| Author |
Comment |
cianalouise
Registered User
(4/10/01 8:05:46 am)
|
Artists and inspiration
Kate,
I thought I'd reply to your last question under a new topic, as it has diverged a bit from Jewish folklore…
Which school do you teach at? I myself went to the Rhode Island School of Design - that was where I took that European folk narrative class that really defined the direction my art now takes. I also had Barry Moser for a class - hiw work is amazing; from his woodcuts for Alice in Wonderland and Frankenstein and Beauty and the Beast to his wonderful watercolors. That really made me think about the whole book process - not just words and pictures, but a whole integrated piece of art.
I have a lot of inspirations - though it may not necessarily show in my work. I love Edward Hopper (American oil painter, worked in the 20's-50's) - he has a wonderful sense of narrative in his work. The loneliness of the modern metropolitan lifestyle…it still rings a chord today. Thomas Canty - you can see his gorgeous drawing on the Endicott site - is also a big influence for me. I like how he merges symbolism and naturalistic forms. Not to mention the beauty of his linework! Oh, to have a fraction of his talent! Actually, I enjoy all the artists on the Endicott site - you definitely should look at all the sites listed there. Mercer Mayer, Maurice Sendak, Trina Schart Hyman, Gennady Spirin are also some favorite illustrators of mine.
I also love the early Italian Renaissance, especially Botticelli and Fra Filippo Lippi. I could go on for hours…but I don't want to overwhelm people.
Hope this was helpful!
Luciana
| Kate
Unregistered User
(4/10/01 9:09:56 am)
|
School
Luciana,
Please, go on for hours, you won't bore anyone. Those are all artists I love too. I'll post some thoughts later on other artists I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about, but for now must rush this off mid-class. Interesting that you went to RISD--my brother teaches a studio class there in architecture (I'm amazed by his talent--at such a young age, 32). RISD has always loomed large for me because while in junior high, I lived near Providence and we all knew that David Byrne was a student there, around when he formed Talking Heads. We'd go lurk around looking for him. In any case, I wonder if you still have your syllabus for the folk narrative class you took at RISD, or could describe the approach a bit? (How lucky to have worked with Moser there, as well.)
I teach at the Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon (in the liberal arts department of a the four-year BFA program).
In any case, I will turn this back to art/artists and inspiration soon enough--probably this evening. Good idea to start a new topic.
Kate
| Karen
Unregistered User
(4/10/01 1:42:28 pm)
|
offtrack
Sorry to jump in, but Luciana mentioned Lippi... There's a new book out by David Foster (an Australian novelist) called "The Land where Stories End: As narrated by the angel depicted in 'Madonna con Bambino e due angeli' by Filippo Lippi". It's very wonderful! This is the beginning of it:
You want to hear a story
But you've been watching telly
You watch a lot of telly
On telly every day
And when we turn the lights out
Your mind will soon be dreaming
And dreams are only stories
For those who've lost their way
Karen.
|
tlchang
Registered User
(4/10/01 8:38:01 pm)
|
Re: Artists and inspiration
Luciana,
I will listen to more of your art ramblings! :-)
How cool that you had Barry Moser. His woodcuts are my absolute favorite. I had Jim Christensen (fantasy illustrator) for a class in college- felt very lucky since he retired a few years later.
I listed a bunch of my favorite illustrators some topics back - many are the same as yours. For some possibly more obsure ones, I like Gerald McDermott for Native American tales, Leo and Diane Dillon for ANYTHING, Lisbeth Zwerger for more airy, spare illustrations (I think Terri has mentioned her as well), Charles Mikolaycak has done some very nice work ranging from Germanic tales to Greek myths to Christian-Judaic stories, Charles Santore has done several tales, Hilary Knight has some surprisingly terrific ones (not that surprising, I guess - he's always good - these are just a cut above his normal) and another of my VERY favorites is S. Saelig Gallagher (formerly known as S.M. Saelig) who illustrated "Moonhorse" and "The Selfish Giant" as well as some of the interiors to the TimeLife 'Enchanted World' series.
Also, I have to share - I just picked up this book at a used book store called "Fantasy: the Golden Age of Fantastic Illustration" by Brigid Peppin, published in 1975. It covers the time period between 1860 and 1920 and covers everyone from the well known (Aubrey Beardsley, Burne-Jones, Edmund Dulac, Authre Rackham) to ones I have seldom or never seen discussed. There's a good sampling of artwork done by the couple of dozen artists discussed - most of which is fairy-tale oriented. That was a satisfying shopping trip! :-)
Tara
(Kate-in-Portland. We're almost neighbors. I live just North East of Seattle.)
Edited by: tlchang at: 4/10/01
8:56:05 pm
|
cianalouise
Registered User
(4/12/01 6:33:17 am)
|
Re: Artists and inspiration
Karen -
Thank you for telling me about that book! That particular painting is one of my very favorites and I must have spent at least 10 minutes staring at it when I visited the Uffizi last summer. I was enraptured…
Tara -
I will rattle off more artists and illustrators…perhaps they will serve to inspire me more, as I have had a particularly frustrating week, both creatively and otherwise.
How wonderful that you had James Christiansen! I love his work too. Then there is Lisbeth Zwerger - she was the reason I started painting with watercolors, though I stopped when I realized I wasn't any good in that medium…
Her paintings are spare and uncluttered, but never boring, never lifeless; they are like a dream.
Brian Froud and Alan Lee made a huge impact on me when I discovered "Faeries" at the library and constantly ran up overdue fines. I also love Mercer Mayer's fairy tales that he illustrated in the 1970's - I still love his "Beauty and the Beast" and his unusual Celtic-themed "Sleeping Beauty". K. Y. Craft's "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" is another favorite.
There are places, too, that inspire me…just being in Italy really infused me with the simplest, strongest desire to paint and draw. The colors are different there - the light and the water and sky…I look at the Renaissance artists and I recognize the tree and hills and rivers…I see what they saw. Gosh, I hope that doesn't sound too pompous.
Anyway…that enough for now…
Luciana
|
tlchang
Registered User
(4/12/01 8:05:17 am)
|
Re: Artists and inspiration
Luciana,
Sounds like we have the same picture book library. :-)
I have all the books you mentioned with the exception of Mercer Mayer's 'Sleeping Beauty' - which I fell in love with since college and have never been able to find a copy since! I am now re-inspired to see if I can track down a copy.....
I also like the children's stuff done by the Howard Pyle school of illustrators (from Pyle himself, to N.C. Wyeth, Maxfield Parrish, Jesse Wilcox Smith, Rose O'Neill and that whole gang). I recently purchased "The Red Rose Girls" (on Terri's recommendation) which I am enjoying very much. There isn't enough widespread information and access to the work of O'Neill, Violet Oakley and Elizabeth Shippen Green. I used to live near Brandywine Valley, where Howard Pyle had his school - and frequented the museum there. Even they had very little on the women of that school... Hmmph!
Tara
| Midori
Unregistered User
(4/13/01 3:50:52 am)
|
favorites
I wanted to add David Small's name to this illustrious list of modern illustrators. I love his work, very funny and charming and similar to Rackham in many ways. Have you seen his wonderful "Paper John"? or "Imogene's Antler's".
Luciana--I know exactly what you mean about the Italian renaissance artists. Terri and I sat in the Bottecelli room of the Uffizi stunned for a long time (then went out and beneath the shadow of the David had some wine and wrote postcards "thinking of you" to all the men we knew.) Terri also dragged me (willingly!) to Arezzo to see the collection of Fra Lippi's. And you are so right about that lovely reflected light in Italy that makes it impossible to know whether it is early morning or late afternoon.
|
Terri
Registered User
(4/13/01 7:31:01 am)
|
Re: favorites
Lizbeth Zwerger, Alan Lee, the Frouds, Gennardy Spirin, Trina Schart Hyman, the Dillons, and Mercer Mayer are at the top of my list of modern book artists. I think Lizbeth Zwerger is just amazing -- her sense of space, design, and line. I'm completely in awe. I like Kinuko (K.Y.) Kraft's work too, though I find I like the single imagery of her adult book covers even more than her illustrated tales, for some reason -- particularly the lucious covers she's been doing for Patricia McKillip's books. David Christiana, Dennis Nolan and Lauren Mills have done some lovely books too.
Studying under Barry Moser must have been incredible. I had only a few art courses back in college, being mostly a lit. major -- and those were in an art dept. where Jasper Johns was god, representational art beneath contempt, and illustration even lower than that (with the exception of one very cool teacher/advisor/friend who actually read comic books). Most of what I know about painting came later from Tom Canty, hanging out in his studio, and from other book artists who were working in Boston in the '80s, like Bob Gould, Rick & Sheila Berry, and Phil Hale. There's a lot to be learned just from being *around* art, art tools, artists. I still find art studios the most romantic places on earth, and just smelling the turps and oils makes me happy. I wish I had a time machine and could go back to Paris at the turn of the century, or to one of the other places and times where artists congregated. But then, I'd probably need a gender change too -- otherwise I'd end up being the model, or the long-suffering wife, or just another in the long line of "lady artists" who worked so hard and were considered faintly ridiculous and then forgotten.
Midori, thanks for that vivid whiff of Italy. I wish we were back there today, drinking wine and enjoying the spring sunshine. I miss it.
Edited by: Terri at: 4/13/01
7:59:00 am
| janeyolen
Unregistered User
(4/15/01 7:00:00 pm)
|
Artists and inspiration
Barry Moser is a neighbor of mine and a friend, and wandering around his house is like a course in art and illustration. Ditto Denis Nolan and Lauren Mills' house. I live in an incredibly rich area, which includes (among many others) Barry, the Nolan/Mills, Ruth Sanderson, Jane Dyer, Mordicai Gerstein, Eric Carle, Gary Lippincott etc. It is both astonishing and humbling to be in such company. Especially when I cannot draw stick figures with any originality or regularity.
Jane
|
CoryEllen
Registered User
(4/16/01 8:45:32 am)
|
Re: favorites
Terri said: "But then, I'd probably need a gender change too -- otherwise I'd end up being the model,"
I'm an art model, and there's something rather wonderful about being
the crude source from which magnificent things are created. I love
to wander around the room during breaks and look at what everyone
makes of me - literally. It has changed my perspective on art, as
well; when I see a life drawing/painting/sculpture, my first instinct
is to analyze the pose and determine exactly how painful it was
to hold. And when I see work by an artist I truly admire, I wistfully
imagine modelling for them
If any of you are ever looking for a model and are in the New York City area, let me know!
--Cory-Ellen
| janeyolen
Unregistered User
(4/16/01 11:17:17 am)
|
Artists and inspiration
I, too, have modeled--not professionally but for some friends. I am the cook in Ruth Sanderson's Sleeping Beauty (my daughter is the orange fairy and my husband the king.) Trina Hyman insists my husband was the inspiration for her prince in Snow White, though he never posed for her. I am also the old lady on the road in Sanderson's 12 Dancing Princesses, and two different women in Sanderson's The Secret Garden. Mrs Sowerby and Dickon's mum. I am also Barry Moser's Red Queen/White Queen in his version of Alice.
I love it when I am tucked into an illustration.
Jane
| Kate
Unregistered User
(4/16/01 11:34:50 am)
|
Goffstein?
Ah, you are all so lucky. I am just weighing with some comedy, which is that the only way I've ever made it into a book illustration is in RABBITS ON ROLLERSKATES. I got to be "Kate's Roller Rink." A run-down sign over a run-down building. Somehow felt fitting!
But I did want to ask the visual artists (and anyone else) if you are familiar with the work of Brooke (or M.B.) Goffstein--in a typically gross oversight of publishing, all of her works are out of print save one, GOLDIE THE DOLLMAKER. That is the mystical tale of a little girl living in the woods who makes dolls and has 'magical helpers' of sorts. Goffstein does lovely watercolors and ink drawings and has also done two books using clay figures. (Come to think of it my father appears in one of her books, THE PIANO TUNER in name only as well--the tuner shares his--and all that is said about it is something like "What a ridiculous name!"). If anyone has seen her work I'd love to know. She is an overlooked gem. (Not in the art world from what I gather, but commercially.)
Also wanted to know if anyone is familiar with the work of the surrealist Dorothea Tanning (she's obviously not a children's book illustrator, but a few of her images do have children/girls in them and have distinct, chilling fairy tale quality. One of her paintings, "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik," will be on the cover of my forthcoming book). She's fantastic.
Note to Jane Yolen: I posted a note (a welcome) in another string along with a question about my anthology . . . to which you'd been invited (but I have a strange, gross suspicion the invitation never crossed your desk?). I also, in that post, apologized to those on this board who were neglected--I was so new, so new, to this work at that time. So sorry. In any case, if you read this, I am glad to see you here.
| Janeyolen
Unregistered User
(4/16/01 1:53:28 pm)
|
Goffstein
I certainly knew Goffstein's work which was strangely wonderful. Or wonderfully strange. Not surprised that it is all out of print (or almost all) because it was never super popular. And with the changes in publishing--which is not strange, just awful--books are not allowed to have quiet underground followings any more. They have to be wildly successful or they go almost immediately out of print.
And what anthology? If you want to just send me personal email, that is fine: janeyolen@aol.com
Jane
|
tlchang
Registered User
(4/17/01 12:00:20 am)
|
Re: Artists and inspiration
Golly, I want to live in Jane Yolen's neighborhood! What terrific neighbors!
I just looked 'you' up in my versions of "Sleeping Beauty" and "12 Princesses.." How fun!
From my limited correspondance and understanding of how Trina Hyman works - she rarely uses 'models'. She draws on people she stores in her head. I hope to one day get to that point...
Does anyone else live by children's (or other genre) illustrators?
Tara
|
Gregor9
Registered User
(4/17/01 7:03:11 am)
|
Envy, envy
Jane,
I never knew you were Moser's model for the Queen. Now I have to pull out those two volumes and look at her very carefully. Sheesh.
I live a block from Jason Van Hollander, who won the World Fantasy Award last year for his illustration, and he's hauled me over on two occasions to pose. Inevitably it seems, I get turned into less than savory things in his work.
Didn't you always wonder where the monsters came from? They live next door...
Greg
|
Terri
Registered User
(4/17/01 7:35:21 am)
|
artistic neighbors
Well, during the winter half of the year that I live in Tucson, I'm in the same town as children's book illustrator David Christiana, although I haven't seen him in so long that I don't even know if he's still here. (Jane, is he still here?) His work is delightful. During the rest of the year, I live down the street from Alan Lee, Brian Froud, and Wendy Froud, who have all illustrated children's books at one time or another. I posed for Brian once (as the faery on the cover of Patricia McKillip's "Something Rich and Strange"), but as far as I know that's the only time I've ever been in an illustration, despite a life-time surrounded by artists. Alan Lee has put virtually everyone in our village *but* me into his various illustrations -- but then, I'm not exactly a tall, thin, willowy Alan-Lee-type woman. Tom Canty once drew me sleeping, curled up in blankets on the roof of his studio building back in Boston when we were both young sprouts, but knowing Tom it was the folds of drapery he was after, not me, and between cloth and hair there's only a curve of cheek to actually identify it as me. It was never used for any kind of publication -- just a little sketch that I keep pinned to my office wall all these years later, and cherish for the good memories it evokes.
Kate, yes, I know Dorothea Tanning's work. It's very strange, wonderful, and quite perverse. I'm a big fan of women surrealist artists in general -- Leonora Carrington, Remedios Varo, etc. (One of the characters in my book The Wood Wife was kind of a composite of Varo, Carrington, and Tanning.) Are the galleys of your book being sent out yet???
|
CoryEllen
Registered User
(4/17/01 7:48:50 am)
|
Re: artistic neighbors
Aha, I forgot about the Tucson artists' community. If Sarah Lawrence doesn't pull me from the waitlist, I'll be moving there in a few weeks. Not just for the modelling opportunities, mind you, but because it all fits together nicely. And I can't stand New York City another year. I just can't. Oh! And there's a position open on the Tohono O'Odham Reservation in Sells for a Prevention Specialist to work in a *storytelling* program! Anyone know exactly how far out of Tucson that is?
When a story of mine was being considered as a picture book, the editor was saying David Christiana would be the perfect illustrator . . . then they asked me to turn it into a novel, and that was the end of that. It was a bit of a letdown.
Jane - Nancy Willard has only illustrated one of her books herself, yes? Do you know why she doesn't do that more often? Her creatures are so amazing, I don't know why she doesn't use them for photographic illustration.
Cory-Ellen
|
Terri
Registered User
(4/17/01 7:55:49 am)
|
Re: artistic neighbors
Cory-ellen:
It takes anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour to get to Sells. I have a friend who works in the one of the tribal goverment offices out there and makes the commute from down-town Tucson everyday. She says she enjoys the drive -- it goes through some lovely desert country -- but it's a long daily commute, for sure. Living in Sells itself would be fairly isolating though.
|
CoryEllen
Registered User
(4/17/01 8:02:46 am)
|
Re: artistic neighbors
I figured on commuting. But I've just got to apply - I mean, storytelling, social work, and anthropology (the program is promoted as being culturally oriented) - they couldn't have designed a better position for me.
Maybe your friend and I could carpool All right, end of tangent,
everybody, I promise.
C-E
|
cianalouise
Registered User
(4/17/01 9:44:32 am)
|
Re: Artists and inspiration
It must be so wonderful to live in a community so rich in artists and writers! Barry used to talk about the woods around his house and I could picture it in my head…tall branches populated with owls. And he spoke glowingly of you, Jane. I was so in awe that he had gotten to work with you…
Actually, I am quite in awe of everyone on this board - if I may say so without embarrassing anyone or sounding goofy - certainly reading your books has been as much an inspiration to me as my favorite illustrators and artists. Midori - I read your series of letters from your year in Italy a day after I myself returned from there and I felt homesick for the place. It was a wonderful chance to peek into your head. I had read "The Innamorati" just a week before going to Italy - you captured the Italians' love of food, sex, romance and adventure perfectly!
I drove back to Upstate NY this past weekend to visit my family and I was struck by how much the land I grew up in inspired me as well. Perhaps my recent bout of creative block stemmed from my move to New Jersey? Bruce Coville lives up there and does a wonderful Halloween program for children every year. I have never met him, alas. I did interview Norma Fox Mazer once when I was in high school for a book project and that was truly wonderful. She spoke of how writing takes time, stories gestate for years, how you have to keep going even if you feel like you don't know what you're doing.
I have to keep reminding myself of that.
| janeyolen
Unregistered User
(4/17/01 10:38:50 am)
|
Artists and inspiration
I have often told Barry Moser I should kill him for what he did to me as the Red/White Queen. But I keep a signed etching of the two on my walls, so I can't hate them too much! <g>
Terri--as far as I know, David Christiana is still in Tucson, but we have lost touch, too.
Jane Dyer says that my husband and I were the models in her head for the last picture in CHILD OF FAERIE, and I can be found among a great many other local artists in Jane's illos for THE PATCHWORK LADY.
I am always in awe of artists. There is magic in what they do. If I had a wish, it would be to be able to paint. Barry once told me he could teach me to draw. And I said, "Could you teach me to draw like Barry Moser?" "No," he said seriously (though there was a twinkle in his eye--there is ALWAYS a twinkle in Barry's eye) "I can teach you to draw like Jane Yolen." Well, THAT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
So I have never drawn anything. My loss, though not the world's.
Re Nancy Willard's weird and wonderful photographs and creatures--they are just a little too far out for children's books is the editorial judgement.
Jane
| |
