Drawing Blood

November 2, 2015
Artist, writer, and activist Crabapple was compelled from a young age by the need to draw because it gives her a sense of self worth. Her struggles as an impoverished artist are rendered here in raw, vivid prose, accompanied by her arresting illustrations. The New York that Crabapple comes of age in is a city in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. As a freshman at FIT, she finds little work to fund her art supplies. Unable to gain a foothold in galleries, she decides to let her body be a canvas—and a commodity—via lucrative sex work, first via Craigslist ads and later as a SuicideGirl online pinup. “Naked girl money was my escape hatch,” Crabapple explains, as the work gave her the means to get noticed. But sick of the exploitation that she and other sex workers and performers were subjected to, she cofounds Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, a live-drawing workshop that treats its models with respect. When she becomes the house artist for the Box, a burlesque night club, she achieves financial stability and access to the world she’s hungered to join; after witnessing the London austerity protests in 2010, however, she realizes she’s done drawing for rich club patrons and lends her talent and fervor to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Crabapple has become a powerful artist and feminist, scrapping to make art that matters. Agent: Lydia Wills, Lydia Wills LLC..

November 1, 2015

Crabapple has been named "Occupy's greatest artist," and it is a title that is both well placed and deserved. In her memoir, she takes a direct approach to topics of sex work, race, income inequality, international travel and protests, burlesque performance, and the creation of her phenomenal Shell Game paintings. (Indeed, the true delight of Crabapple's account is the inclusion of her artwork.) The author's written style mimics the way artists often work; stark narrations exist for readers to interpret and analyze, much like paintings or sculpture is displayed without excessive textual description. This style may appeal to some readers; others might feel the need to ask, "Tell me more." Crabapple challenges our assumptions about artists, "professional naked girls," protestors, and others who live on the margins. Her book is a visual treat that provokes thought and discussion on what it means to create art in our modern world, and what we should expect art to do within that world. VERDICT Recommended for readers interested in the intersection of art and social commentary but also anyone who relates to being labeled an "outsider" (i.e., almost everyone).--Rachael Dreyer, Penn State Dept. of Libs.

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2015
A New York artist and writer's illustrated memoir about how she rose out of obscurity during the tumultuous decade of the 2000s to become a renowned artist.New York native Crabapple, a contributing editor for Vice, grew up with loving parents in comfortable circumstances. Yet from the time she was a young girl, she felt trapped by her childhood and yearned for the freedom to explore the world. Crabapple left for Paris at 17, where she lived among bohemians at the legendary Shakespeare and Company bookstore and traveled around Europe and North Africa. When she returned, she began college at the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she drew compulsively, studied exotic cultures, and became involved in political movements that emerged in the aftermath of 9/11. Crabapple turned to "the naked girl business" to support herself and earned money first as an artist's model and then as a goth-inspired SuicideGirl and, later, as a dancer and burlesque performer. In the meantime, her artistic talent blossomed. Yet the author realized early on that making it in the art world wasn't just a matter of being good: it was also about "getting noticed." In 2008, Crabapple became house artist for The Box, a NYC nightclub catering to elite clients. She earned recognition and monetary rewards for artwork that satirized the excesses of the rich, yet her achievements left her feeling hollow. The world outside The Box was collapsing while she "was painting pigs in Nero's nightclub." After meeting up with journalist Laurie Penny and becoming involved in the Occupy movement, Crabapple discovered her true calling as a political artist and, later, writer. Lavishly illustrated, the book offers a candid portrayal of an artist's journey to self-knowledge and fulfillment. The author celebrates the function of art as an act of "hope against cynicism [and] creation against entropy." Compelling reading about how art gave the author "a way to see, to record, to fight and interrogate...to find joy where once I could see only ash."

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Starred review from December 1, 2015
Accomplished artist Crabapple, a contributing editor for Vice, tells the story of her art-making, world-traveling, burlesque-dancing life in this utterly original memoir. From the age of 17, when she first visited Paris and found a temporary home at Shakespeare and Company, Crabapple has been determined to make artistic statements. Supporting herself through dancing, nude modeling, and a stint on SuicideGirls.com, she lived all the starving-artist cliches, from roach-infested apartments to sleazy clients. Her anecdotes are filled with steely determination, righteous indignation, and more than a few notes of utter exhaustion. Each chapter takes readers from international adventures found on the cheap to yet another soul-sucking experience with Manhattan's elite, who employ the originality of Crabapple and her performing friends but maintain a rigid, quasi-Victorian class system. As she found herself drawn into the Occupy movement, Crabappple was able to merge her political and artistic lives together even more to forge a new career. Jaw dropping, awe inspiring, and not afraid to shock, Crabapple is a punk Joan Didion, a young Patti Smith with paint on her hands, a twenty-first century Sylvia Plath cut loose from the constraints of Ted Hughes. There's no one else like her; prepare to be blown away by both the words and pictures.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)