My Wilderness takes a tour!

If you're in Seattle or around the Anchorage area, please stop by one of the venues listed below. I'd love to meet you!

Growing books

Crazy summer days... not my favorite studio time. I'm distracted by my garden and the in-and-out vacation schedules. But work continues to flow and deadlines get accomplished along with staking up iris and sowing sunflowers and seeing new places and connecting with family.

Sometimes, publishing timing gets a little crazy, too. I have one book I'm currently promoting (My Wilderness, An Alaska Adventure/ Sasquatch), one book at the printers (North Woods Girl/ by Aimée Bissonette, Minnesota Historic Society Press) but poised for fall release, and another book (Creekfinding/ by Jackie Briggs Martin, University of Minnesota) to work on. That's three book-kids that need different sorts of attention any given day!

North Woods Girl is pretty quiet right now. What's done is done, on my part.  I can't wait for people to see and read it. The subject is lovingly written and demonstrates the bonding power of nature, a continual theme through my own art work. I'm proud of this one.

Creekfinding is in the early stages of sketching. Such a heady time, as I try and express this fine story  of environmental restoration through my illustration. At sketch stage, I often feel lost and agitated, then suddenly seeing the light and having the pages start to feel cohesive. It is both exciting and frustrating, as most creative processes feel.

My Wilderness continues to journey forth. I'll be visiting the Seattle area and Alaska later this month and do some signings and readings. It's nice to see Rocky's story being appreciated.

And so, on this sunny June day, sometimes by combining my passions, by illustrating out on the screened-in porch (nearly in the garden!), with a quick breaks pulling weeds, everything gets done eventually!

Heavenly Picnic

Rochester Cemetery

One recent sunny May morning, 

at the Rochester Cemetery, Cedar County, Iowa, 

just me and three good friends, a variety of native prairie and

 oak savannah plants, 

a few very old Iowans, 

a picnic, a million gnats, bird call,

and Enchantment.

Earth to earth

Pushing up, well, you know...

wild geranium

A rare lovely

Find out this one's name!! Camo-moth...

My Elysium

To the picnic spot

Cemetery salad (a spinach, snap peas, avocado, red pepper, roasted pecan nut conglomeration),
Heavenly Olive Bread, Rhubarb pie, Prosecco...

Pie with Dairy Queen, eaten in the CRV to escape the bugs! (coffee too; it was cozy!)

Three friends- Jackie Martin, Me and Anne Ylvisaker

So long, good-bye

Happy Childrens' Book Week!

Often after programs, I’m asked about my favorite picture books. Oh, there are so many that stand out! Every year, I pick my own winners and bestow a personal Caldecott. The titles I grew up with I have loved the longest and have a special place on my book shelves.  In general, I am prone to love picture books that involve nature, and of these, books that show nature big and people smaller really win my heart. I also like underdog stories, a plot that involves a triumphant return. And Virginia Lee Burton’s “The Little House” hits this mark for me. Burton both wrote and illustrated “The Little House”, first published in 1942. It won the Caldecott that next year. “The Little House” continues to turn up on Top 100 Best Picture Books Ever list. I still look to it for inspiration.

As part of Children’s Book Week, here’s a few lines on “The Little House” and why I love it.

“The Little House” is about well, a happy little house, built with love on a beautiful spot in the country. She sees the seasons come and go in a happy rhythm of life. Time passes. Children grow up. Owners grow old. The countryside around her changes until the once distant city now engulfs the Little House. There she remains for a long while, unnoticed and unloved by the throngs of people that rush by. At last, she is recognized and rescued by a family member who moves her out to a new spot in the country. A happy ever after ending.

The things I love about this book? Certainly, as a conservationalist, the cautionary message of urban sprawl resonates. Since we moved to Iowa City 22 years ago, our city has grown and changed, and not all for the good. Not that growth is all bad, it’s just that the instigators need to keep mindful of not only what we gain with every new build, but what we loose. And we’ve lost of lot of natural habitat to new development. Native birds and animals are really pinched to find large enough areas to live and prosper. Iowans truly see our wildlife and lands as a special part of our region’s identity. We should consider this before another meadow is plowed under for condos. The Little House reminds us to cherish open space, to learn and grow in. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for every developer and builder in Johnson County (and beyond!) to keep a copy of “The Little House” on their bed-time nightstands.

I love the sense of the cycle of life in “The Little House”. Everything is circular. Beginnings lead to endings that lead to beginnings again. What is old can be new. A gentle sense of the impermanence of things also part of the Little House cycle. It reminds us that we come and go.

Burton does a brilliant job of using the four seasons as structure in her book. The seasons are human kind’s original organizer. Before we had iPhones and Blackberries to help us out, we looked to nature to say “Hey, it’s time to harvest our food, or gather wood, or plant the beans, or move” So simple and connected!

Lastly, Burton’s illustration style has always talked to me, as a visual artist and writer. I admire the strong sense graphic design in her work. The round, sturdy compositions include the words as part of the whole visual image. I also like how she personifies the Little House in a subtle, not an overly sweet and cartoony way. The Little House’s contented look comes from her upturned window eyes and her front porch smile. Her sadness comes from her broken out window eyes and her sagging porch. There is an easy lesson in empathy here. The Little House's gaze still warms me after all these years.

Spread the Word...

Keep Garlic Mustard from spreading!

Just a little public service announcement, illustrated of course. Garlic mustard is an invasive that's choking out a lot of native plants. It's flowering right now, so if you see a stand, pull the plants up by the roots and dispose of in your regular garbage.

Nature, Tabled

A fine article the loss of our natural connection to nature. I love the illustration.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/02/opinion/our-bleak-exile-of-nature.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=Moth-Visible&module=inside-nyt-region&region=inside-nyt-region&WT.nav=inside-nyt-region&_r=1

Post Haste

April is flying by and the world is slowly greening outside my studio doors. I long to take up my sketch pad and draw SPRING with abandon for a few days, but duties and deadlines call.

Meanwhile, here is a quick post to pass on a sweet review written by a little girl for the San Francisco Book Review about "My Wilderness".  Honest and lively and gets to a few cherished details I hoped kids would connect with. Thank you Liesel for the 5 stars!

There are these two people, a father and his son, but I don’t remember their names. They want to go to an island called Fox Island. It is in Alaska. No one else lives there. There is a storm coming, and then the son is afraid that they are going to tip in the blackness because they are in a boat. But, they get to the island safely. On the island they do a lot of things, like have snow baths outside, naked! That sounds pretty cold! The boy meets a lot of animals and the dad paints. He likes it there, but then he has to go back to his home. I like the pictures, especially the animals that the boy plays with. He sees porcupines, foxes, bald eagles, and even whales! My favorite picture is of the boy playing in the snow, but I like the father in the storm picture, too, because he doesn’t look the same. I like to think about living in Alaska with this boy because it looks like he has so much fun.

Reviewed by Liesel, Age 4