Thank you for everything, Milton.

Photo by Walter bernard

Shortly before this photo was taken, at lunch, I had asked Milton how he was doing. He told me that as he got older and older, time passed so quickly for him that he could only tell what season it was by the type of hat he was wearing. If it was a straw hat it was spring and if it was a felt hat, another year was soon to pass. The lunch was filled with laughter, musings and as always, the great pleasure of listening to Milton tell a story.

I am “enormously” (one of his favorite descriptors) grateful to have witnessed his creative genius at close proximity in the '90s. I have always said that working for both him and the lovely Walter Bernard at WBMG was like getting paid to go to the best sort of graduate school. Listening to Milton present our work to clients, I hung on every word. His extraordinary (another one of his favorite descriptors) ability to articulate visual communication was nigh ethereal. If a client was being difficult or too literal, suddenly he would go quiet and his glasses would get pushed up onto his forehead where they would rest. He would rub his eyes and then cradle his head and take a deep breath. Then he would in the most gracious way, put them in their place and they wouldn’t even know it.

Being sent down to show Milton an iteration of a magazine logo that we were working on, I would descend one flight from the WBMG office to the MGI office. There, across an ocean of oriental carpets and drafting tables sat Milton. His desk topped with paper (or was it illustration board?) was perennially covered in sketches, doodles and exquisite drawings. He would look up with his kindly smile and say “What do you need Chaawwwwk?” I was very sheepish to break his concentration but he welcomed working in an “interruptive” style which he and Walter practiced.

There were laughs. One day I showed him a new-fangled electronic spell checker that I had just gotten. To test it out, we typed in some ten-dollar word which I can’t recall. We waited eagerly as it generated the corrected version and it just said “Uterus.” We howled with laughter at the absurdity.

His generosity in all that he did to give back to students and early career designers and illustrators was unparalleled. I would schedule portfolio reviews and informational appointments on a weekly basis. So few people take the time to do this now. It was second nature to him to give back. His philanthropic work for various educational and social justice institutions is a lasting legacy that will continue to help and educate people far and wide. As recently as weeks ago, he was working on a graphic treatment of the word “together” for public school students to connect and comfort them during the pandemic.

I was lucky to have been at his 65th birthday party at the Rainbow Room where we ate cake off of his iconic plates. It was a wonderful event and I knew how fortunate I was to be there. It feels like just yesterday but I realize that it was 26 cycles of straw and felt hats ago. He was right, time does go faster as you get older.

Thank you for everything, Milton.

Chalkley Calderwood
Filmmaker • Creative Director
chalkleycalderwood.com