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Kamalani Hurley Native Hawaiian author
Kamalani Hurley Native Hawaiian author
Kamalani Hurley Native Hawaiian author

Month: January 2025

Interview with Native Hawaiian Illustrator Malia Pila

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malia-pila

I like to think I’m a word­smith. I can often take an idea and work to find the best words to tell a sto­rymalia-pila I hope my young read­ers will love.

But a chil­dren’s book is way more than words. Beau­ti­ful illus­tra­tions are key to mak­ing well-writ­ten sto­ries and turn­ing them into visu­al mag­ic for young readers.

Tal­ent­ed Native Hawai­ian illus­tra­tor Malia Pila is one such magi­cian. Her charm­ing, gor­geous images have a cin­e­mat­ic aes­thet­ic that young read­ers and their grownups love.

We are so pleased to talk sto­ry with Malia today.

Alo­ha e Malia! For those who haven’t met you, could you please tell us a lit­tle about yourself? 

My name is Malia Pila, and I’m an illus­tra­tor work­ing pri­mar­i­ly in pic­ture books these days, but I have also worked in visu­al devel­op­ment for ani­ma­tion! I enjoy explor­ing dif­fer­ent media and styles with my art­work when­ev­er I can as well as research­ing niche things like his­tor­i­cal cos­tum­ing and the mythol­o­gy of dif­fer­ent cultures.

My biggest sup­port­er for near­ly 15 years now has been my (soon-to-be) hus­band. My career path has not been very clear or lin­ear and even when I’ve had moments of self-doubt, he has always been at my side to help me back onto my feet and find inspi­ra­tion again. 

Con­grat­u­la­tions on your engage­ment! Where did you grow up? 

I grew up in a hand­ful of dif­fer­ent places. A large part of my child­hood was spent between Hilo where my father is from and Kona, but we even­tu­al­ly moved to the main­land, and I spent my teen years in places like Flori­da and Arkansas.

Poliahu
Illus­tra­tion @ Malia Pila

What has been your jour­ney to becom­ing a pro­fes­sion­al illus­tra­tor? Why did you become an illustrator/artist? Have you always want­ed to cre­ate art? 

I have always had a desire to cre­ate art, but it took some time to land specif­i­cal­ly on “pro­fes­sion­al illus­tra­tor.” My old­er sis­ter intro­duced me to draw­ing when I was about 6, and while I’m sure I drew plen­ty before then, I specif­i­cal­ly remem­ber her intro­duc­tion hav­ing a pro­found impact on me and ignit­ing a spark that has just refused to die down since.

I’ve been lucky that my fam­i­ly has nev­er put down my dreams or insist­ed I piv­ot to some­thing else com­plete­ly. So by the time I made it to uni­ver­si­ty, I had refined an incred­i­bly vague career plan of “ARTIST” into a more spe­cif­ic goal to work in the ani­ma­tion indus­try. I stuck with that ulti­mate­ly, but I also found myself exposed to new things that real­ly began to turn my head like illus­trat­ing for pic­ture books and study­ing art history.

After uni­ver­si­ty, I was left in a place I think a lot of fresh grad­u­ates are in after art school. There is so much uncer­tain­ty in many cre­ative indus­tries, so it can be over­whelm­ing. I’ve tried to just focus on what makes me hap­py to cre­ate and that has real­ly led me to where I am now.

What kinds of illus­tra­tion work have you done? What do you enjoy most about illus­trat­ing, espe­cial­ly for a young audi­ence? What are some of your great­est challenges? 

I enjoy illus­trat­ing for the sheer enjoy­ment of cre­at­ing, to be hon­est. It is so fun to think of some­thing that per­haps no one has ever thought of before or, alter­na­tive­ly, what many many peo­ple have thought of in very dif­fer­ent ways, and see it put down on paper or can­vas. When it comes to illus­trat­ing for a young audi­ence specif­i­cal­ly, what I love about it is try­ing to inspire the same thoughts and feel­ings I once had as a child look­ing at art­work in books or rum­mag­ing through dif­fer­ent cov­ers at the library.

That itself sort of becomes my great­est chal­lenge, too. I want to con­vey so much with my art some­times that I have to sit back and pick what to include so as not to over­whelm an indi­vid­ual illus­tra­tion or mud­dy a con­cept and message.

Fall-scene
Illus­tra­tion @ Malia Pila

Do you have a favorite medi­um to work with? Why is that?

I recent­ly picked up gouache paint­ing again, and while I’m still refa­mil­iar­iz­ing myself with the medi­um, I’d say it is becom­ing a new favorite. For the most part, I’ve worked pri­mar­i­ly dig­i­tal­ly as an illus­tra­tor until recent­ly, and while I love all that dig­i­tal work offers in the way of flex­i­bil­i­ty and ease, I real­ly enjoy get­ting my hands back on some­thing more tac­tile and messy like paints.

Can you share a bit about what you’re work­ing on now? What’s your inspiration? 

Some­thing that has always inspired me is my child­hood grow­ing up in Hawaiʻi. I have such fond mem­o­ries of sit­ting on my grandpa’s lanai eat­ing man­a­pua, gawk­ing at tide pools, and play­ing with sleep­ing grass as a kid. On the flip side, leav­ing all of that and mov­ing to the main­land was incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult for me. I’m just start­ing out with the idea, but I’m hop­ing to play with it a lit­tle and see if these inspi­ra­tions can come togeth­er as either a series of illus­tra­tions to speak on these expe­ri­ences or, who knows, maybe even a pic­ture book!

That sounds so fun! What are your hopes and dreams for the year and beyond in terms of your career and what you do you hope for your career in the future?

I’m start­ing 2025 with a lot of hopes! I recent­ly signed with an agent so I’m look­ing for­ward to debut­ing on new books and oth­er projects in the new year. My dream for the next year is to build a good foun­da­tion for myself as a pro­fes­sion­al illus­tra­tor and past that? I would love to explore the pos­si­bil­i­ty of pub­lish­ing a book as an author/illustrator myself. To be added along­side oth­er pub­lished Pacif­ic Islanders would be such a dream!

What advice would you give an aspir­ing illus­tra­tor?

It is okay to piv­ot. It is okay to take a break, too! I went through sev­er­al years of my life when cre­at­ing art was not a pri­or­i­ty for me because I was deal­ing with some very dif­fi­cult things. I felt bad about this for a while but hon­est­ly, a break was what I need­ed and I do not feel as if I irrev­o­ca­bly dam­aged my career by tak­ing one as I even­tu­al­ly came back rest­ed and reen­er­gized and caught right back up to my peers. Some­times tak­ing a chance to sit back and take in oth­er media can be so help­ful when you’ve been cre­at­ing end­less­ly for a while and feel burnt out.

Sleeping
Illus­tra­tion @ Malia Pila

What kinds of books do you enjoy read­ing? Any favorites?

I read a lot of his­tor­i­cal fic­tion and some of my favorite books tend to fall into that cat­e­go­ry. 2024 was unfor­tu­nate­ly a slow read­ing year for me but one of my favorites that I fin­ished was The God of End­ings by Jacque­line Holland.

I’m hop­ing to read so much more in 2025. Specif­i­cal­ly, I want to focus on read­ing more books by oth­er Pacif­ic Islanders. In the past, I’ve found it a lit­tle dif­fi­cult to track down titles but thanks to resources like Pacif­ic Islanders in Pub­lish­ing, I have a grow­ing read­ing list to work through.

What’s your online presence? 

My port­fo­lio web­site is maliapila.com. I’m a lit­tle more active these days on Insta­gram (or I try to be, any­way) and can be found there at maliapila.art. I wel­come any­one that wants to chat or connect!

Maha­lo nui, Malia, for talk­ing sto­ry with us! We’re look­ing for­ward to hear­ing more from you soon! To learn more about Malia and see her won­der­ful illus­tra­tions, vis­it her web­site, Malia Pila.com, and fol­low her on Ista­gram at maliapila.art. Malia is rep­re­sent­ed by James McGowan at Book­Ends Lit­er­ary Agency.

Images cour­tesy of Malia Pila.