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 Ashley at work in her studio. |
 The house I grew up in, with, (LtoR), my sister Peri, my Dad Klaus, me, my Mom Deane, and our first German Shepard "Lumpy" |
zzzzI grew up in a house with many windows. It sat on a hill and the forest came right into our back yard. Sometimes, in the very early morning, I could see a lake of fog in the valley below my house. zzzzThe bedroom I shared with my sister looked into the forest. On the windowsill we lined up bird's nests and feathers and the skull and bones of small animals that we found in the forest. zzzzEvery spring a pair of robins built their nest on the ledge right outside and, if we leaned out far enough, we could see the babies when they hatched. |
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| zzzzMy
house was in the small town of Middlebury, Vermont. Middlebury is beautiful
town with a bandstand on the village green. On the hill at the top of
Main Street is a church with a tall white steeple and across town, on
another hill is Middlebury College where my Dad taught economics.
zzzz Otter Creek winds through the middle of town and slides right under Main Street. Whenever we crossed the old stone bridge, my Mom would lift me up to watch the water crash down the falls and feel the cold spray on my face. Now I am tall and when I visit Middlebury I am able to lift my own boys up to see. |
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zzzz
Every
time anyone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I answered "An
artist." I loved my art teachers, Mrs. Wissler and Mr. Field. In high
school I spent all my spare time in the art room. It was my home at
school and where I felt most comfortable.
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My
1st grade school picture
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zzzI tried lots of different art forms while I was a student but was most attracted in the end to illustration and printmaking, especially wood block and linoleum blockprinting. zzzMy favorite course was called "Picture and Word" and was taught by Judy Sue Goodwin-Sturges, an Illustration professor and Phil Bailey, an English professor. We learned to write stories that left room for illustration and how to use illustration to enhance and enlarge a story. zzzThe lessons I learned in that class are still influencing me when I work on books today. |
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Every
year my parents designed and printed their own
linoleum blockChristmas cards. I'm
sure this is one of the reasons I became a printmaker too.
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| zzzI
received
my BFA from RISD in 1979. After graduation I returned to Middlebury for
the summer and got a job at a small weekly newspaper called the Valley
Voice. zzzMy title was Art Director but my job was to paste up the ads and sometimes illustrate a column. I went out on a date with Sabin Russell, the reporter for the Valley Voice, fell in love with him and married him in 1980. zzz One week after our wedding we packed everything that would fit into the back of a red Toyota pickup and moved to San Francisco. Sitting between us on the front seat as we crossed the USA was my dog, a Border Collie named Pumpkin. |
| Pumpkin
and our 2nd German Shepard "Thumper" I got Pumpkin in 1977 while I was still in art school. She was born on a dairy farm and her mother, Patsy, herded cows. Pumpkin went to class with me when I was in school and she went to work with me at the Valley Voice. When we got to California, I went to work at another small weekly newspaper in Marin County called the Pacific Sun and so did Pumpkin. |
zzzIn 1983 I left the newspaper to become a free-lance artist and muralist. My first murals had been on barns in Vermont. They were of cows, horses, sheep and children. That summer in California I painted more horses, wagons, dogs, geese and landscapes. I loved working outside in the sun with Pumpkin by my side, listening to the radio and talking to people passing by. zzzWinter came and I began work on my illustration portfolio. I knew I needed to go to New York to meet editors and show my work. I made a lot of early morning phone calls and set up appointments with publishers. zzz In March of 1983 I spent two weeks in New York, hauling my big leather portfolio around to different appointments. It rained every day and I came home to my friend's apartment every night, tired and wet. z |
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Near the end
of my trip I met with an editor named Donna Brooks at a small publisher
called Dodd Mead. She looked through my work and stopped at a linoleum
block print of a girl in a red coat, kneeling in the snow, feeding the
birds. "I like this little girl. Why don't you write a story about her?"
Donna asked. z With her encouragement I went back to California and wrote and illustrated my first picture book, A Year of Birds. It was published in 1984 and I used that picture of the little girl for the cover. Since then I have illustrated many books. All of them full of animals, children, color and love. |
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In 1986 Sabin
and I left Pumpkin with my Dad and went on a trip around the world.
We traveled East to West, beginning in Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia
and ending six months later in Turkey, Italy and England. We came
home to San Francisco and our son Brennan was born soon after.
Sabin and Brennan in 1987.
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Now I have two sons, Brennan and Rowan, and lots of books. I have a house, a garden and a very busy life. I feel very lucky because I grew up to be what I wanted to be as a little girl: an artist.
Rowan and me in 1990. |
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