The secret life of Eric Carle
I live near the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. It's located on the campus of Hampshire College. Hampshire college is part of the 5 college system (Smith, Mount Holyoke, Amherst, UMass-Amherst, Hampshire). Someone explained to me once that Scooby Doo was based on the five colleges. Velma was Smith, Daphney was Mount Holyoke, Fred was Amherst, Shaggy was UMass Amherst, and Scooby Doo represented Hampshire...once he became addicted to prescription drugs and/or heroin.
Hampshire college is a place where majors are designed so that one might graduate with a B.A. in German Topiary design or Fondu, or...Stuff. I think Stuff's a major. In any case, it doesn't really matter. From what I can tell it's a place where Trust Fund babies can meet other Trust Fund babies and pretend to be homeless and beg together. Sort of like UC Santa Cruz only a little haughtier.
So, in any case, they have the Eric Carle Museum of Water Painting there which is a two wing museum. One wing is devoted to a standing exhibit of the work of master children's guy Eric Carle and another wing is devoted to people who illustrate children's books that your kids might actually enjoy. It's like $18 or something to get in. They won't let you pay half price and just go see the side of the museum that is NOT Eric Carle's stuff, which I think is unfair. Even if I liked the work of Eric Carle, I still don't think I'd want to take a look at multiple times. He's not Salvador Dali or anything. Though, admittedly, I don't think I'd buy children's books by Salvador Dali.
My favorite part of the museum is when they tell you that Eric Carle, when he was in art school, would do the assignments just as directed showing incredible ammounts of technical skill and expertise, but when left to his own designs he would go back to this "style." In other words, he's very talented; he's just choosing not to use that talent when he makes his children's books.
Regardless, because I live near the Eric Carle Museum of Stuff I Could Paint Myself While Drunk I have been presented with a number of Eric Carle books to read to my child. He picks them out for me to read thinking that they might be kind of good (actually, I think he thinks that they are "Mr. Brown Can Moo. Can You?" because the books are suspiciously similar in size and shape), and then I open the books and attempt to read from them, but my boy is smart. He quickly realizes that the art work sucks and walks the hell away.
I guess my point here is that Eric Carle isn't really much of an artist. I mean, if you're going to make a museum dedicated to a guy who does children's book art, how about the guy who draws Jumanji. Now that bastard can draw! But Eric Carle is like, I don't know, water color guy and water colors are just...enhh.
So, in any case, the other day, I'm reading That's Not My Kitten and it occurs to me: Eric Carle may have no talent as an artist, but my God, the man is an absolute genius with irony. No seriously.
Okay, here's the plot of that book. There's this kid and he's looking for his cat. Alright, so what does he do? He asks people. So, he asks the cowboy, and the cowboy's like, "maybe that's him over there," but it's not him. It's a frickin' mountain lion. Then the kid asks a native american (who lives in a teepee and wears buckskin tights, so it's kind of a racist stereotype, but anyway...), and the native american says, "maybe that's your kitten over there." Nope. It's a Puma. Caballero? No, that's a panther. Women with baskets balanced on their head (how far does this kid go to find his cat?)? Nope, that's a jaguar. Guy washing out his Sairi in the Ganges? Nope, Tiger.
Okay, so the point is, this kid is asking for a kitten. An f'ing kitten! And everyone he meets tries to get him to go up and pet some kind of ravenous member of the cat family. At one point someone points him towards a lion. So, here's what I think the plot of that story might be. No one likes this kid, right, and as soon as he starts asking questions about his cat, they see their chance to deal with him by feeding him to a wild animal. What I don't understand is how this kid gets away every time, but he does. Something's going on there, behind the scenes. It's very provocative, despite the fact that the art's kind of crappy.
I think I'm going to bring this up to the staff next time I go to the Eric Carle museum.
Hampshire college is a place where majors are designed so that one might graduate with a B.A. in German Topiary design or Fondu, or...Stuff. I think Stuff's a major. In any case, it doesn't really matter. From what I can tell it's a place where Trust Fund babies can meet other Trust Fund babies and pretend to be homeless and beg together. Sort of like UC Santa Cruz only a little haughtier.
So, in any case, they have the Eric Carle Museum of Water Painting there which is a two wing museum. One wing is devoted to a standing exhibit of the work of master children's guy Eric Carle and another wing is devoted to people who illustrate children's books that your kids might actually enjoy. It's like $18 or something to get in. They won't let you pay half price and just go see the side of the museum that is NOT Eric Carle's stuff, which I think is unfair. Even if I liked the work of Eric Carle, I still don't think I'd want to take a look at multiple times. He's not Salvador Dali or anything. Though, admittedly, I don't think I'd buy children's books by Salvador Dali.
My favorite part of the museum is when they tell you that Eric Carle, when he was in art school, would do the assignments just as directed showing incredible ammounts of technical skill and expertise, but when left to his own designs he would go back to this "style." In other words, he's very talented; he's just choosing not to use that talent when he makes his children's books.
Regardless, because I live near the Eric Carle Museum of Stuff I Could Paint Myself While Drunk I have been presented with a number of Eric Carle books to read to my child. He picks them out for me to read thinking that they might be kind of good (actually, I think he thinks that they are "Mr. Brown Can Moo. Can You?" because the books are suspiciously similar in size and shape), and then I open the books and attempt to read from them, but my boy is smart. He quickly realizes that the art work sucks and walks the hell away.
I guess my point here is that Eric Carle isn't really much of an artist. I mean, if you're going to make a museum dedicated to a guy who does children's book art, how about the guy who draws Jumanji. Now that bastard can draw! But Eric Carle is like, I don't know, water color guy and water colors are just...enhh.
So, in any case, the other day, I'm reading That's Not My Kitten and it occurs to me: Eric Carle may have no talent as an artist, but my God, the man is an absolute genius with irony. No seriously.
Okay, here's the plot of that book. There's this kid and he's looking for his cat. Alright, so what does he do? He asks people. So, he asks the cowboy, and the cowboy's like, "maybe that's him over there," but it's not him. It's a frickin' mountain lion. Then the kid asks a native american (who lives in a teepee and wears buckskin tights, so it's kind of a racist stereotype, but anyway...), and the native american says, "maybe that's your kitten over there." Nope. It's a Puma. Caballero? No, that's a panther. Women with baskets balanced on their head (how far does this kid go to find his cat?)? Nope, that's a jaguar. Guy washing out his Sairi in the Ganges? Nope, Tiger.
Okay, so the point is, this kid is asking for a kitten. An f'ing kitten! And everyone he meets tries to get him to go up and pet some kind of ravenous member of the cat family. At one point someone points him towards a lion. So, here's what I think the plot of that story might be. No one likes this kid, right, and as soon as he starts asking questions about his cat, they see their chance to deal with him by feeding him to a wild animal. What I don't understand is how this kid gets away every time, but he does. Something's going on there, behind the scenes. It's very provocative, despite the fact that the art's kind of crappy.
I think I'm going to bring this up to the staff next time I go to the Eric Carle museum.
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
10:58 AM
1 Comments:
Excellent idea! Share and share alike, right? It'll be just like it is when you sing that song to yourself at the supermarket....
By the way, I'll have to share some of my crappy artwork from the children's book I'm working on. It isn't watercolor, though, so I'm not sure how you'll take to it.
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