Today is the Spring Equinox! Let’s celebrate the coming of warmth and the promise of the growing season. Here are some spring-inspired closeups of my artwork, starting with a house and tree, which I guess is from the first grade. Skip 50 years, to a group of details from some nursery rhyme illustrations in Pocketful of Posies. If you have the book, you can look carefully and pick them out.
Last week, I had a wonderful visit to the Maine College of Art in Portland. Illustration faculty member, Jamie Hogan and I met at a conference last spring and she invited me to come and talk to a group of illustration majors. Our time at RISD in the 70′s overlapped a bit, but since we weren’t in the same classes, we never knew each other. My husband and I also fit in a short visit with our son Ian, who is a painting major at MECA. In preparation, I tried to remember what kind of things I would have appreciated hearing about at their age and changed my usual slide presentation, gearing it to a younger art student audience.
I started by showing the students my first book, made at age 8, and then progressed to projects I’m working on today. Sharing stories of failures as well as successes, I described my journey to find and express my own personal artistic vision. I encouraged them to discover their own unique way as well. I emphasized the value of an art education, no matter where it leads, and predicted that their time at school will benefit them in ways that they may not see until much later. The skills they are learning are basic to our human experience, because they are being challenged to look carefully at what they see, solve problems imaginatively, and to learn how to create something new. This is a special time, when students are surrounded by a supportive community that believes in the power of art. We’ve all heard the opinion that art is unnecessary and impractical in today’s harsh world, so I think spending time with other motivated artists is essential.
I told them about people I meet who are skilled technically, but lack the confidence to create original designs. Many are mature women who copy patterns and faithfully follow directions, always coloring inside the lines, so to speak. In a lot of ways, needlework traditions have been kept alive through this culture of imitation. For many, this is a comfortable and peaceful way to spend time. Others want to break out and do original work, but are struggling to find a way. Technique can be perfected through hours and hours of practice, but creating something new takes a sophisticated understanding of design, color and composition–the principles of which one can learn in art school. But, folk artists create strong, well designed artwork, so art training isn’t always necessary. Being original could have more to do with self-confidence and a willingness to experiment than education. Of course, it’s never too late to grow artistically, it’s just easier to learn the vocabulary when you’re young.
It was a pleasure to meet so many students who are serious about what they are working on. I love how funky and fragile they are at the same time. Their teacher, Jamie Hogan followed up with an e-mail, saying that “the Salley effect is rippling through the department!” She told about one senior who had an epiphany after my talk. She remembered that she really liked to do sculpture, but had gotten wrapped up in trying to paint realistically. Now she’s going to return to making 3D things, and somehow combining them with painting and air brushing, and she’s filled with a new enthusiasm. Thank you, Jamie, for passing this on. Hearing the students’ reactions makes it all worthwhile!
By the way, a spot has opened up in my Felt Banner Workshop on Oct. 27th. Intermediate to experienced stitchers are welcome to sign up. Check it out here.
The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
Salley, age 8
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
detail from "One Misty, Moisty Morning" in "Pocketful of Posies" 2010
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us – listen!
detail from "Little Jack Horner" in "Pocketful of Posies" 2010
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
detail of balsam pillow in "Felt Wee Folk" 2003
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
detail from "Little Jack Horner" in "Pocketful of Posies" 2010
This rabbit Playskool puzzle has been in our family since the 50′s. It’s lost several pieces over the years, but replacements are easily made with a jig saw. My mother kept this crayon drawing I did at about age 8, of Easter bunnies hauling eggs in wagons. Happy Easter!
I love baskets and have included all kinds in my artwork since the beginning, like this Easter basket crayon drawing from my childhood.
crayon drawing, age 7
The elephant mother in my first picture book, The Way Home (1991), needed a way to carry bananas, so I made tiny (1/2″) wire baskets, wound in embroidery floss. Read my story about the making of The Way Home here.
detail from "The Way Home" 1991
Here is Mary, from Mary Had a Little Lamb, holding a basket of clay strawberries. This basket is also made with thread wrapped wire, but a little bigger at 1 1/4″. Real stones are glued in the garden.
detail from "Mary Had a Little Lamb" 1995
This egg basket appears in Pocketful of Posies, in the illustration for the rhyme, Higgety, pickety, my black hen. It’s made by coiling and wrapping wire with embroidery floss. You can see glimpses of the green florist wire through the thread. I can’t for the life of me remember how I did the pattern on the top and bottom. The original is about 2 inches long and filled with 1/2 inch wooden eggs.
detail from "Pocketful of Posies" 2010
Also from Pocketful of Posies, Daffy Down Dilly’s 3/4″ basket is made the same way.
detail from "Pocketful of Posies" 2010
This detail from Jerry Hall is enlarged quite a bit, with the original basket being less than 1″.
detail from "Pocketful of Posies" 2010
I’m a hopeless homebody and have been putting cottages and other cozy shelters in my pictures forever. This first yellow house is from the back cover of the first edition of Mary Had a Little Lamb. The board book version shows a portion of the picture that doesn’t include the house.
This one from You and Me: Poems of Friendship has a ribbon porch roof decorated with tatting.
I used cloth-covered wire to make the gingerbread edging along the roof line in this cottage from The Hollyhock Wall. Looking more closely, there is a lot of cloth wrapped wire in this scene: tree branches, hollyhock stems wicker furniture and straw hats. The dolls are about 1 1/2″ tall.
This is the Russian grandfather’s house from Peter and the Wolf. See the whole illustration in an earlier story about the CD here.
This quintessential thatched cottage is from the rhyme, “One, two, three, four, Mary’s at the cottage door”, which is in my new book, Pocketful of Posies. Find out about the book and the traveling exhibit of original artwork here. Also, see the whole double page spread in another post here.
Note: See other posts in the Close-ups series archive here.
I smelled grapes this morning. Wild Concord grape vines strangle the trees along the bike path and their dark purple fruit is ripening. Women were picking low growing grapes and filling plastic bags. Here are some closeups of grapes in my artwork over an almost 50 year span.
crayon on lined paper, 1960 (age 5)
This pin was made by covering red beads with sheer lavender fabric. Read the story of my pins here.
pin, 1978
The grapes in this fabric relief piece were made the same way as the pin, but about 1/2 the size. I used real curly grape vines. See another detail from “Vineyard Family” here.
detail from "Vineyard Family" 1985
Here’s one from my kitchen faux tiles, which you can see here.
faux tile, 1991
Here’s a scene from Mary Had a Little Lamb, when the lamb was following Mary to school. See other closeups from the book here.
detail from "Mary Had a Little Lamb" 1995
And this is a felt pin from my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk: Enchanting Projects.
felt pin from "Felt Wee Folk" 2003
Before summer passes us by, I’ve gathered a group of trees from my artwork to show. The first one is a crayon drawing on lined paper from 1963, when I was 8 years old.
crayon on lined paper, 1963, age 8
Jumping ahead 20 years, this tree is from an early fabric relief picture called “Jumping Girl”. My obsession with embroidering leaves was underway!
detail from "Jumping Girl" 1985
This is from my first children’s book, The Way Home, published in 1991. I’d started making branches with thread wrapped wire. Read the story of the making of the book here.
detail from "The Way Home" 1991
Here’s a faux tile I made for my kitchen in 1990. See the other tiles in an earlier post here.
Faux Tile, 1990
About 10 years ago, I started using more felt and appliqued this tree trunk to the dyed cotton velveteen sky in my book, The Hollyhock Wall.
detail from "The Hollyhock Wall " 1999
Now, I’m using felt almost exclusively. The next 2 details of trees are from my new book, Pocketful of Posies: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes.
detail from "Pocketful of Posies" 2010
I incorporated many found objects in the new book and here’s a glimpse of driftwood and bark buildings, with a tree between.
detail from "Pocketful of Posies" 2010
“Sit quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself.” Zen saying
With spring comes hope and eggs and rabbits. This series begins with a childhood drawing of a rabbit hauling an Easter egg in a wagon. Then there’s a wool tweed rabbit from a 1986 piece called “Picking Peas” (see on earlier post) and a painted faux tile that’s in my kitchen. See all the faux tiles in another post here. A rabbit tucked in bed from my book, In the Heart, comes next. Two projects from Felt Wee Folk appear; a felt pin made with a rabbit button and an appliqued felt purse.
crayon drawing by Salley, age 6
detail from “Picking Peas” 1986
faux tile 1993
detail from “In the Heart” 2001
felt pin from “Felt Wee Folk” 2003
felt purse from “Felt Wee Folk” 2003
In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago.
by Christina Rossetti, English poet (1830 – 1894)
drawing by Salley. age 6
With snow falling and lingering in many parts of the country this winter, I’ve found some snow pictures to show you. First, here’s a crayon drawing saved from my childhood by my mother. Then we skip ahead to 1995, with a detail from the title page of the 32-page edition of Mary Had a Little Lamb. It’s the scene where Mary, her brother and her father are trudging through the snow to visit the lamb in the barn.
detail from "Mary Had a Little Lamb" 1995
The next scene is from the illustration for the poem “Snow”, which is in the poetry anthology, You and Me: Poems of Friendship. The snowman is made of felt, painted with an acrylic based bumpy liquid medium. In the background is an old linen tablecloth.
detail from "You and Me: Poems of Friendship" 1997
Here are some wee folk dolls that were brought out to play in the snow.
Wee Folk in the Snow 2002
This snowflake covered bed spread is part of an illustration from Pocketful of Posies: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes. The bed frame is made from some hollow dried plant parts, maybe thorns, with the sharp points cut off. I bought them a long time ago in a bead store. The original illustrations will be shown in a traveling exhibit when the book is released next September. Find out about it here.
detail from "Pocketful of Posies" 2010
Note: See other posts in the Close-ups series archive here.
