I love old paintings. The feeling of standing in a museum, surrounded by exquisite art hung salon-style on jewel-toned walls. The Walters in Baltimore does this—grand rooms where paintings and curios are displayed the way they might have been in their time. Light peeking in from tall, shuttered windows. The cabinetry. The quiet. The sense of stepping into a world gone by.
For illustrators, royalties come from sales—greeting cards, fabric, books. Do enough things that sell well and you can build long-term income. But most things don't earn out. Getting a good advance is always better. With royalties, you're paid precisely based on how well the item sold. Advances are about hope and good faith—how well the distributor hopes it will sell. You and the publisher both take risks: you accept royalties in lieu of more money upfront, the publisher offers an advance on something that doesn't exist yet. As long as you complete the project, you don’t have to pay it back. So if it doesn't sell well, that’s still real money in your pocket. So get the best advance you can. If royalties come, that's icing on the cake.
Dinner conversation about fascism turned into an illustration about imperialism. Making political work while researching images I love—Gilded Age portraits, rococo excess, military regalia. Recognizing the beauty and the darkness tangled together.