Where The Wild Things Are

Chickabee 12 X 12 collage and mixed media on canvas for Take a Word and Collage Obsession

“I think it is unnatural to think that there is such a thing as a blue-sky, white-clouded happy childhood for anybody. Childhood is a very, very tricky business"
Maurice Sendak

One of my earliest dreams was to write and illustrate children's books, and the small paintings I've been working on for my new series remind me of how much "scope for the imagination," in the words of Anne or, to be more accurate,  L. M. Montgomery, children's stories provide.  Have a bad morning? Stand at the window and pretend that the raindrops parading down the street are a marching band.  Lonely? Imagine a kindred spirit who lives in the garden under a bush. Don't like the weather?  Dream up some sunshine and green clouds!

Maurice Sendak is one of my favorite illustrators and Jan Brett and Tasha Tudor and Jessie Wilcox Smith and John R. Neil.  I spent countless naptimes poring over the gorgeously illustrated books, like Swiss Family Robinson and Ozma of Oz and Tales From the Arabian Knights. And then, later at night, in the dark, I conjured up my own stories and characters in brilliant technicolor detail.

Three years ago my sister, Lee Ann, wrote a story for me to illustrate. I had just started painting, and I wanted to develop my skill and my own style, to try to do justice to Lee Ann's beautiful words. So,  I've been working on it, and I think I'm getting there.  In the words of my students, I'm feeling it or starting to anyway.  Meanwhile.... I can always dream.