A project by illustrator Steve Light :

It's tough for artists sometimes, because you can get so focused on what you're doing... spend so much time working on your art in your own little cave. It's hard to go from that, to get out of your head, and then go have a business meeting with someone to talk about your art, and try explain it, and try to sell it. It can psych you out.

So I read this tip somewhere about how to flip that dynamic and see those meetings in a different light -- something to look forward to. Now when I'm meeting with someone new, I bring a small gift, a little sample of my own artwork to give to the person. Giving a present (especially one you made) is always a positive thing, for both the giver and receiver. Now I know that no matter how the meeting goes, success is assured on some level.

I illustrated this little "photo" album to give as a gift at a business meeting about my art. It's a Kolo Cortina photo album that I found at A.I. Friedman in New York City. I bought it and threw it in my bag.

My wife and I visited my mother in New Jersey. While the two of them went shopping, I was alone looking at the photographs in my mother's house, pondering all the kinds of photos people put into albums -- prints and Polaroids, shots of people they love, portaits, candids, landscapes, their car...

It got me thinking of the artwork of one of my heroes, Saul Steinberg. He did some famous drawings of passport-type photos in which you can't make out the people’s faces.

So I pulled this blank little Kolo Cortina photo album out of my bag and filled all the pages with illustrations of photographs. Just did it in a couple of hours while watching TV. It was a fun project.

Really cool, Steve. Thanks.

- Ugo