Drawing Blood
(Adobe EPUB eBook, Kindle Book, OverDrive Read)
Art was my dearest friend.
To draw was trouble and safety, adventure and freedom.
In that four-cornered kingdom of paper, I lived as I pleased.
This is the story of a girl and her sketchbook.
In language that is fresh, visceral, and deeply moving—and illustrations that are irreverent and gorgeous—here is a memoir that will change the way you think about art, sex, politics, and survival in our times.
From a young age, Molly Crabapple had the eye of an artist and the spirit of a radical. After a restless childhood on New York's Long Island, she left America to see Europe and the Near East, a young artist plunging into unfamiliar cultures, notebook always in hand, drawing what she observed.
Returning to New York City after 9/11 to study art, she posed nude for sketch artists and sketchy photographers, danced burlesque, and modeled for the world famous Suicide Girls. Frustrated with the academy and the conventional art world, she eventually landed a post as house artist at Simon Hammerstein's legendary nightclub The Box, the epicenter of decadent Manhattan nightlife before the financial crisis of 2008. There she had a ringside seat for the pitched battle between the bankers of Wall Street and the entertainers who walked among them—a scandalous, drug-fueled circus of mutual exploitation that she captured in her tart and knowing illustrations. Then, after the crash, a wave of protest movements—from student demonstrations in London to Occupy Wall Street in her own backyard—led Molly to turn her talents to a new form of witness journalism, reporting from places such as Guantanamo, Syria, Rikers Island, and the labor camps of Abu Dhabi. Using both words and artwork to shed light on the darker corners of American empire, she has swiftly become one of the most original and galvanizing voices on the cultural stage.
Now, with the same blend of honesty, fierce insight, and indelible imagery that is her signature, Molly offers her own story: an unforgettable memoir of artistic exploration, political awakening, and personal transformation.
If you are having problem transferring a title to your device, please fill out this support form or visit the library so we can help you to use our eBooks and eAudio Books.
Molly Crabapple. (2015). Drawing Blood. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation (style guide)Molly Crabapple. 2015. Drawing Blood. HarperCollins.
Chicago / Turabian - Humanities Citation (style guide)Molly Crabapple, Drawing Blood. HarperCollins, 2015.
MLA Citation (style guide)Molly Crabapple. Drawing Blood. HarperCollins, 2015.
| Library | Owned | Available |
|---|---|---|
| Shared Digital Collection | 5 | 5 |
OverDrive Product Record
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/2363-1/{2746FAA3-C6EB-4570-9E7A-5C283B4F6866}IMG100.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/2363-1/{2746FAA3-C6EB-4570-9E7A-5C283B4F6866}IMG200.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/2363-1/{2746FAA3-C6EB-4570-9E7A-5C283B4F6866}IMG150.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/2363-1/{2746FAA3-C6EB-4570-9E7A-5C283B4F6866}IMG400.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- formats
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062323651
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B00UG7HYMO
- name: Kindle Book
- id: ebook-kindle
- identifiers:
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062323651
- name: OverDrive Read
- id: ebook-overdrive
- identifiers:
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062323644
- mediaType
- eBook
- primaryCreator
- role: Author
- name: Molly Crabapple
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- Drawing Blood
- dateAdded
- 2015-12-15T01:04:08.177Z
- contentDetails
- href: https://link.overdrive.com?websiteID=141&titleID=2147919
- type: text/html
- account:
- name: Sacramento Public Library (CA)
- id: 1151
- sortTitle
- Drawing Blood
- crossRefId
- 2147919
- id
- 2746FAA3-C6EB-4570-9E7A-5C283B4F6866
- starRating
- 3.3
OverDrive MetaData
- isPublicDomain
- False
- formats
- fileName: DrawingBlood_9780062323651_2147919
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 12922158
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062323651
- rights:
- type: Copying
- value: 0
- type: Printing
- value: 0
- type: Lending
- value: 0
- type: ReadAloud
- value: 1
- type: ExpirationRights
- value: 0
- name: Adobe EPUB eBook
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-epub-adobe
- onSaleDate: 11/21/2023
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=2746faa3-c6eb-4570-9e7a-5c283b4f6866&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: DrawingBlood_2147919
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 0
- identifiers:
- type: ASIN
- value: B00UG7HYMO
- name: Kindle Book
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-kindle
- onSaleDate: 11/21/2023
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=2746faa3-c6eb-4570-9e7a-5c283b4f6866&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- fileName: DrawingBlood_9780062323651_2147919
- partCount: 0
- fileSize: 12745723
- identifiers:
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062323651
- name: OverDrive Read
- isReadAlong: False
- id: ebook-overdrive
- onSaleDate: 11/21/2023
- samples:
- source: From the book
- formatType: ebook-overdrive
- url: https://samples.overdrive.com/?crid=2746faa3-c6eb-4570-9e7a-5c283b4f6866&.epub-sample.overdrive.com
- creators
- role: Author
- fileAs: Crabapple, Molly
- bioText:
Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer. She is a contributing editor for Vice and has written for the New York Times, the Paris Review, and the Guardian, among other publications. Her work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. She lives in New York City.
- name: Molly Crabapple
- imprint
- HarperCollins e-books
- publishDate
- 2015-12-01T00:00:00-05:00
- isOwnedByCollections
- True
- title
- Drawing Blood
- fullDescription
Art was my dearest friend.
To draw was trouble and safety, adventure and freedom.
In that four-cornered kingdom of paper, I lived as I pleased.
This is the story of a girl and her sketchbook.In language that is fresh, visceral, and deeply moving—and illustrations that are irreverent and gorgeous—here is a memoir that will change the way you think about art, sex, politics, and survival in our times.
From a young age, Molly Crabapple had the eye of an artist and the spirit of a radical. After a restless childhood on New York's Long Island, she left America to see Europe and the Near East, a young artist plunging into unfamiliar cultures, notebook always in hand, drawing what she observed.
Returning to New York City after 9/11 to study art, she posed nude for sketch artists and sketchy photographers, danced burlesque, and modeled for the world famous Suicide Girls. Frustrated with the academy and the conventional art world, she eventually landed a post as house artist at Simon Hammerstein's legendary nightclub The Box, the epicenter of decadent Manhattan nightlife before the financial crisis of 2008. There she had a ringside seat for the pitched battle between the bankers of Wall Street and the entertainers who walked among them—a scandalous, drug-fueled circus of mutual exploitation that she captured in her tart and knowing illustrations. Then, after the crash, a wave of protest movements—from student demonstrations in London to Occupy Wall Street in her own backyard—led Molly to turn her talents to a new form of witness journalism, reporting from places such as Guantanamo, Syria, Rikers Island, and the labor camps of Abu Dhabi. Using both words and artwork to shed light on the darker corners of American empire, she has swiftly become one of the most original and galvanizing voices on the cultural stage.
Now, with the same blend of honesty, fierce insight, and indelible imagery that is her signature, Molly offers her own story: an unforgettable memoir of artistic exploration, political awakening, and personal transformation.
- reviews
- premium: False
- source: Shelf Awareness
- content:
"Drawing Blood is packed with enough energy and edge to make Patti Smith's Just Kids seem like a field trip to Disneyland...Candid, earthy, romantic, funny, omnivorous... A portrait of a tough woman winning (finally) in a tough profession in the toughest of cities" — Shelf Awareness
"Crabapple is smart and wicked and wicked smart, a master of imagery and perception, and so her art always works on multiple levels. So too the book. She's not afraid to provide contradictory thoughts and feelings. Drawing Blood might be the sexiest thing you read this year." — Daily Beast
"This beautiful book, generously graced with so many illustrations, is artfully designed and fun to browse for the images alone...But Crabapple's tight, vibrant, jabbing prose, and prescient asides are the reason to buy this work. Her narrative is well-crafted, expertly told, and completely compelling." — Seattle Times Book Review
"The book reads like a notebook of New York, a cultural history of a certain set. Filtered through her eyes, we see 9/11, the aftermath of the crash, Occupy Wall Street, Hurricane Sandy and onward... [Crabapple is] a new model for this century's young woman. — New York Times Book Review
"Celebrated New York journalist Crabapple is also one of America's best, most original artists. Her memoir tells the story of her remarkable life, from her days modeling for Suicide Girls to her groundbreaking Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School and her work with Occupy Wall Street." — Men's Journal
"Hers is a story of art as liberation...Molly detects the bright and beautiful as well as she does the dark and fearful in the world not just because her eye is keen, but also because her eyes are so wide open." — Alana Massey, Buzzfeed Books
"Among the book's delights are the frequent examples of her work, from jittery sketches to lush, colorful paintings — both words and images are the product of a keen eye and devastating pen." — Boston Globe
"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. There's no one else like her; prepare to be blown away by both the words and pictures." — Booklist (starred review)
"Lavishly illustrated, the book offers a candid portrayal of an artist's journey to self-knowledge and fulfillment." — Kirkus Reviews
"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." — Publishers Weekly
"Using illustrations to bolster the written material, Drawing Blood, out now, is a more intimate memoir than we're used to seeing, one that is blazingly honest and unafraid to offer up something real to chew on." — Paper Magazine
"Artist Molly Crabapple delivers a violently felt and intimately revealing memoir." — Book Riot
"Hands down, the best book I've read all year...an incredible book that has everyone talking... This raw, unrepentant memoir sheds light on Molly Crabapple's early career, her first forays into reporting, and her tireless quest to improve as an artist. The lavish illustrations are just the icing on the cake." —...
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
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..
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
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."COPYRIGHT(2015) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
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.)
- premium: True
- source:
- content:
Starred review from 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.
- popularity
- 75
- links
- self:
- href: https://api.overdrive.com/v1/collections/v1L1BWwAAAA2I/products/2746faa3-c6eb-4570-9e7a-5c283b4f6866/metadata
- type: application/vnd.overdrive.api+json
- self:
- id
- 2746faa3-c6eb-4570-9e7a-5c283b4f6866
- starRating
- 3.3
- images
- cover:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-100/2363-1/{2746FAA3-C6EB-4570-9E7A-5C283B4F6866}IMG100.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- thumbnail:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-200/2363-1/{2746FAA3-C6EB-4570-9E7A-5C283B4F6866}IMG200.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover150Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-150/2363-1/{2746FAA3-C6EB-4570-9E7A-5C283B4F6866}IMG150.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover300Wide:
- href: https://img1.od-cdn.com/ImageType-400/2363-1/{2746FAA3-C6EB-4570-9E7A-5C283B4F6866}IMG400.JPG
- type: image/jpeg
- cover:
- isPublicPerformanceAllowed
- False
- languages
- code: en
- name: English
- subjects
- value: Art
- value: Biography & Autobiography
- value: Nonfiction
- publishDateText
- 12/01/2015
- otherFormatIdentifiers
- type: ISBN
- value: 9780062323644
- mediaType
- eBook
- shortDescription
Art was my dearest friend.
To draw was trouble and safety, adventure and freedom.
In that four-cornered kingdom of paper, I lived as I pleased.
This is the story of a girl and her sketchbook.In language that is fresh, visceral, and deeply moving—and illustrations that are irreverent and gorgeous—here is a memoir that will change the way you think about art, sex, politics, and survival in our times.
From a young age, Molly Crabapple had the eye of an artist and the spirit of a radical. After a restless childhood on New York's Long Island, she left America to see Europe and the Near East, a young artist plunging into unfamiliar cultures, notebook always in hand, drawing what she observed.
Returning to New York City after 9/11 to study art, she posed nude for sketch artists and sketchy photographers, danced burlesque, and modeled for the world famous Suicide Girls. Frustrated with the academy and the conventional art world,...
- sortTitle
- Drawing Blood
- crossRefId
- 2147919
- publisher
- HarperCollins
- bisacCodes
- code: ART016010
- description: Art / Individual Artists / Artists' Books
- code: ART016020
- description: Art / Individual Artists / Essays
- code: BIO001000
- description: Biography & Autobiography / Artists, Architects, Photographers
