1st Friday Art Reception, Part2

At the art show last Friday, I ended up showing a total of 21 pieces.

(Geez, my eyes are half-closed in too many pictures.)

They ranged from large oil pieces:

                  ...Hip hop portraits...                                               Two of my favorite hip hop artists:
                                                                                 Talib Kweli (I met him, he's awesome!) and Mos Def

 to black and white gouache and pen illustrations:

                                                    ...two pieces from the "Aminata" series...


and collages from books and personal projects:

         ... two pieces from My Hands Sing the Blues: Romaire Bearden's Childhood Journey...

                       ..."Raindrops": mixed media...                       ..."Sudan Madonna & Child": egg tempera...


About a third of these pieces have been hanging in my apartment for years, and the rest, sadly, have been wrapped up and in boxes. It's awesome to be able to share them! Some have never been outside my home- I feel like they're my children that I've kept sheltered and are now out in the world! (It's weird, I know) But I'm happy to say that some of the pieces in the show will be finding their way to new homes! (Yay!)


The show is being held at the new African American Cultural Center of the Capital Region, Inc., which "is a nonprofit organization committed to educating, enriching, and empowering residents of the Capital Region through a variety of educational, cultural and performing arts, programs, activities, and exhibits that promote awareness and raise the collective consciousness of all ethnicities to the rich and vibrant history, contribution, and culture of African Americans."


 It is housed in an old Bank building (with the vault and everything!) in the South End neighborhood of Albany.

I was involved in the Cultural Center's Programming Committee last year, and there are always ideas and events brewing! 

 ...view from inside the Center...  

...view from right outside... (I miss you guys!)

                                                    .

The show will be up until the end of May. If you're in the area, please stop by!

A big thank you to the Programming Committee and volunteers of the African American Cultural Center, the Albany Institute of History and Art, the Downtown Albany Business Improvement District, the City of Albany Mayor Kathy M. Sheehan, the City of Albany Superintendent's Arts Advisory Committee, the Little Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza, and the Altamont Enterprise for their support!

And friends and family and teachers and colleagues, and boyfriend, and of course, Mommy and Daddy!

1st Friday Art Reception!

Well, all the planning for the show at the African American Cultural Center of the Capital Region, Inc. really paid off! We had a great turnout at the opening reception last Friday with friends, family, colleagues, acquaintances, and new friends!

The event was part of Albany, NY's 1st Friday events, which "aim to introduce a wider audience to the unique vitality of the artists and venues of Albany." On the first Friday of every month, participating galleries and shops stay open late with special events, art, music and theater.

One big supporter of mine has been Lyn Miller-Lachmann, author of Gringolandia and Rogue. She was so nice as to come and also write a blog post about the event! You can read the post below, or on her blog at http://www.lynmillerlachmann.com/

I'll be posting more pictures of the show very soon!

Posted on Apr 4, 2014 in Blog, International, Writing

Home Is Where the Art Is: A Profile of Illustrator Elizabeth Zunon

Liz speaks to her fans, including her mom standing behind her

I met Elizabeth Zunon in summer 2012 at Albany’s annual African-American Family Day, where she displayed and read from the most recent picture books that she had illustrated,My Hands Sing the Blues: Romare Bearden’s Childhood Journey (Marshall Cavendish, 2012) and The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind (Dial, 2012). Her colorful paintings and collages impressed me immediately, and she soon became one of my favorite children’s book illustrators working today. The fact that such a talented artist lives and works in my city was a bonus. Over the next year and a half, I attended other book events, including the launch of a revised biography of President Barack Obama, A President from Hawai’i, that Liz also illustrated in her signature multimedia style. In addition to her books, Liz creates stunning textiles and jewelry, and I had the opportunity last summer to visit a temporary studio in downtown Albany where she created and sold these works.

Like the President who she portrayed in a picture book for children, Liz is biracial. Her father is from the Ivory Coast, and she spent the first 12 years of her life there. She writes,

Surrounded by bright, vibrant African fabrics, tropical trees and flowers, I developed a love of color and pattern which still sticks with me today. We spoke French in the Ivory Coast, but my mother also made sure to read bedtime stories in English to my brother and me, and we spent summers in Albany at my grandparents’ house. We would watch Reading Rainbow on TV and look for those books with the Reading Rainbow sticker on the shelves of the Pine Hills Library!

By the way, the Pine Hills Library is my local library in Albany!

Liz with another big fan — the manager of the Little Book House, Rachel King.

Tonight, Liz became the third Albany-area artist featured in the gallery of the new African-American Cultural Center in downtown Albany. Located in a Key Bank that closed two years ago, the African-American Cultural Center promotes the work of writers and artists and has a lending library for children and adults. The opening of Liz’s exhibit was packed with people who marveled at her jewelry, textiles, oil paintings of black celebrities, black-and-white gouache paintings of birds and animals, oil and fabric collages of people and scenes from Africa — and the original illustrations from her award-winning books!

One of my favorite illustrations from My Hands Sing the Blues: Romare Bearden’s Childhood Journey.

I immediately thought of my friend Ed Spicer, who collects award-winning original illustrations. I am sure he’d love these multimedia originals that include the cut-paper collages that graced the pages of William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer’s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, winner of the prestigious 2013 Children’s Africana Book Award among many other honors. Many of the dozens of people in the small gallery were picking out their favorites and figuring out their budgets so they could take one or more of the paintings home at the end of the month-long exhibit. In the meantime, some of the purses and earrings had already found new homes.

Illustration for sale from the award-winning The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.

I’m certain that the strong turnout, especially on a cold, rainy night at the end of a cold, miserable winter, heartened Liz and her parents, who were also there. In her short speech, Liz thanked them for supporting her and putting her through art school at the Rhode Island School of Design. (I know her parents and wish that every creative person could have parents as awesome as hers.) But there was other good news for her and her fans. Next to the gallery entrance were two posters, one for each of her forthcoming books! She is the illustrator for a fall 2014 picture book by the acclaimed author Nikki Grimes. The book, Poems in the Attic, from multicultural publisher Lee & Low, depicts a young girl who finds in her grandmother’s attic a box of poems written by her mother when her mother was her age; they tell the story of a girl who has to move frequently because her father was in the Air Force.

A poster announcing the forthcoming Poems in the Attic, written by Nikki Grimes and illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon.

And sometime in 2015, Liz builds on The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind with another story set in Africa that has an environmental theme. One Plastic Bag, written by Miranda Paul and published by Millbrook Press, portrays Isatou Ceesay, who collects plastic bags  littering her village in Gambia. She and other women artists wash the bags, cut them into strips, and weave the strips into handbags, totes, and other items that they sell to raise money for their business and to educate people about proper waste disposal and recycling.

I’m excited about Liz’s new books and expect that as more people find out about her work, her fan base will grow along with her list of accolades.

A poster announcing the forthcoming One Plastic Bag, written by Miranda Paul and illustrated by Elizabeth Zunon.

New Cards and an Art Show!

The FedEx man surprised me with a delivery of my new cards and bookmarks yesterday! Isn't it amazing that you can finagle (is that how you spell that?) up something on your computer, upload it to a website, and have cards printed and delivered to your door?

Like magic!

I panicked the week before last at the thought of not having any cards on hand to give out at my painting and illustration show next Friday at the African American Cultural Center. And it's always fun to have new stuff to give out for Spring!

I am slowly getting ready for the show- today was typing up labels and matting a few illustrations from some of my books.

Now that I've got most of the logistics ironed out, I can hopefully have the weekend to paint, paint, paint! - I've got about two weeks before final illustrations for one of my future books are due. I might even get them done on time!

Happy Spring!

According to the calendar (and to the internet), today is the first official day of spring! Fiiinallllyyyyyy!!!!
I was worried with the icy rain we got last night, and the gloomy (but warmer) morning earlier today. On my much needed walk to the coffee shop for a much needed chocolate croissant, the air was warm enough for the ice on the sidewalk to turn to slippery slush! Not bad! And the sun and blue skies decided to make an appearance around lunch time, and I'm wearing a springy pink sweater, sooooo I think we made it! (please, Mother Nature, no more snowstorms!!)

I had to settle for a regular croissant (they were unfortunately out of the chocolate variety), but maybe next time! The day really just goes better when you start off with a chocolate croissant.

In honor of our first Spring day, I spent the morning clipping things from magazines and brainstorming about my next art project, which as you may guess is flower and plant-based.

Here is my Happy Spring collage!

It is a sneak peak of a series I'd like to do (probably in later spring and summer), with painting and drawing and paper and beads and who-knows-what-else. 

It's coming!

Spring has Sprung! (not really)

It's been sooo frigid lately, but since it is early March, the sun has been shining brightly and I swear spring wants to spring! When I wake up in the mornings, I can hear a family of birds in the alleyway from my bathroom window, and they make me think that warm weather is not far away! If only the air temperature could just catch up with the bright sun and things started sprouting, everything would be on track!

To try and usher in (or welcome) the spring into my life earlier this week, I bought some pretty pink flowers to spruce up my living room.

Ranunculus, tulips and lisianthus (maybe?) add some cheer to my little bookcase.

(oh, and that is a random picture of my brother and me on his high school graduation)

Sometimes I really miss my days working in a flower shop in New York. I started off working in the flower kiosk in Bryant Park, then moved to the shop in the West Village. 

Good times. 

Working in Bryant Park in itself was eventful! But I'll get to that some other time.

I had plenty of time to observe (spy on, really), photograph, and draw the people in the park and the flowers I was tending to:

Every Thursday at the West Village shop, we would get shipments of flowers from the Netherlands, and it was like Christmas morning every week! We would unwrap boxes and boxes of Dutch tulips, roses, tropical flowers from Australia and South Africa, anything and everything you could imagine. It was amazing! And the shop smelled soooooo good!

Roses! Lilies of the Valley! Peonies! Hyacinths! Pineapple flowers! Jasmine! Orchids!

Ahh, the bounty!!!

That seems like another life ago. After I moved back home, I worked in another flower shop locally- it was the best! Someday I'll turn my flower notes and drawings into a book- and also do a series of flower paintings/collages!!! That's been on the back burner for years.. I've gotta resuscitate that this spring... stay tuned! For now, taking a short walk to the flower shop around the corner from me does the trick. 

Come on, Spring! I need you!!!

-P.S: here's a freaky nature fact -  tulips keep growing even after you cut them and put them in a vase. Weird!!!

Blog Q&A with Deborah Kalb

I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Deborah Kalb, co-author (with her father Marvin Kalb) of the book Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama for her blog: Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb.

The interview is copied below. You can visit Deborah's blog at http://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/

Friday, March 7, 2014

Q&A with illustrator Elizabeth Zunon

Elizabeth Zunon is an artist who has illustrated a number of books for children, including The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, a 2013 Children's Africana Book Awardwinner; My Hands Sing the Blues: Romare Bearden's Childhood Journey; and A President from Hawaii. She grew up in the Ivory Coast and is based in Albany, N.Y.

Q: On your website, you mention the influence on your artwork of your childhood in the Ivory Coast. How is that reflected?

A: Mostly in the bright colors I use. The everyday clothing of people in the Ivory Coast and all over Africa has bright patterning—you don’t see that here in Upstate New York! I love collecting patterned papers and fabrics.

Q: How did you end up illustrating The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, and how closely did you work with the authors?

A: I was the last piece of the puzzle for that book—it was originally going to be illustrated by somebody else who had to drop out.

I did not work extremely closely with the authors. I received reference images from Bryan Mealer, William Kamkwamba’s co-author; he had a lot of photographs of William with his family, in the village. I didn’t speak to William at all really until the project was done. William was off at school.

Q: Do you envision your work differently depending on the age the picture book is designed for?

A: I don’t really change my approach depending on the age of the child. I want to portray realistic figures, realistic landscapes and backgrounds.

Q: How was it to illustrate a picture book about Romare Bearden—illustrating a picture book about an artist?

A: That was a great project for me. It was my very first picture book. I was a couple of years out of college. It fell into my lap; I had lost my job at a flower shop. I had a total of nine months to work on it. That allowed me to delve into the research part; I was not very familiar with Romare Bearden’s work. I wanted to emulate the collage aspect of his work.

I learned not only about the artist but his process. It helped me identify with him as an artist. The story was about him as an adult reflecting on his childhood somewhere else, and I was trying to hold onto my childhood images of the Ivory Coast; I could relate.

Q: What about the book about President Obama?

A: That was different than the other picture books I’ve done. I only painted landscapes; they used actual Obama family photographs. It was about discovering Hawaii. I was transported back to my childhood in the Ivory Coast; [many of the flowers] are similar, and since I used to work in a flower shop, that was great.

Q: Are you interested in writing a picture book to go along with your illustrations?

A: I am, absolutely. I have a couple of stories in my mind. That’s my ultimate goal.

Q: What do you work on with kids during your visits to schools?

A: Sometimes the school asks me to visit because the students have read one of my books—The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, or My Hands Sing the Blues. The kids are already familiar with it. I have a Power Point presentation about how I worked on the book. I use myself as a model, set up my camera on a timer, and work from photos of myself posing. Sometimes I’ll come into a class and we’ll work on a collage project.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: Two picture books. It’s a first for me to work on two at the same time! I’m trying to juggle both projects. One is a true story about a person in Africa, an environmental leader. The other is a fictionalized story—a girl finds poems in her grandmother’s attic written by her mother when she was growing up on Air Force bases.

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Paintin' Babies

Ahhh, well it has been a busy couple of weeks. I've shifted from working on illustrations for one book to another, doing local school visits, and planning the next couple of months. Not to mention, my ceiling started leaking again and I've had to move my computer, printer and office stuff out of my office and onto my drawing desk, so that's thrown a wrench in my working in an organized space... but I'm dealing with it.

Anyways...

This illustration I'm working on now reminds me of how many babies I've painted over the years!

... baby from upcoming book out Spring 2015 ...

... Babies from Blue Boy series in high school ...

... Baby-carrier series from college ...

... Babies from egg-tempera & gold leaf series from college ...

... Baby from Icon series in college ...

... Baby from "Lala Salama" book ...

Mother and child subject matter has always appealed to me for some reason... and it's been a re-occurring theme in my work for over ten years! Maybe it has something to do with a baby's innocence and wide-eyed curiosity about and observation of the world. I always wonder: "What are babies thinking?"