Marian Heibel Richardson has been in the illustration business for fourteen years. She began her career as a graphic designer at Corey McPherson Nash in Boston; after five years she moved back to her native Michigan, exploring drawing while freelancing in graphic design. Her projects have included murals, catalogs, logos, collateral pieces and editorial assignments. She now also works in acrylic to create gallery pieces and has found that most everyone is willing to drop a few bucks to get a portrait of their dog (birds are also a pretty sure thing). She's represented by Joanie Bernstein.

09.15.09

Calm Times Between Adventures

If you have a degree in what field is it? A BFA in graphic design, from Michigan State University (Go Spartans!).

Have you always been able to draw or was it a skill you learned in college? I see the development of my drawing skills and style as a lifelong path, one I’m still walking. College was one stepping stone in that path, or possibly more of a stumbling block. It was possibly the point in my life where I felt least confident that I had any original fine-art talent. In one class I painted a green and purple face, and felt completely confused as to what it was all supposed to mean. I chose to be practical and major in graphic design. I believe my true schooling in illustration began during my five year design position at Corey McPherson Nash in Boston. As a whole the designers there loved illustration. We met with illustrators, reviewed their portfolios, collected thick folders of their samples and hired them as often as possible. (Three other designers I worked with there have gone on to pursue illustration full-time.)

What was your first paid assignment? It was after my first promo mailing in 1995. Redbook called and asked if I could draw in full-color (since I’d sent one-color sheets). I said, “Sure,” then went into Adobe Illustrator and tried to figure out how the different colors would trap. I managed to pull it off.

Which illustrator (or fine artist) do you most admire? Gaak! Tough question. So many. But Maira Kalman might be number one. I love not only her style, but the amazing personal book projects she's done. I guess she’s the one I’d most like to be. But I’m in awe of Sara Fanelli’s Pinocchio, Mark Ulriksen’s dogs, Jeffrey Fisher’s birds and the color in Vivienne Flesher’s pastels has stopped me in my tracks with some sort of physical “wham.” My friend Mary Anne Lloyd drew a sketch of a squirrel that cracks me up every day when I see it on my bulletin board, and there are also the inky lines of Elvis Swift, Jeffrey Decoster’s layering and....

What would you be doing if you weren’t an illustrator? Maybe I’d be compelled to appliqué pillows, or design garden patios with small stone pebbles. I can imagine plotting out a bird shape with different colored rocks and adding some lavender and flowing water.

From where do your best ideas originate? From being calm and willing to wait for them. Sometimes they just happen, as my mind and pencil start goofing off together.

How do you overcome a creative block? For me creative blocks are a time-intensive activity I have not tormented myself with lately. Since I’ve opened my studio as a gallery space, I’ve been far too busy to fool around being blocked. I have requests, commissions and a stockpile of ideas. No more dread of the blank page. So the solution is... be busy.

In one word describe how you feel when beginning a new assignment? Go!

Do you have a personal philosophy? Balance. I desire to create, to nurture relationships, to spend time in nature, to goof off, read deep books, play ping-pong, to travel and explore. I like to test myself some, such as biking 1,200 miles, Michigan to Maine, in three weeks last summer. I’ve lived in Spain for two years and for a summer in France, learning the languages. I need adventures—and then calm times between them.

Do you have creative pursuits other than illustration? Gallery art, writing. My writing brings out a very different side of my personality than my art; I hope to eventually blend the two into books that I write and illustrate. I have one started, and ideas for the other. Now I just need the time to make them come to life. In the meantime I believe I get better at both disciplines, so maybe a book will spontaneously emerge when the time is right.

What music are you listening to right now? What ever my iTunes throws at me. Snow Blink, Ali Akbar Khan, Georges Brassens, Glen Hansard, Johnny Cash, Nanci Griffith...

What’s your favorite quote? “When I face the desolate impossibility of writing 500 pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me... then gradually I write one page and then another. One day’s work is all I can permit myself to contemplate.” —John Steinbeck

Do you have any advice for people just entering the profession? Combine passion and practicality. Do what you love, but understand that you may have to do additional things to pay the bills. A career without passion is draining, a life without practicality blows up in your face.

What’s one thing you wish you knew when you started your career? Maybe nothing more. How can I go back and redo the journey?