Carnevale

It's Mardi Gras, and all over the world — Rio, Venice, Prague, Cologne and above all New Orleans — the festivities are under way. In these dreary late winter months, a reckless and jubilant celebration is just what is called for.  Bottom line, Spring is right around the corner—and not a moment too soon! Can I get an amen?!

Also:

• If you are into this kind of thing, you might think about making a mask for the occasion.  Mr. Spoqui (already mentioned here) is having another competition. Recycled masks, this time. You've got until  March 31st...

• Another competition, this time centered on clouds.  So playful and clever! (from Gerstenberg, the German publishing house...via Miss C.)

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Eyes on the prize

Things have been so busy these days! A lot of plans in the works right now and who knows what will happen?  Certainly not me.  I usually manage to get from point A to point B eventually.  But sometimes it's via points Q and N and even Y.  Or, as I like to call it, The Scenic Route™.

Speaking of which, here are a few little detours — very scenic, I promise you! — you can take today:

The Bologna Book Fair (which takes place a few short weeks from now) has announced the winners of this year's Ragazzi Awards.  The winning children's books are divided into the categories of  Fiction, Non-Fiction, New Horizons (for entries from countries further afield), and Opera Prima (for artists' first works — talk about hitting it out of the ball park the first time around!). Félicitations, everyone!

Mouse's Houses.  Just because. (More here, if you must).

Les Fables, at the Galerie Camera Obscura in Paris:  photos (dark and evocative) on the theme of fairy tales and fables, and the thin barrier between that world and ours. Includes images by the wonderful Sarah Moon! Thanks to lovely Hazel for passing along the invite...

And finally, today's thought for the day comes from Randall Munroe:

"Take wrong turns.  Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out... There are so many adventures that you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan.  To find them, look for tiny interesting choices.  And remember that you are always making up the future as you go."

See you at point B!

One more thing...

To finish off these past few posts on Montreuil, I want to give a special mention to my friend Constanze von Kitzing, who was my guest during the Salon... her first time here, but not her last!

Constanze is a children's book illustrator and author from Germany who has not only published several books with a variety of publishers in Europe, but has also been awarded, both at the Bologna Book Fair (where she was a selected illustrator in 2010) and at the CJ Picture Book festival of South Korea.

Here she is at a signing at Montreuil, for La Joie de Lire, the wonderful Swiss maison d'édition who have published many of her books, including her series on the little lion cub:  Cache-cache, C'est moi le meilleur, and Dormez-vous. (Inside images here, here and here ... do look!)

(She signed my copies too — yay!)

(Even Pomelo had his portrait done! Very happy he is with it, too...)

Her most recent picture book— Pingouin glacé (also published by La Joie de Lire)— came out just last month.  It's all about a little penguin who feels a bit chilly and goes off in search of warmth (in all its varieties) — sympathique and clever!

Thanks for everything,  Constanze.  See you soon — a presto!

Salon du Livre, Montreuil — pt. 3

(A still image from "O'Moro", by Eva Offredo and Christophe Calissoni)

In this most recent Salon, a few new features were introduced.  These innovations included the Librairie EUropa (featuring books, authors and illustrators from further afield in the European Union... Eastern Europe's contributions were especially wonderful!) and the AniMix.

The AniMix was a film festival within the Salon — a first in its 26-year history!  Around 35 films were screened: all animated, there were shorts, pilots and feature-length previews.  They all had in common some connection to children's books — either adaptations based on an existing children's book, or originals created by the illustrators themselves.  These included: Kitty Crowther ("Le Banc"), Anne Herbauts ("Jean perdu dans ses pensées"),  Albertine ("La génie de la boîte de raviolis"), Samuel Ribeyron ("Beau Voyage"),  Eva Offredo ("O'Moro"),  Jean-François Martin ("L'Inventeur") and Michèle Lemieux ("Nuit d'Orage").

For me, a few of the memorable and enjoyable films were these:

"O'Moro", by Eva Offredo and Christophe Calissoni

"Beau Voyage", by Samuel Ribeyron

"La Génie de la boîte de raviolis", by Albertine.

"Nuit d'Orage" (also known as Stormy Night), by Michèle Lemieux.  Superlative!

For the full list of films screened at the Salon, see here.

To view some of the films mentioned, here are links to video clips:

O'Moro

La Génie de la Boîte de Raviolis

Nuit d'orage

Enjoy!

Salon du Livre, Montreuil — pt. 2

With so many fantastic and inventive books on display at the Salon, it was hard to choose just a few to show you.  Here are some books — and the illustrators who created them— that stand out in my memory.  It was great to have a chance to meet and chat and peruse!!

L'Ange des Chaussures (Editions Notari, 2009) by Giovanni Zoboli, art by Joanna Concejo.  

Joanna Concejo's work is beautiful, with images in graphite and gouache that are poetic, delicate and startling.  She has illustrated books for many publishing houses all over Europe, such as Topipittori (Italy), Editions Notari (Switzerland), OQO (Spain), Rouergue (France).  I discovered her work a few years ago when I got Grand et Petit (published by Atelier du Poisson Soluble, 2008) — a book about two brothers, one tiny and the other gigantic, which is a great favourite of mine.

 

Her latest book is Les Cygnes Sauvages (aka The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen)— published in Italian by Topipittori and in French by Notari....

...looks intriguing!

Next up is Clotilde Perrin, whose work I have long admired....

 Le Colis Rouge (Rue du Monde, 2007) is a wordless book about a mysterious red parcel.

Educated at Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg, Clotilde Perrin works in a variety of mediums: color pencil, watercolour, gouache and even cut paper —check out the wonderful Patron et Employee (from Didier Jeunesse, 2009). 

And she must have been working around the clock in recent times — six of her books were published in 2010!!  They included: Pedro à 100 à l'heure(Mango); La Farandole des Mots (Nouvel Angle); Tout Autour de Moi (Rue du Monde), and J'ai mis du sable dans mon cartable (Sarbacane)... about a little boy nostalgic for his summers at the beach.

Lucille Placin was at Rue du Monde signing her new book, Le Petit Oulipo, an anthology of wordplay and poetry.

I like her fresh and playful imagery —

—it's no surprise that she's also gotten commissions from Djeco, the fabulous Parisian toymakers!

And at the stand of Bayard Presse, there was Hervé Tullet and Bridget Strevens.

In addition to illustrating children's books and magazines (for Albin Michel, Tourbillon and Bayard, among others), Bridget teaches at Parsons Paris Art School and is very active in SCBWI.

As for Hervé, his lively and interactive books (like Turlututu and Moi c'est Blop) many of which have been translated to English and released in the USA— got a lot of acclaim at the Bologna Book Fair in recent years.

Of course this looooooooooooooong blog post doesn't begin to scratch the surface.... these are only a few of the illustrators I managed to talk with. If you are interested in seeing some of the Salon's prize-winners, check their site!

Salon du Livre, Montreuil — pt. 1

Here, as promised—and only two months late!— is a whirlwind tour of the Salon du Livre at Montreuil, which I attended back in early December.

Entrance:  this image, which could be seen all over Paris in the run-up to the Salon, is by the lovely Charlotte Gastaut.

Here is an overview of the Salon, looking uncharacteristically calm and sedate. 

In reality, it is wall-to-wall people, including eleventy million roaring children, on school trips or family outings, or just hoping to meet their favourite author.  In this aspect, the salon at Montreuil differs from the one at Bologna, which (I'm told) is open only to professionals.

Founded 26 years ago, the Salon has grown in both size and reputation. 

This time, there were about 350 maisons d'éditions present. These publishing houses (large and small) are mainly French (or from francophone countries) — and spread out on three floors. 

As well as selling books, their stands also serve as meeting points for writers, illustrators, editors, art directors and publishers. Some of them are mini-gallery spaces, featuring originals, prints and posters from their illustrators, like the one above from the wonderful publishing house Rue du Monde. And—not least— there are signings and reading, where the authors and artists meet their adoring public face to face!  But more on that in a future post...

                    

If you're an illustrator, you're most likely at the salon to show your work.

There is the infamous Rencontres D.A. (above, left) which can be a bit of a mêlée: 20-25 art directors (in a small space) do their best to see as many hopeful artists as they can at something like 20-minute intervals.  This must be arranged (in writing) long in advance. The alternative is to take your chances and find an art director at the stand (above, right) who will sit down briefly to look at your portfolio and chat with you.

Of course there is more to the salon at Montreuil than publishers' stands.

From art exhibits to workshops and signings, and even a film festival, there's always something to catch your eye and engage your mind—but more on all that in a future post(s)!  All in all, the whole experience is inspiring, exhilarating...and exhausting.  When you come home with the huge pile of catalogues that you will have gathered, you can both prolong the experience and rest your feet! 

Resolutions

(from 1963)
The new year has started a bit slowly for me (on account of injury! hospital!! yipes!!!), and I feel I am just now catching up to the calendar. Is it too late to be thinking of resolutions for the year to come?  Well, if you too are mulling over your resolutions, good intentions and promises to yourself, you could do a lot worse than considering these rules, from Corita Kent:

Corita Kent, better known as Sister Corita, was an artist, an activist and a nun who was active — indeed, ubiquitous— in the 60's and 70's.  She grew up in Los Angeles and entered the Immaculate Heart convent when she was just 18. She continued her studies, learning printmaking and getting a Master's in Art History from USC.  Her vivid serigraphs combined strong colours, text (in handwriting or inventive typography, way ahead of her time), all combined in bold and startling compositions.

(from 1968, quote from Peter Beagle)

Corita was also —perhaps above all— a teacher, teaching art for 30 years at Immaculate Heart College.  She was, in fact, my teacher's teacher (Hi, Mrs. Slike!) and so I've always thought of her as my 'art grandmother'. Corita was often spoken of, and our art room was emblazoned with her prints—beautiful celebratory works in their incandescent colours.  They would have been affordable back then;  now they are included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts, the Library of Congress, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and countless others all around the world.

All these years later, reading excerpts from Learning by Heart (her book on teaching, published posthumously in 1992), I see that many of her ideas and methods were in turn used by my own teacher way back when. It all sounded so familiar, but always seemed fresh and new.

(from 1968, quote from Theodore Roethke)

She was a woman of contradictions, according to what I've heard and read— someone after my own heart!  Outspoken and candid and charismatic, but nonetheless cloistered, her circle of friends included Charles and Ray Eames,  Saul Bass, Ben Shahn,  Buckminster Fuller, Henry Miller and even Alfred Hitchcock—often they would drop in on her classroom or invite students to field trips.  A person who took vows of poverty and chastity, but famous for both her art and her politics (appearing on the Johnny Carson Show, the cover of Newsweek and in Time Magazine...) 

(from 1965, quote from Ugo Betti)

It would be impossible to do justice to the life and work of Corita in this puny little blog post.  But I urge you to read some of the links which I include below*, if you are interested to know more. And there is a recent book— Come Alive!:  The Spirited Art of Sister Corita, by Julie Ault —a serious and insightful monograph that examines her work in context.   And above all, to look through her collection of serigraphs and other art— it was hard to choose just a few to show!

Lastly:

(from 1970, her book, Damn Everything But the Circus—a silkscreened alphabet larded with quotes and poetry and artwork).  The full quote, from e. e. cummings, reads:

damn everything but the circus

damn everything that is grim, dull, motionless, unrisking, inward turning.

damn everything that won't get in the circle, that won't enjoy, that won't throw its heart into

the tension, surprise, fear and delight of the circus—

the round world, the full existence...

Good thoughts to start the year!!

*LINKS:

Eye Magazine (excellent article by her biographer), Design Observer, AIGA, Dear Ada, Drawn, Daddy Types, Under Consideration, L.A.Times (a book review), and  ArtNet.

and of course:

The Corita Art Center.

Click!  Then get to work....