Sarah Kempa

Sarah Kempa, better known to her fans on Instagram as “Aunt Sarah Draws,” is a cartoonist and illustrator based in New York whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, the book New Erotica for Feminists, and other humor publications. Many of her cartoons touch upon situational anxieties and guilt related to shopping, insomnia, and friendships, and relationships—and as her skyrocketing popularity on social media indicates, many people can relate.

Check out Aunt Sarah Draws’ latest projects on Creatively here.

What is the first creative project you remember?

When I was five, I remember making tons of things out of cardboard—I made my entire family customized cardboard shoes (more like slides), a vacuum cleaner that functioned more as a dust pan, and a camera that I would pull little illustrations that were meant to be photos. I loved cardboard and tape.

Describe your aesthetic in three words.

Simple. Effortless. Brisk.

What was the most fulfilling collaboration you’ve worked on?

I truly love to collaborate with others on projects because I tend to learn so much. Everyone works so differently in ways I wouldn’t initially expect, so I find myself finding new ways of managing work, communicating, and incorporating feedback. A couple of years ago, I worked on illustrations for a short humor book (New Erotica For Feminists), and though quite fulfilling and exciting on its own as a project, I learned so much in the book publishing process in seeing a book go from pitch to development that I have taken away and leveraged in creative pitches for my own work.

What’s one creative project that taught you something fundamental about yourself?

Each one does! I find once I move past disappointment, I learn quite a bit from my rejections—how I can improve something, where something was unclear, ways to make my work stronger and more coherent. I used to focus so much on trying to draw “better,” and now I focus on how I can be a better storyteller.

Do you think creativity is something you’re born with, or something you’re taught?

I think everyone is creative, but I think it’s also something that benefits from regular practice. I find I am most creative when I wake up early and spend a couple hours going through idea generation exercises and least creative when I am watching reality TV, texting my friends about “not feeling very creative :/”.

What’s the last dream you had?

I’ve been having a lot of dreams lately about going to the airport or purchasing a car. Most recently I dreamt about arriving back home after being at the Berlin airport, realizing I forgot something, so then turning around and flying back to Berlin while wearing a mask.

One hundred years from now, what do you hope people write about your work?

No! This is too much pressure! I refuse! I don’t expect anyone to be talking about my work in 100 years, but if they do, I expect it to be in some sort of secondary school where they have access to old instances of the internet. Maybe a student stumbles upon one of my cartoons while researching millennial anxiety born out of the social media era for a history paper and makes a note to reference it in the appendix alongside a Tinder screenshot and Tumblr page while thinking about the intergalactic party they are going to that weekend and what space suit they should wear. 

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