26 minute read
THE SEER
REMEMBERING MARSHALL ARISMAN 1938 – 2022
The School of Visual Arts lost one of its most beloved and consequential figures in April, when artist Marshall Arisman, founder and chair of the College’s MFA Illustration as Visual Essay program and longtime faculty member, died suddenly of heart failure.
Arisman joined the SVA faculty in 1964 and three years later was named chair of Design and Illustration. In 1970, he became co-chair, with Richard Wilde, of Media Arts. In 1984, he established MFA illustration at SVA. First called MFA Illustration as Visual Journalism, it was the College’s second graduate offering, after MFA Fine Arts. Nearly 40 years on, it is one of the most distinguished programs of its kind, with a long list of notable alumni whose work ranges from fine art to children’s books to film and television productions. Following Arisman’s death, longtime faculty member David Sandlin was named its acting chair.
Few SVA educators have had a tenure as long as Arisman’s. Fewer still have inspired such devotion among their students. This was partly due to his professional renown. His art is in the collections of such institutions as the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, and over the course of his career he contributed regularly
to such publications as The New York Times and created cover art for books by authors like Bret Easton Ellis (American Psycho). His subject matter could be grisly, but it was just as often sublime, a polarity captured in the tagline he wrote for his 2014 poster series for the College: “Art is the space between angels and demons.”
Arisman attributed his success to his twin insights that illustrators should approach their work as a fine artist would, cultivating a distinct voice and an independent practice, and that one’s best work is rooted in one’s own biography— beliefs which formed the basis of his teaching. He would tell students stories from his own unusual life story—born and raised in rural western New York, he grew up steeped in hunting and butchery and was powerfully influenced by his spiritualist grandmother, who was a practicing psychic and medium— and engage them in wide-ranging conversations, urging them to mine their own backgrounds. The overall effect, by seemingly universal accord, was singularly inspirational.
“Marshall used his immense talent as a storyteller to engage people in explorations of metaphysical sensations that can be hard for contemporary humans to detect, but which were part of his daily experience,” Sandlin says. “This extrasensory perception gave him an air of equilibrium and humor that could calm the fractious and charm the skeptic. In the two decades I worked with Marshall, I never once saw him lose his temper.”
In honor of Arisman’s impact at SVA, the Visual Arts Journal has gathered the following tributes from MFA Illustration as Visual Essay alumni. Any readers who have a memory or piece of art inspired by Arisman to share for a future memorial are encouraged to write to mfaillustration@sva.edu. Additionally, a Marshall Arisman Scholarship Fund, to benefit students in the MFA program, has been established by Dee Ito, Arisman’s widow and the writer behind many of SVA’s best-known taglines and poster campaigns. To donate, visit visualartsfoundation.org.
THERE ARE A LOT of teachers who will teach you how to draw their way. Marshall’s approach was to take the best of what you did and make it better. If you didn’t understand that, you didn’t understand him. I used to talk with him for hours. He was the funniest, most positive guy. Whenever you went to him with a problem, he just sort of smoothed your feathers. And then the week of graduation he said, “We’re starting the master’s program and I want you to be in it.” I was in the first class, with [fellow 1986 alumni] Gil Ashby [also BFA 1982 Media Arts] and Jeffrey Smith and Kevin McCloskey. I used to work with my mom, who wrote children’s books. When she saw Marshall’s art—with the metal heads and the violent imagery—she couldn’t get why I was so impressed with him. And then she met him and said, “He’s not like his paintings at all!” He was like a lighthouse. —Mickey Paraskevas (1986; BFA 1984 Media Arts) is an artist, illustrator, author and children’s television creator.
I FIRST MET MARSHALL in the mid’90s. I was teaching at the Kansas City Art Institute and John Ferry [MFA 1994 Illustration as Visual Essay], who also taught there, invited Marshall to give a workshop for the students.
I was totally prepared to dislike this man. I was thinking about all the metal teeth and the distorted space in his work, and he was from New York, and I just had this resentment. But then I watched him roll out black paint on white Plexi and start to make this face out of it by pulling the paint away, and the whole time he was talking about storytelling, and it just was so warm. It made me realize how unhappy I was, going from assignment to assignment. Afterward, at a faculty lunch, I went up to him and said, “I may just drop everything and apply to your program.” And he said, “I think you should!”
I was kind of an illustration nerd, a little narrow-minded, but Marshall made you think about starting your own projects. Don’t just wait for clients to determine where you’re going with your work—be your own person. He didn’t believe illustration and fine art were
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Marshall Arisman and colleague Kim Ablondi; Arisman with former students Michael Lauritano, Mike Hirshon, Jonathan Bartlett, Lisa Anchin, Hyesu Lee and Kelley Hansing; portrait by Moonsub Shin; Arisman at work; sketch of Carl Titolo and Marshall Arisman by Jonathan Twingley; Arisman with former students Jin Xiaojing, Anna Raff, Ishita Jain, Doug Salati and Lys Bui; portrait by Michael Marsicano; Arisman with former student Arif Qazi. Photos courtesy Ablondi, Jain and Salati; portraits courtesy the artists.
irreconcilable. He said, “Every kind of work that every one of you is doing here has a home. It just needs to find that home, whether it’s a client or a gallery.”
And he was right. I threw overboard a lot of stuff I didn’t want to do anymore; I started getting work from the Los Angeles Times and the Boston Globe; I was getting into the Society of Illustrators; I started showing my work in Chelsea. This was something I’d never dreamed of doing. I’d intended to be in New York for two years, and now I’ve been here for almost 25. —Mark Bischel (2000) is an artist, illustrator, SVA faculty member and assistant professor at Kutztown University.
ALONG WITH BEING an exceptional image maker, mentor and mensch, Marshall was a true magician whose superpowers unlocked energies and paths you never knew you had inside. That’s what he did for me, and I’ve been trying to do the same for my students ever since.
Fortunately, when one is able to transform generations of artists, teachers and friends, one is never lost. There is so much of him in so many of us, we’ll always find him in each other. Students who just missed him will feel his presence when we ask them to “draw what they know.” And when they do, they will get to know him, too. —Viktor Koen (1992) is a designer, illustrator and chair of BFA Comics and BFA Illustration at SVA.
MARSHALL WAS THIS MAGICAL,
When I went to the MFA program, I was expecting it to put us through the wringer, but it wasn’t like that. From the first week, we were all just in the studio, working on our own. It was life-changing. It really taught us how to rely on and trust ourselves. I’ve shown Marshall’s TEDx talk, “The Woo Woo in Art,” in my classes. His philosophy—that you look for inspiration in your own life and the subjects that you know best—seems really simple, but it’s profound.
Marshall was super proud of his students, and that’s something I’ve carried with me in my own work as a teacher and a chair. A few years after grad school, I visited him with the first book I’d published and he said, “You would’ve done it with or without us.” And I said, “Yeah, maybe.” [Laughs.] —Shadra Strickland (2005) is an artist, author and assistant chair of illustration at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
IN MY SECOND YEAR at SVA I switched from the undergraduate illustration program to the MFA, and went from having tons of homework every week to an almost completely open schedule. There was a bigger structure to the program, but for the most part we were given studio spaces and then left alone, which was initially very weird for me. As I settled in, I started to get Marshall’s teaching philosophy: Give students time and space and freedom.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT Marshall Arisman with former students Annie Won and Paul Hoppe; portrait by Riccardo Vecchio; former student Liam Eisenberg with Arisman; portrait by Natalya Balnova (2013); Arisman with former students Elisabeth Alba and Eric Collins; live sketch of Arisman at the 2000 SVA Commencement by Mark Bischel; Arisman with former students Authan Chen, Boris Lyppens, Ishita Jain and Chris Reisenbichler; portrait by David Sandlin; Kim Ablondi, former students Nina Frenkel and Aya Kakeda, and Arisman; former student Allene La Spina with Arisman; Arisman. Photos courtesy Ablondi and Hoppe; portraits courtesy the artists.
Marshall and the instructors were there if we sought help, but they treated us more like “artists” than students. It was two years of finding myself through artmaking.
One time, Marshall said, “When we are going through the artistic process, we don’t know what we’re doing—we’re completely in the dark. But when you reach a benchmark in your artistic journey and look back, all the paths you took, in what felt like complete darkness, make total sense.” And indeed, everything in those two years made total sense.
And did I mention that Marshall always had good stories? You would think he had run out of them, and there would always be a new one. They were like magic; he always pulled a new rabbit out of his hat. —Yuko Shimizu (2003) is an artist, illustrator and SVA faculty member.
THE FIRST TIME I met Marshall was when I popped in for a visit a few weeks before the program started. The elevator opened up into this artist’s loft type of space. The whole floor smelled like art, and Marshall was the only person there. I’d known about him before I applied—he was very much one of the guys in illustration—and I couldn’t believe I not only had him to myself, but he was talking to me seriously about my thoughts about art. Everyone wanted their time with Marshall, so any moment you could steal alone with him, you had to take it in.
I grew up Catholic, but Marshall was the first spiritual person that made an impression on me. His presence alone could inspire and reinvigorate us. He’d tell stories and bring in guests to talk shop, but it was his thoughts on the intangible underpinnings of art in our minds that I loved the most. He was pure magic. —Michael Marsicano (2008) is an illustrator and faculty member at the Ringling College of Art and Design.
MY FIRST MEETING with Marshall was when I came to SVA to discuss applying to the MFA program. I had brought along several of my oil paintings in a large case and, with childlike curiosity, he immediately wanted me to show him what was inside. He surprised me with his kindness, humor and wisdom. He seemed to know exactly what I needed to hear.
In my first semester, Marshall asked us to find interesting paper somewhere and create a piece with it. I tore off parts of different posters that were pasted on construction-site walls, glued them to a board and painted a prostitute from memory on it—a woman whom I saw every night on my walk home from the studios. When we brought the work in for critique, Marshall pointed to my piece and asked, “Who did this?” I came forward, and he said, “Hmmm, something really happened here. I think you had an epiphany.”
Marshall enthralled and motivated everyone. He helped me to see what was important within myself and in my work, especially when I couldn’t see it, and to be fearless and follow my intuition. His amazing teaching usually came from the front, but important things also snuck in from the side when you didn’t see them coming. One Marshall-ism was, “If it’s a cow and it wants to be a pig, let it be a pig.” And then he’d say, “Does that make sense?”
He will be deeply missed. —Carol Fabricatore (1992) is an artist, illustrator and SVA faculty member.
“DOES THAT MAKE SENSE?”
When Marshall would say that, he would usually be telling you something that made no sense, at least not immediately. It’s a phrase that everybody who’s had him as a student picks up, particularly if they go into teaching.
After I was hired as a chair at FIT, I made an appointment to talk with Kim and Marshall. I’d never been a chairperson and I felt like I needed guidance. And Marshall told me, “In every choice you make, choose what will make life easier.”
At first I was disappointed—I was expecting some spiritual piece of wisdom. But with time, I realized what he meant and how important it is. It’s not about taking shortcuts. It’s about looking at every decision through the lens of whether it will make myself and the people around me happier, and whether it will give us the space to focus on what we’re really there to do, which is to make art. —Brendan Leach (2010) is a comics artist, illustrator and chair of MFA illustration at the Fashion Institute of Technology.
MARSHALL ARISMAN changed my life with this single sentence:
In January of my senior year of college in Minnesota I sent out a lone graduate school application after stumbling across this description of Marshall’s program while making ramen noodle soup at midnight in the art department’s kitchenette. It was cold outside. My undergraduate career was coming to an end. I needed to do something.
A metaphor I’ve often used with my students when describing their young lives as artists seems to be the very spirit of the program Marshall founded, and what brought me to the MFA program at SVA in the first place: It’s like sitting down and unfolding the map of your life only to find that the damned thing is blank. This is terrifying, but it is also an exhilarating possibility. Your future is your future. And with the right kind of pen and a lucky breeze, your life can be something extraordinary. –Jonathan Twingley (1998) is an author, illustrator, SVA faculty member and adjunct associate professor at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
I GREW UP IN ITALY and came to SVA on a Fulbright Scholarship. This was way before the Internet and cell phones were what they are today, so when you left your home to go to another country, it was quite a leap. Marshall’s warmth and his ability to make you feel welcome were a great help.
I remember Marshall first of all for his generosity—it never felt like he favored anybody—and for his ability to be kind even when he was being critical. He took a playful approach and taught through stories and analogies. It never felt like he was imposing a solution on you, or a right or wrong way to do something. He would say, “I can’t give you advice, but I can give you a suggestion.” He wanted you to question yourself, look again and make the work on your own terms. —Riccardo Vecchio (1996) is an artist and SVA faculty member.
I GOT MY UNDERGRADUATE degree at the University of Arts London, and my chairperson recommended I apply to the MFA in illustration at SVA. At first I was put on the wait-list, but then Marshall sent me an email inviting me to enroll.
I was extremely insecure when I started. Because I’d been on the
“Marshall created dark art, but he was the most positive spirit I have ever met. He enlightened us to the fact that every bad experience can be a good story, and we will not only survive but thrive from it.” “He encouraged his students to live lives beyond ‘illustration’ and to tap into their own silly, kooky and mundane interests.”
wait-list, I thought all of the 19 other students were better than me, and I booked so many one-on-one meetings with Marshall because I wanted encouragement. Charismatic people can be intimidating, but he was never like that. I’m sure everyone says this, but you could tell that he loved all of his students equally. I just felt like the program was my home, like I was meant to be there. I met my husband, Ben Voldman [faculty, MFA Computer Arts; MFA 2011 Illustration as Visual Essay], when we were both students, and Marshall officiated our wedding! He was a real mentor to me. —Hyesu Lee (2011) is an artist, illustrator and SVA faculty member.
MARSHALL WAS AND WILL REMAIN
a powerfully influential storyteller and mentor. He had the kind of charm, personality, empathy and swagger that made it hard not to be swept up in his energy, his stories, his “Whatever, whatevers” and his aura of creativity. He had a way of engaging that made you feel like the most important person in the room. Whether he was teaching, critiquing or just hanging out, he was always present, welcoming and generous with his feedback and time.
As an educator, I admired his knack for getting to the story behind the story and helping students discover their personal voice. It was like he had a sixth sense of understanding what was at the root of things and how to help you find your own path, what you had to say and why you were saying it. It inspired how I approached my work, and deepened my interest in visual storytelling beyond illustration as a professional pursuit, regardless of media. With Marshall, everything was on the table, anything was possible and nothing was precious—you just had to do the work to earn it.
So many of us who learned under Marshall and the program graduated with not just the confidence and ability to make beautiful work, but a sense of responsibility to create work that speaks to something larger than ourselves and contributes to the practice and culture of narrative art. He was one of a kind. I am forever grateful for all he shared and can only hope to give back as much as he gave. —Nathan Fox (2002) is an illustrator and chair of MFA Visual Narrative at SVA.
MARSHALL CREATED DARK ART, but he was the most positive spirit I have ever met. He told dramatic stories, tragic stories and sometimes even made-up stories, and they enlightened us to the fact that every bad experience can be a good story, and we will not only survive but thrive from it.
He passed his passion and power on to everyone and gave us the best advice for life and art. I learned life lessons from Marshall: Balance the darkness and hope, have fun with life and embrace sadness. The most important thing is that I have I learned to create a path of my own. I believe that every one of his students has captured a piece of Marshall’s spirit in their actions and in their minds. —Yuke Li (2020) is an artist and illustrator.
TO HAVE BEEN singled out by Marshall to be his teaching partner for the past few years will remain one of the greatest honors of my life. Each Tuesday morning, in the guise of a peer, I got to relive my own experience in the program, secretly trying to soak up every moment I had with him.
In our class, Marshall chuckled every time I shared a comment he made about my piece in our first critique back when I was his student. “You’re going to have a hard time once you start to draw better,” he’d said.
That remains the most prescient, important bit of advice I ever got about my work. I think about it almost every day. Maybe I’m not supposed to draw better, whatever “better” means. Marshall knew just how to gently tip a student slightly off balance, to make them reconsider what they were doing, nudging them toward their best work. Marshall gave us permission to be the artists we want to be. He taught that the answers we seek about our work—about life—are already within us. The gifts are
there for the taking, if we allow ourselves to notice. And what a gift we all had in him. —Anna Raff (2009) is a children’s book illustrator and SVA faculty member.
MEMORIES, VISIONS, PREMONITIONS,
messages in rune stones, epiphanies on the dentist’s chair—Marshall loved to tell stories. He encouraged his students to live lives beyond “illustration” and to tap into their own silly, kooky and mundane interests. “It doesn’t matter if someone has already done it—do it your way,” was his advice as we embarked on our thesis projects. He called illustration a lonely business, but when talking of art and community, he was amazed at how generous people are with their time and knowledge, and all that anyone is looking for is, simply, connection.
On a single floor of a building in Chelsea, a bunch of curious, wandering, drawing souls armed with paint and paper find themselves intertwined by a maze of little studios. When I think of all the lives that have crossed paths there and feel connected through our shared memory of this mystical man, I think of his generosity, which carries on across generations of creators. —Ishita Jain (2020) is an illustrator, designer and SVA faculty member.
“WHY DON’T I have my own style?” This was one of my biggest concerns in the MFA program, because my drawing style had not been formed yet. When I discussed this with Marshall, he advised me to draw in all the styles I could, and to focus more on storytelling during the process. He said that my identity as an artist would then be formed naturally.
This was one of the most important moments in my life as an artist, and it happened in a very peaceful and ordinary way. And now I have grown into an illustrator who is cultivating his own style. I believe that something similar has happened to thousands of other artists, too, and that the inspiration that Marshall has given to us will be with us at every important moment, in a very peaceful and ordinary way. —Moonsub Shin (2014) is an illustrator.
I WAS TENDING BAR in Hoboken and doing illustrations for The New York Times and the Village Voice when I found out about Marshall’s program. I don’t know if the school would want to print this, but I didn’t have a bachelor’s degree when I applied. I convinced Marshall to let me enroll by promising to finish that degree while also getting my MFA.
We took classes with Marshall and [former faculty] Robert Weaver and Jim McMullan, and it was just eye-opening. Marshall would work in front of the students as he taught and he smoked these French cigarettes, even while he was painting in oils! People like [art editor and publisher] Françoise Mouly (whom I now work with) and [cartoonist and former SVA faculty member] Art Spiegelman came to speak. For my thesis project, I worked with [illustrator] Julian Allen. Marshall had contacts for everybody.
I really think of him as my mentor. When he told me that I should teach, I said, “I don’t know if I want to be a college professor. I would be a traitor to my working-class roots.” He told me that was the stupidest thing he’d heard—he was very frank—and I ended up teaching for more than 30 years. I try to tell my students what he told us, which is to think of yourself not just as an illustrator, but as the author of your own projects—you make something and then you find a place for it. —Kevin McCloskey (1986) is an author, illustrator and former professor of illustration at Kutztown University.
LIKE MANY OF HIS STUDENTS, I savored class time and interactions with Marshall. He was both comedic and serious, meditative and full of spontaneity. His drawing demos could include hilarious—and sometimes shocking— anecdotes that he would transpose moments later into universal truths. Discussions often presented more questions than answers, but they were the significant and important questions he asked us to consider. Marshall did not dictate or demand in his instruction. He observed intently and guided us with an honest analysis of our work.
He asked you to observe with awareness—to take note of what drew you into an idea, or a momentary interaction, or the memory of a dream—and to pull from that energy with purpose. He encouraged you to judge yourself and the work less harshly in order to be free to move forward and to be open to letting something new emerge. —Doug Salati (2014) is an illustrator and SVA faculty member. perfect team—entertaining, inspiring and knowledgeable. I learned from them that “style” or preferred medium and technique is not something you choose; it chooses you. If your work comes from the heart, it will be good work. But you have to try a lot of things, be open and listen. Marshall helped us to find things inside us that even we couldn’t see. Marshall was also instrumental in getting [SVA President] David Rhodes to sponsor the printing of the Rabid Rabbit comics anthology, which I co-founded with fellow MFA alumni Chris M. Butzer [2005], Ben X. Trinh [2004] and Sungyoon Choi [2006]. In our five-year run, we featured contributions from dozens of alumni and even Marshall himself. Ten years after the program, I saw that Marshall was giving a workshop on drawing with a comb, one of his signature techniques, at the Rubin Museum of Art. I signed up for it and had a blast, and have been able to use the comb for quite a few pieces since. But mostly, I was just happy to spend more time with Marshall. Just being around him energized me to make my best art. —Paul Hoppe (2005) is an author, designer, illustrator and SVA faculty member.
“DRAW WHAT YOU KNOW.”
I’ve been pondering that phrase for the past seven years. First I would get lost in the “know”—as a very rational being, my head went spinning. What does one even know? There is so much that I don’t! Then I’d get lost in the “you”— that deep tunnel of, “Who am I, really?” I would be rescued, profoundly, by the “draw,” but always with the sensation that I was missing something.
I was walking home recently and suddenly thought of Marshall’s advice, and for the hundredth time (or more) that I’ve said them, out loud or in my head, I suddenly heard it. “Draw what you know” is drawing what you know deep down inside, not in your head but in your heart. Draw with love. Draw from your gut. Draw what you know.
Marshall also told me not to think so much, so I’ll stop with the words. Thank you, Marshall, for sharing your light with all of us. —Eugenia Mello (2017) is an illustrator, art director of Enchanted Lion Books and SVA faculty member. ◆ Contributions and interviews have been condensed and edited.
