Inspiration : Jessie Willcox Smith

Part of a new series I'm hoping to develop; I hope to regularly post about some of the work that inspires me. This is hopefully to motivate myself to work on my own stuff and also to introduce them to my few readers.






First up - children's illustrator, Jessie Willcox Smith (1863-1935). I was first introduced to her work as a little girl. I had a copy of the classic A Children's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson (1914) that I remember reading cover to cover a lot. I still have some of the poems memorized. But it was the illustrations that I loved the most - all done by Smith. My mother, who collects vintage children's books, also had antique copies of The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley (1916) (which sadly, I colored in), At The Back of the North Wind (1919) and The Princess and the Goblin (1920) by George MacDonald - all with illustrations by Smith. Maybe it was all that time spent reading that informed my love of vintage children's ephemera (and libraries?). It is specifically Smith's work which helped to create the early modern feel of children's illustration that I love most.

Initially starting out as a kindergarten teacher, it was because of a chance discovery of her talents that Smith ended up studying illustration under Howard Pyle (who also mentored N.C. Wyeth and Frank Schoonover among others). Smith used her natural abilities with children to observe and draw them in their natural state of play. Using pen and ink with watercolor, Smith's illustrations combine realism with fantasy in way that seem to echo a child's imagination. Her illustrations were regularly used for the covers of popular women's magazines in the early 20th Century - in face, her work would serve as the cover of every issue of Good Housekeeping from December 1917-April 1933. In this way, she must have been as familiar to the public as Norman Rockwell and J.C. Lyondecker. (Those of you who know me well, know that I have other interests in early American magazines, especially Good Housekeeping, so this fact was particularly interesting to me.)

CPSIA - an update

Awhile ago, I mentioned the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA)and how the bill was going to essentially put most small, handmade, children's products companies out of business (at least most of the folks on etsy) given the exorbitant cost of testing. Additionally, the bill was written so broadly that it was going to affect children's books and therefore libraries. At least it looks like, libraries have gotten a reprieve. I got an update from the American Libraries Association stating the following:

As the American Library Association (ALA) has emphasized since first
enactment of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA),
concern for children*s safety is our first priority in providing
materials to young patrons. On August 26, 2009, the CPSC*s final rule
on children*s products containing lead was released. In the rule,
CPSC confirmed that libraries have no independent obligation to test
library books for lead under the law. CPSC also announced its intention
to release a Statement of Policy specifically providing guidance for
libraries with regard to the treatment of older children*s books that
could potentially contain lead. According to our conversations with
CPSC officials, that Statement of Policy should be released within the
next several weeks.

While we await the Statement of Policy, ALA recommends that libraries
take the following actions. If a library is aware that any children*s
book does indeed contain lead above the legal limits or otherwise
presents a danger to children, it should remove it from public access,
for instance by moving it to the non-circulating collection. We would
also ask that if libraries do learn of any books containing lead to
please let the ALA * Washington Office know so that we might share
that information with other libraries. When the Statement of Policy is
released, we will promptly notify our members.