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WOW….with FRANKENSTORM SANDY just almost leaving the WHOLE east coast, it is certainly the oddest holiday yet!  and a bit hard to laugh and play for many.  But laugh and play we MUST!  and the artists of the CATugeau LLC agency will do our part!  enjoy……

This borrowed from PW Bookshelf :  I found myself smiling at her, and his, views so many years ago… and the encouragement she could give to a YOUNG up and coming Sendak. 50 years ago he began…not knowing where he was going.  Do any of us?  Does it matter?  Just putting another stroke (step, word, etc) down and continuing the fun and torment and LIFE.   There is always more in us….and better!  onward….

and to illustrate this…from Michelle Henninger….

The story behind it is that Sendak, illustrating a children’s book by Tolstoy, began to doubt himself and wrote a letter to Nordstrom detailing all his self-doubts. Here is part of what she wrote back:

You reminded me that you are 33. I always think 29, but OK. Anyhow, aren’t the thirties wonderful? And 33 is still young for an artist with your potentialities. I mean, you may not do your deepest, fullest, richest work until you are in your forties. You are growing and getting better all the time. I hope it was good for you to write me the thoughts that came to you. It was very good for me to read what you wrote, and to think about your letter. I’m sorry you have writers cramp as you put it but glad that you’re putting down “pure Sendakian vaguery” (I think you invented that good word). The more you put down the better and I’ll be glad to see anything you want to show me. You referred to your “atoms worth of talent.” You may not be Tolstoy, but Tolstoy wasn’t Sendak, either. You have a vast and beautiful genius. You wrote “It would be wonderful to want to believe in God. The aimlessness of living is too insane.” That is the creative artist—a penalty of the creative artist—wanting to make order out of chaos. The rest of us plain people just accept disorder (if we even recognize it) and get a bang out of our five beautiful senses, if we’re lucky. Well, not making any sense but will send this anyhow.

This was SENT in a letter….no emails then.  No blogs to share, no quick anything…just slow mail or phone.  Thank the Lord…words are saved…. messages shared.  again….enjoy!

The story behind it is that Sendak, illustrating a children’s book by Tolstoy, began to doubt himself and wrote a letter to Nordstrom detailing all his self-doubts. Here is part of what she wrote back:

You reminded me that you are 33. I always think 29, but OK. Anyhow, aren’t the thirties wonderful? And 33 is still young for an artist with your potentialities. I mean, you may not do your deepest, fullest, richest work until you are in your forties. You are growing and getting better all the time. I hope it was good for you to write me the thoughts that came to you. It was very good for me to read what you wrote, and to think about your letter. I’m sorry you have writers cramp as you put it but glad that you’re putting down “pure Sendakian vaguery” (I think you invented that good word). The more you put down the better and I’ll be glad to see anything you want to show me. You referred to your “atoms worth of talent.” You may not be Tolstoy, but Tolstoy wasn’t Sendak, either. You have a vast and beautiful genius. You wrote “It would be wonderful to want to believe in God. The aimlessness of living is too insane.” That is the creative artist—a penalty of the creative artist—wanting to make order out of chaos. The rest of us plain people just accept disorder (if we even recognize it) and get a bang out of our five beautiful senses, if we’re lucky. Well, not making any sense but will send this anyhow.

So pleased to post the Book Lauch for THE SPARKLE BOX from Ideals Children’s Books and illustrated by master oil painter, and “CAT ARTIST,” Christine Kornacki.    It’s about a lovely Christmas tradition to start in YOUR home perhaps!   Make it your own….

My husband and I are just back from a mini reunion in CT with “The Originals”…a group of guys who came together, for my husband, in 5th grade through Jr High, HS, college and onward to our present ‘newly medicare’ status…  over 50 years!  I’ve known them since I was 16 and started dating the love of my life…but that’s another story.

What I NOTICED is that though we sometimes don’t see some of this group for 20+ years at a time, it’s only moments till we are all comfortable and ‘back’ together.  The old stories and the belly laughing starts, and it’s SO good to experience!  Friends like that take a life time to create…and it did. That coming together also reveals our TRUE CHARACTERS.  Gone the ’executive’ or the ‘naturalist’ or the ‘egg head.’  They are all just boys…and they KNOW each other’s core.  We girls also revert to a bit ’our younger selves’ as well. Though I’ve also noticed that the girls have perhaps grown more into who we always were…wonderful to see.  Just like writing or drawing good characters!

It takes a life time (however long your life time is so far!) of experiences and careful visual ‘noting’ to be able to come up with GOOD CHARACTER.  Stories are so often all about character.  You must get into your character big time to make your audience believe in him/her.  Explore all the tips and tricks you can to create the best.  REALLY KNOW THEM.  How would they be with old, old friends? new personalities? How would they react if something went wrong, or someone disappointed them?  How would they take a bike ride, swim in a lake, ride a hot air balloon, open a business, care for their aging parent?  This might not be in your current story, but if the character will be ’real’ you have to know how he/she would react in most life events.  Now, we who have lived a few years, know a character might surprise us big time with how they react to an event….and you need to be aware of that too.  The story, drawn or written, might just be in that difference of your character but it’ll only work if you and your audience really know the ‘normal’ for your character.

I just have to include a photo of five of ‘the girls’ (second from right is me) because we took this same photo 22 years ago at the last reunion and needed to revisit our characters in photo style.  Yes we’re that much older, as are our husbands, but we ARE OUR characters now and it shows.  Not all bad ladies!  Get into your characters…pull at them, test them with life, give them tough challenges….  THEN write or draw your story!

cheers ’girls’!

Summer, as always, was too short…or too long…but full of adventures of all sorts.  My wonderful Ohio son Jeremy (and CAT artist!) and his wife Nicole (T2 agency) and my three grandkids from that Clan were here over Labor Day…a busy and noisy and so appreciated visit! Good to have them play with the 3 boys from my Wmsbrg son Morgan’s family crew of three boys and wife Stef.  So that was the “period” on the summer.  Now they all, and WE are ‘back to school’ and thinking Fall, Holidays, and Winter.  wow….

So the CAT artists wanted to share with you four BACK TO SCHOOL visuals to get you in the mood….and we’ll be sharing lots more in the months to come…. HERE on” THE WAY “, and in the mail, and in person perhaps!  So check us out over and over for the new and different… www.catugeau.com as well as here on our blog.  Change is in the air….lets hope it’s all good!  now open your new ‘box of Crayolas’ and create fun for Fall!

We just learned that First Peas to the Table illustrated by our Nicole Tadgell and published by Albert Whitman is a winner of the Learning Magazine 2013 Teacher’s Choice Awards for Children’s Books!  This is a first time for Albert Whitman…and our girl got them there! We’re so proud….

I’m delighted to LAUNCH a wonderful new book from Knopf/RandomHouse illustsrated by Patrice Barton… I LIKE OLD CLOTHES….and originally written by Mary Ann Hoberman many years ago.  It’s just a treasure as the reviews below will confirm.  Patty has been particularly creative in her clever use of fabric to further bring the reality of these wonderful old clothes to life for this unnamed happy treasure hunter.  Enjoy!

Kirkus:

Hand-me-downs gain new poetic life in this charming picture-book remake.

Originally published with illustrations by Jacqueline Chwast, here Hoberman’s 1976 poem gets a makeover courtesy of illustrator Barton. Kirkus panned the original for attempting too much with too little, finding Hoberman’s “silly rhyme” as threadbare as its theme of recycled clothing and Chwast’s “overpopulated pictures” teeming with a “freakish cast.” Thankfully, the Barton edition coheres much better. While Hoberman’s thematic insistence on the delight to be found in imagining the prior ownership of secondhand clothes is a little heavy-handed, her verse comes across as playful and light: “I like old clothes. / I really do. / Clothes with a history, / Clothes with a mystery, // Sweaters and shirts / That are brother-and-sistery….” Barton’s digitally rendered mixed-media illustrations capture well the warmth of Hoberman’s message, using wispy lines and softly accented shading to imbue these garments with such life that they actually seem capable of some determinism in their hand-me-down trajectory. Particularly effective is the final spread, in which a clothesline strung between windows displays many of the “Now-for-play clothes” featured earlier, giving the poet’s concept of a garment’s past and future a smartly literal linearity.

With Barton’s nuanced illustrations, Hoberman’s 36-year-old hand-me-down poem defines sustainability for the next generation. (Picture book. 3-7)

Publisher’s Weekly:

“I like old clothes,/ Hand-me-down clothes,/ Worn outgrown clothes,/ Not my own clothes.” Former U.S. children’s poet laureate Hoberman’s poem, first published in 1976, holds up nicely; families are still trading bags of too-small clothes, and children are still enjoying hand-me-downs (“And party dresses/ Not quite new,/ Not quite in style,/ I like them, too”). Barton’s (Mine!) spreads couldn’t be any warmer or fuzzier. Her mixed-media scenes incorporate images of patterned fabrics for the clothes, and soft pencil lines and blurry edges give the artwork a painted feel. A girl in overalls and sneakers—just the sort of girl one might imagine having a sensible attitude toward secondhand apparel—is pictured in her room with her younger brother, trying on a small marching band uniform (first spotted in a store window on the title page) and vamping in a pair of long black gloves. The poem stays in one register, exploring the theme from several angles, without any real narrative arc; it’s written more just for the joy of the rhymes and the rhythm. Ages 5–8. Agent: Christina A. Tugeau, CATugeau. 

School Library Journal

«HOBERMAN, Mary Ann. I Like Old Clothes. illus. by Patrice Barton. 32p. CIP. Knopf. Aug. 2012. Tr $16.99. ISBN 978-0-375-86951-8; PLB $19.99. ISBN 978-0-375-96951-5. LC 2010038292.

PreS-Gr 1–Hoberman’s 1976 picture book is dressed up with new illustrations. A precocious unnamed girl describes her love of vintage apparel: “I like old clothes./I really do./Clothes with a history,/Clothes with a mystery.” With rhymes that are never too sweet, the girl says how she likes to imagine who wore the items before her and how, and then make them her own through embellishments or just through use (such as wearing formerly dressy pants to play hopscotch). The imaginative child’s enthusiasm is infectious–kids might well be inspired to ask for secondhand outfits themselves. The clever, humorous illustrations show the smiling, red-haired girl modeling arm-length buttoned-up gloves, sewing a too-long yellow dress, or imagining the former owner of a school-uniform sweater. Barton uses fabriclike backgrounds in most of the illustrations (which were created with pencil, mixed media, and assembled and painted digitally), making the backdrop to the whole book look like beautifully faded fabric swatches. The overall effect is a visual celebration of old clothes.–Heather Talty, formerly at Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School, New York City

Last year during a NYC visit, I was visiting a certain Penguin Group AD (hi! Cecelia)  and she gave me a wonderful HINT about her take on viewing art and artists’ work…and I think it applies to writing too.  It’s stayed with me, and because I find I practice the same rule, I felt I should finally share it with you.

THE 10 MIN. RULE:  if the work generally doesn’t HIT me in less than 10 minutes, I move on. Done (often less!)

It’s true…. we see a LOT of art, and often we agents, ADs and designers and editors are artists ourselves.  We see a LOT of art over a LOT of years.  Sure, we filter through our own likes and dislikes, but we do keep an open-eyed ‘ overview’ for the market and it’s needs at any given time.  We make mistakes, but we make decisions fast.  Have to!

So what can you take from this?   WOW US!  start out GREAT and build from there!  Make the first piece (or paragraph) a winner and then must keep following it up with your best characters, your best drawing, your best color, your best expressions, your best action, your BEST!….. and UNlike everyone else’s BEST.                 10 minute rule rules!

so look in the mirror often and be honest about what you see…. your best?  and from my CAT artist and son Jeremy Tugeau, as a reminder= ’ mirror, mirror, on the wall’…’

We are very happy and proud to announce today is the official LAUNCH of HUSH LITTLE MONSTER from CAT artists Melissa Iwai, and her writer husband Denis Markell, and Little Simon (S&S) as publisher!  They’ve done a couple of books together and this one is such fun!  It received a recent STARRED review in PW too!  The story is great for Halloween, but it’s not JUST for that holiday…. we have ‘little monsters’ all year long.  Do take a fun look….

I just had to share this photo of the presentation of two incredible QUILTS that I humbly was a small part of (the ‘black cat napping’ square!) for two special new Mom’s of SCBWI National’s team, Sarah and Chelsea! BIG surprise for them….bet there were loads of happy tears!!!  Linda R. Bernfeld and the energetic group from SCBWI Florida got the wonderful idea and put this together. They asked those of us who had been involved with their regional conferences over past couple of years to paint a square if we wished. WELL of course!  Laurent Linn, from Simon and Schuster, and I were there this past June doing an artist intensive, and one of the ‘CAT artists’ and SCBWI Art Coordinator and board member, Priscilla Burris, was there last year for the same event.  Others contributing squares were Paul Zelinsky, Mark Teague, Ethan Long, Pat Cummings, Linda Shurte, Brain Pinkney, Tomire dePauola, Leeza Hernandez, Dan Yaccarino, Marla Frazee and other talented people.  Kimberly Lynn Strickler put the squares together into this wonderful result.  What works of art they are… literally!  So happy to have been a part of this kind and wonderful artist venture!

Oddly, we often find in hindsight that a ‘bad,’ or difficult situation can bring out a new or creative push that ultimately becomes very much a “good.”  Actually a GIFT.

The book that doesn’t work out…and leaves you a summer to explore new ways of painting that later leads to several new books.  The visit trip from hell in cold winter rains where you show up drenched and miserable but get a standing salute for showing up at all, and it’s memorable!  The agent that rejects your work for the agency but has one golden ‘tid bit’ that resonates and sets you on YOUR path.

I had such an experience recently, which is why my blog has been silent for a bit.  Back story:  I’d been asked to co host an Artist Intensive day for the FL SCBWI group in Orlando June 15th.  It was FABULOUS!, My buddy in this was the so talented, knowledgable and enthusiastic Laurent Linn, a S&S art director. (see photo below!)  The group there is a very talented bunch of workers and we couldn’t have had a better time hopefully helping them along their individual paths.  And the Disney Yacht Club was a bit of cool breeze paradise while there.  Perfect!  except I also picked up a bacterial lung infection that lead to over a month of pain, breathing and infection scares and serious recoup after probably two pneumonias with Asthmatic complications.  I’m getting there now, and seeing the GOOD in the BAD again, so wanted to share.  One night in hospital when there was no sleep to be found between horrific coughing bouts, I suddenly saw a “story” actually POP out of my  head!  and grabbed a pen and paper and wrote out the text for 15 spreads of a draft in one flourish! (ok, high level of steroids might have contributed!)  And notes and characters for the illustrations! It was amazing, and after  it was down on paper I actually did sleep a couple of hours.  It was a story I’d been mulling sort of.  I’m no picture book writer, and while an artist, not an illustrator.  I SO admire my group and what they can do!  So we’ll see if anything comes of it.  But the FACT of it was so GOOD!

My point of course is to ALLOW these good moments to ‘free up’ in all your extraordinary, or ordinary, other moments.  A lot of it is just being available for the inspiration to arrive. And we often just aren’t.  My situation was unique (and I do NOT recommend it!) but something exciting might have been allowed to begin there that might never have otherwise.  Good.  I may not be able to pull this together to present officially to the industry, but it will happen as a personal project.  I am pushed to give it a try. How can I not?

How can YOU not!