Ted Audio Collective.

I think probably whether we know it or not, we all are a little drawn to illustration because it's our first introduction to

visual art most of us as kids you know we're seeing our first art we're reading our

first prose and poetry in the form of picture books. From the Ted Audio Collective,

this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman.

For 19 years, Debbie Millman has been talking with designers and other creative

people about what they do, how they got to be who they are and what they're

thinking about and working on. On this episode Carson Ellis talks about her career as an illustrator and

picture book author and teaches us to speak insect. Do his talk and another one

says my ebb d'eau unq plunk and then the third one says do Kima plunk.

Part of the point of keeping a journal is so you'll have a record of everything that's happening to you and that you don't forget.

In many ways it is evidence of living.

But what if years later you forget you even wrote that journal? That is what

happened to Carson Ellis. A few years ago she found eight typed pages documenting the week she moved to Portland as a young

artist with no money and few prospects. Carson Ellis says she's now a little embarrassed by some of what she refers to as the

twee phrases and intellectual name dropping of her younger self.

But maybe because she's now the successful author and illustrator of best-selling books like

Home and Do Is Talk, she did not run from that younger self. Instead, she took that journal as is and illustrated it. Her

brand new book, One Week in January, New paintings for an old diary, evokes the alternative art and music scene in

Portland at the turn of the century and the heart of a young woman living through it

all. Carson Ellis, welcome to Design Matters. Thank you, Debbie. Thanks

so much for having me. Oh absolutely. Carson, I understand that you would love to

...