Welcome to the redesigned Yellow Letter K! You may notice, after some clicking around, that it looks very similar to the old website. However, major updates were made to both the site and the very idea of Yellow Letter K. For starters, the website redesign included deleting absolutely everything that was previously featured on YLK. While you can find old art in some of the image galleries on various pages, the idea was to get a fresh start and to post more recent art. This is a dramatic change from a few years ago when the art was very rarely if ever updated and lacked any form of cohesion.

There was one major catalyst for the revamping of this website: with quarantine essentially “over” (at least ideologically), I needed a place for a lot of the art that I created while under stay at home orders. I had originally anticipated putting the material together into a zine, however the speed with which we left quarantine took me by surprise. Secondly, with so much of the country focusing on different, more important issues, it felt weird to release a publication centered solely on art, comics, and illustrations made in quarantine. I decided instead to feature some of the work on this website, and when I opened it for the first time in many years, I noticed that it needed an update.

This update allowed me to ask a central question: what exactly is Yellow Letter K, and how do I want to use this website? In the past, my idea of Yellow Letter K got a little out of hand. The venture was named after my grandfather’s B-24 tail marking in WWII (which you can read about in the about section of this website), and I always wanted to make Yellow Letter K something he would be proud of. However, my efforts often became…let’s just say overambitious. At one point, Yellow Letter K became Yellow Letter K Media with hopes of one day featuring a music division and feature films. The best way to describe the vision from three years ago was either “nuts” or perhaps “completely insane and misguided” if you were looking to be less concise.

During quarantine I discovered the work of an artist named Lisa Hanawalt, the creator of Bojack Horseman and Tuca and Bertie. She’s part of an artist collective in New York City called Pizza Island. They too revamped their art site after years of neglect. The site appeared to be a place for all of the artists that belong to the collective to write updates about their work, but also a place for them to post the results of their exploration and creative ventures. Suddenly the purpose of the YLK became a lot more clear to me. It didn’t need to be a media company or publishing firm, instead it should remain a fairly ambiguous place for me to continue experimenting with capturing life through visual art. Could Yellow Letter K become something more in the future? Of course. This new direction isn’t meant to stifle possibility, but instead meant to keep my vision a little more realistic. Essentially, this website will serve as a portfolio site for my art, and as a place to discuss artistic projects, publication releases, and creativity in general. It’s been a long journey to get to this place, and I hope you continue with me to wherever we’re going.

-Michael Sapenoff