Write Your Own Job Description
And other life lessons from Maira Kalman
Longtime readers of this newsletter might know that Maira Kalman is one of my favorite people. You might have seen her New Yorker covers, or her many wonderful books, including but definitely not limited to her delightful illustrated edition of The Elements of Style.
Anyway, three Maira Kalman-related things happened this week and I wanted to share them with you.
The first is that I heard this wonderful interview with her (which you can find in your podcast app if you’d rather listen that way) in which she said, in response to a question from the audience:
“The nice thing about my job is that I wake up in the morning and I go out for a walk, and I don’t know what I’m going to see, but I see wonderful things that I want to paint. So capturing those moments, that’s my job.”
And I thought, THIS WOMAN HAS WRITTEN HER OWN JOB DESCRIPTION!
I mean, all artists (and all self-employed people) do, I suppose, but she so clearly articulates it and then carries it out.
Doesn’t this kind of make you want to write your own job description?
Like, the job description for your life? That’s profound.
I queued up that moment if you want to listen to it, but really the whole interview is so great.
Okay so then I also happened to pick up one of her earlier books, My Favorite Things, which came about in part because she was once invited to go through the collection of the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and pick out her favorite things and make art about them.
The book is a collection of those paintings and other paintings of her favorite things.
It is a total delight.
I happen to know, because I listen to a lot of Maira Kalman interviews, that she loves the broken chairs that people put out on the sidewalk and has been known to take them home. Even if she doesn’t take them home, she paints them.
That’s the thing about noticing what you notice. (I wrote about that here a while back.) A lot of us probably notice the broken chairs people put out on the sidewalk. Maybe you, like me, stop to contemplate them and wonder about the lives they’ve had and the lives they might still have, if someone takes them home and spruces them up.
The difference is, Maira Kalman notices all that, and notices that she noticed it, and makes a painting about it, and that’s all in her job description.
And as a result of this being her job description, she GETS JOBS! Like, the Cooper-Hewitt actually calls!
And guess who else calls?
This is the third thing and it’s so cool I can hardly believe it.
Are y’all watching The Residence on Netflix? I wasn’t sure I could handle a show set in the White House right now, what with—well, everything, even with a fictional gay president and a totally apolitical plotline. So I’d been putting it off, but then three different people told me that the main character is a birder and I had to watch it.
So, yeah, it’s a fun show, especially if you love Shonda Rhimes and clever wacky murder mysteries along the lines of Knives Out.
I wasn’t paying a huge amount of attention to the title credits, but I remember seeing the hand lettering and thinking, “huh, they’re kind of ripping off Maira Kalman there.”
Then I saw the art and realized that Maira Kalman worked on this show!
Because of course, murder mysteries are one of her favorite things!
And the way she created these illustrations was to follow her own job description—she watched the show, noticed her favorite things, and painted them.
You can read an interview with her about what it was like to get a call from Netflix asking if she would illustrate a TV show right here. And here’s another interview with her about the show in Town & Country.
I hope you enjoyed Maira Kalman week! Go write your job description!
Supporters are painting a landscape this week
For my subscribers I have a thing called Patron of the Arts where I’ll paint a place from a photo you send me and mail you the painting. I did this landscape recently for one of those art patrons, and I filmed the process so we could go through it step-by-step. This, and just about anything else you can do in a sketchbook, is what we get up to every week, usually in the form of short art tutorial-type videos.
For just a few bucks a month, you can join us, and you get access to the full archive right here. It’s fun! See you there!
Columbus and LA—I’m heading your way!
Columbus, OH! I’m coming to see you at the Bexley Public Library on April 23. Get your tickets here.
Los Angeles! I’ll be speaking at the Southern California Horticultural Society on May 9. Tickets available right here.
The Bit at the End
Order signed copies of my new book, The Tree Collectors, from Broadway Books here in Portland.
Come find me on Instagram, or see paintings for sale- Right here
Order signed copies of some of my books from my husband’s bookstore, or order my books and many books I love at Bookshop.org
Take one of my online writing or art classes here
Leave a comment! I love to hear from you!
Oh, Amy, what inspiration. Thank you for dropping all the links to Maria Kalman’s work and life. My neighbors put a stack of outdoor chairs out a few weeks ago, but the bottoms fell out, and so far, there are no takers. I walk by each day, hopeful someone will rescue them. And I don’t know why, but the stack reminds me of the first time I drew the negative space of a chair in a studio class, which feels like a fabulous prompt to start my day.
I just put My Favorite Things on hold at my library and can't wait to read it. Very cool Maira Kalman week and I think I will write my own job description!