Visiting Ida Pearle really was a treat. As we entered her apartment, the warm hugs and smile she welcomed us with were contagious. Ida is so much fun, but more than that she is incredibly talented, and one of the most grateful people you will meet. We were in awe of the lovely life she leads, and I don’t want to talk about her apartment too much, but yes, it really is a dream apartment in a dream spot and anyone who has been invited, will compare notes. “Did you see the bookcase in their bedroom?” or “How dreamy are those windows!”
Living life on one of the prettiest streets in Brooklyn, in a gorgeous Brownstone with details and features to ignite longing in us all, Ida, her husband and their daughter Una, are living a cozy light filled city existence many of us would love to experience ourselves.
Ida grew up in a loft in Chelsea, with an Artist mother and Musician father who Ida credits for nurturing her creativity. Ida spoke of sitting at her mother’s feet as a child, while her mother painted at an easel above. Ida’s family did not own a TV and Ida spent hours each day of her childhood drawing or playing the violin. From the age three Ida studied the violin, and in conversation I wondered was it this discipline instilled by learning the violin, combined with her artistic creativity that enabled her to bring her dream of “The Moon is Going to Addy’s House” to life?
“I cannot agree more, on discipline being the necessary way to extract one’s creativity – giving it shape and form; so it can live in the world. I’ve thought about this so much- that one can be extremely creative, or even highly intelligent but without discipline you may not be able to put your talents to use, or be tenacious enough to do what must be done to share those talents with the world.”
You will see in Ida’s work a meticulousness, to get things just right, and this is not a universal “right” this is a right to please her own nature. As we looked over her notes, years worth of sketches and sample ideas, story boards and technique experimentation, I was in awe of all that went into “Moon” as Ida refers to her book for short. Drawers full of pieces of paper that Ida rifled through all seemed so precious to me for her mark making but she considered only ‘bits of this and that’. It is interesting what an artist thinks of them-self, and how their process work can easily be set aside by them, but to others, it still contains such magic.
The Moon is Going To Addy’s house is an incredibly gentle and comforting story that creates an analogy between the moon and the relationship we have with our children as parents. It subtly touches on the sense that we can and will always have an omnipresent like place in each other’s life.
It took Ida 5 years to write and illustrate this book, and over and over I could see that all the process work that accumulated during these 5 years should be displayed in an exhibition one day. The process to how we get to the end product really is so valuable. Ida Pearle is truly on a path of greatness, a path that will see many many people celebrating her life’s work.
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