Check Out Maia Rosenberg’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Maia Rosenberg

Hi Maia, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Until March of 2020 I was a professional ballet dancer, but COVID exacerbated my chronic illness, so when things opened back up again I couldn’t return with everyone else. But I still needed some way to be creative, so I turned to painting. Art had always been part of my life, we joked when I was a kid that we didn’t have a junk drawer like most people but a junk room. To me though, it was like a paradise. No need to go to the art store, I just had to go downstairs.

After the lockdown, cut off from my former medium of ballet, I decided to take my painting more seriously. What started as an experiment to practice drawing the same character in different poses turned into a whole picture book. Encouraged by friends and family, I started selling my drawings as prints and notecards.

I moved to Pittsburgh last year to get my masters in linguistics, and have started becoming part of the art community here. I now have two picture books in the works, and you can find me at local art fairs and my notecards in some local shops.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As I mentioned, COVID was in some ways what really started me down this road. But I struggle to manage producing new work and managing my business while dealing with a chronic illness that regularly lands me in the hospital, and of course grad school is a full time job in itself.

Navigating a new city and new community also has its challenges, but I feel lucky to have found such good friends so quickly. I highly recommend finding a group of people who are all the same kind of nerd as you. Never before have I felt so welcome to be geeky about language. I was upset about leaving the wonderful community I’d built for myself in New York, but I’m so pleased to have found an equally supportive group of folks here.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My work is rather whimsical. I want it to evoke that kind of feeling that makes you think fairies are hiding just out of sight, that adventure is waiting. I find myself flirting with different mediums all the time, though I work most frequently with watercolors and marker. I’ve been inspired by illustrators like Carson Ellis, Melody Stacy, and Jeni Mellihove, among others. I’ve sometimes described my work as “vaguely European museum gift shop” to which friends laughingly agree.

I want my illustrations to appeal to children but also evoke the kind of childlike naïveté we need to be reminded of as adults. A lot of my work asks a lot of the viewer, I want them to ponder big philosophical questions, like the nature of time and conservation of our world. I try to walk the line between respecting the viewer/readers intellect (especially children), and encouraging silliness. That is, recognizing a child’s capacity to understand complex subjects, and still recognizing them as children who don’t need all the cares of the world dumped on them. A thing which I think is a good reminder for adults too.

Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
The pandemic has been life altering for me personally, as I already spoke to, but I think we as a society learned some important things too. One of them is to slow down, we should not have to constantly hustle to make ends meet. We can and should demand respect for our time and efforts from our employers who we don’t need breathing down our necks in an office cubicle. I think it has also increased empathy and understanding for disabled and chronically ill people as we recognize how much of our world is not accessible. That we can make system-level changes that are inclusive of all kinds of people with varying needs.

I think it also led us to appreciate art more, as we went so long without it. That a society is not whole if we do not have arts and leisure to enjoy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://maiapnina.com
• Instagram: @maiapnina