This artist’s hand-drawn calendars capture a disappearing Los Angeles

Artist Gordon Henderson, who goes by the pen name Nib Geebles, has made a calendar with a cult following for 40 years.

The most recent editions capture Los Angeles’ “unknown landmarks.” Think quirky neighborhood monuments like the Chicken Boy statue in Highland Park and mom-and-pop taco shops, mechanics and liquor stores.

Henderson made the first calendar in 1985 as a last-minute Christmas gift for his then-girlfriend.

“It fell off the wall and it was lost, and by March of that year, it was gone and the relationship was on the rocks,” Henderson says. “But you know, the next year, I thought, 'Well, I have to do this again.'”

Gordon Henderson's latest show is partly a retrospective of 40 years of calendar-making. "Parade of Mortals" is on display at MorYork in Highland Park through Sept. 28.

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Mariana Dale

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LAist

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The calendars featured his predominantly pen-and-ink drawings, and every year had a different theme. They’ve included vacation, metamorphosis and glamour.

The calendars mark familiar holidays, but also ones of Henderson’s own invention.

They’ve included:

• Rethink your cherished stereotypes (Jan. 12)
• Feast of Paranoid rumination (April 26) — “That's not one that I encourage people to celebrate,” he says. “But we all do once in a while, whether we want to or not.”
• Our world is upside down but there’s still time for romance (Sept. 11)

“You can have it all if you're willing to settle for less,” on Feb. 28 is one of his favorites.

“It's sort of philosophical in a way,” Henderson says. “You can accept your situation and realize that it's pretty good.”

Not everyone has loved the holidays. A friend once wrote him a letter aghast that he included “Insult Someone You Love Day.”

“She said, ‘I don't need someone to tell me when to insult my loved ones, and I think I would like a calendar more like the Ansel Adams calendar,’” he recalls.

The show's eponymous artwork, "Parade of Mortals." "It's a sassy skeleton," Henderson says. "It's like we will all shuffle off this mortal coil, but I will have the last laugh."

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Gordon Henderson

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"Arrested Poets Levitate." "I particularly like poets as ... a form of protest," Henderson says. "I like the idea of them putting forth rational ideas and peaceably."

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Gordon Henderson

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Henderson, with production help from his life partner Abira Ali, was producing hundreds each year. For a spell, each shrink-wrapped calendar included a trinket such as a packet of mayonnaise or baggie of dirt.

In 2020, Henderson decided he was done. The 2021 calendar included the message:

“This is the 35th and final edition. Thank you for being part of the experience. Without you, there would be no point in making the calendars.”

He received about 50 messages in protest; many of them mentioned the calendar had become part of their holiday tradition.

“It was kind of an embarrassing moment for me,” Henderson says. “I'd thrown a tantrum. I'm gonna hold my breath here until I pass out. And then you pass out and you realize how everyone's around you and you realize that people love you.”

From 2022 on, Ali, who’s also an artist, helped breathe new life into the project and became the calendar’s co-creator.

The pair adopted the unknown landmarks theme. The paintings are drawn from their walks through L.A. neighborhoods.

Henderson and Ali made 1,200 copies of the latest Nib Geebles calendar.

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Gordon Henderson and Abira Ali

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They’ve documented scores of local businesses. Some are now gone. Altadena restaurant Fox's was in the 2025 calendar. The Eaton Fire destroyed the longstanding diner.

“The buildings … they're ephemeral,” Henderson says. “I've always been interested in change and the nature of life being so temporary.”

The calendars are, by nature, generally only useful for one year.

“Maybe that's … part of the drive behind making them year after year to keep it going because they die every year,” Henderson says.

Though Henderson recently realized his limited stock of 2017 Hansel and Gretel-themed calendars will work for 2026 — all the dates align.

Everyone else will have to buy the 2026 “Everyday L.A.” calendar.

See more in Highland Park

Show: Parade of Mortals

Address: MorYork, 4959 York Blvd, Los Angeles

Hours: Saturday and Sunday, noon to 6 p.m. Sept. 27 and 28, noon to 6 p.m.

Special events:

• Sept. 20, 4 p.m.: The premiere of “Nib is My Pen Name," a short film on the history of the calendar by Robert Caruso.
• Sept. 28, 7 p.m.: Closing event and Henderson’s presentation on the calendar’s history.

Pro-tip: The 2026 calendars also will be on sale at the gallery, along with T-shirts.

Hear from the artist

LAist talked to Henderson about his alter ego, his career and his latest show at MorYork, which features art from past calendars. Henderson also is the voice of many of the underwriting spots heard on LAist 89.3 FM (“Support comes from …”). He’s worked here since 2006 and now is our production and promotions manager.

These excerpts from our conversation are edited lightly for length and clarity.

LAist: How did Nib Geebles come to be? 

Henderson: A lot of people have a silly side and a rational side. Mine has a name. I've fed that character, that persona or alter ego.

My other name, Gordon Henderson, that part of me goes to work and makes sure that I pay the LADWP bill and does all the kinds of polite things. Then the other side, which is less polite — but more free — that side is sort of contained.

What’s the theme of your latest show, “Parade of Mortals”? 

I knew it was going to be a tie-in to the 40-year calendar retrospective, but then different things happened. One was losing my mom in December, and then the fires happened in January. Also this year has been a terrible year of dread for so many people.

Art making has always been a way that I have kept dread at bay. It gives you balance. You put artwork into the world, and that gives people pleasure and it helps them relax.

So I was thinking about all the different artwork I had done that deals specifically with handling crisis. So that's predominantly what I chose to hang in this show is work that confronts crisis.

How did you start making art?

 I didn't really officially declare myself as an artist until I was 16. I was at a religious school, a Quaker school, and I wasn't thriving in that environment. But I did like the Bible class and I liked the Bible teacher who was a guy who I considered a mystic, and his name was Bill.

Bill told us that he told the class that one of his former students had rewritten the Bible and Bill had read the Bible and thought it was terrible.

And I was kind of inspired by that. Not so much that he had rewritten the Bible but that he had taken on this thing that was way bigger than he was, and he'd failed miserably at it.

It’s like Dante. I liked that idea. So I thought, ‘Well, I could do that, and it would be even worse.’

What I realized is this was a really good fit to write in journals and draw and create my own reality. And I'm really still continuing on that mission. I needed a mission and that was my mission.

You’ve said that as a teenager you smoked a lot of pot and felt like a “young person adrift.” 

 I was a teenage wise guy. I'd always been a misfit. I was always like 2 to 12 inches taller than every other kid that was around.

I always sort of stuck out.

 I was a young person adrift, and there are a lot of young people adrift right now, and they don't have something that they can really hold onto.

I'm a mature person now and I have lived a sober life. I'm really happy with that because I was able to have a family and a really good job and career. What made that possible was that I made that decision to make artwork and that imagination was gonna set me free.