Nora Krug

INTUITION/IMAGINATION

?: How does intuition present itself to you – in form of a suspicious impression, a spontaneous visualisation or whatever - maybe in dreams?

Not in dreams, unfortunately: When I wake up, my nocturnal ideas always appear flat. Inspiration usually appears during unexpected moments, when I don’t sit at my drawing desk and work, but during walks in the park, while riding the subway to work, or in the shower. I would describe my work process both as intuitive and targeted. It’s not always easy to find the right balance.

?: Will any ideas be written down immediately and archived?

I often take notes in a little booklet that I carry around with me, or on my phone. Or I send myself (or accidentally someone else) an email as a reminder to add that thought to a longer list of ideas that I keep on my desktop.

?: How do you come up with good or extraordinary ideas?

Who’s to tell if an idea is ever extraordinary? Ideas come into my mind all the time, but they aren’t always worth pursuing. When I get an idea, I think about it for a while, about whether it has the potential to communicate to others, whether it can shed light on complex issues, whether it could engage in a larger dialogue on a subject that I care about. If the answer is yes, then I decide to pursue it. But whether anyone else out there will think of it as a good idea I will only find out when a project is completed.

?: Do you feel that new creative ideas come as a whole or do you get like a little seed of inspiration that evolves into something else and has to be realized by endless trials and errors in form of constant developments until the final result?

Definitely the latter. Every illustration, every book is a work in progress, and often involves a lot of doubt, agony, and trial and error. I think of my books as mosaics that only take shape in tiny increments, until I am convinced it’s time to let go and publish them. Having a grand idea doesn’t mean having figured out how to make it work physically and in the real world.

?: What if there is a deadline, but no intuition? Does the first fuel the latter maybe?

A deadline challenges you to think harder of ideas. You have no choice but to create something. Most artists don’t have the luxury of sitting around, waiting for inspiration. Art is work, it’s a job that you get paid for. And a job always comes with obligations and responsibilities. Some illustrations end up being more successful than others, sometimes you can achieve more, sometimes less, in the amount of time you’re given. But all work is valid work. Letting go when the deadline has arrived, even when you are not 100% happy with the outcome, is part of the reality of being a working artist.

INSPIRATION

?: What inspires you and how do you stimulate this special form of imaginativeness?

I’m inspired by the world: by animals and nature, by people and their stories, by countries and their histories. I spend a good amount of time each day listening to or reading the news, and what interests me most is politics and how we as people are affected by it. I’m also inspired by artistic mediums such as illustrated and non-illustrated fiction and non-fiction books and films.

?: How do you filter between ideas that are worthwhile pursuing and bad ones that you just let go of?

Bad ideas are those that provide simplified answers in order to satisfy an audience. Good ideas are the ones that challenge you to question your relationship to the world. Sometimes it isn’t easy to figure out which idea falls under which of these categories. You have to try to look at your ideas from different angles, sometimes you have to make initial sketches or write initial drafts, to find out whether an idea is sustainable or not.

?: Does an idea need to appeal to you primarily or is its commercial potential an essential factor?

My projects are always primarily driven by my own personal interests, by some aspect of the world that I care about, that I worry about or that makes me angry, and that I want to learn more about. Then I think about how that idea could fit into the larger commercial context of my work and career. I usually prioritize those ideas that are both deeply meaningful to me, but that I also assume will be of interest to my readership.

?: Do you revisit old ideas or check what colleagues or competitors are up to at times?

While I am of course inspired by my colleagues‘ work, other peoples‘ projects never determine what I will to work on next. In order for me to dedicate a certain number of years on a new book, it needs to be about something that I personally care about, an idea that grows out of some deep inner place. I have a list of ideas for projects I’m interested in pursuing, and I revisit it regularly. Alas – there’s only so much time!

CREATIVITY

?: What time or environment best suits your creative work process — for example, a time and place of tranquility or of pressure? Which path do you take from theory or idea to creation?

When I write, I work better in environments that are noisy, such as cafés, than at home, where it is quiet and where I feel a constant urge to walk over to the fridge to see what’s inside. When I draw, I like to sit at my drawing desk and listen to audio plays on BBC Sounds. When it’s too quiet, I get distracted.

?: What’s better in the realization process — for example, speed and forcing creativity by grasping the magic of the moment or a slow, ripening process for implementation and elaboration?

It depends on the drawing, the concept and the project, but I would say I’m someone who deliberates a lot while working, corrects and edits a lot, so the process is quite slow.

?: How important are self-doubt and criticism by others during such a process?

I always doubt myself when I work. It might not always be productive, but I think it makes my work better and deeper in the end. There are many people whose critique I rely on when I work on a new project: friends, family, agents, and editors. But I don’t invite criticism in the early stages of a project, because I feel like I need to know what I am doing myself before eliciting someone else’s opinion.

?: Is it better to be creative on your own, to trust only your own instincts, or to work in a team?

I could imagine working in a team but only if my role is different from those of the other members of the team. I cannot imagine writing a book with someone else, or making a drawing with someone else, but I can imagine illustrating someone else’s book, or film.

?: In case of a creative block or, worse, a real failure, how do you get out of such a hole?

There have been low moments like that in my career, but the only thing you can do in these moments is to continue and try harder until eventually you get over that bump – and hopefully remember next time that you will eventually get there.

?: Should a creative person always stay true to him- or herself, including taking risks and going against the flow, or must the person, for reasons of commercial survival, make concessions to the demands of the market, the wishes of clients and the audience’s expectations?

Every artist should stay true to their ethical beliefs. Beyond that, it is, of course, up to every individual artist to pursue their career in any way that works for them. It’s no one’s place to judge. Art is a profession, and artists need to sustain themselves just like anybody else. We wouldn’t expect a dentist to only treat patients with the most interesting set of teeth.

?: How are innovation and improvement possible if you’ve established a distinctive style? Is it good to be ahead of your time, even if you hazard not being understood?

Art should never be about style. It should be about communicating ideas, thoughts, and emotions, which, in turn, call for various kinds of visual representation. I admire artists who can reinvent and sustain themselves over the course of their careers, but I do think that that is a rare gift.

?: When does the time come to end the creative process, to be content and set the final result free? Or is it always a work-in-progress, with an endless possibility of improvement?

I see every piece as a work in progress. Every book is a new piece in a larger dialogue in my head about subjects that I care about. Once I feel that I’ve given my best, that I found the right language and images to convey the ideas that I want to convey, then I feel comfortable letting go. But nothing ever feels 100% finished, because my relationship to the piece will change over time.

?: Do you have a clue why do you do what you do the way you do it?

Whenever I start working on a new book, I don’t know what I’m doing – until I do, and it’s hard to understand how I eventually get to that latter stage.

SUCCESS

?: “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.“ Do you agree with Winston Churchill’s quote?

It’s a great quote. But success doesn’t necessarily include failure. I do think that a certain amount of deep introspection, however, is a necessary ingredient for what I would consider success.

?: Should or can you resist the temptation to recycle a ‘formula’ you're successful with?

I would get bored if I always created the same kind of book or used the same form of visual expression in my work. The whole idea of creating art, to me, is about learning something about the world and about yourself that you didn’t know before.

?: Is it desirable to create an ultimate or timeless work? Doesn’t “top of the ladder” bring up the question, “What’s next?” — that is, isn’t such a personal peak “the end”?

Worrying about creating a timeless masterpiece is the worst thing you can do as an artist. All I try to focus on is what I want to say and what the best way is to express it. It is then up to the readers to interpret the work in any way they want. Rather than thinking in these big categories, I think about my books and illustrations as a body of work that focus on themes that I care about. I don’t necessarily think of one particular project as being more “important” than another.

MY FAVORITE WORK:

My three most recent books most represent who I think I am as an artist:

Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home (authored and illustrated by me)

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century (illustrated by me)

Diaries of War: Two Visual Accounts from Ukraine and Russia (written, edited and illustrated by me)