Tuesday, August 23, 2016

AUCTION! PLUM CREEK CHILDREN'S LITERACY FESTIVAL

I have just donated this piece of art from my book Holly's Christmas Eve ...
...plus a signed copy of the book to go with it...

...to the Plum Creek Children's Literacy Festival's online benefit auction of original art. Go to the site https://www.32auctions.com/plumcreek2016 
and prepare to salivate over all the wonderful original art from children's books that will be available. This is your chance to acquire beautiful art at often very reasonable prices, while helping to promote children's literacy. The auction begins September 1. I'll be bidding---hope you will too!

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

SOMETHING'S MISSING


This little Oaxacan goat family recently arrived in my mailbox---I ordered them from the National Museum of Mexican Art, in Chicago. My parents had a dairy goat herd when I was a child, and I have a special fondness for those animals, so when I heard of this work of art, I could not resist. But when I unwrapped the figures and set them up...something was missing. I didn't know what.
Adding to the mystery was a separate little parcel containing..."Of course! Tails!" I thought. I'm familiar with these wooden Mexican folk art creatures; many figures have detachable tails. 
Except these goats were sitting down---there was no room for a tail. Nor a place to attach the tails. And besides, this is not what goat tails look like. "The museum made a mistake," I decided, and I wrapped up the tails and mailed them back. A few days later I received a phone call from the Museum. "We did not make a mistake," said the Museum."Those are not tails; they are..."
..."horns!" And suddenly, something was no longer missing. Just so, in creating a piece of art, there is that one small element or addition that---sparked by some stray comment or idea---can make all the difference.