I just have to say that the first day of Spectrum Live was fabulous. So much amazing art. So many amazing, creative, talented, lovely people. Re-connecting with many old friends and making new ones. I am so busy looking and talking and generally being amazed that I keep forgetting to even get out my camera (sorry. I'll get a few shots to post next week, I promise) and I haven't been able to stop long enough to buy anything, although there are a number of things on my wish list that I hope to acquire tomorrow - in-between the too-many-to-chose-from panels, and general schmoozing. I just came down from the (very hot and crowded) drawing jam on the roof floor of the Aladdin Hotel where I got to stand and chat with Greg Manchess, Greg Spalenka (Gregs in Stereo! I SO wish I had gotten a picture of that - they are nearly exactly the same size and totally huggable) and Iain McCaig ALL AT THE SAME TIME. Talk about creative giants en masse - that was a fun discussion to sit in on! Anyway - tis awesome. You should all be here.
I learned a lot listening to James Taylor, Carole King, Herbie Hancock, and Eric Carle. Maybe the most important lesson was this: living legends of this summer had connected to their audience. And that that audience was diverse.
Connecting to a piece of art or a song or a book is such an incredibly personal thing. Some of it depends on luck--on the market and distribution and what else is going on in the world....but art does not connect unless there is potential.
The work has got to hit a nerve.
It's got to come from the heart and the gut.
This summer, good art took me back in time.
Carole King and James Taylor literally made me thirty years younger. Listening to the music, I remembered people I hadn’t thought about in years. I remembered ME, who I was at that time. I became that girl again. I was NOT alone in this. People of all ages and colors were singing and dancing. They were telling stories. There was a lot of laughter.
Herbie Hancock’s connection to the audience was similar…and different. In his Imagine Project, he is re-imagining great songs in his voice. WOW. How much do I LOVE the idea of re-imagining.....Hearing John Lennon’s IMAGINE or Peter Gabriel’s DON’T GIVE UP challenged my senses. I wasn’t necessarily remembering…I was looking forward to a better place.
Eric Carle, in his recent lecture, spoke openly and earnestly about his connection to the children he writes and creates art for. He spoke of his own life at that tender age of 6—moving to Germany and another culture. He spoke of missing his first friends. The way he spoke, I could tell: He still felt that pain. And fear. And excitement, too. It was still real for him.
Inspiring.
He also said something that I think really emphasizes his connection to his readers. When he spoke of his counting book, 1, 2, 3 to the Zoo, he described it as “not just a counting book.” He said that kids will take out of it what THEY want. That was their job. In the art, he gives them this freedom. To notice what reaches them. To understand what they are ready to understand.
I LOVE THIS.
He also spoke of his ability to listen to advice and his gut, to be both logical and unexpected.
In Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children about their Art (which I highly recommend), Eric writes:
Ultimately, my aim is to entertain, and sometimes to enlighten, the child who still lives inside of me.
For Eric, making pictures is how he expresses his truest feelings.
For all of us, I hope this is true, too.
-Sarah Aronson
