Saturday, November 13

David Carter launched the day with a nice tribute to his most influential teacher, Miss Howard. She was the one who first recognized and acknowledged his artistic talent. David attended Utah State University in Logan, Utah. Following college, he moved to Los Angeles and became involved with Intervisual Communications. David was inspired by Pienkowski's book Robot and dedicated One Red Dot to Ian. This book was inspired by a wooden box David's father had purchased in Japan. Regarding his paper engineering, David finds the beauty in pop-ups when using white paper--as this shows the shadows. The pop-up book How Many Bugs in a Box? helped launch his career in the pop-up book industry. His book The Elements of Pop-up is a chronicle of the art of paper engineering. The Alexander Calder Retrospective Exhibit led David to experimenting with more elaborate pops. Needless to say, David Carter's presentation really popped! We are looking forward to his newest book Hide and Seek, which will be published in 2012.

Eric Kimmel is a great story-teller! His European grandmother lived with his family when he was growing up and she loved to tell stories about children who disobeyed their parents and grandparents. According to Eric, the endings of these stories were not happily ever after! She believed in evil spells and witchcraft. On one occasion, when Eric's brother brought home a book about shadow puppets, their grandmother smacked him on the head with the book, admonishing him that if he played with shadows, "the evil spirits will come off the wall and the boys would never be seen again"...Consequently, there was a period of time when Eric and his brother slept under their beds because they feared these evil spirited shadows! Eric related a postive childhood experience in which an African-American storyteller would enthrall him with Anansi tales in a Brooklyn, New York branch library. Many years later, Eric met this same man, Spencer Shaw, who became at Professor at the University of Washington. When Eric spoke to Professor Shaw on the telephone, he recognized his resonant voice! Among Eric's favorite books are the Grimm's Fairy Tales, the Old Testament of the Bible and Bullfinch's Mythology and Fables. Medea is one of his favorite characters. Even though the Gingerbread Man creeped him out as a child, he has retold the story as the Runaway Tortilla. Eric has also retold many of the Anansi stories that he so enjoyed as a child in Brooklyn.

Beth Krommes grew up in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. She was the second of five daughters. Beth was a painting major in the art program at Syracuse University. She enjoyed doing etchings and still life paintings. Beth was influenced by three engravers and decided to try her hand at wood engraving. She also experimented with scratchboard techniques. Many of her illustrations were used in Cricket magazine. After Beth's daughters were born, she began illustrating children's books. Her first book to be published was Grandmother Winter. Beth received the Golden Kite Award for her book The Lamp, the Ice and the Boat Called Fish. She is a fan of Inuit Eskimo art and this is reflected in her own artwork. We enjoyed hearing Beth recount the thrill of receiving the Caldecott Medal for the book House in the Night, written by Susan Marie Swanson. This quote from Beth's website offers us insight into her personal philosophy-"My mission is to create artwork that is joyful in spirit, universal in nature and accessible and affordable to others."

Sneed Collard III is the son of two biologists and lived in Santa Barbara, California. There was a silver lining to his parents' divorce-- Sneed was able to see more of the United States when his father moved to the east coast. Reptiles are his favorite animal and Sneed would paint numbers on the shells of turtles that he rescued. He spent his summers in Florida sorting samples and reading. When his mother re-married, the family traveled to Hong Kong to research fireflies. Their travels led them to Malaysia, Bali, Thailand and Singapore. Sneed studied marine biology at UC/Berkeley. Thus, it is no surprise that the books that Sneed illustrates are scientifically-oriented. The first book he illustrated was Sea Snakes. Sneed is a prolific illustrator--among some of the other books he has done the artwork for are Wings, Beaks, Teeth, Living in the Coral Sea, Animal Dads, and Pocket Babies. When not illustrating books, Sneed enjoys playing frisbee with his border collie, Mattie.

Tony DiTerlizzie began his presentation with a quote from Einstein--"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales."Tony grew up in New York City. His mother wanted to be an artist but had been discouraged by her father. As a child, Tony loved Arnold Lobel's books which had a picture on every page that gave a clue to the text. Tony also had a teacher who encouraged him to read and draw. He liked books about kids going on adventures--Alice, Dorothy, Wendy and Peter Pan. Tony tried to break into publishing in the late 90's. He worked for Dungeons and Dragons for a time, but longed to be a storyteller. "The butterfly of an idea flutters into his head and flits off." Tony has crafted the Spiderwick Chronicles --today's version of Grimm's Fairy Tales. He utilizes various tricks to get kids to pick up a book to read. He discussed augmented reality in which a child has the copy of the Search for WondLa and uses a webcam to complete the process. Check out Tony's Imaginopolis website for a view into his world!

Friday Evening

Carin Berger has a wonderful philosophy on life--it is a journey, not a destination! She described her journey as a children's book artist, beginning with her first picture book she created at age ten. Carin's journey has taken her to various cities--London, San Francisco and New York, where she currently has her studio. She is a designer at heart and tackles her books as design projects. She enjoys toggling back and forth between the writing and the illustrating processes. Carin shared why her books have the phrase "Brrr, I'm freezing--please put my jacket back on!"
She showed us the materials and tools which she uses to create her collage style illustrations. She also cuts stencils and uses paint to age the paper. Her inspirations are old photos, old type styles and objects from nature. In the book All Mixed Up, she collages the collages. The Little Yellow Leaf could be considered her personal autobiography. Carin's reading of this book was very poignant and endearing! She captures the essence of Mazza and is truly a joy with whom to share a moment in one's life journey!

Kevin Hawkes was this year's recipient of the Mazza Medallion. The Medallion is awarded to a children's book artist who utilizes a variety of media in illustrating his/her books.Following a nice tribute by Dr. Jerry Mallett, Kevin graciously accepted the award and shared some thoughts about his journey as a children's book artist. Kevin is the illustrator of many award-winning books for children, including Weslandia and Sidewalk Circus in addition to Library Lion (a New York Times Bestseller).