I was so sad to hear this morning about the death of Jason Polan. I didn’t know Jason Polan personally, but his art and Instagram presence (@jasonpolan) made my life better. His drawings are deceptively simple but full of humor and love for the quirky weirdness of the world. He’s perhaps best known for his project trying to draw every person in New York which felt like a love letter to the whole city and all of humanity.

My friend Janna Herman and I used to direct message his Instagram posts to each other when we knew the other needed a good laugh––he would write long, rambling, hilarious stories in the captions of his photos about the people and things he saw around New York––and it was always our goal to go to one of his Taco Bell Drawing Club meetings, but the timing never worked. Janna did get to meet him once, when she bought me the little giraffe notebook I have framed in my home, and she said he was so nice and unpretentious and clearly wanted everyone to be able to afford a piece of his art.

I am upset knowing that Jason Polan is gone, but I’ll think of him every time I adjust the temperature in my apartment.

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I went to MoMA PS1 the other day because I felt guilty. I have been living in New York for the better part of two years now and I had never been, and as someone who loves museums, studied photography for a decade, and used to teach middle school art class, this was embarrassing. Besides, I heard the Mike Kelley show was great and thought I should go before it closed.

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