Congratulations to Matteo Bologna, the winner of the Piggie Portrait Gallery Contest! He got all 16 answers correct and wins this great poster, signed and personalized by Mo Willems. Well done, Matteo!
Ready to see the answers?
1. Alexander Calder
2. Charles Schulz
3. Henri Matisse
4. Robert Motherwell
5. René Magritte
6. Andy Warhol
7. Joan Miró
8. Pablo Picasso
9. Andy Warhol (again!)
10. Mark Rothko
11. Amedeo Modigliani
12. African Masks
13. Vincent Van Gogh
14. Frank Stella
15. Piet Mondrian
16. Henry Moore
How did you do? It seemed a number of you were stumped by #4 (a lot of guesses for Franz Kline) and #14 (popular guesses were Wassily Kandinsky and Josef Alpers). Of 70 entries, Matteo was the only one to get all 16 answers correct. 26 of you were sooo close though, with only one wrong answer!
To learn more about why Mo Willems chose each of these artists head over to his blog and get the inside scoop. Thanks to all the entrants in the contest. We have quite the art-savvy crowd!
Even if you didn’t win, you can still take home an autographed poster. They are for sale in our shop and online here, both signed and unsigned by Mo Willems. And for fans of Mo Willems, save the date of June 22nd, 2013. That’s when our exhibition of Mo Willems artwork: Seriously Silly: A Decade of Art & Whimsy by Mo Willems open to the public. You won’t want to miss it!
We’re so excited to welcome Lucy Cousins, creator of the bestselling Maisy books, to The Carle this Saturday. Guests on Saturday will have the opportunity to not only meet Lucy and Maisy the Mouse, but also see Lucy at work in our Art Studio. This video gives a taste of how Lucy Cousins creates Maisy, with simple bold outlines and lots of color! I loved listening to Lucy talk about Maisy like a dear friend. “She’s a good mouse.”
One of the things that I love so much about Maisy is that she’s a girl mouse, who doesn’t wear dresses all of the time or talk about princesses and the color pink. Instead Maisy is active, curious and kicks around in overalls, driving trucks and trains. Looking at the amazing number of Maisy books and the adventures she has, one of the most important lessons I learned from Maisy is that you can do anything. You can be into gardening, swimming, cooking, or dressing up. You can be a doctor or teacher or chef or explorer. Even a pirate if you want to! Maisy is a leader, a learner and a do-er and I think that makes her a great role model for all young readers of all genders.
Maisy™ is coming to The Carle Museum and she’s bringing a special friend!
Join us at The Carle this Saturday, September 15th, as we celebrate Maisy and her creator, Lucy Cousins. Meet both Artist and Mouse in a day filled with activities and fun including storytimes, art activities and the opportunity to assist Lucy Cousins in creating a “Maisy wall frieze” in our Art Studio. Take a picture with your favorite mouse, have a book signed by Lucy Cousins, see original Maisy artwork in our gallery and take home a gift from Maisy as a way to remember this special day.
Photo by Candlewick Press
Here’s the plan for the day:
10:15 – 10:30 Meet Maisy the Mouse
10:30 – 10:50 Special Maisy storytime in the Reading Library with Carle staff
11:00 – 12:00 Lucy Cousins in the Art Studio
1:00 – 1:20 Special Maisy storytime in the Reading Library with Carle staff
1:20 – 1:30 Meet Maisy the Mouse
1:30 – 3:30 Lucy Cousins book signing
Can’t make it to The Carle? We don’t want you to miss out on a signed book! Order your favorite Lucy Cousins books and we’ll ship them to you, autographed, after the event. Click here to shop online or call us at 413-658-1132.
Support for Our British Cousins: The Magical Art of Maisy & Friends has been generously provided by Candlewick Press.
We were so lucky to have Kadir Nelson join us at The Carle for the opening reception of our newest exhibition, We Are The Ship, this weekend. On Saturdday night, Nelson led a wonderfully moving presentation about his seven year journey toward publishing this amazing book. He showed us images of his first three paintings of the American Negro League players, done while still a student at the Pratt Institute, which were the initial inspiration for creating the book. It was so wonderful to see these early illustrations, quite different from the final illustrations in the book, where the figures were more like exaggerated caricatures. Players with extremely long arms, huge hands and windmill-like arms reveal Kadir Nelson’s awe of these players’ immense superhuman-like baseball skills.
After he got a contract with his editor, Andrea Pinkney, to not only illustrated bu also write the book, Nelson immersed himself in years of extensive research. It was amazing to hear him talk about old black-and-white baseball photographs and see through his, an artist’s, eyes. He put them up on the projected screen and pointed out the precise body language of the players, the advertisements on the walls in the background. Artful diagonals and unusual horizons were captured at these unique angles because, at this time, photographs were allowed on the ballfield with the players. “That’s what I wanted my book to be,” Nelson said.
We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, Original Paintings by Kadir Nelson Tour Management by Smith Kramer Fine Art Services, Kansas City, Missouri
Inspired by these photographs and using his own unique talents, Nelson created paintings that look like exaggerated color versions of these old photographs. Readers feel like they are looking up in awe at these giants of ballplayers in stunning still portraits, and feel like they are right on the field in breathtaking action shots. This awe of the ballplayers is echoed in Nelson’s voice as he gushes about meeting actual Negro League players Buck O’Neil and Walt McCoy. After doing so much research through books, photographs and newspapers, for Nelson, meeting these historical heroes was “like meeting Abraham Lincoln after writing a book report on him.” He shared photographs of them together and sound recordings of their conversations with the audience. Through these personal interactions, Nelson was finally able to tackle writing his first book text. He admits that the prospect of writing the book, as well as illustrating it, left him “pleased but also petrified” because he didn’t feel like “a writer.” Inspired by a quote from Nikki Giovanni, “There is no such thing as writer’s block, there’s just lack of information,” Nelson relied on his dedicated research and pure love of history and the game to help bring the text of the book together.Through the conversations with O’Neil and McCoy, he realized that he had to capture their voice and tell the story as if these players collectively are telling their story and speaking together to the reader.
He went on to talk about his more recent venture in writing and illustrating with his award-winning 2011 book, Heart and Soul. He explained that he wanted to tell the American story from the African American perspective, and like writing We Are The Ship with players like Buck O’Neil in mind, he wrote Heart and Soul through the voice of a 102-year-old narrator, whose life and family’s lives paralleled the story of America. In this way, Nelson explains, all of our lives and our family’s lives are the American story and America’s history is the story of how they all intertwine. He spoke about his passion for taking stories that are not necessarily positive and turning them into something beautiful and palatable. The ability to create beauty and share the light inside of us is, Nelson says, human kind’s greatest gift.
Photo by Kristin Angel
Kadir Nelson, Jerry Pinkney, and Tony DiTerlizzi. Photo by Kristin Angel.
Following Saturday’s presentation, Nelson gave a wonderful personal tour of his gallery, followed by a book signing.
Photo by Kristin Angel.
Photo by Kristin Angel
For more about Kadir Nelson’s visit, including a wonderful tour and presentation he gave on Friday to students from the Maurice Donahue Elementary School in Holyoke as part of NEA grant programming, visit MassLive’s website.
There’s a wonderful video of the visit as well. If you missed the chance to meet Kadir Nelson, he’ll be back with us on Sunday, April 1st for an event with Sharon Robinson, daughter of ballplayer great Jackie Robinson, and Simon Scott. Hope to see you there!
Wow! Yet again we have a star-studded weekend packed full of presentations, performances, book signings and exhibits.
This Saturday marks the beginning of another year of wonderful performances by Picture Book Theatre in our Auditorium. Picture Book Theatre merges dance and puppetry to bring to life favorite picture books on the stage. This year’s performances are renditions of Eric Carle’s Rooster’s Off to See the World and Eric Carle’s Slowly, Slowly, Slowly said the Sloth. Tickets are $5 and performances are at 2:00 and 3:00 pm Saturday November 5th, Saturday November 12th, Saturday November 19th, Friday November 25th and Saturday November 26th.
Last week we opened our newest exhibition, Growing Every Which Way But Up: The Children’s Book Art of Jules Feiffer, which will be in our East Gallery until January 22, 2012. The exhibition includes delightful original sketches and finished artwork from favorite books such as Bark, George, I’m Not Bobby, I Lost My Bear, and The Daddy Mountain. There are also samples of his early works and cartoons, including a strip of Will Eisner’s The Spirit that Feiffer worked on during his teens. And of course, just in time for the 50th anniversary of The Phantom Tollbooth, the exhibition includes illustrations from the classic as well as his more recent collaboration with Norton Juster, The Odious Ogre. But, as Lavar Burton would say, “you don’t have to take my word for it.” Let Jules Feiffer tell you about exhibition himself!
Following the members-only reception Saturday night featuring a discussion with Jules Feiffer and guest curator, Leonard Marcus, Jules Feiffer will be back again on Sunday at 1:00 pm to give a personal tour of his exhibition, followed by a book signing. We have all of his books for sale in our Shop and even if you’re unable to make the actual event, as always, you can pre-order books from us to have autographed and shipped back to you after the event. Click here to buy books to be autographed by Jules Feiffer and here for books by Leonard Marcus, including brand-new and much-buzzed-about The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth.
But wait, there’s more! Also here at The Carle is Caldecott-winning illustrator Beth Krommes! For the next in our series of author and illustration BookTalk interviews, Andy Laties will be interviewing Beth Krommes in the Auditorium at 11:30 am (don’t forget Daylight Savings!), followed by a book signing outside the Shop. This event is free and does not include Museum admission. If you can’t make the interview, don’t worry, we’ll be filming it to put up on our blog later. Click here if you’d like to purchase books by Beth Krommes to have autographed and shipped to you.
Need more excitement? Also this Sunday, join Horn Book Magazine editors Roger Sutton and Martha V. Parravano in the Auditorium at 3:00 pm as they talk about their fabulous and essential resource book, A Family of Readers: The Book Lover’s Guide to Children’s and Young Adult’s Literature. They will be talking about how and why children read and give advice on how to select books to nourish your own “family of readers.” Click here to pre-order an autographed copy (or three!) of their book. This book is going to make an excellent holiday gift for families and book lovers.
After an event-packed day at The Carle, head on down the road to Northampton, MA where everyone who’s anyone in children’s books will be at the R. Michelson Galleries for their 22nd Annual Children’s Illustration Exhibit Reception. We’ll be there selling books that you can get autographed by the many wonderful authors and illustrations in attendance. Need more convincing? Here’s 22 reasons why you should attend, including the dedication of the 4th Annual Norton Juster Award for Devotion to Literacy to Roger Sutton. Click here for fun photos from past shows.
What’s better than a June birthday? There are so many talented and creative people born in the month of June, such as Norton Juster, Eric Carle, Charlotte Zolotow and Chris Van Allsburg and *ahem* me, just to name a few. And today marks the birthday of another children’s book great, Maurice Sendak. It’s the perfect time to share with some of our more faraway fans a very special piece of our bookstore here at The Carle.
About two years ago, we were gifted this gorgeous full-size wooden display unit by Justin G. Schiller. It was originally made for the Metreon entertainment center in San Francisco, which at one time housed a Where the Wild Things Are playground, an In The Night Kitchen restaurant and a Sendak-themed gift store. We now use this two-sided case to display Maurice Sendak’s books and toys in our store. It makes quite an impact on customers when they walk in, especially the young kids who recognize the characters from Where the Wild Things Are right away. Sometimes it’s a little frightening (the bookcase is considerably larger than they are!) but most of the time, kids are drawn right to it, proudly pointing out “Max!” or “Wild Thing!” as if they’re introducing their parents to good friends.
Since Sendak’s exhibition was one of our very firsts at The Carle, and his Wild Things have the proud placement on our logo, we often get guests anticipating seeing original Sendak artwork every time they visit. While we’re happy to have galleries full of constantly rotating artwork, it’s also nice to have this piece of consistency in the store. You can always come and see a Wild Thing here.
We’ve been so lucky to host the exhibition “What a Circus: The Art of Etienne Delessert” these past few months. It has been such a wonderful time filled with amazing art, book signings and personal gallery tours, and even a chance to learn from the master himself. This past Friday Etienne Delessert led a Master art class in our Art Studio, explaining his own artistic process and allowing other artists a glimpse into his own painting techniques and secrets, while allowing them to practice under his guidance.
Here’s Etienne Delessert showing his array of many colored pencils. He uses a combination of watercolor and colored pencils in his distinct illustration style.
Etienne Delessert & Sandy Littell. Photo by Sandy Soderberg
And here’s a sneak peek at his watercolor paint palette. Definitely the sign of a very active artist!
Etienne Delessert's paints. Photo by Sandy Soderberg.
There’s still time to see the Delessert exhibition before it closes Sunday, June 5th! Click here for more information about the show, or here to browse our Shop’s collection of Delessert books and prints.
Wow. What a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! World renowned artist Etienne Delessert will be teaching a 3-hour Master Art Class here at The Carle this Friday, May 20th at 9:30 am. Learn from this self-taught artist who for more than 30 years has been translating his-and the world’s-ideas, passions, fantasies and nightmares into the visual language of books, magazine illustrations, posters, animated films, paintings and sculptures. He reaches both children and adults with his imaginary creatures and landscapes, juxtaposing the familiar with the fantastic to clarify this world and create new and lasting universes.
There are still a few spots available in the class. Tuition is $75 ($65 for Carle members). Recommended for experienced artists, ages 16 and up.
Etienne Delessert’s artwork will be on exhibit in our gallery until June 5th and the exhibition catalog and books will be available in our Shop even after the exhibition closes. Click here to browse our complete collection of Delessert books and prints. For more about Etienne Delessert, read this wonderful interview over at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, one of our favorite children’s book blogs.
Even if you can’t make this amazing class, you must NOT miss the chance to see this exhibit before it closes! Hope to see you soon!
In celebration of our wonderful new exhibition, Partners in Wonder: Selections from the Collection of Jane Yolen, we are welcoming author-extraordinaire Jane Yolen herself and a number of illustrators who have collaborated with Jane on many of her books to The Carle this Saturday.
As I’m sure you all know, Jane Yolen is the award-winning author of over 300 books and has written a wide variety of books for children and adults, including picture books, fairy and folk tales, fantasy novels, historical fiction and books on the craft of writing. We are so pleased to be able to host in our galleries select pieces of Jane Yolen’s personal collection featuring original artwork from Jane’s books by a myriad of popular children’s book illustrators.
This Saturday, January 15, at 1 pm join Jane Yolen and illustrators Jane Dyer, Barry Moser, Ruth Sanderson and Bruce Degen in our auditorium as they discuss the process of creating a picture book.
(l-r) Barry Moser, his book Sky Dogs with Jane Yolen (out of print! boo!) and his newest title, One Hundred Portraits.
(l-r) Jane Dyer, one of her pictures books with Jane Yolen, The Three Bears Holiday Rhyme Book, and one of her newest titles, One Smart Cookie by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, illustrated with her daughter, Brooke Dyer.
(l-r) Ruth Sanderson, her recent book with Jane Yolen, Hush Little Horsie, and my favorite edition of The Twelve Dancing Princesses (out of print! egads!) illustrated by Ruth Sanderson.
(l-r) Bruce Degen, his popular beginner reader series with Jane Yolen, Commander Toad, and his best-selling science series, The Magic School Bus, written by Joanna Cole.
Fans and aspiring picture book creators can hear first hand from both the author and illustrator side of the creation process of some of their favorite books.
A book signing will follow the presentation at 2:00 pm outside of our store and then Jane Yolen will give a personal tour of her exhibition in our gallery at 2:30 pm. I can’t wait! For those who can’t make it here in person, we’ll post a recap here next week and hopefully have lots of autographed books for sale! For more about Jane and her exhibition, read this terrific article in the Hampshire Gazette.
This Sunday, November 7th at 1:00 pm, meet local award-winning writer and storyteller Rich Michelson at The Carle. As well as being a poet and writer of children’s books, Rich is also the owner of the amazing R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, MA, which houses fine art of all kinds, including an extensive collection of original children’s book illustration. (When I get around to putting together my dream children’s book tour of New England, these galleries are going to be a must-see stop!)
Rich’s books for children are playful and lyrical, and often revolve around the close and heartwarming relationships children form with others in their lives, despite racial or cultural barriers. His books all have a great appreciation for history and, often, Jewish culture. In collaboration with our Monsters & Miracles exhibition, on Sunday Rich will discuss his own picture books as well as the history of Jewish children’s book illustration. A book signing will follow his presentation. If you can’t make the event, but would like to buy any of Rich’s books, place your order online by Saturday, November 6th and we will have him sign your books and then ship them to you after the event. Click here to see all of Rich’s books for sale in our store.
For more about Rich Michelson, check out this wonderful interview over at one of my favorite blogs, Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.
I also really enjoyed this video of Rich Michelson talking about Maurice Sendak, the man who “doesn’t write blurbs” writing a blurb for his book, Too Young for Yiddish as well as discussing Brundibar. Really interesting stuff!
After Rich’s presentation at The Carle on Sunday, please join us at R. Michelson Galleries from 4-6 pm in Northampton, MA to celebrate the gallery’s 21st Annual Children’s Illustration Show. We look forward to it every year and the Carle Bookstore will be there selling books by all the fabulous children’s book illustrators in show. It’s the perfect time to meet the artists and writers behind your favorite children’s books and maybe get a book signed. Don’t believe me? Check out this picture of last year’s star-studded attendance:
To see who’s who, check out the R. Michelson gallery website here.
