From the WSJ Opinion Archives
DE GUSTIBUS
An Illustrator Draws the Line
He thinks he's an "artist," and his political views are very, very important.
One must, as a rule, be as calm as a geisha when dealing with strangers over the telephone; but I had an exchange with a man the other day, a pompous little artichoke, that led me to breach the aforesaid convention.
My small team and I edit the editorial features--or op-ed--page of this newspaper, and our job includes commissioning illustrations to accompany the pieces we run. I'd seen a drawing by this free-lance chappie in another section of the Journal and had liked it a lot, so I tracked him down. Hi, would you like to draw for us? I asked him, in my most solicitous voice. (My intention, you will understand, was not merely to be friendly but actually to give this fellow money for his time.)
Imagine my surprise when he responded, first, by saying "Oh! You're one of the flame-throwers!"--the editorial page tilts in a conservative direction--and then by declaring, in a voice that oozed a certain sort of metropolitan smugness, that he'd have "important conditions to lay down." He'd have to first read the op-ed piece he was going to illustrate--to see if he was in accord with it politically--before he could agree to go ahead.
"Hang on a minute!" I said, "I can't let myself be mugged at deadline by an illustrator who says, Sorry, but I don't like that author's views on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, so I won't draw."
There followed an Arctic sort of silence, after which he asked me (with the same amour-propre of a moment earlier): "Is the concept of an artist having political views alien to you, sir?" Convinced, now, that the man had no future on our page, I was prepared to burn my bridges. "Is the concept of a daily newspaper," I replied, "alien to you, sir?"
We then wished each other good day, and hung up grumpily, one set all.
Later, worried that I had perhaps behaved like a Neanderthal, I thought to canvass the opinions of illustrators who already work for us, many of whom, I'm sure, have political views quite different from those of Milton Friedman or Francis Fukuyama, to name but two of the "flame-throwers" whose work we've had illustrated recently. Even in certainty there's doubt; I wanted to make sure that I hadn't squandered--in a fit of editor's pique--the services of a fine illustrator. But I'm pleased to report that the illustrators all thought that the man had gone too far in the demands he'd made--even the one who said that he "kinda admired the guy, in a funny kind of way, for his political purity."
Their points ranged from the pragmatic--"I see the editorial page as a marketplace of ideas, and if I'm to display my wares there I need to make concessions to house rules"--to the taxonomically punctilious. In latter vein, a respondent shed light on the mind of the man who jilted my page: "People sometimes ask me if I'm an 'artist.' I tell them I'm an 'illustrator.' The difference defines your prickly encounter with the person who makes his living as an illustrator but somehow thinks of himself as an artist."
Don't you folks illustrate stuff for us that you don't agree with? I'd asked the illustrators in an e-mail, seeking assurance that our "cab-rank rule"--you illustrate whatever comes along--was reasonable. "Yes, I do that all the time," one responded, tartly. "It's pretty rare that I'm in complete accord with the writer. To assure 100% concurrence I'd need to have written the piece myself!"
An illustrator who pointed out that he made his living--or at least paid the bills--by drawing for the gamut of clients gave me this pithy line: "A left of center illustrator working for a right of center publication? . . .You bet!" Another guy, robust in his outlook, waved my worries away by telling me that "the nature of a freelance illustrator is like that of a chameleon, adapting to a broad array of subject matter." How broad? Consider this: One man illustrates for "children's magazines, the Greenies, the NRA, Lesbians, Dog Owners . . ." And The Wall Street Journal.
Broad enough for you? Hang on a minute! Another illustrator--who grew up in a family that "used to vote for John Diefenbaker and the Conservative Party" in Canada--once drew for the Yipster Times, an underground magazine, for $75 a pop, "until they wanted to pay me in an 'organic currency' I wasn't interested in." (We pay dollars at the Journal.)
The hardest thing of all for these stalwart illustrators--harder even than having to sketch for the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy--is, perhaps, the most prosaic challenge of all: getting the art done on time. "Man, the worst thing about op-ed pages are the bone-crunching deadlines," one wrote.
As for the man who wouldn't draw for me, he must "either be very young, or very rich."
And very silly, too, wouldn't you say?
Mr. Varadarajan is editorial features editor of The Wall Street Journal.
