Author/Illustrator Leah Tinari Brings Worlds to Life

Leah Tinari believes that people never age out of picture books. Sure, as children grow up, they’ll move on to young adult literature, then novels. But there’s no reason to abandon the artwork that brings such joy, she says.

The author and illustrator hopes to bridge the gap between genres with her latest picture book, “How Louise Met Jeez,” a story about self-exploration, leaving one’s comfort zone, and ultimately coming together for the greater good. In this “kind, sweet, and loving” tale, there’s a twist: The words themselves are the characters.

“Picture books are for all ages; art is for everyone,” Tinari, a Ho-Ho-Kus native turned New Yorker, says. “People ask, ‘What age group is this for?’ This book is for everyone; it not only has beautiful images but a deep meaning behind it.”

In the story, we first meet Louise, a Parisian character recognizable by her exquisite script font and white Chuck Taylor sneakers. The reader follows Louise’s quest to discover her true meaning, eventually leading her to travel from Paris to New York City. At this point in the story, there’s a prompt to close the book and flip it over…and so begins Jeez’s story, six hours earlier in New York City. Jeez, a bold and snazzy serif font that rocks combat-style boots, is also feeling a bit despondent, and goes on his own journey.

Tinari transports readers to real-life landmarks in Paris and New York City (she describes the book as a love note to the two cities she feels deeply connected to) and introduces them to characters like Louise’s sisters, Ooh and Lala, and Jeez’s parents, Holy and Guacamole.

The end of the story happens in the middle of the book; it’s not so much an ending but the beginning of something transformative and new, Tinari says.

“It’s playful in the way it’s made, but in many ways it’s a metaphor for life,” she says. “We alone are enough, but we need each other for a better society, to be grander.”

As a prolific artist known for exuberant portraiture, Tinari has spent decades documenting her life and the people in it—she knows a bit about finding herself, but also the power of community and how people enrich life. And in many ways, that’s why of the four picture books she’s published, the latest feels truly authentic to who she is.

Finding Her Footing as an Artist

Growing up in Ho-Ho-Kus, Tinari says she was always drawing. She’s grateful to her parents (including Janice Tinari, owner of Just Janice in the borough) for recognizing her love and talent for creating art and helping to foster it.

When she was in about fifth grade, Tinari’s mom approached local artist Gail Lee about lessons. Tinari began studying with Lee in Lee’s Ho-Ho-Kus basement, where she mainly taught art classes to adults.

“Gail was so fantastic. She would crumple up a piece of newspaper in front of me and say, ‘Draw that,’” Tinari says. “I would say, ‘No, I can’t.’ But she knew I could and would, so she just told me to draw what I saw. She was the beginning of me realizing that maybe I could be an artist. She was a mentor for me.”

Lee was also instrumental in Tinari applying to art schools. Tinari was also an avid soccer player and didn’t know which path she would follow beyond high school. She applied and was accepted to the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where she chose to attend.

“Once I was there, I was blown away by this community of artists that I had never experienced before,” she says. “I was in classes for eight hours drawing—I was in heaven. It was also really intense and hard, but very exciting, and I felt I was in the right place, and I was glad I pursued art.”

She left with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and moved to Williamsburg in Brooklyn, bartending at night while working her first job creating sets for music videos and fashion shoots. She was making ends meet, but realized if she continued on that path, she might never have time for her own career as an artist.

She took to the periodicals section of Barnes & Noble, found some of her favorite magazines, including The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, and looked up the names of the art directors and editors. She excelled at making portraits and loved doing it. She sent photocopies of some of her celebrity likenesses to the magazines, and what do you know, she got a call from the art director at The New Yorker.

She was hired to make illustrations of rock bands and celebrities for the publication’s Goings On About Town section; as a young artist, being published was a “big deal,” Tinari says.

Around the same time, she signed with Mixed Greens, a gallery in Chelsea, and began doing fine art shows almost every two years, which she says “jumpstarted” her career.

Tinari says her work has always been a visual diary of her life, and at that time, it was very celebratory and focused on the 20-something rowdy nightlife scene surrounded by friends. Then she had her son, Mars (now 17).

“He was kind of the new director in my life,” Tinari says. “My work very much shifted to motherhood and the stuff and things and objects that come along in your life with having a child.”

Into the World of Publishing

Tinari made a show called Mars’s Planet that was based on this new chapter, and the “hero piece” was a large painting of her refrigerator door, which she says is a storytelling or narrative of the household, whether it has magnets from travels, invitations, grocery lists, photos, or your child’s drawings.

It was this piece that caught the attention of famed mystery novelist Harlan Coben. The Ridgewood resident frequented Just Janice, and a mural of Tinari’s on the wall was his first exposure to her art. He said flippantly that he’d like to do a picture book with her, and the artist’s mom was more than happy to make the connection.

Once he saw the refrigerator piece, a storybook idea came to life. The pair collaborated on “The Magical Fantastical Fridge,” a story written by Coben about a boy named Walden, based on Mars, who is asked to set the table for Sunday supper. Exasperated, he says he’d rather be anywhere else and is sucked into one of his drawings on the fridge door, then continues on an adventure through different worlds via the items hanging on the door.

“I had never made a picture book before. I marched into Penguin Random House with Harlan, and we got a book deal,” Tinari says. “He was the reason I got my foot in the door and the reason I was even able to enter this world of picture book making.”

Tinari says she had always made visual artwork, but there was a narrative concept and words behind it; she was excited about this new realm of creativity.

It was Mars’ interest in U.S. presidents that would become the focus of her next major project. Tinari says he wanted a poster of the presidents, but she couldn’t find one that she found visually appealing. She took on an extensive (and at times exhausting) project, painting each president and hand-stenciling facts about each.

By the end of it, Tinari says she was “really sick and tired of painting white men” (with the exception of President Obama). On top of it, she’d just learned that Carrie Fisher had died.

“I was really obsessed with Princess Leia growing up,” Tinari says. “I was quite the tomboy, and I went to see the movie with my brother and all of his friends for his birthday. I remember being blown away by her and the fact that she was a different kind of princess, fighting for her people.”

Tinari made a portrait of her and posted it to Instagram, including facts about Fisher’s advocacy for mental health. She went on to create one of Louisa May Alcott, then Dolly Parton—other personal heroes. The timing of the project was particularly poignant, she says, because she started it just before the “Me Too” movement.

With the help of a new literary agent, Tinari presented both projects to Simon & Schuster and got a two-book deal, resulting in “The Presidents: Portraits of History” and “Limitless: 24 Remarkable American Women of Vision, Grit, and Guts.”

Through it all, Tinari continued creating her own fine art, painting commissioned portraits she calls “authentically playful and not so polished,” and even stepped off the 2D canvas to create custom hand-painted apparel, sneakers, and handbags.

“How Louise Met Jeez” is the first book that she’s self-published, and she says she’s still figuring out where it might best fit into the literary world. For now, there are only 500 copies (some signed ones will always be in stock at Just Janice, she says).

Tinari is also planning a book tour to speak at schools about and the process of creating and publishing a book.

“I believe in this book in a way that it doesn’t necessarily need to be mainstream,” Tinari says. “Readers may have to work a little harder with it, and I think that makes some of the best picture books. There are things to be learned, and after you’ve read it, ideas open up that maybe you didn’t think about before.”

For more about “How Louise Met Jeez” and Tinari’s work, visit her Instagram page, @leahtinari.

Photographs courtesy of Leah Tinari

Sarah Nolan is a writer with a passion for telling people’s stories. A Ho-Ho-Kus native, she believes in the power of local journalism to connect and inform residents and foster a sense of community.