Working Drafts

Last year, I had the pleasure of working with artist and curator Sarah Perkins, the Metal Museum, and The Enamelist Society to design a book featuring the work of the hugely influential enamelist Bill Helwig. It was my second time collaborating with Sarah and the Metal Museum. You can view our previous collaboration here.

Bill Helwig "Flipbook" Sketches

Drag the slider to try it

1 / 17

Drag the slider to animate

Helwig’s archives were a gift. Whimsical objects. Hand drawn sketches. Unpublished photographs. Small surprises tucked everywhere. We folded many of these into the book in playful ways, including adding a flipbook of the sketches created by Helwig and using vellum transparent paper to display multi-layered artwork.

I am really proud of how this one turned out.

The Art of Bill Helwig

Curated by Sarah Perkins

Purchase at Metal Museum ›

This was the first book I read in 2026. I love a good road novel, and this one caught me off guard. Challenging but exacting—I couldn’t put it down. I’ve already ordered another book by the same author.

Two stray observations:

1. The cover art is lovely. It looks like a picture postcard you’d buy on your way to Yellowstone in 1963.

2. As someone who enjoys both fiction and watching sports, I really appreciated the way Markovits weaves basketball into his work. He apparently played pro ball in Germany for a time, and it shows.

Fresh Air has a nice review up

The Rest of Our Lives

Ben Markovits

Goodreads ›