“ There is joy in catching a wave… My work expresses the wonder of life and nature”

Artist, author, award-winning children’s illustrator and keen surfer Maia Walczak is deeply inspired by the ocean and the bounty of nature

- ELLEN TOUT

Maia Walczak’s childhood summers were spent in Poland in a cabin in the woods built by her grandad, CzesÅ‚aw. ‘I was born in London, but the memories and nostalgia that I have from my childhood are wrapped up in that cabin,’ says Maia. ‘That way of life stayed with me. We had an outdoor compost toilet and the running water for bathing was so cold! We would heat it over the fire to wash outside – pouring buckets of water over ourselves; if it was warm enough and we felt brave, we would bathe in the stream, and we would wash our clothes by hand. We bought produce directly from local farmers. It was supposedly a less comfortable way of life but it stuck with me and is still an inspiration. It was such a divide, like I was living two different lives – London city life and the cabin.’

Those memories have strongly influenced Maia’s work, most recently in her new children’s book, Wylder (selfpublished, £6.99), a ‘silent’, or wordless, book in which the story is told solely through illustration. Why a silent book? ‘The idea was born when I realised that silent films exist, so why not silent books? I didn’t know at the time that there were already a few silent books, so I started experimenting,’ she says. ‘It’s about the atmosphere, emotion and feeling. For example, when I hear a piece of music without lyrics, it can speak to me more deeply. With silent books… I had a sense that sometimes words can take away meaning or muddle it. As they say, a picture speaks a thousand words!’

My soul in pictures