A visit to the Met with Anna Marie Tendler
Behind-the-scenes notes from my Architectural Digest interview with the author of 'Men Have Called Her Crazy.'
On a Sunday in July, I got on a 5:25 a.m. Amtrak to New York in order to arrive at the Metropolitan Museum of Art by 11 a.m., when I was scheduled to meet the artist Anna Marie Tendler for an interview. I was supposed to be on a train departing in the sixes, but it was, tragically, canceled the night before. Instead, I boarded in the dark, and watched the sun rise over Maryland as we chugged northward, my noise-canceling headphones not quite drowning out the chatter of the large and inexplicably chipper family seated in front of me.
The early-early train did have one major advantage, which is that it bought me an extra hour in Manhattan before my interview. Ever since Alex and I moved to DC, I’ve savored every chance to make the most of a chunk of free time in the city. A lot of this has to do with proving to myself that I still know all the best spots in the neighborhoods I used to frequent — that I’ve retained a certain New York-specific gamesmanship. I’m pleased to report that I used my hour perfectly in this instance. Took the subway to the Upper East Side, picked up an enlivening cold brew and a pumpernickel bagel with tofu cream cheese (the Eliza classic), and walked to the garden of the Cooper Hewitt museum, which was opening right as I arrived. In addition to being a 10-minute walk from the Met, Cooper Hewitt has nice bathrooms. This was strategic. After eating, I headed inside to swap out my glasses for contacts — glasses make me feel unprepared for the world and gerbil-like; they are reserved for early morning travel, evening couch time, and sick days — and otherwise make myself presentable.
Maybe you’re thinking what I’m thinking: Eliza, make peace with your life choices! Stop writing a slow-motion “why I left New York (and why I wish I still lived there even though I don’t actually want to live there)” essay with every edition of this newsletter! It’s embarrassing, but, alas, I will never stop. I’m actually planning another one soon.
Anna Marie Tendler is many things: a photographer, a former makeup artist and hairstylist, a maker of Victorian lampshades, and the ex-wife of the comedian John Mulaney. (Much of the public knows her for that last biographical item; news of their 2021 divorce elicited a lot of fanfare on social media.) Tendler is also a former New York City resident, and it turns out that she, too, had mixed feelings about leaving the city — in her case, to move to Connecticut, where she has lived since late 2020. The city had become “too assaulting” on her nervous system, but, she told me, “There was a period of time where I felt like leaving New York was a failure. Like I had failed.” (Realer words have never been spoken.) Over time, though, Tendler realized how lucky she is to live closer to nature. She truly doesn’t want to live in the city at this point, but she visits all the time.
Exorcizing my New York demons was not the point of our conversation. I was there on behalf of Architectural Digest to interview Tendler about her new memoir, Men Have Called Her Crazy, and about her deep relationship with interior design. (Read my story here!) Tendler’s book is decidedly not about her divorce but does concern her severe mental health struggles during that period of time. One of its quieter themes — and the reason I pitched this interview to AD — is the role that art and design plays in Tendler’s emotional life. As she writes: “There is comfort and happiness in beauty if I am willing to relish it.”
Anyone who follows Tendler’s work will already be aware of her maximalist taste in interior design, since her home in Connecticut provides the backdrop for a series of self-portraits that she began posting online in 2021. Tendler decorated the house herself, filling its rooms with ornate wallpaper, heavy antique furniture, and flowering candelabras and sconces. She likes tchotchkes, and in her photographs, you’ll see crystals, tapers, and stuffed mice sitting at tiny Ouija boards. Her aesthetic will immediately make sense to anyone who has been a teenage girl or at all interested in witchcraft.
I already had a feeling that Tendler lives and breathes design, but our interview confirmed it. She has a master’s in costume studies from NYU, and walking around the Met with her was like going on a free guided tour. Our first stop was a self-portrait, painted by Rose Adélaïde Ducreux circa 1791, that hangs in one of the fully-furnished period rooms dedicated to French decorative arts. Tendler had written a paper on the painting in grad school, and speaking with warmth and precision, she offered a short lecture on the piece. (It’s also important to note that Ducreux’s father, the French court artist Joseph Ducreux, is the guy who got famous on the internet for his goofy self-portraits.) Later on, when I mentioned my love of a certain cabbage-shaped teapot that I’d stumbled upon months ago while visiting the museum with my sister, Tendler knew exactly what I was talking about. I asked if she could lead me there. She could. Unfortunately, it turned out that my beloved teapot is technically a cauliflower, but there are cabbage teapots in that room, too.
Tendler’s relationship with the Met dates back to her childhood in Connecticut. She struggled socially in middle school, and her mother, being a bit of a “renegade rule breaker,” decided to let her daughter play hooky once a month. They’d come into New York and go to a museum, often the Met. Of all the pieces on display, Tendler told me that she has a particular fondness for the museum’s collection of Tiffany glasswork. In the light-filled court of the American wing, we gazed at a luminous stained glass window, a landscape that seemed to ooze with color.
Tendler and I spoke at length about her love of maximalist design, which you can read all about in my story. I’d like to note here that this sensibility extends to a killer clothing collection, one that has been documented in her self-portraits, on the red carpet, and in a 2022 Harper’s Bazaar profile. But when Tendler rolled up looking low-key in New Balance 9060s, bike shorts, and a black T-shirt printed with the shark graffiti from After Hours, I was only slightly surprised. In her memoir, she writes about the dramatic transformation that her personal style underwent as a result of the pandemic and her mental health crisis, with sweats and jeans replacing her vintage dresses and baroque Alessandro Michele-era Gucci. “In 2020 and 2021, I feel like all of my energy was going toward mentally keeping myself alive. It was pure survival mode,” she told me.
Although Tendler is evidently in a better place now, that low tolerance for discomfort stuck around, along with a large collection of sweatpants and graphic tees. She now goes for clothes that feel more utilitarian and androgynous. “It’s almost uniform-esque, which is really funny because there’s a long history of artists wearing uniforms. I remember being like, ‘That’s so weird, I would never do that. I love every day getting up and dressing myself in something really ornate and unique,’” she said of her current style. “Then I was like, Oh, I get it.”
Maybe I’m just looking for signs in clothing, but as we walked and talked, I got the feeling that Tendler’s taste for casual and comfort-driven outfits reflects something bigger — a certain unvarnished and frank self-knowledge that can come with age or struggle. Of the many personal challenges that Tendler describes in her memoir, one of the most widely relatable may be her sense of professional defeat as she pivoted from career path to career path. “I felt like a failure who could not choose a direction for her life. I watched as all of my friends built careers they appeared to love. I felt life was passing me by,” she writes. This kind of thing really shouldn’t shock me anymore, but I always find it startling to learn that people with interesting lives on social media have just as much self-doubt as anyone else.
As we passed through the galleries in the American wing, admiring John Singer Sargent’s portraits of skeptical-looking women, I told Tendler that I’d been struck by this admission. “Most of my life was floundering to figure out what I was supposed to be doing,” she said. “I sold the book when I was 37 — I’m now 39 — and it’s taken to this point to get there. But I feel more settled in what I’m supposed to be doing, which is a very nice feeling, and it allows me to not freak out about what comes next. I’m on the right path, and I just am going to trust that I’m on the right path. But oh my god, yeah, my 20s and most of my 30s, I was like, ‘What am I doing?’”
Looking back at her career and creative work, she is starting to sense that there is a thread connecting her disparate pursuits, which is her distinctive eye and artistic voice. It can take time to put this together, and that’s okay. “I think that there is something to be said for peaking later in life,” Tendler told me.
After nearly two hours, we parted ways at the mouth of the Great Hall. I told Tendler that I was going to double back and look at the French period rooms where we’d begun our conversation. I retraced our original path and, after taking some photos of Rose Adélaïde Ducreux’s self-portrait, went to sit on a bench in one of the adjacent rooms. My interview adrenaline was wearing off and I was starting to become aware of the gnawing cramps that signaled the start of my period. (It’s nice to get your period in a period room.) I popped a couple of Aleve, keeping an eye on the security guard in case water bottles were prohibited. She didn’t seem to care but did tell off a small child for touching a centuries-old side table.
The space was never busy, but every so often it would empty out entirely and I would be left alone to bask in the soft light from the crystal chandeliers. It was quiet and soothing. You don’t have to admire the style of pre-revolution France to recognize a certain wisdom in the very human impulse to surround oneself with visual pleasures. Like Tendler said, there is comfort and happiness in beauty if you are willing to relish it. When I got back home to DC, I started buying flowers for our kitchen table.