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 freedom, Joan Baez.


After retiring from active performing, Joan Baez has focused her talents on painting and drawing. This is a collection of drawings that show 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 Baez to set the stage. Baez approaches her line drawings as exercises in freedom: she begins drawing upside down without any preconceived notion of where her marks might lead her.



Across decades, Baez has been a musical force and a catalyst for social change; at the age of eighteen Baez was an international star with a Time magazine cover story. She marched alongside Martin Luther King, Jr., was jailed for supporting the draft resistance, and sang in the first Amnesty International tour. Baez Upside Down is a book to treasure.