AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Joy has been a frequent subject in Maira Kalman's long painting career - joy in the form of cozy chairs, gardens in full bloom or impossibly fluffy dogs. And yet the 77-year-old artist thought that a book dedicated to joy would be a tough sell.
MAIRA KALMAN: I thought I'm going to have to explain myself to people and explain that I'm really miserable a lot of the time. And then once in a while, I feel joy.
CHANG: Her book, which is aptly titled "Joy," is one of more than 30 that Kalman has published. It explores why we can be so quick to dismiss the light that appears with the darkness. NPR's Elena Burnett has more.
ELENA BURNETT, BYLINE: For Kalman, Joy begins early in the morning with a cup of coffee and the daily obituaries.
KALMAN: It gives you a sense of proportion. This will end, so take advantage and do as much as you can that you love to do.
BURNETT: And that means leisurely strolling through her Manhattan neighborhood and looking for inspiration.
KALMAN: The only criteria is if my heart stops, which - not for too long, hopefully. But if it kind of puts a ping in me. And it's all instinct. It's all feeling, and it's all emotion.
BURNETT: Her book, "Joy," is filled with many of those heart-stopping observations, rendered in vivid gouache with her trademark whimsy. There's a woman applying crimson lipstick at a bright Paris restaurant and another surrounded by four small dogs and florals in her living room. There's a man playing a violin under a spring-green cherry tree and another listening to a record, surrounded by the pink and orange rubble of a war-torn apartment. And on the cover, a serene lake of green is interrupted by a pink shoreline and a small figure in a red bathing suit coming up for air mid-swim. That figure is based on Kalman's cousin, Iris, who swam the English Channel.
KALMAN: I don't know how much joy she was having at the time. Probably not much. But joy arrives unexpectedly and probably when you're alone and probably in the smallest of moments.
BURNETT: And just how unexpected Joy can be is clear from Page 1, a blank page with the word joy followed by a question mark. In fact, the majority of the writing that accompanies Kalman's paintings are questions.
KALMAN: (Reading) Do you think I am an idiot? Don't I know that you know that suffering and sorrow envelop our planet and our little lives?
BURNETT: Kalman says the dilemma of joy is that because it is so fleeting, we often don't trust ourselves when we do chance across it. But she argues happiness is just as present and requisite in our lives as its darker counterparts.
KALMAN: You cannot be joyous without sorrow. It just - it won't work. You can try, but it won't work.
BURNETT: The paintings from the book will be featured at the Mary Ryan Gallery in New York City this month, her third exhibition there - a notion that Kalman still struggles to wrap her head around.
KALMAN: I never considered myself an artist in that sense that I went into the studio and thought that my art would be what I would present to the world. To me, a book that you can close, that you can put away on a table or a shelf, that's the treasured object.
BURNETT: An object for savoring, which for Kalman is the easiest pathway to joy.
KALMAN: Take your time. Go for a walk. Really look around you. Don't look at your phone. Don't rush. Read slowly. Take time to just stare out of a window. And I think that that sense of wonder arrives if you allow yourself to just stop running.
BURNETT: And once you do? Well, over to Kalman with the final few lines of "Joy."
KALMAN: (Reading) Don't I know, and don't you know, how one sublime instant, one sublime, fleeting instant changes everything and makes the world right? Just for an instant. But what an instant.
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BURNETT: Elena Burnett, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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