Felt Wee Folk around the kitchen table

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fairies from "Felt Wee Folk"

fairies from “Felt Wee Folk”

Sometimes I look at my blog statistics to find out how people find me. Quite frequently searches like “pipe cleaner dolls”or “wee felt people” bring them here. This week’s wordy favorite was “how to wrap embroidery floss around pipe cleaners for fairies”.

Last week, I received the most wonderful e-mail message from Michele in Nebraska, who wrote, “I didn’t do anything else yesterday evening except enjoy every single thing on your blog.” She went on describe how she and her family have enjoyed the doll projects in Felt Wee Folk.

“I purchased your book when my daughter was 15 (she is now 20 and a new mother). She had a close friend spend the night once that year and I brought my new book, along with lots of felt, threads, combed wool (I spin) and all manner of goodies, into the kitchen with the two girls and announced we were going to make tiny dolls. You should have seen their teenage faces! At first hesitant and then fascinated and completely absorbed, those two girls insisted on staying up till 2:30 in the morning so their little people could be finished! We talked about everything and laughed and laughed and when we were done, we sat and looked at our little people with the greatest satisfaction and joy. Just recently, my daughter’s same good friend came to our house to visit and told me that night spent here was the most fun she has ever had and that she felt so much love in our home. She has her little Wee Folk doll still and wants to make more with her children when she has them.

I just thought you might like to hear that your art has the most profound effect on others in such a positive and loving way. Thank you for your years of sharing. Thank you for leaving your examples of doll art on your website as inspiration for those of us who cannot get enough of them. I am sure you will be blessed in all your new endeavors.

And finally thank you for being true to yourself, for in doing that, what you have created is truly magical.”

Stories like Michele’s make me feel that sharing my fantasy/play world is truly worth it. It warms my heart to think of kitchen tables around the world scattered with silk flower petals, pipe cleaners and acorn caps. I can imagine faces of all ages and colors bowed in concentration and busy hands engrossed in making wee dolls. It’s been almost 9 years since Felt Wee Folk was released by C&T Publishing. Since 2003, the book has been reprinted many times, selling over 50,000 copies, which is way more than any of my children’s books.

introducing Phoebe Wahl

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One Monday afternoon in October, I had the pleasure of meeting Phoebe Wahl, who is a junior illustration student at RISD. She’s taking a class with my friend and former teacher Judy Sue Goodwin-Sturges this semester, so Phoebe must have learned about my artwork from her. She sent me an e-mail with a link to her website and I was so charmed by her paintings and cloth characters that I invited her to visit my studio. It’s a manageable distance, so she took the bus from Providence to my home on Cape Cod. She gave me this gnome doll, which she had made the night before.

I love how she works quickly, so her dolls are fresh, not fussy. She draws beautifully, too and she showed me her sketch book.

Look at this juxtaposition of pages!

After talking with Phoebe for a bit, I spontaneously called my neighbor, illustrator Molly Bang and asked if we could walk over for a short visit. Phoebe remembers seeing Molly’s book, The Paper Crane when she was young, so it was nice to connect the two. Molly enjoyed meeting her and looking at her work, too.

I recently saw on Phoebe’s blog that she’s made an animated film called CIRCUS. In a few weeks, she made a whole cast of animals and performers, then made the film all by herself in one weekend! The character’s movements could be smoother, but this animation shows such potential!  She describes the film as an experiment and she plans on learning more about stop motion animation this winter. I’m so impressed by her diligence and artistic drive. She is really taking advantage of her time in school to try different ways of bringing her artwork to life. CIRCUS can be seen on vimeo here.

Phoebe describes the project in her own words:

“I made ‘CIRCUS’ for Judy Sue Goodwin-Sturges’ Artist Book class. The assignment was to make a large book, using no paper, and we had another assignment where the theme was ‘circus’ or ‘carnival’. I was stuck trying to think of ideas for traditional artist books and decided to combine both assignments. My visit to your studio definitely inspired me to start incorporating the handmade dolls and animals I have always loved to make into more of my schoolwork. Working hands-on sewing my characters into life is what feels right a lot of the time, although I will always love to make more traditional on-paper illustrations as well. I loved seeing your work from when you were my age at RISD, how even then you were making things that spoke in your voice, and your characters were so wonderful and created with so much love. I was inspired to take my little dolls and animals further even if it meant stretching the boundaries of assignments, since the process of making them is so important to me.
 
Originally I didn’t make the animals to be animated, (maybe somewhere in the back of my mind…) but after I brought the basket of elephants and lions and tigers into class, my professor Judy Sue decided to send me on a different route than the rest of the class, realizing how excited I was about what I was doing, and that I needed to take it further. It took me about two weeks to make all of the animals and dolls, and I made the animation in one sitting the next weekend. I did it completely on my own, locked in our spare room surrounded by desk lamps and animals with my camera taped to a box on a stool instead of a tripod…
 
A lot of my work is rooted in nostalgia. I feel like all the things I am drawing or painting or sewing, I am making for my childhood self. I think ‘CIRCUS’ is less about an actual circus, and more about a toy circus coming to life. That all the characters were touched and loved and imperfect is important to me. I find myself constantly illustrating places or people I want to be. I think ‘CIRCUS’ is an example of my constant quest to return to the magical places I inhabited as a child, where I didn’t even need a camera and a computer to make my toys and drawings come alive.
 
This Wintersession a friend in the animation department and I are doing an independent study, working on another animation. I’m excited to learn the real techniques of stop-motion animation and puppet making, since ‘CIRCUS’ was a bit of an experiment. Hopefully the first of many adventures in animation!”
 
Phoebe’s circus characters remind me of Alexander Calder’s famous miniature circus (shown below).
 
 

Phoebe sent a thank you note in this envelope. Be sure to look at her website to see her work. Thanks, Phoebe. I’m looking forward to seeing what you create next.

To keep up with new posts, subscribe to this blog (top right column on the home page). Your contact info will not be shared. If you’d like to see more frequent photos tracking the projects in my studio, please follow me on Facebook and/or Instagram.

book signing at NE Quilt Museum

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This Saturday, Dec. 10th, I’ll be signing books from 1:00 to 3:00pm at the New England Quilt Museum in Lowell, Massachusetts. This will be the last event of the year, professionally, that is. Some original illustrations from Pocketful of Posies will be displayed during my visit. The old woman who lived in a shoe will be there, as well as Peter the pumpkin eater.

I’ll also bring the orignal illustration I made for the Horn Book Magazine. To see a preview of the Jan/Feb magazine cover, go here. I hope to meet some of you at the Quilt Museum this Saturday! 

last Saturday’s RISD Sale

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We had a good day on Saturday at the RISD Holiday Sale. It’s been five years since I had a booth there, so it felt good to once again be among the 200 odd alumni who set up their wares. Since I don’t make kits or dolls to sell anymore, I brought books to sell. My husband, Rob was relieved that my setup was simpler than in the past. I used to make him haul twisty trees on heavy stands, but not this year. I hung up a large blowup of the cover of Pocketful of Posies, which my editor and the sales staff at Houghton Mifflin passed on to me. We were busy, which meant that I couldn’t take off and peruse the other isles. There’s always an eclectic selection of stuff at the RISD sales. Alumni from almost every department are represented; jewelry, furniture design, ceramics, printmaking, illustration, glass, textiles, industrial design, etc. Several people who follow this blog came by, including RISD illustration alumnus Ingrid Lavoie, who had her own booth with cut paper items. We talked about how a large percentage of illustration majors never work in publishing, but end up using a variety of art forms, and that their work usually has a storytelling element.

In my booth, I displayed some original illustrations from Pocketful of Posies, including There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.

Kate Menard came by to have her book signed. She told me that she’s bringing her parents to see my exhibit at UConn later this week. The show will be up through Dec. 16th.

Turkey (food)

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I’ve never seen so many pomegranates! On the streets of Istanbul, crates were full of ripe, red fruit, ready to be squeezed into juice.

The sweets were beautiful to look at.

I loved the patterns, colors and shapes created in the food displays.

In Bodrum, on the southwestern coast, we went to a market and shopped for food to take on our boat voyage. In anticipation of Turkey’s Republic Day, there were flags and pictures of the country’s first president, Ataturk everywhere. He was some handsome dude!

We stopped at a cove and met a family who were closing up their restaurant for the winter season. We watched the mother cook flat bread over an open fire, which she sold to us. What a treat!

RISD Holiday Art Sale

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I will be selling and signing books at booth #110 at the RISD Holiday Art Sale , this Saturday, December 3, from 10am – 5pm, at the Rhode Island Convention Center, Providence, RI 

 

Posters for the first 25 customers who buy a copy of Pocketful of Posies. Free notecard with every book purchase. Out-of-print books for sale: In the Heart, Mary Had a Little Lamb and Wee Willie Winkie. Original fabric relief illustrations on display. I hope to see you there!

Pansy, the last fairy

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For the past few months, I’ve been wrapping legs, sewing felt tunics and painting faces for a new Ltd. Edition fairy doll. During those months, I found it harder and harder to find the time to work on the 25 dolls and kept putting them aside. Even though I still like making them, I’d rather be working on other projects, so I made the decision that PANSY would be the last fairy design in this series. It’s true, I won’t be making any more dolls to sell. Last week, I sent an e-mail announcement to those who asked to be put on a mailing list and all 25 have already sold. It has been a joy to create the dolls and I thank all of you who have purchased other wee folk characters. Over the past 8 years, I’ve made 21 different designs and sewed 750 individual dolls. 

Since the age of 12, I’ve been making and selling things, often mass producing large quantities of the same item. My little factory began with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band playing on the record player and now I work to the sound of Rosanne Cash. It’s time for a change, but I wanted to make one more fairy before devoting 100% of my studio time to my fabric relief artwork. Here are some photos of PANSY in the making.

Turkey (the country, that is)

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We took over 1000 pictures on our recent trip to Turkey, so I’m busy editing them down to a manageable number. I’ll be showing selected photos during the next month or so. Today’s group shows a variety of places we visited during our 2 1/2 week trip and is a preview of what’s to come. And Happy Thanksgiving or turkey day, as we say here in America!

NE SCBWI Illustrator Day

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My husband Rob and I had lunch at the Red Arrow Diner in Manchester, NH this past Saturday. We were in town, just about to head around the corner to the New Hampshire Institute of Art where I was giving a speech for New England SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) Illustrator Day. We found out that the Red Arrow is rated one of the top 10 diners in America. On the wall, we saw lots of photos of our waitress Elaine, taken with Presidential candidates during Primary seasons of the past. So, we thought it would be fun to take her picture during our visit. Our rosy glow is from a red neon sign next to our booth. Off to the right of the picture, you can just see a photo of her with Al Gore.

We were so busy setting up our presentation and meeting people at the SCBWI event, that we forgot to take pictures. I enjoyed meeting book designer Carol Goldenberg, who I’ve heard about for years. Her talk showed all that goes into making a book from a designer’s point of view. I was so excited when she showed the evolution of the cover design for Beth Krommes’ The House in the Night. Beth and I were both printmaking students at Syracuse U., before I transferred to RISD and we’ve kept in touch since. All of her books are wonderful! I scanned my copy, which I bought when the book first came out, before it won the Caldecott and had gold stickers put on.

  

I talked about my development as an artist from childhood to the present. I spoke about the challenge of fitting into the illustration world when your artwork isn’t the usual watercolor paintings. I used Melissa Sweet’s new book, Balloons Over Broadway as an example of someone who is taking risks with her illustration, combining collage, sculpture and watercolor painting. In this book, she tells the story of Tony Sarg, the puppeteer behind Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.

She made toys and puppets to go along with the text and set up these delightful assemblages. Too fun!

I have a little break until the next event–RISD’s Holiday Sale, Rhode Island Convention Center, Saturday, Dec 3rd.

Connecticut Book Fair

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This past Saturday I gave a talk and signed books at the Connecticut Children’s Book Fair, which is held every year at the UConn campus in Storrs. It’s a big affair, with about 20 different authors and illustrators giving presentations. Just before my slide talk was about to start, I learned that the ordered cartons of my book, Pocketful of Posies, had not arrived. They had a few copies of Posies (from the UConn Coop), some Felt Wee Folk and Hey, Diddle, Diddle!, but that would be it. I was stunned for about 30 seconds and then decided that I wasn’t going to let this taint my weekend at the fair. People had come to see me and I would give my talk and spend time meeting them even if there wasn’t a stack of books to sign. I had brought posters, so I signed those instead of the Posies book. I met some really nice people and one woman told me that she drove 3 hours to come see my exhibit and hear my 10:15 am talk! And my husband Rob had a great time schmoozing with the other authors and illustrators and their spouses. Oh, see my new leather and carpet purse from Turkey on the table next to me.

The highlight of the evening banquet was seeing my former teacher, David Macaulay. He was one of the authors at the fair and I was hoping to have a chance to talk to him. It had been about a dozen years since we saw each other last, so we had a really nice chat, catching up and reminiscing about RISD days. I was surprised when he pointed to his lapel pin, which looked vaguely familiar. It was a stuffed cloth pyramid that I gave him when I was his student in about 1977!  His Pyramid book came out around that time. 

I had completely forgotten about making it. He knew I was going to be at the fair, so he wore it! I was so touched by his thoughtfulness. I spent the rest of the evening floating on air. Read about my pins here.

We saw the exhibit of my original illustrations from Pocketful of Posies on campus, at the Dodd Center.

Here’s the sign at the entrance to the gallery.

The space is perfect for small work, with lots of cases and good lighting. The curator, Terri Goldich did a great job fitting 39 illustrations into the gallery. There are some comfy chairs and a small TV at the back where you can sit and watch my Rabbitat film, too.