"Meet the Illustrators" Show at Hampstead Public Library

My artwork will be shown among nine other children's book illustrators at the Hampstead Public Library in Hampstead, NH through the months of July and August. My illustration medium is sculpted paper, and one piece from each of my illustrated books will be represented there.

On Saturday June 27 from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm, there will be an exhibition open house. The illustrators will be there to meet and chat, and sign books. A limited number of books will be available for purchase.

Displaying artists, besides myself, are Mary Newell DePalma (Nutcracker Doll,) Vicky Enright (It's a Beautiful Day,) Marty Kelley (Summer Stinks!), Barbara Johansen Newman (Tex and Sugar: A Big City Kitty Ditty), Ginger Nielson (The Adventures of Cali), Susan Paradis (Snow Princess), Ilene Richard (Let My People Go), Andy J. Smith (Stink Bug Saves the Day,) and Susan Spellman (Mabel Takes a Paddle).

More info, and directions at:http://www.hampstead.lib.nh.us/meet-the-illustrators.asp

Hope to see you all there! (Okay, I'll settle for one or two.)

New at the Gallery

We had a rotation recently at the gallery so my work has moved to a new location. As usual, I have original framed art, notecards, prints, and books available.

The Parrot is an image new to the gallery. It measures approximately 30" x 22" x 4".


These woven flower baskets are new too. So many people that enter the gallery are looking for something inexpensive to take home and these fit the bill. They measure about 4" and cost $15.95.

Some People Have Nothing Better to Do

Whilst googling myself the other day, I came across this post on the First Person Irregular blog, written John Ochwat. Now, John seems like an intelligent guy and he's entitle to his opinion but . . . he is clearly in need of more interesting pursuits in his life.

In his post, John opins about the evils of the author bio being longer than the text in children's books (yes, he counted them). He uses Good Morning, Garden, written by Barbara Brenner and illustrated by myself as an example. Ouch! He even shows the lovely cover (and thank you for that, if you're going to slam a book, you can at least have it look good and sell a few copies, right? But I digress.) He even complains that there are duplicate bios on the back page and on the jacket flap, making the text to author bio ratio something ridiculous like 1:2.

Here's the point, John: the text and author bios are written for two different audiences. The text is written for the kiddies, or to be read to the kiddies. The bios are written for the adults who buy and read the books to the kiddies. A few adults actually find them interesting. In a small way, it gives additional resources for the teacher using the book in the classroom. So please, take a deep breath. There must be worser evils in the world for you to cast your eye upon.