The way we each get more

(Published in summer 2007, Slash Magazine)

Fritz Swanson profiles his artist friend Jason Polan

My wife Sara held black olives out to our son, Oscar (age one). He took another olive tentatively. He had just gagged on an olive that came right off the pizza we had bought, and it had been too hot for him. "You feel better now?" Sara asked Oscar as he examined the olive. "Gah!" he said in the affirmative.

Jason Polan, whose illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker, on test-design bags for Jack Spade, in marketing material for The Criterion Collection, and most recently in the museum store of the Museum of Modern Art (in a book honestly titled The Every Piece of Art in the Museum of Modern Art Book), nodded a floppy-headed nod to encourage Oscar. He then got up and pulled another slice of pizza from his box. "I think it was a good idea, each of us getting our own pizza," Jason said. "That way we each get more."

Jason had come out to Manchester, the village where I live with Sara and Oscar, so that we could talk about profiling him in a New York magazine. We had even met the week before at an Ann Arbor burger joint in an abortive attempt to do a straightforward interview. Now he was out in my little country village and we were going to try again. But before we did that, he wanted to walk down to see our water tower and take a picture of it. He's working on a project that might be called All The Water Towers in America.

We got Oscar into a red spring jacket and loaded him into a jogger stroller with big knobby mountain bike tires. First we pushed Oscar north to the old town cemetery. The big wheels of the jogger allowed us to pilot the stroller over the March slush past raspberry canes and rose briars to the top of the hill where only one fragment of a grave marker remained. The River Raisin curled around the hill where the cemetery once stood and we listened as the ice broke. We admired the view.

"What should the profile be about?" "It should say, 'Jason is from Michigan.'"

We walked back down the hill, past Dr. Eccles office in the old green Methodist church, and up along Main Street. Beyond the gas station, the bakery, the antique store and the pizza place we stood on the bridge over the river and Jason took a picture of the water tower. Oscar kicked his legs in the breeze, and Jason took a picture of that too. "Where's your grocery store?" Jason asked."Do you need something?" "I just want to see it." So, we walked back west on Main Street, past our house, toward the setting sun.

Oscar kicked his legs and huffed, rubbing the sun out of his eyes with his fist. We tried to arrange a blanket over the stroller, but Oscar refused to be shrouded. "I can walk backwards," Jason offered. And he did, casting a shadow over Oscar's eyes. Oscar beamed up at him and we marched slowly to the Spartan Store. We walked up and down the rows of the store. Jason pointed out a pile of Entenmann's Pastries. "These are good," he said. As we left, I said to Jason, "Earlier today there were Girl Scouts right here at the entrance. We could have gotten Girl Scout Cookies." "Damn," Jason said. "I guess we could talk about all of your projects," I offered as we sat in the living room chowing on pizza. But to be honest, I didn't know exactly what to say. Jason does a lot of honestly named projects. He drew a book of thumbnail sketches of every piece of art in the MOMA once. And he drew every item in a bag of microwave popcorn, including grit and burnt kernels. He makes books of illustrations in limited runs with titles like Animals Hugging and Every Person in the Phone Book that basically do what the titles suggest.

"Why do I do those ridiculously massive things?" Jason said, shrugging.

"Because I want to accomplish it."

Once, Jason mailed me a drawing of two men hugging. They were both stocky little men, the outlines stout and hard to distinguish. But then, after staring at the piece for ten minutes, I noticed a few lines on each of their outfits that seemed familiar. It was a drawing of two X-Men. Cyclops and Wolverine. Hugging.

"I want people to be excited," Jason said to me as we ate burgers at an Ann Arbor burger and hot dog joint called Red Hot Lovers. "What should the profile say?" I asked Jason. "Jason loves pizza and snacks. Jason loves snacks."

Oscar chewed on a rubbery black olive while Sara tried to devour a slice of pizza. Jason asked: "Do you guys want to have a contest, to see who can eat the most? Because I'm gonna win."

Jason Polan is an artist from Michigan. He's an accomplished illustrator at the very beginning of his career who has already amassed an impressive list of publications. He draws pictures of superheroes hugging. He likes snacks and he can eat a lot of cheese pizza. He draws large quantities of things because to do so is impressive. He wants to produce a lot of good stuff. He wants to accomplish a lot for the sake of the accomplishment. He wants to make people happy. That's what he wants more than anything. He wants you to be happy. He will walk backward down the street for a quarter mile so a little boy can be in the shade.