ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
Joy has been at the heart of over 30 books for artist Maira Kalman. And yet, she worried her new book, simply titled "Joy," might be a hard sell. NPR's Elena Burnett has more on why Kalman thinks we are quick to dismiss the light that appears among the darkness.
ELENA BURNETT, BYLINE: For Kalman, joy begins early in the morning with a cup of coffee and the daily obituaries.
MAIRA 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.
BURNETT: Her book 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 one, 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, 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 instinct - 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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