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[Art21 "Extended Play"]

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I'm obviously a nervous guy[br]and I was writing a female character,

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through her memory[br]and through her stories.

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It was sort of an experiment

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to write from the standpoint of[br]somebody who I'm not,

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which is certainly fraught with peril.[br][LAUGHS]

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["Chris Ware: Someone I'm Not"]

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When I was in art school,

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I was told that I couldn't draw women.

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That kind of cuts out[br]a whole half of humanity right there.

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I distinctly remember being told[br]by one of my teachers,

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"If you draw women,[br]you're colonizing them with your eyes."

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Do you not draw women and then

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maintain an allegiance to some sort of[br]experience that only you have had?

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Or do you try to expand your understanding[br]and your empathy for other human beings?

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As a white writer, how dare I begin to think

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that I could write from the standpoint[br]of even another person.

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What I'm trying to do here is draw[br]a gesture of a woman

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slightly brushing hair away from her eye,

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but now it just looks more like[br]she's got a headache.

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Joanne Cole acts strangely[br]towards the younger woman,

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and that's because she thinks it's possible

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that she might be related to the younger woman

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because she's lost in her own[br]memories and thoughts--

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but that's not clear to the reader yet.

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So I'm trying to balance[br]a couple of emotions here.

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I'm trying to make it feel that it's authentic

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and not just a bunch of nonsense--[br]or poorly acted.

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This particular character is an[br]African-American elementary school teacher

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who is teaching in a private school[br]in the 1960s and 70s.

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Hopefully I'm attending to some of the complexities

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that a kind of slightly unusual situation[br]might have brought up.

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I feel very self-conscious about[br]writing a story like this.

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Am I doing the right thing?[br]Am I doing the wrong thing?

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Is it about empathy?

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Am I introducing things I don't understand?

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Et cetera.

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It's a complicated question as a writer.

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[WARE][br]--Thank you for serving dinner.

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[MARNIE WARE][br]--You're welcome.

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[LAUGHS]

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[CLARA WARE][br]--Plop!

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[CHRIS WARE][br]--Plop!

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Many of my teachers were trying to get[br]myself and my fellow students

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to find the one thing[br]that we were interested in

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and then write about that.

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I never wanted to do that.

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I wanted to be able write about everything--

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and anything--[br]because that's what life is.

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[LAUGHING]

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--I have no idea what I look like chewing

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--but I bet I don't want to know.

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It's up to me as an artist to try to decide

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how much can I try to feel[br]through another person

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and still have it not be

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a sentimentalization or a falseness.

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I have to try to somehow push my limits[br]and my understanding of

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how I feel through other people[br]in what I'm doing.

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And you risk falling on your face doing so,

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but that's a risk you have to take.

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What art is all about is[br]trying to figure out

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if the feelings that you're having[br]are the same as the feelings that I'm having.