Cover Story

Renée DeCarlo

COVER STORY

2020-current

New Yorker covers

Work in progress

I’m an artist and the founder of The Drawing Room - a business established on the idea of sharing the making and sharing of work - together as one in a storefront space with access to people. My work conceptually is about layering life experience and artistic process into mixed media works - fusing life and art making. I am devoutly reliant on my daily practice of drawing - much like journaling, I use mark making to record my daily experiences through my body’s physical motion through space and time, such as the jostling motion of a bus. I use these scribbly drawings in layers to create complex and mixed media works that sometimes take years to finish as they are built equally through explorations of pigment and technique as much as much to the connections of my daily life. I work simultaneously on conceptual projects such as “Cover Story” and my “bus drawings” while infusing those ideas into my more cathartic mixed media works. 

I began “Cover Story” in 2020 when SIP forced us all to stay inside, absorb and engage in life through a screen or monitor. The New Yorker is a weekly publication I’ve subscribed to for nearly 20 years, though its role in my life has evolved alongside my life as a mother, artist, business owner and now place-maker for the arts. I began reading the NYer when I thought I might be living in NY and this would keep me looped into the art world. When I had my first son, here in SF, I began to read it for the fiction alone - occupying hours of feedings, perpetual sleepless nights and the loss of connection to the outside world with long stories - brilliantly written and tied to current events without having to watch the news. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-40s that I realized the brilliance of curation - cover to cover, always connected and intertwined - and relevant. For the years I’ve been subscribed, the allure has pivoted to various places within, for now it is the cover art. Most who subscribe to this publication, can relate to the abundance and rapid accumulation that can happen almost overnight. My own accumulation also sparked my need to use them as a raw material in my art making practice.

This project is a continual work in progress that will go on so long as there is a publication to weave. The dream would be to weave the archive covers of pre-2020 together, having already a complete set of covers from 2014. This project is now also woven by the Drawing Room UnderStudies - high school students who work with me on special projects and helping maintain our galleries.