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Maira Kalman Reflects on Life's Many Ups and Downs

The acclaimed author-illustrator discusses her latest book, ‘Still Life with Remorse’

By Sandra Ebejer

It would take many, many pages to fully detail Maira Kalman's extraordinary professional accomplishments, so here are just a few highlights: She has written and illustrated more than 30 books for adults and children; created textiles for Isaac Mizrahi and Kate Spade; had her work exhibited in galleries around the world; contributed numerous articles and images to the New York Times and the New Yorker; created sets for the Mark Morris Dance Group; written and starred in short films; designed watches, clocks and paperweights for M&Co, her late husband's design label; and collaborated with numerous artists, including musician David Byrne, author Michael Pollan and composer Nico Muhly.

She has received honorary doctorate degrees from the Rhode Island School of Design and Maryland Institute College of Art and has given two popular TED Talks, which have received more than 1,600,000 views combined.

A colorful painting. Next Avenue, Maira Kalman, Still Life With Remorse
Black Coat by Maira Kalman

Each of Kalman's books showcases her signature visual style and dry wit while exploring an overarching theme. The latest release, "Still Life with Remorse," covers the topic of remorse in all its forms. Through paintings and stories, she deftly balances humor, sadness and indifference as she delves into her family's past, covering everything from the heartbreaking (her final, angry conversation with her father) to the amusing (a late aunt whose enduring legacy is having served "unbearably dry chicken and rice").

The book is, at its core, about forging ahead, even when things seem insurmountable. "We all carry remorse," Kalman says. "We all wish we didn't have it, and we all do. The important thing is to carry on."

Over a Zoom call, Kalman spoke with Next Avenue about her illustrious career, her appreciation for deadlines and the "wonderful vagueness" of her creative process.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Next Avenue: Before we begin talking about your work, I'd like to ask how you're doing. You still have close ties to Israel, where you were born. How are you? How is your family?

Maira Kalman: It's an incomprehensible time. I can't imagine anything more difficult for a nation, for everybody, for all of the nations, to be in this nightmare. The Israelis that I know, my family, some of them are very right wing, some of them are very left wing. Everybody's in turmoil, and at the same time, life goes on. So, it's a complicated time, but my family's okay.

"We all carry remorse. We all wish we didn't have it, and we all do. The important thing is to carry on."

It ties to the theme of your new book, which is that life goes on despite all that happens in the world. After so many years of work as an author and illustrator, how is it for you when a new book is published? Do you still feel excitement around a new release, or have you already moved on to the next thing?

I'm ambivalent and delighted and terrified and joyful. That never stops, which is a good thing, because if I was blasé, then I shouldn't be doing it. I know what the next project is. I'm doing a book about trees. The antidote to writing a book about remorse is just wandering through gardens and looking at trees and painting.

What made you decide to explore the topic of remorse in this book?

The nice thing about the way that I work is that I don't know what I'm going to do and then things reveal themselves and glimmers of ideas come. I realized that I was hearing the word "remorse" everywhere I turned. I mean, I probably was editing out all the other words that people were saying. But I heard remorse, and well, it's like anything that you're thinking about — all of a sudden it appears all over the place. And, of course, getting older and thinking about, what are the things that were done with no sense of kindness or compassion? Would you do it differently? Could you do it differently? And what does that mean, to carry that with you?

The book is your most autobiographical work to date. When you begin work on a book like this, do you know going in what stories you're going to share? Or do those details evolve during the process of creation?

It always evolves. There are things that I write and there are things that just happened in the day, which is the best, a surprise of a story — something my cousin tells me or something that I come across. The same with the paintings. Some of them I know I will paint to the story. Most I have no idea. That wonderful vagueness, which gets clearer and clearer as time goes by, is really a wonderful process.

Which comes first, the stories or the paintings?

It depends. It's very fluid. I've always worked that way. Sometimes I see something, and I know I'm going to paint it, and I'll write a story to it, or vice versa. I like that. It's essential for me to have that fluidity, because my brain is working in two directions — hopefully sympathetic directions.

Headshot of a woman. Next Avenue, Maira Kalman, Still Life With Remorse
Maira Kalman  |  Credit: Kimisa H

I find that fascinating, because I always assume that if I'm going to take on a large project, such as a book, I need to know how it's going to end before I begin. How can I possibly write something if I don't know where it's going? Does the fact that you don't know exactly where the project is headed ever frustrate you?

No, that's my joy. I mean, in my books, there is no plot and the only thing that I have to do is figure out the tempo of the story. Of course, there's a lot of editing and rewriting and shuffling of images and paintings, but it's completely on instinct. There's hardly any brain involved, if I do say so myself. What's driving me is my gut and my feelings and my terror and my dreams. I'm the one who's deciding, so nobody can say, 'Well, that was wrong.' They may say, 'It didn't work out. We didn't really achieve what you thought you wanted to.' But I'm not allowing anybody to say that to me yet.

"I've always said the deadline is a beautiful thing."

Do you enjoy having deadlines to drive these projects? Or are you someone who would prefer to not have those restrictions?

If I didn't have a deadline, I wouldn't do anything at all. Literally. I'd be sitting there staring out the window, going, 'I wonder what's going on?' I've always said the deadline is a beautiful thing. It's a connection, especially for somebody who lives in a dreamy world, who's isolated in her studio. I spend most of my time alone. I'm with family and friends and all that, but I work alone, and to know that there are actual, real people waiting in the real world for something, it's very grounding and very helpful. That's why I always said I wasn't an artist; I was an illustrator. I was connected to the narrative of magazines or books. And that, to me, was a beautiful connection. I'm so happy to be relating to the narrative work. I love it.

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You share stories in this book about your extended family, going back a few generations. What was the research process like? Were these stories you've known for years? Did you find out anything new?

I talk to my cousins every day. They're in Tel Aviv, and they're the repository of many family stories. Even though we have different memories —'No, that didn't happen, but that did happen.' 'No, you're wrong about that.'— the essence of it, the texture of it, is true. So I learned new things. I rehashed. I looked in my notebooks and saw stories that I had written down that my mother had told me and my aunt had told me. They were very unsentimental. They weren't maudlin about things. They were cutting. There's a lot of dark humor in how they would relate stories.

There's one story which is not in this book, it's in "Sara Berman's Closet," where there was a cousin who was sitting in a shack in Belarus. He was having his tea and all of a sudden, a bolt of lightning shot through the window and killed him. And my mother and my aunt were screaming with laughter. I mean, [it happened] a long time ago, but [it's] this black humor and the absurdity of what can happen to you. Settling down for a nice cup of tea and then... I think that leads to a lot of the stories in the book, which is, everything could go wrong. What could possibly go wrong? Everything. [Laughs] You're lucky if the day was like, 'Wow, I got away with it this day. Nothing horrible happened. How is that possible?'

"What could possibly go wrong? Everything. [Laughs] You're lucky if the day was like, 'Wow, I got away with it this day. Nothing horrible happened. How is that possible?'"

Do you paint or write every day?

I sketch in my sketchbook and write every day as I'm walking around and I stop to draw people or dogs or trees, but I don't go to my studio every day. I've learned how to adjust my tempo so that I can go to a museum and wander around the Met and look at the Greek and Roman wing and be infused. And the infusion carries me through the day or the month or the year. But I know my balance of wandering and working. It's reasonable, for the most part.

I've read that you start your days reading the obituaries and you end them with murder mysteries. Do you pull from those as well? Do they help to inform your work or are they just for enjoyment?

That's just for my own deep pleasure, to start with the obits and have a cup of coffee. And an even greater pleasure is to end the day with murder mysteries. One of the things that I'm going to do in these little film things, I hope, is to make a mini murder mystery. My brain is occupied by trying to solve something that I know will be solved.

When you're considering a project, whether it's something of your own or something that you're collaborating on with someone else, how do you decide what to take on? What does the project have to have in order for you to say, 'Yes, I want to spend some time working on that theme or that thing'?

A colorful painting. Next Avenue, Maira Kalman, Still Life With Remorse
Bonard's Room by Maira Kalman

It's very much about instinct. It doesn't have anything to do with what's popular or what might be good. I mean, as most writers do, you just write what you need to write. I'm curious about things, and I'm tuned into the world around me, and I notice, and I look, and I read a lot, and listen to music, and I think all those things bring me to a point of interest and contentment with a subject.

You've worked in a lot of different artistic mediums. Is there anything you haven't done yet that you'd like to try?

I'd like to have a little store. I like the idea of being entrepreneurial and having a task. Talk about having a structure. I've said this before, washing dishes or making the bed or selling a pencil releases something else in your brain and other wonderful parts of the imagination are activated. For me, anyway. So, [I'd like to have] a store, but I think the very nice thing I can say is that in my life, I've done everything that I wanted to do. And if there's something else, it'll reveal itself. I wanted to dance like Martha Graham, so we made this film where I'm dancing so not like Martha Graham. But I was delusional enough to think that I could, which is a bit, you know, concerning. But I think that I have the right outlets for what I want to do in life.

What is the creative process like when you're working on a film? Are you involved every step of the way?

Yes. My son, Alex [Kalman], and I talk about the characters. Then I write the script, change the script, write the script. He studied film at Bard, so he's the cinematographer and the director and the editor, and we collaborate throughout the whole process and just try to make it not boring. That's my big goal. Not embarrassing, not boring. Have you seen me as Alice B. Toklas? That was where I said, 'Oh, I could be these characters.'

Do you enjoy acting and performing as much as being behind the scenes as an artist?

I discovered that I do. All of a sudden, I was like, 'Wow, I just want to make films.' But then I saw myself on film, and I said, 'Wow, that is really bad.' [Laughs] So it's a complicated process, but I could see doing more. I'm not giving up my day job.

A colorful book cover. Next Avenue, Maira Kalman, Still Life With Remorse

You've spoken before about the importance of walking and observing when it comes to your work. What is your advice to readers about finding inspiration, especially these days, when our devices are constantly vying for our attention?

Well, that's a mystery, but I would say for me that music and literature and walking and nature and focusing on the task at hand and being in the moment and all of those things are connected to being mindful. And listening to your instincts and baking cakes for people that you love. And find your work. Whatever that means. Find your work.

When you complete a project, do you walk away with a different sense of yourself? Have you learned something new about yourself in the process?

That's a good question. I've learned how inconsistent I am. But more than that, I've learned that I enjoy my inconsistencies, and I'm not embarrassed by them. And that's an amazing thing to come away with.

Contributor Sandra Ebejer
Sandra Ebejer lives in upstate New York with her husband, son and two cats who haven't figured out how to get along. Her work has been published in The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, Real Simple, Writer's Digest, Shondaland and others. Read more at sandraebejer.com or find her on Twitter @sebejer

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