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Roz Chast is a staff cartoonist for The New Yorker, has written nine books and crafted hundreds of cartoons. She also paints pysanky eggs and
embroiders small, vivid tapestries, which are sold by Carol Corey Fine Art.
Her work speaks to the angst of being beautifully odd, having a compulsion to imagine inanimate objects as full of life, and finding humor at the frayed edge of anxiety.
I first met Roz in person in a diner on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. (As I write this, I cannot help but hear Neil Young’s “Unknown Legend” and imagine Roz on a desert highway on a Harley-Davidson. That’s the kind of flight of imagination she inspires!)
In a booth with a yellow plastic tabletop, Roz gave me the piece she had embroidered
for Tiny Pricks Project. She had stitched the words “BE BEST” (a nod to former first lady Melania Trump’s public-awareness campaign against bullying) above an apocalyptic rendering of Munch’s The Scream.
Roz’s work seems to suggest that if we add comic captioning, thought bubbles, and cartoons to our lives, we might find it a little easier to get through both daily tasks and the profoundly difficult.
I interviewed Roz by email just as her book "I Must Be Dreaming" came out. I started by sharing my dream of her on a motorcycle because, when you’re with Roz, you’re never as free as when you’re imagining a world in which anything can happen.
The following interview is excerpted with permission from Diana Weymar's book "Crafting a Better World: Inspiration and DIY Projects for Craftivists."
ROZ: The image of me on a motorcycle makes me laugh. I don’t even like bicycles. Also: deserts and highways: no and no.
DIANA: I’m thinking of calling this section “Profiles in Creativity” in honor of John F. Kennedy’s "Profiles in Courage," because I think it’s brave to be an artist. Some people think that people are just born artists so they are actually people without other choices. I think it takes courage to be an artist. Do you think you were destined to be an artist or do you think you made yourself an artist? Was/is there anything else you could imagine being? Could still be? (Go wild.)
ROZ: I don’t think being an artist is brave, unless you’re talking about making a living. It’s an extremely precarious profession, which gets more precarious every year. Firefighters are brave. Rejection sucks and hurts, but you’re not going to die. The only thing I ever liked to do, or could do when I was a kid, was draw. I was very, very pulled toward that. I wasn’t social, I hated sports, I loved to read but didn’t like school. When I was thirteen, I started drawing cartoons. I liked the way they combined drawing, writing, and humor. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to be an artist.
Roz Chast / Carol Corey Fine Art
ROZ: I definitely am always thinking about making stuff. There’s always a queue of mediums I want to do or try, artists I need to look at, books that might be fun to make . . .
DIANA: If you formed a CA (Crafter’s Anonymous) group, what would be some of the steps for recovery?
ROZ: Definitely no more trips to Michaels. Also: you’re not allowed to go on the Blick website and order various things because you’ve been looking at a lot of, say, block printing online and suddenly there is a need to get into block printing. Then you read that Pfeil carving
tools are way superior to the cheapo Speedball ones. And since you’ve already done a little carving in your day, you know that Speedball tools are okay, but not great. They leave these little scraps and tabs and doodads, which are annoying. And the Pfeil carving tools cost like $200 compared to like $20. But isn’t that what money is for??!!???? These are the kinds of things that will be forbidden.
DIANA: I really like that you used the word “forbidden” because that introduces an element of strict measures, Garden of Eden–style. The forbidden fruit. What if the Serpent had offered Eve a ball of yarn?
Would she have knit matching wool underwear for Adam and herself? What is your most “forbidden” craft?
Roz Chast / Carol Corey Fine Art
DIANA: There are some things I find very confusing, and it’s a small miracle to me that they exist. I find myself creating narratives for them so that they make more sense. I feel like this might happen to you.
And what is up with crocheted hangers?!
ROZ: Crocheted hangers?!?!?!? That is a craft too far.
DIANA: You had already made a name for yourself when social media arrived on the scene. How has social media changed your practice? Do you embrace it or socially distance yourself from it?
ROZ: I like Instagram. It’s visual. I like looking at art and at crafts people do. It can be a very inspiring source of images. Twitter and Facebook— not for me.
Roz Chast / Carol Corey Fine Art
ROZ: Are there still parties?
DIANA: If your parents considered spiritual questions “navel gazing,” what did they think about art?
ROZ: My parents loved music. They had a subscription to the Metropolitan Opera. They went to many concerts—classical music. But the visual arts did not interest them. They subscribed to The New Yorker and they were proud of me, although I don’t think they “got” my kind of jokes.
DIANA: We’ve seen what the “to-do” list of your childhood and adolescent world looks like in "Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?" I guess “Do not die” just stays on the list. Maybe it moves up? How would you update that list now?
ROZ: Do not die remains important.
DIANA: I remember this moment in high school when I was complaining to my mother about something and it was finally getting to her. “I never promised you a rock garden!” she shouted at me. I loved that then and I love it now. 40-plus years later, I had to stitch that. Do you think remembering and making art about moments like this with our parents can keep them around longer in our memories?
ROZ: I love that!!!!! Of course you had to stitch it. And absolutely YES, times infinity, to your question. I wrote about my parents to remember them. I did not want to write a bullshit Hallmark card version of what they were like. I wanted to really, really remember them: how they spoke, what they said, what they fought about, how they dressed, how they stood, how they SAT ON A CHAIR.
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