept in touch with him after graduation until 1997, when I left to go to grad school in NY.
Fast forward to May of 2023, when I was hanging out with a bunch of high school friends and his name came up. One of the friends suggested that we look him up on Facebook and we saw that he was living in Long Beach! I messaged him, not knowing if I’d hear back, considering that his last public post was from 3 years ago. A few hours later I received his reply: “Is this really you or is this a scam?” 😆
We were astonished to learn that we’d been living just a few blocks away from each other in Bluff Heights for over 15 years and had never run into each other (especially at that Ralphs on 4th St). Since then we’ve hung out regularly, usually over his excellent martinis, and it was during one of those hangs earlier this year when he asked if I’d like to contribute some illustrations to an update he was planning for his book, a volume of his fiction & non-fiction stories and poems. I of course said yes and ended up helping him design the book as well, since as a graphic designer I couldn’t bear to see the book go out as a Word file. 😅
Nine months after that first conversation, the book is done and available on Amazon (link in bio). It’s a great read so I hope you’ll check it out! I’m so thankful that I got this amazing opportunity to collaborate with Harry (it’s still very hard to not call him Mr. Gordon, but I’m trying), and it’s all smooth sailing and martinis from here on out. Cheers! ⛵️🍸
Special thanks to @chrlscordero for introducing me to the pen I ended up using for the illustrations! 🙂🖋️
Stephanie Han Art & Design 