AMHERST – Illustrator Carson Ellis, who lives with her family on an Oregon farm and exhibits at the R. Michelson Galleries in Northampton, knew little about the winter solstice – the year’s shortest day for those living north of the equator – before her work on the book called “The Shortest Day" that is being released later this month.
The book features noted author Susan Cooper’s 1974 poem of the same name illustrated by Ellis whose “Du Iz Tak?” written in the dialogue of “bug language” invented by Ellis, is a Caldecott Honor book.
The two will talk about their collaboration Sunday, Oct. 20, at 1 p.m. at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. Their auditorium discussion is free with museum admission, and will be followed by a booksigning.
Ellis is also the keynote speaker for the museum’s Annual Educators’ Night, Tuesday, Oct. 22, at 3:30 and 7 p.m., for which registration is required.
Ellis has illustrated a number of books for kids including bestsellers “The Mysterious Benedict Society” by Trenton Lee Stewart, “The Composer Is Dead” by Lemony Snicket, and the “Wildwood Chronicles” by Colin Meloy.
Ellis is married to Meloy, the leader of the band Decemberists, and as its illustrator-in-residence received Grammy nominations in 2016 and 2018 for album art design.
Ellis called the “Shortest Day” book “a joy to work on.”
She is interviewed here about how the collaborative process changed her original approach to illustrating the poem and how little she new about the ancient ritual at the start.
Q. Did you know much about the winter solstice before doing the book illustrations?
A. I didn’t. I knew only the basics: that it’s the shortest day of the year, when the earth is tilted farthest away from the sun and that, by some people’s reckoning, it’s the first official day of winter.
Q. Do you celebrate it yourself?
A. I haven’t in the past. I grew up in a family that celebrated both Christmas and Hannukah so there were already a lot traditions to observe. I don’t even know if I was aware, as a kid, that people celebrated the winter solstice as a holiday. I’m not sure if I’d say I celebrate it now either, after working on this book, though I’m much more aware of it and more attuned to the way the things I do celebrate in the winter are directly descended from ancient solstice traditions.
Q. Did you talk with the author at any point about the artwork planned?
A. I did. My original idea for the “Shortest Day” was to show some medieval villagers merrily making their way to some sort of solstice celebration. I wanted the book to look like a Breugel painting. Breugel was a 16th century Dutch painter whose work features lots of fascinating details about medieval life. He also painted some incredible winter landscapes.
My initial response to the poem was to set it in Northern Europe in the middle ages and to create a series of little vignettes that would be a glimpse into what a medieval winter might have been like. But Susan’s vision for this book was a lot deeper and more expansive.
“The Shortest Day” is really about the threat that winter posed to early man - freezing, illness, starvation - how meaningful the symbolism of the solstice was in light of that, and how our contemporary winter holiday traditions grew out of that and connect us to our ancestors.
She wrote me a letter explaining as much. It was a daunting letter to get but also a really brilliant one. I read it a few times, then spent a month thinking about it, then dove back into illustrating the book with a totally different approach.
Q. Light and dark as well as a sense of coming and going seem to occupy every page – is that intentional?
A. Yes! Light and dark are at the heart of the poem. The slow dying of the light as the days get shorter and the joyful celebration of its return on the solstice. I wanted that to be felt on every page. As for coming and going, I’m not sure if that was intentional. I just wanted the book to have a sense of people moving though time, I guess.
You must feel very tied-in with nature living on a farm in Oregon – did that help in terms of setting the book’s feel for nature in illustrating “The Shortest Day” and how would you describe that feel?
I do feel very attuned to the seasons here. Especially the way the light and the colors of the landscape shift as the seasons change. But that turns out to be hard to paint.
I knew I wanted the book to begin with a series of sweeping, atmospheric landscapes transitioning from autumn to winter and I knew exactly how I wanted them to look and feel but I didn’t know how to paint them initially. It took a lot of experimenting to figure that out.
Q. What did you enjoy about illustrating the book and what do you enjoy about illustrating books for children?
A. This book was a joy to work on. It was challenging to find the right approach and to figure out how to paint those landscapes. But I love this poem so much – the first time I read it, it took my breath away – so I came to it very inspired. As for illustrating kids’ books in general, it would be hard to say what I enjoy about that. Everything.
Q. How did you come to show your work at R. Michelson Galleries in this area?
A. My husband has purchased original children’s book illustrations from them in the past as gifts for me: two paintings by Alice and Martin Provensen and a William Steig drawings. So I knew about R. Michelson and thought of them when I was looking at my overflowing flat files and wondering what to do with all the kids book art I’ve made over the past 15 years.
Mo Willems, who also works with R. Michelson Galleries, is a friend of mine so I asked him for an introduction and Rich agreed to sell my work. I was thrilled. I’m in exceptional company there and they do a beautiful job.
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