Sometimes, you want something so much that it happens. Even when it is impossible.
In February of 1990, I was hired by Atlantic Monthly magazine’s assistant art director, Rhoda Gubernick, to make an illustration. A week later, I was done and sent the art from my apartment in Weehawken, NJ to The Atlantic’s offices in Boston, MA. I used the client’s express shipping account, which for The Atlantic was Airborne Express.
At the time, I applied color to my illustrations using what is called “process color.” Instead of painting the color, I specified them with numbers. A certain green might look like this, “30% Cyan (blue), 5% Magenta (red), 50% Yellow, 15% Black.” This is important because I got a frantic call from Gubernick the next day, saying I’d made a mistake.
“You specified a hundred percent black for a color that overprints the face of Lou Reed. That can’t be right. I need a new value right now because Airborne is here waiting for the package. It has to go to the printers in Wisconsin in the next five minutes.”
This was in the days before the Internet and (for me) computer usage. Without having the art in front of me, I had no idea what the right value should be. Gubernick was right however, 100% black was too much.
“Make it 70%.”
“Thank you.”
Within ten minutes, I knew 70% was also too dark. Still, what could I do? The package was on its way to Wisconsin. I was too embarrassed to call Gubernick. Instead, I paced my living room for hours, trying to think of a way to fix the problem.
There was only one solution I could think of, and I said it aloud hundreds of times as I paced, talking to my wife about the mishap.
“The package sent to Wisconsin has to be delivered to me instead. Then, I can fix it and no one will know there was ever an error. It is the only way.”
The next morning, our doorman called to say I had a package. I assumed it was an assignment from a different client. The box had no address label to say where it was from or that it was mine.
I opened it to be sure it was for me. It was the box Gubernick had sent to Wisconsin the day before, waylaid before it got there and sent to me instead. It contained every article, photo, and illustration for that month’s issue. My illustration was buried in the middle.
It turns out I hadn’t made a mistake after all. Gubernick had put a piece of tape with the new value, 70% over mine. I took it off so that I could make any needed changes. Underneath, I saw my original value, 10%, which Gubernick had read as 100% because of the percent sign. I fixed it by clearly writing “10%,” then called Boston.
Gubernick was horrified when I told her I had the magazine sitting on my dining table. She said they’d never lost an issue in 80 years of publishing. After getting the printer’s delivery information, I called Airborne to pick up the package. After that, all was well.
My guess is that the shipping label fell off after it was picked up, and someone searched the contents for an address. I put my address on all of my art, but so did every other contributor, meaning whoever looked for an address still had to choose from a couple hundred possibilities. Mine, in the middle of the box, was picked, and I got the package.
Your life is so wonderful and strange.
Wow!