This is the area where you’ll find more detail about upcoming events listed in the Calendar, especially such activities as Family Bookmaking Day, Open House for Bay Area K–8 Teachers and other community events.
My children’s first dog—a much beloved dog, I should say at the outset—was selectively, secretively and bizarrely destructive. He chewed off the hands and feet off their Barbies, inadvertently instigating recurrent games of doll hospital. He gnawed the corners of my husband’s wallet(s). He pulled out and ate his credit cards (more than once on the eve of a trip). And he was especially fond of the soft plastic pads on my husband’s eyeglasses, the part that sat on the bridge of his nose.
So you can see why I’m partial to Maira Kalman’s book What Pete Ate From A—Z. Her fictional dog just doesn’t seem so terribly far-fetched to me. Plus, it’s an alphabet book, and I love ABC books.
In fact, I’m keenly interested in everything Maira Kalman, and this week I happily explored 100 pieces of her work in the newly opened show, Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World), at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco. The timing of the exhibition is great for summer visitors and staycationers but good for fall school groups, too, since it’s up until October 26th.
For kids, there are plenty of Kalman’s 12 children’s books to page through, read or listen to, plus art-
work from some of those books on the wall. I espe-
cially enjoyed seeing the endpapers from What Pete Ate and the sobering image of the planes approach-
ing the twin towers from Fireboat, among others.
For adults, there are illustrations Kalman did as covers for The New Yorker magazine, including her original New Yorkistan sketch; numerous images from her op-ed pieces (The Principles of Uncertainty) and blog (The Pursuit of Happiness) for the New York Times (the top left picture is from The Inauguration. At Last., available in its entirety here); her illustrations for the revered writer’s guide, The Elements of Style; plus instances of her work that were new to me, like photographs, embroidered garments and curious assemblages.
In the back corner of the exhibition, there’s a video worth watching. You can also see it here. In it, Kalman talks, among other things, about addressing her work to kid and adult audiences:
… hopefully you’re not talking down to kids, and you’re not talking in such a way that you couldn’t stand reading it after one time!
So I hopefully am writing books that are good for children and for adults … The painting reflects [that] don’t think differently for children than I do for adults. I try to use the same kind of imagination, the same kind of whimsy, the same kind of love of language. Hopefully a dialog between adults and children will happen on many different levels and different kinds of humor will evolve.
The museum has lots of kid-friendly events tied to this exhibition. Here are just a few:
- This coming Sunday, July 18th, admission is free and kids can design their own Kalman-inspired totes and handmade buttons.
- Map Me a World on Sunday July 25th, from 1–3 p.m., draws on Kalman’s love of maps and invites kids to create their own Kalmanesque map.
- On August 8th, from 1–3 p.m., From ‘A’ to ‘K’—A Kalman Alphabet invites kids to make alphabet book pages using found objects and writing inspired poems.
