Studio Kiekje

Terrible Yellow Eyes

I have already mentioned my love for the work of Maurice Sendak several times on Studio Kiekje (see here and here). Yesterday was Mr. Sendak's birthday, and I discovered that there is a blog, called Terrible Yellow Eyes which features artwork inspired by the wonderful "Where the Wild Things Are".

Cory Godbey, the creator of the blog, describes its goal, "Simply put, like a visual love letter to the book, with Terrible Yellow Eyes I am seeking to celebrate and promote the original masterwork by Maurice Sendak in the best way I know how -- with pictures."

 

(art by Sarah Caterisano, who also has a blog)

I know I've said it before, but "Where the Wild Things Are" is so special to me. I loved it as a child, and I think it was one of the many books which informed both my love for reading and my love of art. (And let's not forget, the "wild rumpus"!)I never thought about what it might mean to other people - as a kid, you always think your treasures are all your own. But now that I'm older I'm not at all surprised to discover that many artists have been inspired by Sendak's work. I think it truly is a classic which adults may hold in just as high (if not higher!) regard as kids.

(art by Cedar Leidigh)

I am so looking forward to the movie (my expectations are high, Mr. Jonze!)

Kiki illustrations

 
I think I've mentioned before that I am a very big fan of Hayao Miyazaki's animated films. Kiki's Delivery Service was the first one I saw, and I've seen it several times now (and have it on DVD!). But it was some time before I learnt that the movie was based on a novel by Eiko Kadono. I would love to get my hands on the book and its sequels (I believe that only the first book is translated into English).

The illustrations are fantastic. 

 

 

I always think I like color illustrations, but lately I've really been drawn to simple black and white images. Perhaps I'm becoming minimalist?

(Definitely not!!)

Details from the weekend

 

 

 

* Lovely golden honey with honeycomb in the jar from Reading Terminal Market for a friend who is very close to her wedding day!

* A tissue-thin piece of a butterfly wing found on the ground. I would love to frame it in a small frame, but I'm not quite sure how to do it.

* Reading the sequel to Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm which I finished recently. I somehow missed reading these as a kid, despite the voracious appetite for reading material which I had back then. It's fun to read them now though. They are sort of a poor-man's Anne of Green Gables. I like their naive quality.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend.

Fraktur

 I've been reading this book about some children's book illustrators. I'm particularly fascinated with the chapter on Trina Schart Hyman, who was a favorite of mine growing up. Her version of Little Red Riding Hood is an amazing work of art with strong folk influences.

 

Hyman lived in Sweden for a few years when she first started out, and one of her first jobs was to illustrate a book by Astrid Lindgren. With the money she earned for that book she bought a bright blue tandem bicycle and used it to travel with her husband through Sweden, Denmark, Norway, England and Scotland. The influence of the country-side and towns through which she traveled on this journey can be seen in her work.

 

I was interested to find out too that Hyman was born near Philadelphia and that she was fascinated with the art by the local Pennsylvania Dutch community. In particular she cites Fraktur painting as something she imitated when learning how to draw and paint. I had never heard of Fraktur  despite living in this area, so I turned to the almighty Google to find out more.

 

Fraktur is a style of lettering and illuminated folk art created by the Pennsylvania Dutch community. Many of the pieces created were used as decorative blessings or certificates of baptism, marriage and the like.

 

The illlustrated borders for the text are very appealing to my eye, and I can see that they influenced Hyman's work. I think I would like to go see some of this work in person, especially because a lot of it is from nearby Buck's County, Pennsylvania. Perhaps an adventure for this summer is in the making!

(images of Fraktur in this post come from this  gallery)

Mischievous Meg

I recently discovered "Mischievous Meg" which I must have missed out on as a child. It's written by Astrid Lindgren  who also wrote "Pippi Longstocking" and "The Children of Noisy Village" which I loved. Her books always seems so summery to me, even though they cover the whole year.

 

At one point Meg jumps off a roof while holding an umbrella.

 

The illustrations are by Janina Domanska. I think they capture the story perfectly, and I really like the simplicity of the line drawings. And look at the striped socks! Meg is apparently a girl after my own heart. 

I just checked out Opal Whiteley's diary, which I've been curious about for some time. Has anyone read it? It's the diary of a young girl who wrote about living in the forest with her family. I think some people believe it's fake, but I'm still interested in reading it. It sounds like a wonderful summer read.

Where the Wild Things Are

I saw the trailer for the film version of Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" and it is making me so excited for the movie.

I love the book, and I have since I was a wee one. I have very high hopes for the film, but what I've seen so far seems like it could be a very beautiful and strange interpretation of the book.

It looks quite different from the book, but I think I'd rather it not attempt to be exactly like the story since I don't think it would work.

My favorite illustration from the book version is when Max's room starts to turn into a forest:

 

Oh Max, you mischief-monger, you.

Proof that I'm a Wild Thing-fan:

 

Here's a picture from a few years ago, where you can barely see that I'm wearing my "Where the Wild Things Are" t-shirt.
Hm... this might be slightly awkward photographic proof. We have discovered that the wild things exist on my bosom-age. Well, now you know.

Let the wild rumpus begin!

(A line from the book, for those not in the Sendak-know)

Red Shoes and Coraline

I had a lovely, (somewhat) productive weekend. I have some fun things in the works to look forward to, including a journey to my old stomping ground (NYC) for a bridesmaid dress fitting for my lovely friend Lizzie's wedding. I am also at an exciting but stressful point in (hopefully) completing the final stuff for my Master's degree this semester. Amongst other things which will be popping up on the blog soon, I'm sure. I feel a bit like a bird sitting on a nest full of exciting and nerve-wracking eggs!

At one point Sean and I decided to get out of the house and go for a walk. It was really quite cold, and we intentionally steered our ways toward the local Anthropologie  to take a look at their pretty offerings and to defrost a little bit. In the book sale section I spotted The Red Shoes , a beautiful retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's fairytale. It is illustrated in pen and ink by Sun Young Yoo, whose work I'm not familiar with, but I'd love to discover more if anyone else knows more!

I couldn't look at it for too long since the sale section at this store tends to get a bit nutty and a bit grabby. Of course, now I can find very little about this book/illustrator on the internet. Oh google, you have let me down!

I'm also extremely excited for the soon to arrive (Feb 6th) movie version of Neil Gaiman's Coraline! I read the book a few months ago on a leisurely Borders date. It's a quick read since it's meant for kids, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm sure it's pretty clear I have a penchant for children's lit, particularly when school reading gets a bit dense. Anyway, the film version looks like it's going to be visually stunning and creepy! You can watch a trailer for Coraline here. Also, I am very fond of buttons - which are a prominent theme in the book/film... I won't ruin the story with further explanation ;)

We also finally caught an intelligent mouse which was growing quite large on peanut butter it managed to eat out of traps without setting them off. I am a major wuss when it comes to mice - and this was the third one we've caught in the last two weeks. I'm going to stay in denial and pretend that we've caught them all, and that the occasional scurrying I hear are the elephants that live in the walls.

 

Maybe if they looked like this, and did the mending I could deal with it better.

Akage no Anne

I wrote in this post about L.M Montgomery and her fantastic books which include her most famous "Anne of Green Gables". Lately I've been interested in the Japanese love of these books. There it is called "Akage no Anne" or "Anne of the Red Hair" (I believe). These books are loved around the world, but there is something about them that is particularly appealing to the Japanese.

I recently read an article on Anne Clubs in Japan in "Making Avonlea: L.M. Montgomery and Popular Culture". It's so fascinating that the Japanese have a culture in which fan clubs are ways to express genuine admiration of art and literature. I particularly liked this quote from the founder of the Anne Clan, Mrs Kazue Kenmotsu:

   

"The Anne Clan's leader and founder, Mrs Kazue Kenmotsu, explains that the Anne series is like 'the special passport to enter the fantasy world from the real world.' Thus she has suggested that members keep a daily diary in which poetic moments that Anne might appreciate are recorded. If there is nothing special to chronicle on a given day, then favourite quotations from the series should be written down. Members of the Anne Clan, and perhaps of the other clubs as well, share Mrs Kenmotsu's views of emulating some of Anne's personal values."
                                                 - Daniele Allard, "Taisu Bunka and Anne Clubs in Japan", p. 300.

Doesn't this sound sort of like blogging? I know it reminded me of what I try to do with this blog!

 

Japan and Canada recently jointly released Anne of Green Gables themed stamps. The anime style images come from an animated version from the 1970s by the brilliant Hayao Miyazaki. I'm a HUGE fan of his work. I wish I could get my hands on this film, but unfortunately it seems not to have been released in America. Until then clips on YouTube will have to suffice. Here is the opening of the film - definitely Miyazaki with his love of flying!

If you are interested in reading more about Anne's popularity in Japan, there is more information at this site.

Has anyone been able to watch the Miyazki version? I would love to know more about it!

Little Red Riding Hood

Did you know that Edward Gorey illustrated a version of Little Red Riding Hood? I didn't, but I stumbled across it at the library and was so (dorkily) excited. Gorey is one of my favorite artists. (Check out his Gashlycrumb Tinies if you have a taste for amusingly morbid Victorian children's deaths. I know you're out there.)

 

His characters often walk on tiptoe.

 

Not the scariest wolf ever, but look how stoic Little Red is!

 

Grandmother is reading a book entitled "Le Moeur du Lupin". Foreshadowing!

I hope you enjoyed these pictures. A little bit of Gorey around Halloween time is always a good thing. (Although I am a year-round fan!)

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

I just finished "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" by Shirley Jackson, and I had great difficulty putting it down. It's a quick read, coming in at just under 150 pages, but it manages to be both cozy and deeply unsettling. It does not paint a very positive picture of human beings, and yet there are moments of hope in the story as well. Sounds a bit paradoxical, but it's really really good. It's rare for me at this point to discover an author who is fairly well-known that I haven't heard of before, and it's always a delight when that happens, especially when the books are so good! I did realize later that I read some of Jackson's short stories when I was younger, but they were in my middle school literature textbook, so I don't know if that counts.

 

How amazing is the cover of this book? It's a Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition, drawn by Thomas Ott, and it captures the feeling of the book perfectly. I hadn't heard of Ott before, but a quick Google image search has made me quite curious. Are any of you familiar with his work?

I just had to share the inside flap of the cover. I love those menacing little mushrooms. The text is the from the very opening paragraph and it sucked me in right away:

"My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead."

You might have already noticed that I am a big fan of suck-you-in first paragraphs. This one is definitely up there.

Oh, and by coincidence, the lovely Marmeecraft recently blogged about reading this book too! It had already been passed on to me by Sean who thought I would really like it, but that was a nice moment of blog synchronicity. I definitely agree that it's a very autumnal book.

But you don't have to take my word for it...
(Reading Rainbow reference, for my fellow children of the 80s) :)