SFX: music 

NARRATOR:

San Francisco artist Colter Jacobsen collects old books, illustrations, and photographs, and often re-draws them by hand.  

JACOBSEN:

It’s my way of absorbing the image and kind of making it my own. And then because it goes through me, through my eyes and kind of out the hands onto paper, it’s transformed, it’s become this new thing that only I could do.  

NARRATOR:

He calls this grouping The Boys Book of Magnetism. He made it when gay marriage was being hotly debated, before it was legalized by the Supreme Court. Look carefully and you’ll find subtle references to couples and unions. 

JACOBSEN:

For instance, The Twig. There’s two twigs and they’re tied in a knot so there’s this kind of play on, you know, what it means to “tie the knot.” But the knot is in an infinity kind of, it’s a bow, so it’s also a play on the word “beau.” I like using material that kind of already comes with a story. 

NARRATOR:

Like the photo of men wearing starched white collars.  

JACOBSEN:

It’s one man. It’s an image of one man and then essentially Time printed another one of him. In the print there was this family crest on his face. And that just seemed kind of profound. I mean especially in terms of this piece, just what is lineage? What does it mean to, you know, have a family? What does it mean to carry on a name? Especially when you can’t join with someone else’s name?