Vermont Magazine March/April 2019: Drawing Analogies
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Story and photos by Maria Buteux Reade/ Illustrations by Ed Koren PEOPLE Drawing Analogies Brookfield resident Edward Koren has enjoyed a prolific career as a well-known commercial illustrator and cartoonist. ACH WEEK, MORE THAN 500 CARTOONS ishing his curiosity. “I studied everything. As undergrads, are submitted to The New Yorker magazine. Ap- we weren’t allowed to take more than two art courses for proximately 20 make it to the sleek pages. Depend- credit so that pushed me to become a more fluent writer. ingE on your outlook, that’s a 4-percent acceptance rate. Or In retrospect, it was a damn good idea. I concentrated in 96 percent rejection. The magazine draws from a stable of English and art history. Hence what I’m doing now is a hy- about 50 cartoonists while also receiving unsolicited draw- brid of both. Those four years helped hone my skills and ings from other aspirants. To be a New Yorker cartoonist sharpen my teeth. I just kept working, working, working, requires a thick skin and the ability to withstand constant inspired by the model of my beloved New Yorker.” rejection. Yet the hopefuls keep submitting. Ed Koren knows something about that rejection. It took nearly a decade until the magazine bought one of his cartoons, and several more years until he became a regular contributing art- ist. But during that period from the late 1950s to early1960s, Ed graduated from Columbia, worked as a city plan- ner, became an etcher and engraver in Paris, served in the Army reserves, and earned his MFA from the Pratt Insti- tute School of Art. And all the while, he sent cartoons to the venerable pub- lication. “I kept submitting and Jim Geraghty, the art editor, would offer encouragement and reject my pieces. I never gave up, but that’s when I real- ized I needed a day job.” Ed started cartooning at Columbia and contributed drawings to the uni- versity’s humor magazine, which he would edit in his senior year. He cred- Longtime Brookfield resident Ed Koren has just released his 20th book, Koren. In the Wild, a its Columbia for expanding and nour- compilation of his cartoons previously published in The New Yorker. PB MARCH/APRIL 2019 VERMONT MAGAZINE 33 “It’s more fun to draw big! Using densely packed squiggly lines, Ed sketches a world of quirky, lovable, irascible creatures. Fuzzy, wooly, hairy characters with long beak-like noses, popping eyes, and big grins. His hu- mans tend to the rumpled and vaguely hippie; his animals exude slightly ex- asperated tolerance. By nature, a cartoon will be read quickly so Ed conjures a posture, gaze, and gesture that convey as much as, if not more than, words. He relishes the feel of drawing on a large piece (25-by- 20 inches) of acid-free rag paper, us- ing graphite pencil and Pelican India Ed prefers to use rather large pieces of paper to draw on, beginning the process by using a graphite pencil…then with India ink and a dip pen. His studio is decorated with prints and ink, with a dip pen. “It’s more fun to inspirational quotes that hang above his drawing board. draw big,” Ed says, “and pen and ink is a distinctly ancient and tech-free tech- nique that produces beautifully archa- ic wet ink scribbles.” The black-and- white contrast and shading are much more pronounced in the original drawing and diminish slightly with subsequent iterations as the drawing makes its way to the final printed page in the magazine. “The contrast tends to get washed out with digitization so I’ve learned to adapt my style and use intense blacks, grays, and whites.” He scans the large-format original draw- ings at a copy shop in Montpelier and sends the digital images to New York. Ed points to a cartoon from a De- cember 2018 issue of The New Yorker. “It’s the Three Penny Taproom in Montpelier. I consider it an homage to the spirit of this gathering spot, with statehouse types and an aging coun- tercultural denizen in a hoody. But this scene could unroll in any pub in the country. The challenge is to make a scene less formulaic and more amus- ing, with details that add richness and depth.” Pathway to Vermont So how did this urbanite end up call- ing Vermont home for the past 40 years? An English teacher from his alma mater, the Horace Mann School “I’ve done my tour of duty on Wall Street.” 34 MARCH/APRIL 2019 VERMONT MAGAZINE 35 98 in Riverdale, New York, ran the Mac- Arthur Summer Theater in Waitsfield, and in 1951 he encouraged the teen- age Ed to get involved. “I had a deep fear of public appearance—still do, in fact—but I loved everything that happened behind the curtains. I was an apprentice techie and helped build scenery, put up lights, run the curtain and lighting board, and schlep the staging.” This bona fide theatre company toured central Vermont, precisely the area where Ed would land two decades later. “We’d stuff all the lighting, scen- ery, and props into a Model A Ford stake truck and trundle them from music hall to music hall. Randolph, Norwich, Waterbury, Montpelier. We’d literally take the show on the road. Mad River Glen had just opened up, and Waitsfield was a farming com- munity, with nary a vacation home in sight. The landscape hadn’t changed much since the 19th century.” "Clark and Denise are our closest neighbors." In his free time at MacArthur, young Ed walked everywhere around 130 Waitsfield and up into the hills. “I re- member hiking that steep hill from East Warren that follows the ridge above Route 100. It was all farms then, and now it’s multimillion dollar man- sions.” In the 1960s, friends bought an old farm in Braintree, and Ed and his family would come up to visit. “I be- came re-enamored of this area. I love the agricultural roots and old values, the wry Vermonters with their dry wit and sense of irony and fun. I guess it just stuck in my heart and head.” Ed and his wife, Curtis, live in an 1840s cape in the heart of Brookfield. “I found the house advertised in an old copy of Ketchum’s Country Jour- nal in 1978. The ad was about four months old. This house was originally an annex to the inn next door.” From this vantage point, Ed can note the "We're only here summers, but Roger likes to be taken for a local." comings and goings of the road crew, neighbors, and travelers as they pass 34 MARCH/APRIL 2019 VERMONT MAGAZINE 35 25 through the tiny village center. Next to his house stands a red barn where he maintains an unheated printmaking studio that he uses during the warmer months. His prima- ry studio occupies several rooms in the rear of the house. Village life meshed with their sensibilities so the Korens became full-time residents in 1987. “At the end of the sum- mer, we decided not to go back to New York. We fixed up the house and built an addition in 1988. Happily we only own an acre but have plenty of open land behind the house and up the hillside where we hike, snowshoe, and cross- country ski. It’s a nice buffer with wildlife, very peaceful. Behind the house we built terraced gardens and a stone pa- tio. It’s ideal for us.” Ed and Curtis married in 1982, and their family includes three children and two grandchil- dren. Curtis is a journalist and serves as the board chair of VTDigger.com. She also taught English at The Sharon Academy and founded and directed a semester abroad pro- The cover of Ed’s newest book (above) quite naturally features gram in Ladakh, India. two of his fuzzy-looking characters. The book’s cartoons depict To immerse himself in Brookfield, Ed joined the volun- the ironies of life in the boonies, from those of ruralites to those of teer fire department. “The fire department afforded the exurbanites. opportunity to get to know a community in ways unlike anything else. My friend Don Hooper was in the depart- ment and said I should join. I respected his sense of service and dedication to the community so I heeded his words. Serving as a volunteer fireman is the antithesis of what I do here in the studio. The call comes out of nowhere, I’m jolted into an adrenaline state, and we have a situation that must be resolved right away. It’s the ultimate deadline, with no room for procrastination. Although there are steps and procedures to follow, firefighting is creative in its own prac- tical way. I enjoy the camaraderie, the service to strangers and neighbors alike. We handle a lot of interstate accidents because of our proximity to Route 89, and we’re on call to assist whenever and wherever.” A Prolific Career By his own tally, 1,109 Ed Koren cartoons have appeared in The New Yorker, along with many illustrations created for The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Vanity Fair, GQ, Sports Illustrated, and Esquire among others. More than 30 have made the cover of The New Yorker, a remarkable feat. Ed has also written and illustrated children’s books, including nine of his own. He has collaborated on another dozen books with the likes of Delia Ephron, Peter Mayle, Alice Trillin, and Alan Katz. Among many honors, he re- ceived the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2007 and was tapped as Vermont’s second-ever Cartoonist Laureate from 2014 to 2017.