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Every few Sundays, I’ll be devoting All’s Well to conversations with creative women who inspire me. Subscribe to get upcoming interviews and roundups!
This week, I’m so excited to share with you a look inside the world of Liz Montague, author, illustrator, cartoonist, and general ray of sunshine. I came across Liz’s work in The New Yorker and quickly become a follower on Instagram. Aside from her single-panel cartoons, Liz has a graphic memoir coming out this October, and a few big projects geared toward kids in the works. Below is from our conversation.
How did you get your start?
When I graduated from college, I was working as a graphic designer for a foundation, and I was scrolling through The New Yorker’s Instagram, thinking, “Wow, all of these cartoons are white. I wonder if they know…” I just clicked the email button and wrote them. The editor there emailed me back, saying, “Is there anyone you recommend?” And I was like, “Me.” That started a three-year working relationship.
Had you been drawing for a while?
I started my sophomore year, drawing little cartoons and posting them on Instagram for fun. It was a way to sort out my own thoughts; I never thought that I would do anything with it. I was a studio art major in college, but I definitely thought I would go the more corporate art route of graphic design, very much a desk job. The New Yorker was the first place I sold any art to ever. It took probably 50 drafts before I got one yes.
What viewpoints and messages did you want to contribute through your cartoons?
As a Black woman, I’m going to have a different perspective than you’re getting from people of the same race and economic group. But also, I want to do something that feels positive. There’s so much news that you read and you feel like crap afterward, and I feel like the general apathy that’s gotten mainstream… it scares me. Everyone’s like, “The world sucks. It’s all gonna burn and I hate everything.” I don’t think depressing people is really going to help anything. I’m an optimist by nature.
There really is a lot of hope in your work. Where do you find it? What’s your well of optimism?
I garden. I’m from rural New Jersey and I have a one-acre plot that I share with my mom where we do bigger crops, like corn, and then I have a backyard garden. I feel like gardening really makes you break up with the idea of perfectionism and the idea that this is hopeless. I could accidentally not water something for a week, or not put it in the right place where there’s light, and life finds a way. Suddenly, two months later, you have tomatoes. It just repeatedly reminds me that everything’s gonna be okay. I, at my core, believe that.
What’s your process like?
I usually use post-it notes or scraps of paper and will just scribble because I find blank pages to be super intimidating. First, let’s figure out composition. How is the eye going to move? I’ll get a very, very rough idea of image and, as I’m working on the image, I’ll refine whatever the words are.
For this one [above], I wanted to say something about reproductive rights, but to have a conversation about it that’s inclusive and not super gloom and doom. I wanted to communicate: What kind of future are we setting up the next generation with? The idea was that when we do get a non-male president, they’re still going to have fewer rights.
I knew that I wanted it to include kids because I wanted it to be this idea of the next generation speaking. I feel like there’s so much pressure on the next generation to fix everyone’s problems. Then, I further explored, “What makes sense for them to be saying and how can I say this? And have it be as simple as possible, but also as broad as possible?” Then, it’s a process of elimination. If I map it out first, all I have to do is execute it and then it seems less intimidating.
Can you tell me a bit more about your graphic novel? What inspired it?
While I was writing it, I was working with a family therapist, and her whole philosophy was that there are no individuals, just fragments of families. That was a really cool idea to me. How can I make this story about my childhood that offers something, that doesn’t put anybody in a bad light? How do I make sure that the story stays focused on me because I’m the one who signed up to do this? How do I resolve whatever’s in myself to be able to make this a positive story that’s worth all the work and worth people’s time to read it? That was everything.
A lot of my work is emotional literacy-facing. At the core of it is: How did this feel? How did middle school feel? How did it feel to have expectations on you and not feel like you’re living up to those expectations? And now that I’m a capital-G grownup, what kind of relationship do I want to have to my younger self?
Why did a graphic novel feel like the way to go?
I’m actually dyslexic. I used to have a really hard time in school when we would be presented with a book that was just a wall of text. I was the person in college who never did the reading. I didn’t really get into reading until I found audiobooks. Composition-wise, art breaks up the page in a way that’s really digestible and it allows more space to talk about things. Sometimes language can feel really limiting. With this visual thing, I can create an atmosphere. I can create more of an energy. You can communicate a lot with some eyebrows, with a facial expression.
Your book is titled Maybe an Artist. Do you consider yourself an artist or maybe an artist?
It’s weird. My initial thought was with a question mark. But the answer should be capital-Y yes. I feel like we’re so conditioned to doubt ourselves and to be like, “Well, if it’s not perfect and if I’m not this and that…” But if I’m not an artist at this point, I don’t know what I am.
You also have another picture book with Random House and a three-book series with Scholastic in the works. What appeals to you about writing for kids?
I feel like you’re allowed to be so much more positive and nice to kids than adults. I’m not grim enough for what is considered mainstream adult anything. Also, I want to be able to contribute diverse narratives and female narratives to the next generation. That’s kind of a canned answer, but it’s true.
I don’t know why more people aren’t just like, “Oh wow. The sun is shining today. It’s gonna be a great day.” When I was working in international development, I worked, boots on the ground, talking to farmers who were dealing with global warming first. The way they handled it was like, “Yeah, we’ll figure it out.” That was the universal answer. “We’re getting new pests, but we’ll figure it out.” I think it’s a very American and Western thing to worry because it distracts you from everything else.
Back to gardening as a metaphor for life, which I love. What’s in your garden right now?
I grow chamomile, mint. My basil’s coming in. (I’m making a lot of omelettes with basil.) My squash is about to come in. I have okra coming in. I have a lot of flowers this season. My mom gave me a bunch of bulbs and I just planted them. I don’t even know what they’re going to be. Bean sprouts are coming in. I have sunflowers, but I’m not really going to eat those unless we end up toasting the seeds. And then tomatoes will hopefully start coming in soon.
Behind my house growing up was a 150-acre soybean farm. My first job ever was at a farm up the road. I was in charge of looking after the kids’ play area. It’s just something that everyone does here. It never even seemed like a thing you wouldn’t do. Both my parents are from inner cities, but now, every season like clockwork, my mom would be like, “I have to get seeds. I need to make sure they’re in the ground.” You have to get everything in the ground before Mother’s Day because there’s always going to be a frost until then.
But even if you over-water, forget to water, or you don’t plant by Mother’s Day or the squirrels are wreaking havoc, you can only mess up so much. I think realizing that—that the world is a kind and generous place, innately—I think it really helps to have a more positive outlook on everything because you’re not as afraid to make mistakes.
Well said, Liz!