Carson Ellis

Well, I’m back from a month on tour with the Decemberists and my five year old. It was totally fun. Some highlights:

The Idaho Botanical garden, where I drew in a shady grove for hours and then took a long sunset walk in the hills with Hank.

Drunk two-stepping at the Union Club after the show in Missoula.

Driving around Montana with Colin and Marky:  spotting a bear cub and a beaver, swimming in the Dearborn River, and evading evasive people.
Interlochen, Michigan, where we rented a pontoon boat and got busted bouncing on someone’s floating trampoline.

The boardwalk in Atlantic City, where we rode the rides and chased seagulls on the dirty beach and where Hank was so enchanted by the Taj Mahal Casino that, for a brief moment, I appreciated the unhinged real estate vision of Donald Trump.

The pride of watching the Decemberists headline the Newport Folk Festival and the thrill of sitting a few feet from Pete Seeger while they did.

The Maid of the Mist at Niagara Falls:  how disorienting it was on that lurching boat in the middle of the falls, battered by water and blinded by mist.  And how the whole time Hank was pretending that we were sailing into Shangri-la.

My first mansion pool party in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Waking up next to an amusement park in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Breakfast at Curra’s, swimming at Barton Springs, heatwave and vintage cowboy boots in Austin, Texas.  Also, Jenny Conlee, halfway through her chemo treatments, playing at Stubbs and showing us all how it’s done.

Griffith Park Observatory and it’s hazy, mediterranean, apocolyptic view of L.A.

Dinner at Flour + Water in San Francisco.  tUnE-yArDs and Mavis Staples at Outside Lands.  I met Mavis and, of all the magic moments big and small of the past month, this one might have been the best.

Anyway, I’m home and back to work.  Thanks to the band for letting me tag along and double thanks to Hank’s nanny Lizi, a very good egg.

Here is an excerpt from “Making Friends”, written by Hank Meloy and illustrated by me, with art direction from the author.

"They should be holding hands."

"They should be playing darts."

"The ship should be called the HMS HURRICANE and it should have a lightening bolt figurehead."

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…in a long parade of shell-shocked animals that Window and Fortinbras have gifted us since we made the mistake of letting them become outdoor cats.  I looked up from my computer and this snake was at my feet.  I like him.  Twenty years ago I would have put him in my terrarium and named him Joey.

Final art for an audiobook: