Reportage by Bill Russell

Self portrait at the Kiss-o-meter at Musée Mécanique at San Francisco's Fisherman’s Wharf.

Meaning is a construct shaped by memory, culture, emotion, and the stories we choose to tell. They’re not just about place, but about how place becomes charged with personal resonance through time and perception.

The drawings I made of my hometown don't just document a real place but are embedded with what I remember and that feels true to me.

Going Home to Draw Fervently When memories are flooded with feelings, the drawings I make become fallible visual narratives.

By the time Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was thirty-five, he was suffering from alcoholism and dementia, most likely brought on by syphilis. His behavior was unpredictable, and often violent. Desperate, his mother had him committed to a sanitarium outside of Paris. It was while undergoing treatment that he created a series of drawings of the circus. In fact they helped persuade the doctors he was on the mend, ultimately leading to his release.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec: Circus Drawings Joyful visual journalism from fin-de-siècle Paris