MAC fall 09 as seen by Maira Kalman, illustratör

Sista ut i MACs tre-delade kollektion Make-up Art Cosmetics är Maira Kalmans syn på MAC och hösten 2009.

Famous for her whimsical visual diaries, Maira Kalman performed a bit of magic with M·A·C’s new Technakohl Eye Liners and Eye Shadows, instantly drafting a captivating look at a stranger. Cheeky, witty, always amusing, Maira’s illustrations are cute and colourful, wonderfully child-like, playful…and sophisticated all at once. Warm and eccentric at the same time, Maira’s faces are full of cock-eyed optimism, with the tiniest smidge of city-girl-snobbism…simply, scrumptiously, stupendously sublime!

Släppdatum: 15 september 2009

Eyeshadow DKK 125 / SEK 150 / NOK 135

• Crest the Wave Rich yellow (Frost)
• Off the Page Dirty mustard orange (Frost)
• Maira’s Magic Yellow pink (Satin)
• Haunting Light turquoise blue (Satin)
• Purple Shower Dirty blue pink (Satin)
• Violet Trance Deep blue purple (Matte)

Technakohl Liner DKK 125 / SEK 150 / NOK 135

• Colour Matters Bright lime
• Obviously Orange Dirty coral
• Artistic License Bright turquoise blue
• Full of Fuchsia Deep blue magenta
• Graphblack Rich graphic black

Normalt sett faller jag som en fura för färgglada kajalpennor, men den här gången är det skuggorna som fångar min uppmärksamhet. Crest the Wave ser ljuvlig ut (nu slår min gula besatthet igenom igen), Off the Page faller mig också i smaken (citrusfärger is da shit) och givetvis drägglar jag en hel del över Haunting… mmm, turkost!

Intervju med Maira Kalman som skickades ut med pressreleasen

Linda Yablonsky: You are a very prolific artist, Maira. Where do you get your energy?
Maira Kalman: As I once told an audience at the New York Public Library, my biggest motivator is fear of boredom.

Q: Fat chance of that! How did you arrive at this portrait, Young Woman at Yellow Table, for the new M·A·C collection?
A: I started with about ten sketches, using the eye pencils and lipsticks.

Q: You actually used the makeup as paint?
A: Ultimately I painted in gouache, as usual, but I wanted to try this one using the M·A·C makeup first, so I started sketching with the pencils.

Q: Because of the colours?
A: Just as an exercise in sketching. It was fun. And appropriate! But I also liked the blue-black-red palette, and that the colours were vivid but not garish. Then I added a few colours that I liked. Out of instinct. Thinking too much about a picture can be the death of it. Allowing beauty to take over is what this is about.

Q: The new M·A·C colours are brighter than those normally found in fall fashions. How did they affect you in the studio?
A: This whole project evoked a certain feeling for me – playful, pensive, elfin, and feminine.

Q: Who was the model for the portrait?
A: It was someone I had just met and photographed in my kitchen.

Q: Someone you had just met…you mean she was a stranger?
A: She came to interview me for a newspaper article and when she sat at my yellow kitchen table, I wanted to photograph her. I just liked the way she looked, like a smart pixie. That made her seem appropriate for this project. I often take pictures of people as they come into my life. Someone delivers something and the next thing I know I’m photographing them. I also take a lot of photographs as I walk around the city. I’m a walker, and I’m constantly photographing broken chairs…

Q: Broken chairs? Not people?
A: I photograph a million people. But I like broken things left on the sidewalk. I don’t know why. I find them very moving. Today I brought home a ladder. It’s not broken but it is rickety, a relic from another time. It’s beautiful.

Q: What does beauty represent for you?
A: For me, beauty has to have a sense of heartbreak but also be heroic. That’s really why I like the broken chair: it’s broken but also heroic because it is still a chair. The same goes for people who appear in the world with a certain amount of courage.

Q: Do you pay attention to what people wear or just their faces?
A: I like looking at everything from high fashion to shoes with holes in them. I’m least interested in people who think of themselves as fashionable, unless they exhibit some kind of eccentricity that interests me.

Q: You must have quite an archive of pictures by now.
A: I have a huge reference library: men with plaid jackets and brown shoes; women with umbrellas. I have walls full of photographs and files full of them, and I use them constantly. They capture lots of things I don’t expect. Yesterday, for instance, I walked by a man with a black turban and white scarf. A second later I passed a man with a white hat and red scarf.

Q: You don’t appear to wear makeup.
A: I’m scared of makeup. I do try to wear lip gloss. As a friend said, at least it shows you care.

Normally, colurful liners grab my attention hands down, but this time it’s the shadows that I am loving the look of. Crest the Wave is gorgeous, as is Off the Page (am obsessed with citrus-colors at the moment). And, of course, I am salivating quite a bit over Haunting as well. Mmmm…. turquoise!