A printed mini comic version of the comic I made about Lee McClure for MoMA in 2023.

“Art (and humor) are central to how I think about the world and process my experiences,” says Canadian artist Jessica Campbell. So when it came to reflecting on the life and death of her close friend Lee McClure, art and storytelling was one of the few paths forward. In this month’s Drawn to MoMA, Campbell revisits memories of a friend she describes as “my most ardent supporter artistically…the most observant, sensitive, and funny person I’ve ever known.” Like Käthe Kollwitz, whose retrospective will be on view at MoMA next year, she gives visual form to her grief. And while she acknowledges that “death is not something for making art about,” she also can’t help but wonder what other means are at our disposal. In Campbell’s own words, “Perhaps it’s inevitable that all attempts to seek the dead through art will be childishly feeble and inadequate, to quote Kollwitz, but it also feels necessary. I think trying to honor Lee and find him again will be a lifelong project for me, and I’ll just have to live with the inadequacy of my attempts.”