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 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.”

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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 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 , , 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. Now in his 80s, Ed is still an active member of the Brookfield Volun- “When I started out in the ’50s, a number of magazines teer Fire department. “The fire department afforded the opportunity and papers published cartoons. The Sunday comics section to get to know a community in ways unlike anything else,” he says. used to be one of the chief economic engines of a news-

36 MARCH/APRIL 2019 VERMONT MAGAZINE 37 "We think it's terribly important that you meet the people responsible for the food you're eating tonight."

paper. Valley News in West Lebanon, New Hampshire is or a doodle will somersault its way into polished form. I’m that rare paper that still publishes a full page of comics. But always skulking around and taking things in, watching, the golden days of comics have passed. Oddly enough, The listening, relishing the contradictions. I’m like the security New Yorker cartoons still have legs and remain popular.” camera, just there observing.” Numerous collections of his cartoons have been pub- A cartoonist, or any creative type, experiences73 frustra- lished, and In the Wild, which debuted in fall 2018, is the tion interspersed with moments of joy. “Rejection is never first in a long while. “My friend Margot Zalkind suggested fun and there’s plenty of that, but the sheer act of pulling it was time for a new collection, so she put it together. This something together, giving birth to a verbal and visual one has had a peculiar run and the only explanation is that cell and watching it evolve, is wondrous. I often get teary it’s Vermont, a very specific locale, and a cohort of people when a cartoon comes together. If it doesn’t, I erase and who are interested in the topic, which is the intersection of start again. It’s joyful when it works, but damn hard getting rural and urban, or increasingly suburban life.” there.” When is a cartoon done? “That’s always a conundrum for A marriage of drawing and caption artists. Overworking and going too far is a problem. You Ed describes his work routine as scattershot. “I work risk killing off the spirit of a drawing. Like working a piece oddly but endlessly. If I’m on a project with a deadline, I of dough, you develop the instinct. Some inner gyroscope go straight out. If not, I work a bit, then do firewood, work says enough, stop already, get out of its way. And you learn some more, go for a hike or bike ride or snowshoe, work to heed that sense.” some more, do another chore, work some more. I find the As he reflects on his career, Ed allows that he’s “kind of woods very nourishing. To quote Thoreau, ‘I frequently pleased” with what he has accomplished. “I’m never smug tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snows to because there’s always something I could have done better. keep an appointment with a beech tree, or a yellow birch, If I felt I was repeating myself, I would stop. Or at least, or an old acquaintance among the pines.’” I hope I’d be bright enough to stop! I’m interested in the How does a cartoon begin? How does a poem or a song comedy of manners, the sociology, the psychological in- emerge? It just happens. “Sometimes I’ll hear something terchange, and interpersonal dynamics. There’s always

36 MARCH/APRIL 2019 VERMONT MAGAZINE 37 here. After the war, many of The New Yorker cartoonists and commercial artists moved out of Manhattan and colo- nized Fairfield County. Greenwich, Connecticut was then more affordable than New York. They created their own community. But in any case, we all work in isolation, re- gardless if our studio is in Manhattan, Connecticut, or the hills of Vermont. We’d leave our house or studio and go out for some activity. I used to bike or run along Riverside Drive when I lived in New York. Here, I can bike or hike right outside my door. I exercise for my brain as much as for my physical health. I can keep physically active because I never stopped.” Ed enjoys plein air sketching in the snowy woods each spring, and he draws while in his kayak on Lake Cham- plain. “It can be challenging when the wind comes up from the southwest and generates some interesting swells.” He pauses then adds, “Living in Vermont allows me to be out- doors and maintain an active life: stacking wood, fixing stuff, engaging in hands-on projects. I feel lucky at my age to be able to still immerse myself in these necessary activi- ties. And being in my studio is much more satisfying than anything else. I have a horror of stopping, of having noth- ing to do. I really couldn’t stop because drawing is inter- twined with who I am and how I think. It’s what I do.” something new to observe or convey. In many ways these Advice171 to aspiring cartoonists? “With publishing the cartoons are mini-theatre pieces, harkening back to my way it is, make sure you have a day job. That’s why I taught Waitsfield days.” for so long: I couldn’t count on cartooning as a steady ca- reer path. The New Yorker is a tough situation because it’s College Professor to Commercial Artist the only game in town and it’s hard to make a living from Prior to becoming a full-time commercial illustrator, Ed it now. But if cartooning is what you love and how you ex- taught for 13 years at . He landed a posi- press yourself, then go for it. And if you can make a living tion in 1964 teaching printmaking, drawing, and design to from it, bravo! If not, hopefully you can find the joy in the liberal arts students who might not go on to be artists. “I creative process.” fashioned it into a course of visual literacy, hoping to entice In sum, Ed feels incredibly fortunate. “It was all luck, the students to be sensitive to not only what they read but with a healthy dose of persistence. What’s strange is that to what they see and learn how to evaluate it.” almost six decades in, I still enjoy every moment of it. Sure, Meanwhile, his cartoons were getting accepted with I picked up some craft along the way, but I’m still not at more regularity at national magazines and newspapers. the summit. My style constantly evolves, and there’s always By 1967, his career at The New Yorker “…finally took off, room for development, improvement, and growth.” bumping off the ground like an old Sopwith Camel.” Ed ultimately resigned his tenure at Brown in 1977 to pur- Maria Buteux Reade has a home along the Battenkill River in Arling- sue cartooning and illustration full time with books and ton, VT. After 27 years teaching English, she now balances freelance magazines. “The New Yorker had opened doors for me so writing with work at Someday Farm in East Dorset. I got an agent and became immensely busy. I couldn’t give my students the time and focus they needed, and I realized this was untenable. Something had to give. I made that de- JUST THE FACTS cision with immense regret because I loved working with For more information visit edwardkoren.com. students. I found it nourishing.” Ed wonders if he idealizes life here in Vermont, but In the WIld is published by Button Street Press, Newfane, VT. quickly acknowledges that “It’s a great life, frankly. I could Call (802) 221-0736 or visit buttonstreetpress.com. have lived in the suburbs of New York but chose to live

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