Painter Heffernan’s graphic memoir debut, Babe in the Woods (Algonquin, Sept.), follows her winding path through fear and memory after taking the wrong turn on a hike with her infant son.
Nature plays so many different roles in the book—terrifying, healing, disorienting. How did you go about conveying parallels between nature and new motherhood?
It occurred to me after about a year of pounding out stories and drawings that the woods had to get darker as she goes deeper in and realizes that she’s screwed things up. So, that idea of leaning into my surroundings, to play that beautiful background music I love so much in film and literature. It was kind of made to order: the gnarly trees and her gnarly confusions, and the branches that come and scratch at you the way memories do.
How did you explore the blurry border between creativity and madness—like in the images of heiress Sarah Winchester’s house?
I visited Winchester Mystery House as a child, right when my family moved to California from Peoria. It was clearly formative in a way that you can’t articulate when you’re six or eight or however old I was. And then I heard a podcast about how mediums who held seances at the house were mostly women. It gave them a mechanism for speaking truth in a context where otherwise they’d be silenced. The idea that Sarah Winchester took her guidance from other women in this way—I just love that. That’s kind of what painting has been. You can’t be a liar. It’s a separate entity, and your job is to just listen. What was so fun about the editing process of the book is that I got to get into the same mode, listening to that truthful voice.
You describe how as an artist you fully visualize a painting in advance. What about a graphic novel?
Painting never allows for a statement of “This is bad.” Painting just is. So the graphic novel allowed me to say, “This is screwed up.” I realized the things I needed to say to my family. I’m the youngest in my family, so there’s always that sense of being the underling. My dad did icky things when he was drinking, but he was basically a loving father. I think the love overwhelmed the messiness. Which is why this isn’t a screed.
How did the experience of taking this walk through the woods with a baby change you as a mother and as an artist?
There are ways to be in the world with your kids, which our great-great ancestors knew. My son only melted down once we were safe. Now he’s a biologist who wants to have adventures in the world. I took away this idea of just bringing your kid into your environment, writ large. In the backpack that I carried my children in, their heads would be a little higher than mine, so they’d be in the world even sooner than I could. Superior to their mother. Putting kids at a level slightly above you is powerful.
