For years I sent out samples of my artwork to art directors of every major magazine including Rolling Stone. I never got a response and for all I know the art submissions never made it….To be honest…the art could have been better now that I look back at it, but you couldn’t tell me that at the time…

After a couple of years of doing this..my wife came across a photo of the deputy art director at Rolling Stone that I had been sending my art to, and suggested I do her caricature and send it to her. I can’t remember her name right now.. but I remember looking at her and knowing she had to own 10 pares of Birkenstocks and must have been conceived at Woodstock. So in my wisdom…or lack of… I decided to draw a caricature of her in a muumuu, sitting on a thrown, Birkenstocks and all… dipping art submissions in gasoline and setting them on fire… I told a couple of caricaturist buddies about what I had done and they informed me I had just signed a “death notice” as far as ever working for Rolling Stone…

As luck would have it…a week later an envelope came in the mail from Rolling Stone with a short note from the the lady I had drawn… It read…” If you really want work, you might try drawing a more flattering caricature.”
To me.. I had just won the lottery…I knew that my art had made it to her and I knew it had effected her…made her feel something.. good or bad… which to me is great.. nothing worse than art that makes you feel nothing…
So I called her and got through…. I remember her picking up the phone and introducing myself… I can still hear her reaction in my mind.. her hand went over the phone and she said to someone…. “It’s him”… which means the caricature was at her desk.

A small victory…

To wrap this up.. I did a more flattering caricature of her, sent it to her and never heard from her. I never sent another submission…to me.. I had done all I could do… I had gone from unknown to hanging on a cube wall of the deputy art director at Rolling Stone…

I had forgotten about ever wanting to be published in Rolling Stone until today…when I saw this photo of KId Rock…
Now I have lived… the Kid From Stanton Michigan “made art” for the Kid from Romeo Michigan and it’s in Rolling Stone….

link to photo