Jerry Hall, he is so small, from “Pocketful of Posies” 2010
Living Crafts blog is holding a giveaway for 2 of my books, Felt Wee Folk and Pocketful of Posies. The deadline to leave a comment is April 17th, 2011. Details are at the end of the interview, My Life My Craft: SALLEY MAVOR here.
Also, I’ve recently written a story for C&T Publishing’s blog about the symbiotic relationship between my how-to book and my children’s books here.
For the past 4 months, I’ve been working on Rabbitat, a large (24″ x 30″) fabric relief piece. It started as a simple driftwood house, then I added a rabbit topiary and over time it grew into a lush rabbit habitat. I’m not showing much yet, just peeks now and then, because I want to show it later, when it’s finished. Here are some detailed shots of some rabbit characters.
A team of local filmmakers are gathering material for a short 5 min. film (see film here) about my work and specifically this piece. You can see an earlier post about Rabbitat here.
We want to show a time-lapse of Rabbitat being put together, so filmmaker Daniel Cojanu locked the camera and tripod in place with duct tape. He took a series of photos, one for each bush, tree, rabbit, or felt background piece that I added, until it was all put together.
Here are some parts laid out and ready to be set in place for the time-lapse photo shoot. Now that we’re finished with that, I can sew everything to the stretched upholstery fabric background and Rabbitat will be complete!
We want music in the film, so I asked local musicians Jan, Tom and Lisa to play some traditional Irish and Scottish tunes. We chose bouncy, rabbit-like music for them to play. I’ve known Jan since childhood and she is incredibly talented on the recorder, pennywhistle and concertina.
Elise and Daniel recorded them in my studio and what a treat to hear them play! Making this film has been so much fun and I can’t wait to see what they put together. We’re planning on having the film ready to show this summer at the Woods Hole Public Library. They’ve been kind enough to organize a reception to celebrate my Golden Kite Award for Pocketful of Posies on July 10th, from 5 to 7pm. Original illustrations will be displayed during the event and I’ll give a short talk. I hope that some of you can come. I’ll also figure out a way for everyone to see the film online. Stay tuned!
Recently, my friend Holly Berry and I have been doing projects with an illustration class at the Rhode island School of Design taught by our former teacher, Judy Sue Goodwin-Sturges. Holly is a successful illustrator and printmaker who has a wonderful style (see her website here). She brought in a load of supplies for the students to mess around with. The whole point of our visits was to help bring back a sense of play to the student’s art making experience. I’ll show what I did with the class later in this post.
Illustrator Holly Berry
Holly introduced a way of decorating paper with a paste and paint mixture. The tables were set up with work stations like a Kindergarten class.
Holly provided all kinds of tools for making patterns, including rubber combs and textured rollers.
This is a fun way to loosen up and focus on color and textures without thinking too much about the finished product. The class will later use their decorated paper in a collage assignment.
This students really seemed to love the experience of getting messy with such basic materials.
On another day, I brought in baskets of materials for the class to construct a character. There were pipe cleaners, wooden beads, wool fleece, wool felt scraps, embroidery floss and acorn caps to work with.
I gave a short demonstration on forming a basic armature for a figure, like in my how-to book, Felt Wee Folk. I told them that I didn’t want them to follow instructions on making a doll just like mine, but to play around and come up with their own designs.
One student bent a pipe cleaner into an animal shape and started wrapping it with wool fleece.
She then devised a way to attach an acorn cap carrier to its back.
Holly and Judy Sue’s hair looked like the fleece we were working with.
After about an hour of quiet concentration, the class made some really creative and fun characters, including this bunny rabbit. For the students, I think these hands-on projects were a welcome diversion from critiques and a reminder of why they make art.
JUST POSTED! Read my interview at the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Blog here.
The shoes in this series of closeups are made of leather or felt, with a wooden one at the end. Mother and Child (1983) is from my transitional period, when I was moving from sculpture in the round to a bas relief format, which I later named fabric relief sculpture.
Mother and Child, 1983
In Jumping Girl (1985), I strove to bring a sense of movement to the figure. That’s a piece of Chinese embroidery sewn onto the bottom.
Jumping Girl, 1985
This shows off the girl’s shoes from my picture book “In the Heart” (2001). The leather came with the checked pattern stamped onto it and there was barely enough to make all of her shoes in the book.
detail from “In the Heart”, 2001
Jill’s felt shoes are about 3/4″ long.
detail from “Jack and Jill”, 2006
I made this shoe for the rhyme, One, Two, buckle my shoe in Pocketful of Posies. It’s modeled after those cute mary jane style chinese shoes. While I was working on it, I noticed that my watch band had the perfect sized buckle, so I took off my watch, cut off the buckle and added it to the illustration.
detail from “Pocketful of Posies” 2010
This wooden shoe sign is hanging over the cobbler’s shop in the picture for the rhyme, Cobbler, cobbler, mend my shoe, which is also in Pocketful of Posies. I used a jig saw to cut out the shoe and made the cobbler’s work apron from leather.
detail from “Pocketful of Posies” 2010
Penguin Classics has just released 3 titles with fabulous new book covers embroidered by illustrator and cartoonist Jillian Tamaki; The Secret Garden, Black Beauty and Emma. It’s exciting to see the artful combination of fine handwork , good design and excellent reproduction used in this way. An accomplished illustrator, who usually draws and paints , Jillian has transferred her artistic talent to needle and thread for this series of book covers. You can see Jillian’s post about the embroideries here.
30 years ago, a few years before I had babies of my own, I designed, sewed and sold CHIN UP BIBS. I found a box filled with left over seersucker bias strips, a stack of tags and one tuxedo bib–all that remains of my enterprise.
For a few years, I sewed hundreds of bibs of different styles, including tuxedos, shirt and tie, dress with pearls, clown, overalls, etc. They were backed with terry cloth and had liners cut out of shower curtains. A unifying feature was the bias edging, which I’ve since used for pot holders (see tutorial here).
In 1982, I asked the mothers of two Woods Hole babies to model the bibs for an advertisement. My art school friend, Carmine Fantasia took these wonderful B&W photographs of Ben and Hannah wearing the bibs.
I later stopped adding bead necklaces to the girl’s style bib, because of the potential choking hazard.
Ben and Hannah, who both turn 30 this year and are still friends, are delightful adults. Here’s a recent picture of Hannah at her sister’s wedding.
This is as close as Ben got to wearing a tie back in ’82.
And here he is, when he got all dressed up last month, in suit and tie, for the Woods Hole “mock” formal at the Capt. Kidd Restaurant.
The bibs were later in Better Homes and Gardens.
I also found some pattern pieces for the bibs in my file cabinet.
Thank you Ben and Hannah, for letting us dress you up and take your picture one morning in 1982!
My parents, Mary and Jim Mavor, were married 61 years ago on March 25, 1950. This plate was a wedding gift and it’s now hanging in my kitchen. An artist and engineer couple, they were married for 55 years before my mother passed away, with my father dying the next year. Please let me indulge in nostalgia, while I show some favorite pictures.
They were married in my mother’s home in Providence , RI. I love these pictures of my parents as a young handsome couple. When my sons saw these pictures, they said, “Grandma was a Babe!”
What a handful we must have been, three children in 4 years. I’m on my Daddy’s lap, being grabbed by my younger (by 13 months) brother.
This is one of the last photos of them together.
This couple lived on a shelf in the living room when I was a child. My parents probably bought them in Germany in the 50’s.
Their sturdy, carved wooden bodies are about 5 inches tall. I love the way the embroidery is painted on.
by Robert Louis Stevenson
The first image in this Closeups series about music is from an embroidered scene I made for an illustration class assignment in 1974. I’d forgotten how much fun it is to fill in with a chain stitch! The lute player’s hairdo appeared years before Princess Leia’s coiled braids in the 1977 Star Wars movie.
The harpist is a detail from a lithograph I made in art school at RISD in 1977. (see other lithographs here) I transferred a xerox copy of a harp image onto the limestone surface.
detail from lithograph 1977
This fiddler is Laura Ingalls Wilder’s father, who appears along with his family on a CD cover I made for “A Little Music on the Prairie” in 1994. And yes, I did cut out the wooden violin, with the help of a jig saw. The tuning pegs are seed beads. See another closeup from this illustration here.
from “A Little Music on the Prairie” CD cover, 1994
Here’s Little Tommy Tucker, who sang for his supper, from my book of nursery rhymes, Pocketful of Posies. Autographed copies are available from my Etsy Shop.
detail from “Pocketful of Posies” 2010
This is one of Old King Cole’s fiddlers three , whose felt fiddle is about an inch long.
detail from “Pocketful of Posies” 2010
And the cat and the fiddle play on.
detail from “Pocketful of Posies” 2010
Last week, 2 new venues contacted me about bringing the Pocketful of Posies Traveling Exhibit to their area. It didn’t take long to work out the details, so, I’m happy to announce that the Mahopac Public Library in Mahopac, New York and Cedarhurst Center for the Arts in Mt. Vernon, Illinois have been added to the schedule.
detail from "Pocketful of Posies" 2010
I’ll be giving a talk in Mahopac and we’re still working on a plan for my visit to Cedarhurst. In the next month, all of the illustrations, except for “Molly My Sister and I” (it’s touring with the Society of Illustrators Original Art Show), will be packed and shipped to Muscatine, Iowa for a couple of months. Check the schedule for the exhibit dates and when I’ll be there for a doll making workshop and gallery talk. I already know that some my blog followers will be there for the workshop!
As mentioned in earlier posts, I’m arranging exhibits of the original artwork from Pocketful of Posies through 2013. If a suitable location is within reasonable driving distance from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, I will consider delivering the artwork. Of course, a “reasonable distance” changes according to where and when. Otherwise, the hosting venue is responsible for shipping costs. Because of these limitations, I have not yet been able to find many organizations outside of New England with the funding for the transportation of my artwork. But, more and more people are finding out about the book and the show, so I’m hoping to send the show far and wide, so as many people as possible can see the originals! Please contact me at weefolk@cape.com if you would like more information.
SALLEY MAVOR 