Hunting and Gathering

Whenever I begin a new book whether illustrating or writing, I let my friends and family know I am in my "hunting and gathering" phase. It is a time when I remind myself of the phrase: "All who wander are not lost." It is truly a time of wandering, whether physically taking a walk or a visit to libraries and museums or mentally allowing my thoughts to meander where they will with no judgement nor directives. My studio becomes a nest at this time, piled high with all the books and images I have gathered to feed my imagination. I carry the text of the story with me everywhere, allowing it to catch on objects or scenes I may never have considered when I initially visualized it.  It is both a dreamy time and a time of initiative. 

I love illustrating the stories of others because it takes me to places I probably never would have gone on my own. The perfect example of this is when I accepted the manuscript for Fold Me A Poem, by Kristine O'Connell George. I loved the poems but I hated origami. It seemed so stiff and had far too many straight lines. But George's poems captured my imagination, so off I went to the library to check out every book on origami and paper-folding available; both adult and children's books. For six months I taught myself to fold. I folded all of the 40-some animals in the story, not just once, but many times in order to find the right diagram for the right animal. There is more than one way to fold a frog! By the end, I had fallen in love with origami. I still fold to this day, just to focus my mind. 

Our Family Tree, written by Lisa Westberg Peters, was the book I had to be the most thorough with my research. The subject of evolution is not to be haphazard with. My editor kept stressing that I must be willing to have every image checked for accuracy-- yet somehow keep it artful. When I asked Lisa to be more specific with each stage of evolutionary development-- which animal was she thinking of she said she was not going to be pinned down. Meanwhile, as the illustrator I had to be "pinned down". I had to be able to swim through primordial seas with trilobites and the first fish, then step onto land with the first plants and know what they looked like and understand what encouraged our first breathing ancestors to follow and just how many toes they had. The Science Museum in St. Paul as well as the library were excellent sources, but also the Minneapolis Institute of Art. There I sat in the galleries sketching the movement of land and water in Chinese scrolls and the thrusting movement of tree and land in the paintings of Marsden Hartley. When illustrating evolutionary change over a period of 4 1/2 billion years, it made sense to add drama to the page with swirls and thrusts. At one point in my gathering of information and images, there was no more room in my studio, so I was forced to take down the family photos on the second floor of my house and hang a twenty foot timeline that went down the hall and half-way down the stairs, just so I could keep track of evolutionary events. I realized early on that I would not be able to add a plant or flower for color and composition-sake if they had not evolved yet! 

Sometimes I wish I could stay in a perpetual state of hunting and gathering, however there always comes a time when it all must come together and become a book. At this transition I often experience a sense of panic, even despair. I wonder if I can really put all I have learned and found into anything of creative interest. I have been known to even consider returning the contract! After fourteen years of this process though, I have learned that even the despair is necessary to for the completion of the book.