Am I Pretty When I Fly?: An Album of Upside Down Drawings

Like a long, funny letter from an old friend, an album of drawings by the legendary singer and activist for social justice, Joan Baez.

Since retiring from active performing, Baez has focused her formidable talents on painting and drawing. This collection of drawings shows another side of Baez: lovingly loose and charming sketches on reoccurring themes such as politics, relationships, women, animals, and family. Each section, organized thematically, includes an introductory piece by the artist. Baez approaches her line drawings as exercises in freedom: she begins drawing upside down—often using her non-dominant hand—without any preconceived notion of where the lines might lead her.

Beginning with her seminal debut album in 1960, Baez has been a musical force of nature of incalculable influence whose earliest recordings fed a host of traditional ballads into the rock vernacular. In 1963, she introduced Bob Dylan to the world, beginning a tradition of mutual mentoring that continued across her many recordings. As a lifetime advocate for non-violent social change, she marched on the front line of the civil rights movement with Martin Luther King Jr., shined a spotlight on the Free Speech Movement, took to the fields with Cesar Chavez, organized resistance to the Vietnam War, and inspired Vaclav Havel in his fight for a Czech Republic.

Am I Pretty When I Fly? reveals yet another side of a beloved icon.