Interview by Marya Jansen-Gruber
I'd like you to meet Jackie Morris, the talented artist who illustrated a beautiful fairy tale called Singing to the Sun.
What did you think when you were first sent the text for Singing to the Sun?
I first heard the story of Singing to the Sun at a children’s book festival in Swansea. Viv was doing an evening event and I went along to listen. The story made pictures dance in my head, and after the event Viv asked me if I liked it. When I said yes she replied 'Good, because I wrote it with you in mind.’ And from there we began to look for a publisher together. The story was originally published in a collection of stories and the others in the collection are equally beautiful.
What do you think of the message that it imparts to young, and not so young, readers?
There are so many messages in the book if you want to look for them. For children, one message is that maybe love is better than wealth and power, but it is a thing to be freely given. For fathers, a reminder that daughters have free will and are fed up of being given away as prizes in stories. For parents, the message can be that arguing is frightening for children. For women, that it is always a good idea to keep your wolves close, if you have a wolf, and that cats are smart and music can often provide answers.
The artwork that you created for the story has a magical, ethereal quality. What inspired you to create these pictures in this way?
I love medieval manuscript, textiles, animals and birds. I suppose really the words inspired the images. Each book that I do is different, each a response to a different text.
How were the illustrations created?
The illustrations were created with watercolor on hot pressed paper, after 27 years of practice and much blood sweat and tears. Firstly, I did small thumbnail drawings and sketches trying to catch the characters, then went on to the finished work, which is larger than the published work. Some pieces flowed easily, others I had to work on a few times. I loved the wolves who are very much a side issue in the text, so I brought them down from the golden mountains to be beside the princesses, ready for when the princes get the answer wrong.
This is not the first fairy tale that you have illustrated. Do you have a fondness for this genre?
I have a fondness for story. I love listening to storytellers. I love the way a really good story can live in your heart and mind and grow with you and help to make sense of the mad world we live in.
What do you think fairy tales give children?
Hope. Understanding. Courage. Insight. Pleasure. Passion. Music. A connection through history to all the people in the world who have ever told the story before, who have ever listened to it. A place in the world and in time.
Did you like to read when you were a child, and if so what did you like to read?
I struggled to read when I was a child and only persisted because I knew that what was hidden in books behind the code of the alphabet was worth knowing, worth breaking through to. What I love to read now is stories that have magic, not necessarily witches and wizards, but that magical power where an author can make you believe, make you care, for a character whose bones are paper, whose blood is the letters on a page. Discoveries this last couple of years have been Robin Hobb, The Book Thief and Stardust. Two of my favorite books I read as a child were White Fang and The Call of the Wild.
You have created illustrations for many charitable organizations. What do you like about doing this kind of work?
I like to use the work I do for good. I do not want to advertise cars, do illustrations for banks and big business. I always felt very priveleged to be able to work for Amnesty International and Green Peace and Oxfam.
You often use one of your cats as a model for your paintings. What does he think of this?
Max is a private kind of cat who likes to sleep in cupboards. He does not often come to sit on a lap and tends to keep out of the limelight, unlike the ginger brethren who dominate the house. But I think he is secretly quite pleased. He is very handsome and dark like midnight with emerald eyes.
If you could travel anywhere in the world to paint where would you go and why?
I would go to Venice in Spring. The colors of the buildings, the madness of the water-filled streets, the crumbling decay are all inspiring. I would go to the arctic where the colors play in the sky and on the land and I would wait and watch for polar bears. I would go to Bhutan or Nepal and sit quietly and watch cranes fly over high mountains and hope a snow leopard would be watching me. I would go beneath the sea where great whales sing and see them swim and leap from the water, before it is too late, before there are no more and I would go to a jungle in India and wait for a tiger to burn the emerald forest bright. And for now I will go to my studio and paint some more.
You can find out more about Jackie on her wonderful website. If you are a cat lover do take the time to visit the blog written by her cat companions. Her journal will show you what the life of an illustrator is like.
Working with reviewers over the last five years (or so), I have gotten to know many wonderful people who share a love of reading and children's books, in particular. I'm pleased to have discovered a bit more about Marya and introduce her to the Kane/Miller community:
I review children’s books for my website Through the Looking Glass Book Review. I have been a prolific reader for as long as I can remember, and for me doing this work is about as good as it gets. My only complaint is that I can never read as many books as I would like because there aren’t enough hours in the day. I also wish I had time to write my own children’s books but I am confident that, when the time is right, my stories will get written.
I live in lovely Ashland, Oregon with my husband, my eight year old daughter, three dogs and three cats. Home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, this town rests in a valley between two mountain ranges and it is full of people who appreciate the arts and who love books of all kinds. I could not have found a better place to live.
When I am not reading and writing I love to cook, to knit, to hike, to ski, and to explore my new home state. We moved to Oregon only a year ago from Virginia and there are so many places that we want to visit here on the west coast.
I grew up on the small Mediterranean island of Cyprus and, being the child of writers and journalists, I was able to travel to many countries around the world. These travels showed me that the world is full of variety and color. They also showed me that children in different countries are not that different. They have similar likes, fears, and pleasures. A little boy in England and a little boy in India will both love trains, and little girls from these countries will be delighted when someone gives them a stuffed animal to cuddle. I find this connectedness between people very interesting, and I think it is very important that children should be able to read books that come from countries other than their own. This is something that Kane/Miller gives us. Through their books we get to visit far away places and we get to see that we are more alike than we thought we were.
Read her review, below, of Singing to the Sun and be sure to come back tomorrow for her interview with Jackie Morris.
There once was a lord who thought that power mattered more than anything in the world. He did not care about love at all. His wife thought that wealth was the most important thing in the world, and she did not care about love either. Together they had a son called Thorfinn who was taught about great battles, and given books full of spells that were supposed to make people rich. One thing his parents did not give him was affection. For this, Thorfinn had to turn to the tabby cat and the jester who lived with Thorfinn and his family.
When Thorfinn was eighteen his parents decided that he needed to marry. His father wanted Thorfinn to marry someone who would make him the most powerful lord in the land. His mother wanted Thorfinn to marry someone who would give him wealth.
One day the jester came to tell Thorfinn’s parents that the King of the Golden Mountains was looking for husbands for his three daughters. One daughter would be given the king’s wealth, one would be given his power, and the third would bring her husband “nothing and everything,” “happiness and love.” Thorfinn decided to leave his home to try his luck with the daughters of the King of the Golden Mountains. Will he be able to figure out which princess is which and will he choose wisely if he guesses correctly?
All too often in our society today we admire people who are rich and powerful. We envy them their luxurious homes, their fast cars, and their fat bank accounts. What we forget to ask is if these people are happy. This book subtly shows readers what happens to people who forget to seek happiness and love. Touched with magic, and with beautifully lyrical text, this tale will resonate with readers of all ages.
Jackie Morris’ illustrations perfectly compliment this fairy-tale. Beautiful flowing colors and clever details make the paintings a joy to look at.
One can onle see....
....the half beast of the other.
He was Half Beast...he did kill her poor mother...
he was sorry and half of him was human...he cried and in the end he made up for it...
Cheers,
Diana
BEAST SCALE: 1 beast, ¾ beast, ½ beast (though ears don’t count, the kid’s got attitude…and that counts too!)
hi there! This is a china ink illustration I made a while back! It's a fallen angel with dark wings! :)
Hope you enjoy it! :)
This week's
Monday Artday challenge is an unusual one ― "
half beast".
Somewhere between Bigfoot and werewolves is the legend of the wendigo. The wendigo is a figure appearing in Algonquian Indian mythology. In remote forest areas, sometimes groups of travellers, hunters or campers were cut off from the rest of their party by the bitter snows and ice of the north woods. Conditions became desperate and cannibalism became a necessity in order to survive. The belief was when a human ate human flesh, he would become a wendigo. Among northern Algonquian cultures, cannibalism, even to save one's own life, was viewed as a serious taboo; the proper response to famine was suicide or resignation to death. On one level, the Wendigo myth thus worked as a deterrent and a warning against resorting to cannibalism; those who did would become Wendigo monsters themselves.
Though all of the descriptions of the creature vary slightly, the Wendigo is generally said to have glowing eyes, long yellowed fangs and overly long tongues. Most have a sallow, yellowish skin and are covered with matted hair. They give off a strange and eerie odor of decay and decomposition. They are tall and lanky and are driven by a horrible hunger.
Wendigos were embodiments of gluttony, greed, and excess; never satisfied after killing and consuming one person, they were constantly searching for new victims.
Native Americans actively believed in, and searched for, the Wendigo. One of the most famous Wendigo hunters was a Cree Indian named Jack Fiddler. He claimed to have killed at least 14 of the creatures in his lifetime, although the last murder resulted in his imprisonment at the age of 87. In October 1907, Fiddler and his brother, Joseph, were tried for the murder of a Cree Indian woman. They both pleaded guilty to the crime but defended themselves by stating that the woman had been possessed by the spirit of a Wendigo and was on the verge of transforming into one entirely. According to their defense, she had to be killed before she murdered other members of the tribe. The brothers were to be tired. Just before the trial, Jack escaped and hanged himself. Joseph went to trial and was sentenced to death. No word on his last meal.
I've always empathized with the Minotaur. That's probably a guy thing... Anyway, this one's probably not too ferocious.
PS. - I just remembered his girl friend lives in New Jersey, another half beast for another Illo site. ha!
What a lovely interview! Thank you. Will be linking it to our feature of Jackie this Sunday.