Morts de Rire

Illustration, © Lucille Clerc

Le grand désordre. Kitty Crowther's Little Devils

La journée, il faut de l'ordre, la nuit, je ne sais pas. Je dors.

Qui sait, peut-être que les choses bougent de place la nuit.

Kitty Crowther

Il fait un peu gris dehors, parfaite journée pour nettoyer. Emilienne  a vidé toutes les armoires de sa cuisine. Il y en avait des choses: des mites, des pâtes qui datent d'avant sa naissance. Du moins, c'est ce qui est indiqué sur l'emballage. Elle a retrouvé son cerf-volant, une des ses brosses à dents, un bec de mouette séché et une vieille photo en noir et blanc de mère-grand. En tailleur  à carreaux, une cigarette en main et le regard perdu dans un songe.(...)

Lorsqu'il fait nuit, épuisée, Emilienne s'installe pour dormir dans dans une des armoires de la cuisine, avec un gros coussin, un sac de couchage, une bougie et une lampe de poche. Il faut attendre toute la nuit que sa chambre sèche. Tout sent merveilleusement bon.(...)

Daguerréotype a pris possession de l'armoire au-dessus, sa queue dépasse, en forme de point d'interrogation à l'envers. En voulant l'aider, il a cassé trois tasses en porcelaine. Emilienne les a recollées. Elle les a remplies de terre et y a planté trois graines de capucine. Elles dorment, à présent, sur son balcon. 

Cette nuit-là, Emilienne rêve de jungle de capucines et de mère-grand en tailleur à carreaux.

Emilienne, the girl sitting in the green armchair, has trouble organizing her things. I actually wrote this story to a friend of mine, who – just like me – doesn’t particularly enjoy cleaning up.

When working on the book I was thinking about how we judge each other by how messy we are. The small black creatures come from the messy world. I quite like them.

I enjoy the thought that we can see more than we might first think. Sit quietly and still. Once you’re completely bored, the small black creatures will appear…

Kitty Crowther is a Belgian illustrator and author born in Brussels in 1970 to a British father and a Swedish mother. She spent much of her childhood in Veere, a small Zeeland haven. It definitely shaped her relationship to nature.
Born with an hearing impairment, she could not speak before the age of 4, as a result of which she developed an acute awareness to atmosphere, body language and the invisible.
"There are so many ways to believe, Kitty Crowther told a journalist, I believe in everything you can´t see."

1 Kitty Crowther, Le Grand désordre, Seuil jeunesse 2005

2 Le Monde de Kitty Crowther, Pastel, l'école des loisirs

The Wonders of Everyday Life. Edward Gorey's Sense of Ennui

“My favorite journey is looking out the window.” 

Edward Gorey

1,2,3 Edward Gorey's drawings

4 Edward Gorey's original drawing at  Papers, Bruxelles 

5 Edward Gorey's portrait by photographer Richard Corman

"What I'm really interested in is everyday life. It's dreadfully hazardous. I never could understand why people always feel they have to climb up Mount Everest when you know it's quite dangerous getting out of bed."* 

"I really think I write about everyday life. I don't think I'm quite as odd as others say I am. Life is intrinsically, well, boring and dangerous at the same time. At any given moment the floor may open up. Of course, it almost never does; that's what makes it so boring."

Edward Gorey's mock abecederian book and nursery rhymes, The Gashlycrumbs Tinies.

A is for Amy who fell down the stairs.

B is for Basil assaulted by bears.

C is for Clara who wasted away.

D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh.

E is for Ernest who choked on a peach. 

F is for Fanny sucked dry by a leech.

G is for George smothered under a rug.

H is for Hector done in by a thug.

I is for Ida who drowned in a lake.

J is for James who took lye by mistake.

K is for Kate who was struck with an axe.

L is for Leo who choked on some tacks.

M is for Maud who was swept out to sea.

N is for Neville who died of ennui.

O is for Olive run through with an awl.

P is for Prue trampled flat in a brawl.

Q is for Quentin who sank on a mire.

R is for Rhoda consumed by a fire.

S is for Susan who perished of fits.

T is for Titus who flew into bits.

U is for Una who slipped down a drain.

V is for Victor squashed under a train.

W is for Winnie embedded in ice.

X is for Xerxes devoured by mice.

Y is for Yorick whose head was bashed in.

Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin.

The Gashlycrumb Tinies

*"Gothics by Gorey" Newsweek, October 31, 1977

PAPERS
19, rue de Flandre

1000 Bruxelles

Belgique

Sketchbook. Les crayons de couleur de Helen Stephens

1, 2 Drawing at The Bowes Museum 

3, 4 "I love to draw old shoes. They are strangely sad, I can't quite work out why. I drew these gorgeous shoes at The Bowes Museum in Teesdale. The last ones are paper shoes that I drew at The Theatre Museum in Covent Garden. They are so small & delicate, I love them." © Helen Stephens

5 Old Shelves from a junk shop painted in turquoise

 6 The Penny Lodging House in Berwick

Every Helen Stephens' new book starts with a drawing from life in a sketchbook. "The Big Adventure of the Smalls started with the title. I didn't know what the book would be, but I knew that was the title. Then I went drawing at The Bowes Museum, not thinking it might be useful to the book. The Bowes Museum has a collection of baroque furniture, huge guilt harps, gold musical nymphs... I drew lots of ordinary people in jeans and anoraks, walking past this hugely ornate gold furniture. The drawings made me laugh, and I knew then that I had to do a book about two small ordinary children living in a stately home."

I have just discovered English author and illustrator Helen Stephens' world of wonders. As usual when  discovering a new blog and a new world I spent hours browsing through her website trying to figure out who was the spirit behind it. At the end I got a funny feeling of knowing her as in real life and probably even better  than  after an afternoon tea. And believe me I felt very lucky with this chance meeting on the web. More on her blog Oh I forgot to say.

The Big Adventure of the Smalls