Artist Statement

I have been drawing in a sketchbook every day for almost ten years. A native New Yorker living in California since 1980, during the height of the pandemic I began to devote more energy to creating poignant and funny graphic stories illustrating aspects of my childhood and family life in NYC in the 1960s and 70s. I am a retired clinical psychologist and some of my comics are inspired by that experience as well. Recently, I have focused on creating a graphic memoir about my personal encounters with loss, particularly my mother's decade long decline due to Parkinson's and Lewy Body dementia, chronicling my lived experience with “escorting her to the grave,” as she would have said.

You can see my work (including daily drawings from my sketchbook) on Instagram, @penby10.