Interviews with top academics and policymakers.
My Own Personal Jefferson
New York Times blogger Maria Kalman discusses the process of creating her illustrations that blend American history with her own personal history.
By Emily Rutherford
September 22, 2009
 New York Times blogger and illustrator Maira Kalman addresses the TED Conference in 2007. (Flickr/TED Conference, Photo credit: Leslie Image)
Maira Kalman is a celebrated graphic designer and an author and illustrator of work for both children and adults. Her work has graced the cover of the New Yorker and, most recently, a New York Times blog called And the Pursuit of Happiness, where she juxtaposes stories of herself and her family against the stories of the history of the United States. Her essays are a beautifully illustrated take on the nature of America and transcend the partisan discourse of so many other discussions on the subject. Campus Progress reached Kalman at her home in New York to talk about her blog essays.
My first question is about the cultural figures that you reference in your columns at the New York Times. They’re often important figures in the history of western civilization and western ideas, like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, and there are a lot of disputes as to who claims those ideas, what they represent and what they say about America. How does your take on their ideas fit into that debate?
The Founding Fathers of America were quite brilliant, and they were philosophers. When you are trying to establish a new entity, and you’re dealing with new philosophy, there are many ways to interpret it. So of course things that Jefferson said or Franklin said could be interpreted by different people in different ways. Because they delve into so many different areas; their ideas are appropriated in many different areas. But that’s the nature of the world; everybody’s philosophy gets interpreted in the way that’s appropriate for the people who want to say what they have to say.
Would you say that your interpretation of Jefferson’s ideas is as valid one coming from a different political ideology?
I am extremely unknowledgeable about politics, and so I don’t approach anything from a political point of view. I approach it from a personal and humanistic point of view. That’s the only way that I can look at any of these people, the only way I can look at anything. I’m no more valid than anybody else. I may believe in my interpretation more than somebody else’s, but I don’t have any deeper understanding of any of the philosophical premises or political premises of anybody. The nature of the whole thing is discourse, and people having different opinions and discussing them, and compromises being made and new ideas coming out of that. It would be quite horrifying if everybody saw it the same way.
Since so much of your writing is autobiographical, how do you see your own life story and your family’s story tying into philosophical ideas and more abstract historical concepts? Why do you think it’s important to tie those things together?
Everybody’s personal story is really the story of the history of the world. If you look at any given person, their story tells you everything. My family escaped from Russia and went to Israel in the 1930s—they were escaping the Russian pogroms, and they made it out, most of them, before the Holocaust. They [went] to Palestine; they’re Zionists. My father [became] a businessman and [got] sent to New York in the ’50s in the heyday of the American postwar boom. I was born in Tel Aviv, but I grew up in America. I am part of the ’50s boom, that generation; then I [went] through ’60s radicalism and feminism and free love. [I got] married, and then [had] kids, and [still] maintain a dual citizenship with Israel and America. So in a way, my story is incredibly global and universal, as an immigrant going through all of those really important eras in American history. I have a lot of sympathy and empathy for people who are marginalized, and I also have a lot of respect and admiration for people who work very hard and achieve a vision of what they think their lives should be. In America, for better or for worse, with all of its flaws, I think that’s more possible than anywhere else.
Do you think it’s important for young people to have an understanding of that history and the American experience?
As I said before, I never cared about history, I never cared about politics. Now I’m much more interested in the broader picture of history in America—from pre-colonial times, and with the Native Americans. If people are curious, then they should be interested in many different things. Maybe somebody’s interested in music and in painting, but not really in history. Usually it’s so tedious to study history! You just say the word and people go to sleep. I think it’s good to know about it, but I think you probably need to be a little bit older to actually appreciate it.
Do you think that there are things that images or visual art can explain that words can’t?
No. Being a visual artist, it’s funny for me to say that; I think that of course photography and painting are not only incredible, they are critical. But I do think that the written word can tell it all.
This is sort of a frivolous question…
Good, I like that!
How did you arrive at the style for your lettering? It seems sort of eccentric to me, or unusual.
I guess it’s a combination between some kind of affectation and drawing. I always liked penmanship when I was in school, and I always thought penmanship was really drawing, so this is an extension of typography. I’m also a designer, so I look at typography and love typefaces and spend a lot of time drawing typefaces. Somehow this evolved into a quasi-eccentric way of writing.
Is it meant to evoke anything? Is there an emotion you want the reader to feel?
I think there’s a certain beauty to that kind of writing. Especially when reading it on the computer, where you’re just bombarded with text, I like to feel that there’s air in the words, and that they can be lyrical.
What are you working on right now?
The next column is about immigration, and that’s been a really interesting topic to look at. After that I’m going to Mount Vernon to absorb George Washington, and I’ll be doing a column about food in America—who eats what.
What goes into producing one of the columns? What’s your research process like?
I try to use as much free-floating reference [as possible]. For instance, immigration: I’ve been to the naturalization offices to see swearing-ins, and I’ve talked to officials there. I’ve met people who are undocumented, and I’ve gone to community centers and talked to people there. I’ve gone to Ellis Island; I’m going to Liberty Island. I’ve gone to the neighborhoods around New York—gotten on the subway and just gone to the Indian, Argentinean, and Ecuadorian neighborhoods, just cruising around collecting information about the history of explorers, who came here first, [and] how that trajectory happened. I collect books, I read things, and I’m looking at photographs and references. There’s a lot of information I’m absorbing for about two or three weeks, and I’m taking a lot of photos. Then I edit down my imagery; I start to sketch out the ideas that seem to come up again and again that resonate for me. I try not to make it too ponderous, so I try to find relationships that are frivolous or silly or wonderful, and then I put it all together.
Is there anything else you wanted to add?
I don’t know if I said that I like to have a sense of humor in my work. I think that in talking about all this stuff, it’s really important to have a sense of humor—otherwise it all becomes quite deadly. That’s one of the things I’m striving to put in there, that it be sympathetic to people and also have a sense of whimsy.
Emily Rutherford is a staff writer for Campus Progress and a sophomore at Princeton University. Follow her on Twitter.
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