
After Sept. 11, 2001, Barry foundered creatively. She and her second husband, Kevin Kawula, a prairie-restoration expert, moved from Evanston, Ill., to a 15-acre farm in rural Wisconsin. Kawula, an affable bear of a man β βEverybody else loves Han Solo,β she told me, βbut I always wanted Chewbaccaβ β built Barry a free-standing, sun-filled studio overstuffed with scrap paper, art supplies and knickknacks given to her by students. (In Miami, a puppeteer named Hannah made a little Marlys marionette, complete with polka-dot underpants.)
By 2008, the consolidation of the alt-weekly world meant that βErnie Pookβsβ was appearing in only four papers, and Barry was earning just $155 a week drawing it. Stuck in a draining battle with wind developers over plans to build turbines in her town β βtheyβre the S.U.V. of renewable energy,β she said β she decided to shutter the strip months shy of its 30th anniversary.
Now she sells original art on eBay and has been buoyed by the modest success of βWhat It Is,β her 2008 book about writing, and its follow-up in 2010, βPicture This,β about art. But itβs the classesΒ, which Barry began teaching to share the techniques she learned from a drawing professor at Evergreen, that spark her enthusiasm. She conducts around 15 workshops a year, from two-hour minisessions with college students to long multiday seminars at writersβ conferences like this one.
On the afternoon after the third class, we sat in a hotel bar drinking Tsingtaos. βNow I can take this off,β Barry said, untying her bandanna and dropping it in her bag. That day started out rough. βFor an hour, it was hellish,β Barry said. The workshop can seem haphazard but is actually carefully planned. βI run a tight ship, but I try and make it seem like Iβm not doing that at all. I have stories that I know will make βem laugh and forget. I have others that are more about: think about this. And then the ones that are really important to me, like the story about βThe Family Circus.β β
She told that story at the end of the session. βI grew up in a house that had a whole lot of trouble,β she said. βAs much trouble as you could imagine. In the daily paper, there were all these comic strips, and there was one that was a circle. It seemed like things were pretty good on the other side of the circle. No oneβs getting hit. No oneβs yelling.β