Drawing Blood

Artist, writer, and activist Crabapple was compelled from a young age by the need to draw because it gives her a sense of self worth. Her struggles as an impoverished artist are rendered here in raw, vivid prose, accompanied by her arresting illustrations. The New York that Crabapple comes of age in is a city in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. As a freshman at FIT, she finds little work to fund her art supplies. Unable to gain a foothold in galleries, she decides to let her body be a canvas—and a commodity—via lucrative sex work, first via Craigslist ads and later as a SuicideGirl online pinup. “Naked girl money was my escape hatch,” Crabapple explains, as the work gave her the means to get noticed. But sick of the exploitation that she and other sex workers and performers were subjected to, she cofounds Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, a live-drawing workshop that treats its models with respect. When she becomes the house artist for the Box, a burlesque night club, she achieves financial stability and access to the world she’s hungered to join; after witnessing the London austerity protests in 2010, however, she realizes she’s done drawing for rich club patrons and lends her talent and fervor to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Crabapple has become a powerful artist and feminist, scrapping to make art that matters. Agent: Lydia Wills, Lydia Wills LLC.. (Dec.)