Anaïs Nin on Love by Debbie Millman

Made in celebration of Anais Nin's 110th birthday, this piece is available on Etsy

Order soon! The earlier edition (shown below) is now sold out.

The second in a series of illustrated insights on love culled from four decades of Anaïs Nin's diaries and letters, edited by Maria Popova and illustrated by creative polymath Debbie Millman. 

This particular piece, a full-color 9x12" print, was made in celebration of Nin's 110th birthday on February 21, 2013.

100% of the proceeds benefit A Room of Her Own, a foundation supporting women writers and artists.

Background and context

Happy Birthday, Anais Nin; On Real Love 

                                                                                          

Anais Nin on Love: Hand Lettered by Deborah Millman

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Friends At A Distance: Anais Nin's Birthday

"Nothing makes the world so spacious as friends at a distance. They make up the longitudes and the latitudes."

Today is Anais's birthday. She would have loved this  Thoreau quote as she perhaps more than most, counted time not with a clock but a compass. So today in honor of her birthday we are celebrating writers in Italy and Los Angeles. The photo of Anais above appears in  Anaïs Nin e lo Spirito di Bali by Emanuela Riverso which appeared in Dietro Le Quinte last August.

Recently Riverso has written a piece about Anais's cherished friend and author of the memoir Anais Nin: The Last Days, Barbara Kraft.

Besides her friendship with Anais, Kraft became close to Henry Miller and Eugene Ionesco. It is this magical extension of the longitudes and latitudes of friendship (think Tropic of Cancer!) that has Riverso now outlining these fascinating friendships in Eugène Ionesco e Barbara Kraft: A Conversation. If you aren't fluent in Italian hit Translate! in your browser...

There is a project in the works to make Kraft's brilliant and unprecedented  conversation into a chap book.

Till then, turn off your clocks, and pick up a compass, and today, call or write or see a friend at a distance.

I have a writer friend from LA who is now on a mini-sabbatical in New Orleans. And he is the first person I will write a note to today on my little pink mini-ipad, using of course that awesome app Penultimate! I think of him first as he envisioned, created, organized and then produced the sold out  Anais Nin@ 105 at the Hammer Gallery at UCLA in 2008. 

After that, compass and Americano in hand (not for nothing have I been dubbed the tall Americano) I will be wending my way from Chicago up north to interview my friend Judith Citrin. Citrin, like Kraft was a close friend of Nin.

So happy birthday to Anais. She would have been 110 today (Gasp!) But as Auden wrote so many years ago to a pal "So we're a little older, friendship never ages" Rochelle Holt, Valerie Harms, Sas Colby, Donna Ippolito Adele Aldridge and I have enjoyed lovely years of friendship because of our Nin connection. 

Lust Letters Opening This Weekend

An exhibition exploring the juncture where literature and fine art meet with the longings of the flesh with works by Tim Youd, Gajin Fujita, Ericka Rawlings and Bruce Richards

LOS ANGELES, CA - Coagula Curatorial presents LUST LETTERS, a four-artist group exhibition reveling at the juncture where literature and fine art meet with longings of the flesh. The exhibition opens Saturday, February 16, 2013, 7 p.m-11 p.m. Coagula Curatorial is part of the Chung King Road Gallery Row located in historic Chinatown in downtown Los Angeles at 977 Chung King Road, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 12 noon to 5 PM. The telephone is: (323) 480-

Co-curated by Joan Aarestad and Mat Gleason, the four artists featured in Lust Letters include:

Tim Youd works in various forms and much of his work has been inspired by writers such as Philip Roth, Celine, and Henry Miller. Recently he has turned to Anais Nin’s evocative Delta of Venus for inspiration. His 33-foot long diptych, based on Nin’s Delta of Venus, is derived from the stories found in the antique pages of Nin’s erotica and retyped by the artist himself; in subordinating the actual pages of Nin’s text to his own

creative process, Youd frees literature from the lofty perch of literary pretense and sets it free in the decadence of its own raw and physical context.

The exhibition includes work by Gajin Fujita, the ground breaking Los Angeles artist famous for merging the iconography of erotic Edo-era Japanese woodblock prints with contemporary graffiti subcultures in vibrant paintings. In his paintings, Fujita blends a rich diversity of cultural influences that range from traditional Japanese ukiyo-e to  contemporary manga; from American pop culture, to East L.A. Street-life iconography

and graffiti. Fujita also combines a variety of process techniques and media.

Underground artist Ericka Rawlings’ installation for the gallery is comprised of hundreds of handmade lace Valentine hearts sewn by the artist as a poetic evocation of the neuroses of a billion failed relationships.

The nationally celebrated, allegorical painter Bruce Richards, uses semiotics in his precise and masterful paintings to guide viewers on a clue-filled journey of passion and  intrigue.

About Coagula Curatorial:

To celebrate twenty years of publishing Coagula Art Journal, acclaimed editor, art critic and curator Mat Gleason opened Coagula Curatorial as a premiere exhibition space of contemporary art. Located in downtown Los Angeles’ historic Chung King Road of contemporary art galleries, Coagula Curatorial affirms downtown as a viable location for the creative industries that drive the Los Angeles economy.

Coagula Art Journal was first published in April, 1992, brainchild of Los Angeles writer Mat Gleason. The bimonthly print journal quickly gained notoriety as a no-holds critique of contemporary art and the art world. Championing Los Angeles and mocking New York when the notion of the Big Apple playing second fiddle to "LaLa Land" was considered delusional, the art world as it now exists was envisioned as self-evident on the pages of Coagula a generation ago. With over 100 published issues, it is the autonomous companion to the rise of the Los Angeles art scene. The publication continues now as a regular catalogue of Coagula Curatorial shows with Gleason helming publisher and curator duties.

Coagula Curatorial is part of the Chung King Road Gallery Row located in downtown Los Angeles’ historic Chinatown. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 12 noon – 5 PM. Coagula Curatorial 977 Chung King Road, Los Angeles, CA 90012; (323) 480-7852; www.coagulacuratorial.com.