‘You Risk Falling on Your Face, But That’s a Risk You Have to Take’: Watch How Comic Artist Chris Ware Invents Characters Totally Unlike Himself

The American comic artist
Chris Ware is a self-described “nervous guy.”
The New Yorker
cartoonist and author of beloved
series such as Jimmy
Corrigan and
Rusty Brown
is the first to admit that he often
feels self-conscious as an artist and writer, which is why he
enjoys giving life to a diverse cast of characters whose
experiences are completely different from his own.

In an exclusive interview with
Art21 as part of the “Extended Play” series,
Ware describes his experience in art school, when his teachers
would warn him against drawing women, because they said he’d be
“colonizing them with his eyes.” That didn’t stop him though, he says, because
the alternative would be equally unfathomable. 

The discomfort Ware faces while
trying to inhabit the mindset of someone different than him is
worth it to “try and expand your understanding, and your empathy
for other human beings.” 

In the video, Ware struggles to capture the
gesture of one such character. “I have to try to somehow push my
limits and my understanding,” he says, laughing, “and you risk
falling on your face doing so, but that’s a risk you have to
take.”

Watch the video, which originally appeared as part of
Art21’s Extended
Play series, below. 

This is an installment of “Art on Video,” a collaboration
between artnet News and Art21 that brings you clips of newsmaking
artists. A new season of the nonprofit Art21’s
flagship Art in the Twenty-First
Century television series is available now on PBS. Catch
all episodes of New York Close
Up and Extended Play and
learn about the organization’s education programs
at Art21.org.

The post ‘You Risk Falling on Your Face, But That’s a Risk
You Have to Take’: Watch How Comic Artist Chris Ware Invents
Characters Totally Unlike Himself appeared first on artnet
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