Artists survive on the interest of collectors. But just as every writer is also a reader, every artist is also a collector. Jason Polan, a New York–based artist and illustrator, is a case in point.
Artists survive on the interest of collectors. But just as every writer is also a reader, every artist is also a collector. Jason Polan, a New York–based artist and illustrator, is a case in point. “If there’s something I like, I want to find a lot of it—even if it’s the same thing,” he told me last week, on one of his regular visits to Oakland. “I collect J. D. Salinger books—large quantities of them. A friend asked me, ‘Why do you need more than one?’ And I couldn’t comprehend her not understanding why I wanted more than one. And I also couldn’t explain it.”
Polan’s love of collecting is abundant in his work. In a show currently on view at San Francisco’s read more
