Danny Kerman and the Secrets of Success – an Interview at Shenkar College

Here is a summary of a friendly and open discussion in Hebrew with Danny Kerman on success and art, at Shenkar College. Oct. 27th, 2016

Mel: I am honored to be here with a real hero, Danny Kerman, Israel’s most famous illustrator, and one of the world’s best. I am lucky to be his friend.

What we want to know is what is the secret of success.

Danny: There is no reason to ask. No one knows and probably will never know. Those working in creativity worry about what is good, which is also a difficult question. Success and good are two completely separate things. There is no necessary association between a good book and a successful book. It can happen, but is random.

Mel: Your book with Yehuda Atlas which broke all the records, with about 400,000 sold. We want to stimulate our students. We want to tell them there is a way to succeed.

Danny: You need two things. First, to be sure that what you’re doing is good. That has no relation to success, in the meantime. The second is to teach your students to be able to ‘sell’ themselves to the editors and the publishers. and their story. If you can do that, you stand a better chance than someone who has written an equivalent manuscript but can’t present himself/herself. Everything else is chance and unpredictable.

Mel: Let’s say I think I’m good. Is that enough?

Danny: I think that there are people, for them to improve, they can ask for help from others whose opinion they appreciate. It won’t help them succeed. When editors ask you to change something it doesn’t always help either. You need to develop yourself both as a good professional, and as a good business person. There are tens of thousands of really talented people here who don’t know how to ‘sell themselves’. And this you have to teach them.

Mel: Do you know how to sell yourself?

Danny: No.

Mel: Are you one of the many multi-millionaires I know?

Danny: No, I’m not. If it helps, I can confide that at the age of 76 I still do not own my own apartment. From an economic point-of-view I’m not a great success by economic means. I always lived according to my means, but I always did want to improve in my craft, when the judge was myself. I never sought prizes or awards.

Mel: But lately you’ve received them?

Danny: Yes, they are important primarily for the money. If I knew that the judges included Picasso and Modigliani and they are giving me a prize, so I would say to myself, “the opinion of these two judges, for me is worth a lot”. And in this case, it’s important who the judges are. The last prize I received was given by judges whose opinion I value, so that’s okay, but that’s it. I once received the “Andersen award”, but it was Uriel Ofek, not Andersen who decided, and he was the one who went to Japan to receive the prize on my behalf. That’s ok. Money helps, not for the art itself, but for the artist. But art can exist without money.

I spoke to Miri Regev, I agreed with her that we need to help the periphery. But keep in mind that the persecuted Afro Americans were the ones who created jazz, the greatest musical genre of the last century, without prizes or some minister giving them money. That per se doesn’t necessarily result in greater art.

Mel: Let’s summarize – to succeed you need to believe that you’re good, but also be open for critiques, ideas for improvement.

Danny: I ask all kinds of people for critiques, but if someone persuades me, from a quality point of view, I may do it, not because he’s a big shot, but rather because I end up agreeing.

Mel: So you have to hear everything, but listen (like everything else in life) primarily to yourself. not to be influenced by prizes and what other say, to live modestly and hope for the best?

Danny continues to insist that there is no connection between money and quality.We talk about his first book with Yehuda Atlas.

Mel: 400,000 copies doesn’t make it a success? That doesn’t make it amazing?

Danny: It’s good to make money. That doesn’t say anything about the quality of the book. That doesn’t say that “The lion who loved strawberries ” and “This child is me”, the books that brought me the most financial rewards, are the best books among the 500 that I’ve illustrated.

Mel: Maybe. But you still need those big successes?

Danny: Who says I don’t?

Mel: If you illustrated some amazing books, but weren’t that famous, who would know about you? There are many people like that.

Danny: Many thousands.

Mel: I wouldn’t be asking them for the secret. So Danny, I’m thinking that there is a secret that you have, the secret “Danny Kerman Juice Recipe” and you just don’t want to share it.

Danny: Not with you.