Anita Kunz

When an internationally acclaimed illustrator lands on your little island, the sun shines so much brighter.

Anita Kunz arrived for a residency at the Illustration Institute in early August and my family eagerly attended her workshop at the Fifth Maine last Tuesday.

Anita’s presentation began with the claim “Art has power” and her show of illustrations by others from history and contemporary culture made that point brilliantly.

Art can incite violence, recruit people to war, or to resist war. Art can challenge the status quo or invoke worship, provide satire or remind us of the sublime. She moved from this broad view to her own personal journey in art, which began at home. Her uncle was an environmentalist and artist for education. Many of the textbooks in her Canadian schools featured his work. She studied illustration in art school but said, “I got my education working.”

She declared, “I was lucky with art directors,” and credited the freedom she enjoyed working with trusting art direction from Fred Woodward, Louis Fishauf, and Francoise Mouly as being advantageous to her career growth. In the 90’s she did a lot of conceptual celebrity illustrations for Rolling Stone, but always pursued personal work between the busy deadlines.

Anita shared a series sparked by the complete lack of women in art history. She also shared large pieces inspired by her volunteer work at an animal rescue sanctuary that includes capuchin monkeys. Monkeys play a frequent role in her work.

We took a break on the porch to mingle and find some breeze.

Anita continued with a presentation on her New Yorker covers. She generates LOTS of ideas, and said, “The rate of ideas to what is used is enormous!” Anita’s solutions often combine an exaggeration of some kind with an intelligent use of metaphor.

After a lunch break with great conversations, the class convened for an idea generating session. She shared a list of topics sent by New Yorker editors, such as the mind, taxes, fiction, travel and food, Labor Day, Halloween, etc.

We decided to tackle Halloween, and Anita prompted our brain storm of words and associations. We added “Russia” and “investigation” as additional timely tangents. While it may have been random, the pairing of Halloween and the current investigation of Trump’s ties to Russia yielded a bucketful of ideas around pranks, tricks, and masks. Each table worked to create visual solutions with super rough sketches in about 20 minutes.

My table included Illustration MECA alums Liz Long, and Michaela Flint, plus Peaks Islanders Marty Braun, Daisy Braun, and Olwyn Moxhay; we had a blast throwing out ideas that actually would be tricky to illustrate.

Anita considered every table’s roughs and admitted, “it’s hard, right?”

Next she shared her own process of sketching on tracing paper, which she uses as a tool to refine her early drawings. She scans these to submit as a first round. How exquisite are these!!!

She also showed us a stack of preliminary drawings done by her peers, to appreciate the variety of trial and error involved in arriving at final illustration. YES.

Here Illustration Institute co-founders Scott Nash and Nancy Gibson-Nash admire Anita’s bounty of work.

Anita displayed several books with themed projects.

She shared her 10 tips for creative success:

1) Work hard! While this may sound obvious, too often young illustrators crave immediate results. She said, “It takes tenacity and ten thousand hours!”

2) Embrace self-doubt. She quoted the legendary Milton Glaser, who said, “Doubt is better than certainty.”

3) Remove toxic influences.

4) Not working can be as creative as working. (Hello quiet residency…)

5) Be kind.

6) Contribute where you can.

7) Behave ethically, do no harm.

8) Take care of yourself (avoid toxic art supplies and ridiculous deadlines)

9) Remain a student for life. Stay curious! Seek the sublime. And roll with the changes.

10) Don’t try to be perfect.

I left the workshop full of the sublime. Here’s my drawing of Anita, whose shine lives on. Thank you for your talents and generosity!