Seattle-area publisher Sketcher Press announces release of New York Reawakens: A Summer of Hope, a hardcover art book by reportage artist Rita Sabler

MILL CREEK, Wash. — In New York Reawakens: A Summer of Hope, a Portland-based reportage artist captures a slice of life in the Big Apple at a pivotal time in the city’s history: the end of the pandemic lockdown in the summer of 2021 and the slow return of scenes we used to take for granted. Live music at the clubs, a parade, friends and families coming together again — ordinary moments become extraordinary in the context of the pandemic.

Author and artist Rita Sabler describes the atmosphere of New York reawakening with both her words and her ink-and-watercolor drawings, taking readers on a tour of iconic locations like the Brooklyn Bridge, Central Park, Little Island, Chinatown, Coney Island and many other spots.

In the Flatiron District, colorful café umbrellas welcomed patrons again. As she sketched, “a group of women unfolded their yoga mats. A fitness class was about to start under the open sky, in the middle of Manhattan.” Near Brighton Bridge, she drew locals carrying their shopping on a market street “peppered with natural medicine stores, fruit stands and small restaurants serving pelmeni and cabbage rolls.” 

The drawings are reproduced at near actual size, giving readers the closest experience to browsing Sabler’s original A4-size sketchbooks.

The 72-page, hardcover book is the first release for Sketcher Press, an independent publisher based near Seattle.

“Our mission is to empower a new generation of authors who document people, places and culture through observational drawing by bringing their work to a wider audience,” says publisher Gabriel Campanario, a Seattle area journalist and illustrator best known for his role as the founder of the international nonprofit Urban Sketchers. He is also an author and former columnist at The Seattle Times.

Sabler is a visual journalist, artist and educator based in Portland, Oregon, USA. She has taught drawing, urban sketching and visual journalism courses for Parsons School of Design, Pacific Northwest College of Art and Portland State University.

Sabler’s reportage on Hawaii’s Kalaupapa Settlement won the Doctors Without Borders Coup De Coeur and the International Sketchbook Prize at the 2019 Rendez-vous du Carnet de Voyage in Clermont-Ferrand.

Copies of New York Reawakens will be available for sale at sketcherpress.com in late November.

For more information:

Gabriel Campanario
Sketcher Press
P.O. Box 12122
Mill Creek, WA 98082
gabi@sketcherpress.com
+1 (425) 686-2398


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