ARTIST SPOTLIGHT
IT’S ALWAYS A GOOD TIME TO
COME TOGETHER
W
hen Montclair Film commissioned
illustrator and fine artist Michael
Hoeweler to design the festival’s
artwork for 2020, the goal was to
show a diverse community com-
ing together and sharing the same
experience. While this year’s festival hasn’t unfolded as
planned, the theme has proven to be resonant nonetheless.
In the crowd that Hoeweler creates, a floral thread
weaves between people. “The artwork represents the emo-
tional sense of community that is fostered by a shared love
of film and visual storytelling,” says Lisa Ingersoll, who,
with Kelly Coogan Swanson, is co-marketing director of
Montclair Film. “Though we are physically distancing
ourselves during this time, we’ve grown closer because
we are all in it together.”
The design was originally intended as a visual motif that
would be repeated on the 2020 festival guide, banners
around town, T-shirts, posters on NJ Transit platforms and
advertising. It can currently be seen at montclairfilm.org/
events/2020-festival-artwork.
“It’s hard to comprehend just how many lives have been
lost and changed because of the virus,” says Hoeweler
from the Bloomfield home he shares with his partner. “But
I’m coupling those feelings with appreciation for everyone
who is working and doing their part to help us all get
through this.”
Hoeweler was alerted to the high-profile role Montclair
Film Festival plays in the community when he and his
partner were house-hunting in the area, after living in
Brooklyn for eight years. “His realtor told him ‘Oh, you
guys have to go to the film festival,’” says Ingersoll.
She and Swanson agreed that Hoeweler’s interest in
connecting with the community combined with his artistic
sensibility and impressive portfolio made him a good
fit for their project.
ARTIST FROM AN EARLY AGE
Growing up in Cincinnati, Hoeweler recalls drawing
all the time, and displaying a creative impulse that was
nurtured, first by his mother, and then by teachers at the
School for Performing and Creative Arts and then at the
Maryland Institute College of the Arts. When talking about
career influences, he name-checks award-winning illustra-
tor Whitney Sherman, comic book artist Jose Villarrubia,
and magazine creative director Nick Vogelson, who he
says connected him with his first illustration assignments
for national publications.
WORKING FROM HOME Cincinnati native Michael Hoeweler works
from the Bloomfield home he shares with his partner.
Hoeweler says he struggled to find work after gradu-
ating and moving to New York. “I was arrogant, and
thought work should come to me,” he says. “I needed to
learn to promote my work.” In May 2011, an assignment
from GQ turned out to be the “snowball that fell off the
mountain top and created an avalanche,” he says.
Since 2012, Hoeweler says, his work flow has been
steady. Clients have included the Nature Conservancy,
with whom he’s worked for the past eight years, and
“The Undefeated,” an ESPN affiliate that hired him to do
18 portraits of African-American quarterbacks. For the
inaugural edition of its paper in 2012, The Washington
Post hired him to create portraits of the first 43 presidents,
which he did using Japanese ink wash and a micron pen
for fine details.
Hoeweler says that his day-to-day routine hasn’t been
changed much by the pandemic, since he normally works
from his home studio for editorial clients with “fast-paced
timelines. Newspapers and magazines play an important
role right now,” he says, “offering necessary information,
perspective and connection.”
When the movies return to public life, they’ll perform
the same service. ■
MONTCLAIR MAGAZINE MAY 2020
13