Land Forms Leap at Ocean Avenue Elementary
In the month since I drew with second graders at Ocean Avenue Elementary, my Side x Side colleague Pamela Moulton had been working with the students on creating sculptures of land forms based on their drawings and research. With every visit, the classes grew more curious about Professor Sneedlebaum. Good news! He would be stopping at the school on his way to a conference in Canada! She worked with the students to create a special celebration of their learning. Here she works out the sequence backstage on April 28 with Mia, intern art teacher and intrepid volunteer. How exciting when...
Read MoreMuchos MECA!
The spring semester at Maine College of Art is nothing if not frenzied. A LOT happens, and for many reasons, this one was jam packed. My class of junior illustration majors began with a bang: a Sweet Art Shop of valentines had to be installed at the Portland Museum of Art just one week after their return from winter break. Hustle, I said, and they DID. Maxwell Erwin’s packed an eyeful of desires. Cody Gauthier’s valentine tells a short lonely story, perhaps you can relate? We moved into an editorial project, with students choosing from one of three magazine articles. A Rolling...
Read MoreLibrary Love
Happy National Library Week! I’m still floating from last week’s Maine Library Association’s 27th Annual Reading Round-Up of Children’s and Young Adult Literature. No better place to be than in a fine flock of kidlit advocates. Winning a Lupine Award with Eva Murray for our book Island Birthday is a spectacular honor. Inspired by Maine artist, Barbara Cooney’s Miss Rumphius, the Lupine is presented to a living author or illustrator who is a resident of Maine, or who has created a work whose focus is on Maine, shown through the characteristics, plot, or setting....
Read MorePortland Stage Season Launch
Around a year ago, I was scrambling to finish all the posters for Portland Stage Company’s 2015-16 season. On the launch night, Social Media/Marketing Associate, JJ Peeler, and Executive and Artistic Director, Anita Stewart, happily showed my rough sketch for the final show, They Don’t Pay? We Won’t Pay! Called again to create a cohesive look for the 2016-17 Season, I scrambled ever harder to be ALL done. Two shows remain in the current season; I felt complete seeing this one on stage at last. Meanwhile, My Name Is Asher Lev is on stage. Based on the novel by Chaim Potok,...
Read MoreLaunching Land Forms at Ocean Avenue Elementary
Thanks to Side x Side, I had more adventures in second grade, this time at Ocean Avenue Elementary School in Portland, Maine. I’d received an out-0f-the-blue letter from a Professor Amir Sneedlebaum of the University of Papua New Guinea, as did my colleague, Pamela Moulton. He also wrote to each of the second grade teachers as well. He needs their help in creating a model island of diverse land forms, so that his team of researchers can study earth’s changes. Cool! Count me in! I arrived in a costume quite suitable for me, a native of the White Mountains of New Hampshire! I...
Read MoreLost Boy Found in Whole Foods
Portland Stage’s production of Tammy Ryan’s play Lost Boy Found in Whole Foods is powerful, thanks to strong performances by Tyrone Davis Jr. as Gabriel and Jamil Mangan as Panther, young men from South Sudan struggling to bridge two worlds. I worked on the poster last year, around this time. Researching for any illustration project leads to discoveries, and this one broadened my awareness big time. Gabriel is a one of the 20,000 boys of the Nuer and Dinka tribes who were orphaned during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983 – 2005.) He fled war to refugee camps to a job at...
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