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Interview with Lois Ehlert, author of Wag A Tail |
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Interview |
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Q: Readers love the clever and striking collages that distinguish your picture books. In Wag a Tail, you use scraps of paper and fabric left over from your previous books. What made you decide to put these scraps back to work, and why now, in this particular book?
A: I’m known to my friends as a pack rat. That is, I save “good stuff.” All of my books are illustrated in an art technique called collage, which involves cutting and pasting different materials together. My impression of farmers markets is that they look like a quilt made of many pieces. Perhaps that’s what started me thinking. It’s difficult to explain where creativity begins.
Q: Wag a Tail bustles with fun-loving and mischievous dogs. How did you decide which breeds to feature? Do you have dogs yourself?
A: Every Saturday, from early spring through late fall, rain or shine, I go to the farmers market near my home. The neighborhood I live in is near Lake Michigan, and is a mixture of homes and high-rise apartments. I began seeing dogs with their humans every week, and became fascinated by their looks and personalities. I wondered who was having the most fun—the owners or the dogs. I began tiny sketches, which later became parts (or quilt pieces) of the compositions.
I don’t have any live pets, but I do have many folk art sculptures of animals.
Q: The jazzy, rhythmic words come straight from the dogs’ mouths. Why did you use speech bubbles instead of traditional text to reflect the thoughts of these pups?
A: I wanted to make sure that readers would understand that the dogs were doing the talking, not the people. Who’s to argue that dogs can’t talk? Maybe we just can’t understand their language. I also wanted to call attention to how much attitude you can read from the body language of the dogs and humans.
Q: Wag a Tail celebrates farmers markets, with pages full of shoppers happily toting (and often eating!) goods that are natural or handmade rather than mass-produced. Do you hope children will take away any particular message from this theme?
A: I guess I always hope that I might plant an idea, although I don’t want to be too directive. A farmers market is where you can buy good food and meet friends—of both the two-legged and the four-legged kind.
Q: All your books tap into a universal childhood experience; Wag a Tail does this as well by celebrating the ordinary pleasures of playing and friendship. How do you come to be so in tune with the child mind? Did you always aspire to create children’s books?
A: Let’s face it. I’m a grown-up child. I love being with young children.
While I was growing up, I always enjoyed making art and reading. It was most natural for me to want to create children’s books as my life’s work. However, there were many zigs and zags before I finally sold my first book.
Q: You often turn to autobiographical elements in your art, like your mother’s pinking shears, which appear in Hands and were used to cut out the dogs in Wag a Tail. What influences your decisions when adding extra elements to collages, like the shears or the buttons that appear in this book?
A: My mother taught me to sew when I was young, and I still design some of my own clothes. Using the pinking shears in Wag a Tail was a simple way to distinguish a shaggy, furry dog from a short-haired dog. Look at the last two pages of the book. See what I mean?
I have an abundance of buttons from my grandmother and my mother. I thought I could use buttons for the eyes of humans and dogs. I also used buttons on the vegetables and flowers; young children can use them to count from one to twenty. Again, I’m reusing some “good stuff.” Readers can do the same thing when they make art. I created this book for my grand niece, Cali; we are beginning to create art together from my “good stuff.”
Q: Have you used up all your fabric scraps now, or did you tuck a few away for future books? Can you give us a teaser about what those future books might be? You’ve just completed a book about dogs. . . . Could one about cats be lurking on the horizon?
A: I hope I never run out of fabric scraps; I don’t think that’s possible. I’ve squirreled away a good store of multicolored papers, too.
I can only tell you about the book I’m working on now, called Oodles of Animals. Oh yes, there’s a cat and a dog in it, but also many more animals. You’ll have to wait until spring of 2008 to see it. As for future books, I’ll just have to keep my eyes (and my brain) open to new ideas. Right now I’m busy watching butterflies and eating fresh strawberries. That’s enough pleasure for me at the moment. My best to you, and happy reading.
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