Spring Light

we're getting there

Happy Leap Day! Yesterday it was sixty degrees here. Today it’s going to be a more seasonal thirty. But I’m taking this extra day to remember that the amount of daylight is steadily growing, there are new birds in the neighborhood—- a robin was spotted yesterday!—- and things will be growing again soon.

Creative Lessons from Cooney’s Chanticleer and the Fox

Last month, I wrote about Barbara Cooney’s early career and illustrations done in a painstaking, predominantly black-and-white technique called scratchboard. Cooney worked steadily in this medium for years, starting with the publication of her first book in 1940.

Her book Chanticleer and the Fox, while still in scratchboard, used a complicated color-separation technique, with some pages using up to five colors and some only in black and white with small splashes of red. Chanticleer demonstrated just how masterful Cooney had become at scratchboard, winning the Caldecott Medal in 1959. Here’s what she said when asked about the inspiration behind the book:

That question is a little embarrassing because the answer is so simple. I just happened to want to draw chickens.¹

She expanded on that, though:

To answer more exactly this question about what inspired me, I have tried to pinpoint the event that started the ball rolling. For years I have admired the work of Chinese and Japanese artists, in particular, their landscapes and their birds. But I think the actual day that Chanticleer was conceived was three years ago . . . I had been out in the woods picking witch hazel and was on my way home to cook supper. As I came out of the woods I passed a little barn that I had often passed before. But never at that time of day nor when the barn door was wide open. At that hour the sun was getting low and it shone right into the doorway. The inside of the barn was like a golden stage set . . . pecking around the floor of the barn was a most gorgeous and impractical flock of fancy chickens— gold chickens, rust-colored chickens, black ones, white ones, speckled ones and laced ones, some with crests on their heads, some with feathered legs, others with iridescent tails, and all with vermillion-colored wattles and combs. I don’t know about their egg production but they were beautiful. I think that was the beginning of the book.

Then I started casting around for a vehicle for my chickens. One day when I was sick in bed with the grippe— I do seem to get my best ideas when I’m slightly feverish— I was reading The Canterbury Tales. And there, in “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale,” was my story. Besides chickens, I had a fourteenth century setting, a farm and children, animals and growing things. What more could I ask?²

In addition to the question of inspiration, Cooney also addressed the idea of audience:

I believe that children in this country need a more robust literary diet than they are getting . . . It does not hurt them to read about good and evil, love and hate, life and death. Nor do I think they should read only about things that they understand. “. . . a man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” So should a child’s. For myself, I will never talk down to— or draw down to— children. Much of what I put into my pictures will not be understood. How many children will know that the magpie sitting in my pollarded willow in Chanticleer and the Fox is an evil omen? How many children will realize that every flower and grass in the book grew in Chaucer’s time in England? How many children will know or care? Maybe not a single one. Still I keep piling it on. Detail after detail. Whom am I pleasing— besides myself? I don’t know. Yet if i put enough in my pictures, there may be something for everyone. Not all will be understood, but some will be understood now and maybe more later. That is good enough for me.³

I’m quoting Cooney at length here, but here are the creative lessons her words impart for me:

1. Practice. Skill builds upon skill. By the time she won the Caldecott for Chanticleer and the Fox in 1959, she had illustrated over forty books. Chanticleer is an achievement because of the many years and books that came before.

2. Don’t think too hard about why you’re called to a subject. You want to draw chickens? Draw chickens. Eventually, your subject will find you.

3. And, that subject finding you? It requires attention and time. Attention and time. And holding both loosely, if that makes sense. Cooney had other artists she admired. She noticed the barn, the light, the flock of chickens. She connected that fleeting glimpse of chickens at golden hour to a story written in Middle English. The creative brain can’t make these connections unless we give it permission to cast about (and, in this day in age, are actively working to manage the numbness of digital distractions).

4. Don’t think about an audience. In fact, be your own audience. Unlike other paid work she took on, Cooney chose to create Chanticleer for herself. She didn’t worry if it was kid-friendly or if other people would like it. Every detail she etched into those illustrations is because it felt important and pleasing to her.

The recognition and success of Chanticleer allowed Cooney greater freedom in future projects. She began working more in color, and to travel extensively while working on — more on that next month.

And, this is just a little reminder that World More Beautiful comes out in August. I hope you’ll consider pre-ordering from your local independent bookstore, or from bookshop.org:

Random Good Things

Roadside attractions on Route 66.

• I’ve been a reader of Julie Falatko’s Substack

  Do the Work
  for years and recently took her four-week class The Map to Inspiration. It was absolutely wonderful to spend time reflecting on my own creative goals, reconnecting with the type of work that inspires me, and thinking about what I want to make next.

• I keep encountering Lynda Barry in things I read about the creative process, so I watched Grandma’s Way Out Party . It’s fun, quirky, and very '90s. It also reminded me of when we moved from Albuquerque to Vermont with two small kids and two large dogs. We broke up the drive with lots of audiobooks, but also stops to see random roadside attractions like Cadillac Ranch, a totem pole park in Oklahoma, the small town of Casey, Illinois (which boasts things like the world’s largest rocking chair, ruler, and wind chimes), and of course, Niagara Falls.

• As part of my creative practice and one of the ways I’m working to be more offline and more present in the day-to-day, I’m also trying Barry’s four-square journaling technique (you can read a summary here).

• February was a whole month (!!!) of random illnesses, and I indulged in my comfort watch, the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice (of course this renewed the ongoing debate with my daughter about the BBC version versus the 2005 Kiera Knightley version. Both! Both are good! But Colin Firth forever).

• This balsamic vinaigrette, which is now be my go-to salad dressing recipe (and I never really make dressing from scratch).

Books I’ve Read and Loved Recently (Adult)

• The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai (which reminded me of the really intense but really excellent documentary How to Survive a Plague)

• The Perfectionist’s Guide to Losing Control by Katherine Morgan Schafler

• The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

I’m also in a bit of a reading rut lately, though, when it comes to longer books for grownups. I’d love to know what you’ve read and loved recently— leave a comment down below (or reply to this email) with your favorite books of 2024 so far!

Books I’ve Read and Loved Recently (Picture Books)

• Papá’s Magical Water-Jug Clock by Jesús Trejo and Eliza Kinkz

• Pepper and Me by Beatrice Alemagna

• Sourgrass by Hope Lim and Shahrzad Maydani

*Please note that all books mentioned above contain affiliate links to Bookshop.org, a site that helps support local independent bookstores.

1. Cooney, Barbara. “Caldecott Award Acceptance.” Newbery and Caldecott Medal Books: 1956-1965, edited by Lee Kingman, Boston, Horn Book, 1965, pp. 199-202.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.