Portraits in Creativity: Artist Maira Kalman, Modern Patron Saint of the Moments Inside the Moments Inside the Moments
By Maria Popova
From her immeasurably wonderful visual meditations on life, including The Principles of Uncertainty and Various Illuminations (Of a Crazy World), to her illustrations for such cultural classics as Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style and Michael Pollan’s Food Rules, Maira Kalman is one of the most influential artists and visual storytellers of our time. Beneath her visual vignettes and narratives, imbued with enormous generosity of spirit, is always a subtle undertone of the great existential inquiry — why are we here? — coupled with a gentle assurance that it’s okay not to know, to thrash around in the maddening and marvelous ambiguity of it and make that be its own exquisite answer.
In this fantastic short film from the Portraits in Creativity project — a beautiful and thoughtful series of cinematic profiles by Gael Towey, spotlighting notable artists, their vibrant minds and inspirations, and “the courage and curiosity that propel the creative act” — Kalman discusses her influences, her love of New York, her charming collaboration with Daniel Handler and the MoMA, her witty TEDxMet talk, which maps “epic moments” in Kalman’s own life onto the museum’s timeline of notable acquisitions, her role as the duck in Isaac Mizrahi’s production of the pioneering Soviet children’s symphony Peter and the Wolf, and more. Annotated highlights below — please enjoy:
On how walking helps us see the world with new eyes:
Walking is another way of getting out of yourself, in the best possible way, because you really do get swept away by what’s around you.
On the singular poetics of New York:
I think that every person you talk to is eccentric — deeply eccentric — in their own way. You just have to find it. Some people are not willing to show it — which is why New York is so fantastic, because people are über willing to show any eccentricity they possibly can. And that’s one of the points of being here — you’ve left the restrictions of whatever place you’ve been in and you go, “Now I’m really going to show you something!”
On how mind-wandering enhances creativity and the importance of unconscious incubation, or what the Chinese call wu-wei, in coming up with ideas:
Daydreaming is a function of the brain that’s an uncensored exploration, without controlling it, of ideas and emotions. Often, the best ideas, the smartest ideas, the most amazing ideas come from those moments when you’re not trying.
On the Alice in Wonderland quality of everyday life:
We always are in this in-between world of “Is this a dream? Is this really happening? Are we in costume? Who are we?”
Complement this gem with Kalman on the two keys to a full life and the difference between thinking and feeling, then revisit her delightful Girls Standing on Lawns.
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Published July 17, 2014
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https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/07/17/maira-kalman-portraits-in-creativity-gael-towey/
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