Chast, a cartoonist famous for her work in The New Yorker, will be in residence at the College as a Montgomery Fellow from Jan. 28 to Jan. 29.
Chast has contributed her cartoons to the New Yorker since 1978, and has published several books that she will be signing following her lecture, including "The Alphabet from A to Y With Bonus Letter Z!" (2007, with Steve Martin), "Theories of Everything: Selected, Collected and Health-Inspected Cartoons" (2006), "The Party After You Left" (2004) and "The Joy of Worry" (2004).
She has lived with her family in Connecticut since her children were young, but her work such as "Stay Well" cards for loved ones, continues to reflect and mock the anxieties of life in New York.
In an interview with The Dartmouth, Chast described her beginnings as an artist starting, at the age of four or five with her passion for drawing and humor.
"I always loved making myself laugh and making other people laugh," she said. "I've always been attracted to that kind of thing,"
Chast cites cartoonist Charles Addams as an inspiration for her subject matter. "He just knocked me out so much. I have a cartoon in 'Theories of Everything' about it."
While Chast was growing up in Brooklyn, her parents, both teachers, took her to the Cornell University library where she remembers being drawn to books of Addams' cartoons. "I could look at them again and again," she remembered. "I loved his style and his jokes."
Chast studied at Rhode Island School of Design from 1973 until 1977, beginning in graphic design before ultimately graduating with a degree in painting.
Chast confessed that her interest in cartoons made her feel marginalized. "It seemed like a sort of embarrassing thing to want to be doing," she said.
Chast explained that things have changed since then. "Now it's different. There are so many aspects of it that seem to have some respect in the art world."
Her work for the New Yorker is distinctive for its bright pastels, which underscore her depresse characters, dark scenes and wicked sense of humor. She rarely follows the standard cartoon and gag-line format, more often labeling items within the drawing or writing the characters' dialogue or thoughts in bubbles.
"My husband and I both realized that we both had the same book of sick jokes that you don't think are funny except when you're, like 9 or 10 years old," she said about the development of her sarcastic, off-color sense of humor. "Either you tear your hair out and decide you're never going to get out of bed, or you decide it's funny."
Chast said that her creative process starts with an idea and develops over time.
"Most of the time the words come first -- some fragment or some idea that I want to work with," Chast said. "Occasionally I'll be doodling and the picture will suggest something."
She has followed the same work schedule for years, submitting about six or eight "roughs" to The New Yorker from her home in Connecticut by fax each week.
"You have to do a lot of stuff to get to the good stuff. That's what I tell myself so as not to get terribly depressed."
Chast's fellowship will culminate with her lecture, "Theories of Everything and Much, Much More," today at 4:30 p.m., in Filene auditorium.
