Unbound: Original Picture Book Art by Utah Illustrators

Planting Seeds

2008-11-05T15:07:00.001-08:00

Our show got some fabulous coverage in the Deseret News yesterday. Thank you, Carma Wadley for the article and Jason Olson for the photos! What I'm especially pleased about is that she included a list of each artist and each book represented in the show.

My favorite quote from the article: "We hope [children] connect the art they love [in books] with finding something to love at a museum. We are planting seeds, hoping they will become museum lovers."

The Rest of the Story

2008-10-29T08:08:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce our story time with the illustrator schedule for November and December. We hope you'll join us each Saturday morning at 11:00 at the museum!

Nov. 1: Sherry Meidell
Nov. 8: Julie Olson
Nov. 15: Mark and Caralyn Buehner
Nov. 22: Lily Toy Hong
Nov. 29: Stories illustrated by various artists
Dec. 6: Greg Newbold
Dec. 13: Nathan Hale

Family Photo

2008-10-14T19:17:00.000-07:00

Guy Francis, who will be our visiting illustrator at this week's story time (11:00 on Saturday, October 18), just posted this picture on his blog and he's looking for a title for it. If you have a fun idea, click here to link to his blog.

Guy will be reading two books that he's illustrated: Mrs. McBloom, Clean Up Your Classroom by Kelly S. DiPucchio and Shelly by Margie Palatini.

East Meets West

2008-10-09T19:58:00.000-07:00

Fumi Kosaka, who grew up in Japan but who now lives with her husband and two children in Provo, will be joining us for story time at 11:00 this Saturday morning at the museum.

Fumi came to the United States to study at Ricks College (now BYU Idaho) and BYU in Provo.

After graduating, she moved to New York and worked in the children's art department of a New York City publishing house while pursuing freelance illustration projects.

She has illustrated nine children's books, including several books written by well known author Cynthia Rylant.

See Spot. See Spot 600 Times.

2008-10-02T17:36:00.000-07:00

Here's baby B. settling in on the beach with Beach Bugs, the latest in a series of beloved pop-up books full of all sorts of crazy bug-eyed bugs created by Salt Lake City native David A. Carter.

One of David's most recent feats of paper engineering is 600 Black Spots, inspired by the work of artists such as Matisse and Mondrian. We are thrilled to have working models from the book, along with specifications for the dies used to cut pieces which are then assembled by hand to create the pop-ups. And of course we've got a copy of the book on our gallery bookshelf. Come see if you can find all 600 black spots!

The Three-Eyed Bee

2008-09-27T19:00:00.000-07:00

Today's story time attendees had the opportunity to ask illustrator Will Terr y questions, and, boy, did they! They were full of all sorts of questions about how long it takes to paint all of the pictures for a book (3 to 6 months), how many colors he uses (he has only 10 different tubes of acrylic paint, but he mixes them to make hundreds of colors) and whether he gets to travel all over the world to get ideas for his pictures (yeah, that would be nice, wouldn't it?).

Will Terry brought the original cover illustration for Little Rooster's Diamond Button, a retelling of an old Hungarian folk tale. We've got a copy of the book on the bookshelf in the gallery. Come take a look and see if you can find the bee with three eyes on one of the pages!

Will Terry signs a copy of one of his books for a story time attendee and adds one more drawing!

It Ate What?!

2008-09-23T14:56:00.000-07:00

Pictured: Cambria Evans reads Bone Soup during story time on Saturday morning at the museum.

We learned all sorts of fun facts about Cambria, her books and her life in New York. Can you believe the story Cambria tells in her book Martha Moth Makes Socks was inspired by a real moth who ate holes in her very favorite sweater? It goes to show that good story ideas can come from just about anywhere!

Join us this Saturday, September 27, when illustrator Will Terry reads The Frog with the Big Mouth by Teresa Bateman and Little Rooster's Diamond Button by Margaret Read McDonald, both published by Albert Whitman & Company.

Martha, Martha, Martha

2008-09-19T05:49:00.001-07:00

Join us at the Museum on Saturday morning at 11:00 when Cambria Evans, author and illustrator of Bone Soup and Martha Moth Makes Socks, both published by Houghton Mifflin, reads at our weekly story time.

Cambria lives in Brooklyn, NY, and when she's not working on her children's books, she's busy designing for clients such as Martha Stewart. Click here to check out some of Martha Stewart's Halloween products based on Cambria's drawings.

Rapunzel and the Three Hales

2008-09-14T17:36:00.000-07:00

Hanging on the gallery wall, we've got Nathan Hale's original artwork for the cover of the newly released graphic novel Rapunzel's Revenge written by husband and wife team Shannon and Dean Hale (no relation to Nathan). The piece (acrylic on illustration board) is stunning.

Shannon and Dean were interviewed by Al Roker and his book club kids on The Today Show a couple of days ago (clip below). They say wonderful things about Nathan Hale starting at the 2:55 mark.

The Opening!

2008-09-14T14:36:00.000-07:00

After two years of dreaming and planning, Unbound: Original Picture Book Art by Utah Illustrators has opened at the Springville Museum of Art!

More than 15 of the illustrators attended the opening reception, and with five exhibitions opening in conjunction with Celebrate Your Museum Day, more than 800 people came to the museum! This despite the fact there was a BYU football game in the afternoon!

We started off the morning with two story times.

Then we had the opening reception at noon, complete with a chocolate fountain in the adjacent gallery. One of my favorite parts of the reception was watching students from the Art City Elementary journalism club interview the illustrators.

Relaxing with some of the museum staff at the end of a long day.