Photograph by Wesley Law
I climb to the second floor of a Maryland Plaza building and start looking for Mary Engelbreit's office, digging in my briefcase for the suite number. Then I glance down the hall and start laughing. I see brown door after brown door, then a yellow one with a bright cherry, her hallmark, painted on the glass!
Engelbreit's one of the most beloved illustrators around, especially for her gawky, bespectacled Ann Estelle alter ego, who often appears inside black-and-white checkerboard, her bright colors Magic Markered over black outline and balanced by wryly profound quotes. Engelbreit's real life has not been the "chair of bowlies" she once sketched for Ann Estelle; she's fought for her business and suffered the almost unendurable pain of her son's death. But she understands inspiration.
Did you even like cherries?
Nope. I don't like tea, either [glancing pointedly at a painted teapot]. But I do like Scotties!
Ah, so your dog's a Scottie?
Nope. A rescued Alaskan Eskimo dog.
How do you keep your charming drawings from crossing the line into saccharine or cloying or—
Sickening? I don't know. It's just who I am. I think there's a little more edge than people first realize.
You're often compared to Martha Stewart.
I don't know why. She cooks! And entertains! She licenses her name. We license the art.
And you license a lot of it, for dolls, calendars, bolts of fabric ... Any disasters?
Once we licensed some music boxes, and all the figures had Asian features, and they were glued onto this thing with huge globs of glue. That was about 30 years ago. Now it's all checked before it gets to a disaster level.
The Wall Street Journal described you as building "an empire of cute." Do you hate it when your work's called "cute"?
No! It is cute. I like cute. It makes you want to look at something; it makes you smile. Cute annoys some people, but not me.
How has your work changed over the years?
At the beginning, there was a lot of fantasy— castles and dragons. Then I had my two boys, and it got really realistic; that's what propelled my business. Then it got a little too real-lifey, and I added some whimsy back in. I like the drawings better when they have both.
What did your sons think of your work?
That it was a good way to meet girls.
And your husband not only encouraged you but also became your manager?
We worked really well together. I talked him into quitting his job; he was director of intake at the county juvenile court.
That's quite a switch.
Yeah. But he was really good at the licensing, and good with people.
How did you two first meet?
In a bar. Up the street at Duff's. I was 22.
So just finishing college?
Well, I didn't go. But I would've been. And he was a little bit older.
Was it love at first sight?
I wouldn't say that. But it was like at first sight.
You were one of the first to use quotes on cards—Proust and Emerson amid the gingham. Why?
I wanted to send a card that really said something to that person. I didn't want it to just say, "Happy Birthday, Sister." Now the trend is back to that—it's frustrating. With email, it's so easy not to buy a card. You have to make them little pieces of art.
I understand you don't tweet or blog.
It's not going to last. People don't want to be bombarded with that kind of useless information. I don't want to know that somebody's kid is eating solid food now.
What do people not realize about you?
I think they think I'm sweeter than I am. I cuss a lot.
You've illustrated about 200 books—it's got to be different from drawing cards.
Yeah. It's hard. You have to think, every time you draw something, what is going to happen when you turn the page. I was so used to doing greeting cards, which are just oneshot— you tell the whole story in one picture. I had to learn to spread it all out.
You're illustrating a new book of fairy tales?
Not Disney; they're a ruiner of fairy tales. I really love Hans Christian Andersen, because his were poetic and pretty and mysterious. Grimm's are brutal. But very few end like Disney. I'm illustrating the original version of "The Little Mermaid," and things do not end well. She loses her voice, she can't get back to the ocean; basically, she dies. Fairy tales were written to teach children about life: If you make a wrong decision, this is what's going to happen to you. There will be no happy ending if you screw this up.
What were your favorite books as a kid?
The Secret Garden, and oh! The Little Prince is my all-time favorite. I ought to illustrate that! [Aloud, but more to herself.] Why haven't I done that?
You were an editorial cartoonist at the Post-Dispatch, early on ...
The first woman to work in the art department. They really did not know what to do with me. Those guys did that beautiful penand- ink caricature drawing, and I'm drawing my cute little round-headed things!
What did you learn about business when you worked at an ad agency?
How to charge what your time was worth, and how you can't throw up your hands and say, "Oh, I'm an artist, I don't get this."
What was it like watching animators make a DVD of your The Night Before Christmas?
Amazing. They build this armature, this structure of lines on the computer, then put the skin on ...
Your famous card "The Queen of everything"—do all little girls like to be queen?
Oh, it's not the kids, it's the mothers! They latched onto that! I just think it's a funny kind of grab for power. So then we did "The Princess of Quite a Lot" and "The Prince of Whatever's Left."
Where did your checked border come from?
I learned to draw by copying my mother's vintage children's books, and many were from the 1920s and '30s. Black-and-white checks were a big motif then; so were Scotties.
Your work reminds me of the MacKenzie- Childs line Neiman carries.
It's a couple; they sold MacKenzie-Childs and started Victoria & Richard, which produces ... pretty much the same thing. We kind of came up at the same time. Their work is more painterly—but you can't beat them for whimsy. I love their stuff. I remember going to their store in New York—oh my Lord. Every single thing was painted; the chandelier was made out of their spoons and cups.
Was it too much?
Oh no. I could have moved right in. Everything about it was perfect.
Your work's just as detailed and decorative. How do you know when to stop?
Years ago, I didn't. Some of them, I look and say, "Ugh. You should have stopped sooner." You just kind of have to make yourself stop.
You understand children's imagination. What was your own childhood like?
When I tell people about it, they think I'm making it up. It was great. We lived off Geyer Road when there was nothing there but creek and woods. My parents saw early on that I loved to draw and always had the house full of art supplies. My sister Alexa was supportive too—my mother would call me to set the table, and I'd say, "OK," and just sit there and keep drawing, and Alexa would go and do it and say, "Mary's drawing."
You went to Visitation Academy. were you a brain or a jock or what?
Ha! I wasn't a jock. Just a regular kid, friends with everybody.
Smart, good grades?
Well, I was smart, but no, I didn't get good grades. I'd look out the window at Highway 40 and think, "Oh, those lucky people, they're not in school, they're doing whatever they want."
One of your sons had bipolar disorder long before they diagnosed such things in kids. His later suicide must have been unbearably hard.
It changes everything. The way you breathe, the way you think.
Your granddaughter came to live with you?
Yes, and I don't know what we would have done without her. We've adopted her, so she's my daughter. I just asked her one day: "What would you rather?" and she said, "Daughter."
You've just turned 57?
No, I'm 42, what are you talking about? I remember my mother saying, when she was even older than 57, "You know you are getting closer to death, and you'd think everybody would be running around screaming, but nobody else is, so I guess I won't either."
It's time for culling that bucket list ...
Well, nothing is quite off the list yet! I always think I'd like to live near the water—but everybody thinks that, and that would be too many people living near the water.
You've had a magazine and a bevy of retail stores, you now have an online store ... Does the commercial side get wearying? Would you ever want to just draw for fun?
That would be nice. [She sighs dreamily, then hesitates.] But I kind of like it as a business. I say it would be nice to just draw for fun, but to me, part of the art is having somebody look at it. That finishes the drawing.
