Artsy Mamas

Susan, tell us a little about yourself.

I have been an art teacher forever. It is how I think of myself. I love my job working with young children (kindergarten through grade 5) They come to me once a week and it is always their favorite hour of the week. I read them a story that sets the mood for the project I am introducing and then we go to work. I always save their art work throughout the year. Lots of volunteer moms come in to help me keep track of the art work, file the pictures and then bind them in books at the end of the year. The art is appreciated much more when it is a whole collection bound in a book than it would be folded up in a backpack and brought the day it was done. Seeing the whole body of work helps the parents see the development that was made from September through June. Parents who always threw away pictures NEVER throw away the books. On weekends I seem to work on my lessons and preparing my "legacy", which will be a curriculum for elementary at that I have been working on since I started teaching. I am compelled to do it; I can't seem to stop.

When you were a young mother, what inspired you most as an artist?

I was never a young mother. I was 37 when my son was born! I had been married for 14 years, taught art for 15 and published my first book by the time he came along. I took a maternity leave fully intending to go back after two years, but couldn't leave him. He became my muse. He was always very adventurous and free. I had him finger painting with apple sauce in his high chair when he was 6 or 7 months old. I was telling my agent about the work I was doing with him and how friends thought I was crazy. She suggested that I write a book about my ideas on how to stimulate creativity. I began photographing Jason as he worked on art projects all through his first five years, and two of my books are about that period. PLEASE TOUCH (Simeon & Schuster) and YOUNG AT ART® (Henry Holt) Soon, parents in our neighborhood started asking me to give their children the art experiences that they didn't feel they could give them. We always had a house full of kids painting on the windows, drawing, making craft projects and the like. I gave Jason a birthday party where I had the children decorate the birthday cake and make their own party bags and favors. All the moms liked it so much they wanted me to go into business. After Jason went to Kindergarten, I opened YOUNG AT ART® (the school) in New York City, where we lived. I gave art classes and art birthday parties. His dad left when he was six and some hard times followed. I wound up going back to teaching in a public school, where my paycheck and health insurance were more predictable. I still give classes and birthday parties for people, and have teachers that I train to go into schools to teach the Young at Art® way. Jason is 27 now, and still incredibly creative and adventurous

but is not going into art as a profession. His love is the environment and he is an environmental specialist in Colorado.

He has had a one man show in a gallery, and my home is filled with his paintings. For my last birthday he gave me the best gift I had ever received in my life. A photo of the vase he made is attached.

Can you describe the process of turning your ideas and experiences into published books? Do you have any advice for moms who might like to become published but who don't really know where to start?

To be published, you have to write! That sounds simplistic, but I can't tell you how many people come to me and tell me they have "great" ideas for a book and ask what they should do. I offer to look at their books and they almost always have not even written a word. You have to write, re-write, then start again. When you have shown it to friends and family and think it is ready, write a short proposal, include a few sample pages, and contact publishers. Don't ever send a proposal to anyone without including stamped, self addressed envelopes and don't ever send your only copy. Don't be discouraged by rejection. My very best work is a series I have been writing for the last few years. It has been rejected by about 40 publishers. I keep trying. If I never can find a publisher I will publish it myself, with a vanity publisher. It is very discouraging, but I won't give up.

All art teachers learn in college how stifling and damaging coloring books are for children, but classroom teachers and parents never get the message. I was back at graduate school after many years of teaching. The professor suggested that instead of doing the assignments he had given the younger people in the class, we come up with something that reflected my teaching experience. I kept asking him what he wanted me to do and he kept saying "we'll see". The semester went on and all the students in the class kept handing in their assignments and I had nothing to do. I was al ittle worried about how I would get a good grade. One day, when the professor started his lecture on the subject of how bad coloring books are I raised my hand and said "Art teachers hear this all the time, but we never give coloring books to children. Why doesn't someone do something to reach the parents with this information.They don't buy their children coloring books because they are bad parents, they just don't ever hear the lecture we hear all the time." "That" he said, pointing at me, "is your assignment for the term". I put together all of the tried and true art lessons I was doing with my students and presented them, in a coloring book format, to the whole class. At the end of my presentation I was shocked when everyone clapped. The professor loved it and suggested that I try to get it published. My (now ex) brother in law had a book published by Henry Holt and at the next time I saw him I proudly told him the story and what the professor had said. He offered to show the book to his editor, who loved it and sent it to the children's department which rejected it immediately. She liked it so much she went to the publisher and asked for permission to publish it herself, even though children's books were not her department. Since then, I have published 21 books, most with Henry Holt.

Where can our readers go to learn more about your work and how they

can change the ways in which their children are learning art?

I have a web site ... Parents of children under the age of five should read my books PLEASE TOUCH® and YOUNG AT ART®. They are filled with photos of Jason, his friends and my students and of me doing art and talk about how important scribbling is to prepare children to read. Parents of children over the age of 6 will want THE ANTI-COLORING BOOKS®. They include suggestions and motivation to encourage children who have outgrown scribbling to draw pictures.