Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Jamison Odone MFA '10

I'll be signing copies of Honey Badgers and Stickfiguratively Speaking: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland at the annual Holiday Facuty and Student Art Sale at Silvermine Guild Art Center in New Canaan this coming Sunday, December 5th. All of us faculty members will have original art and prints for sale at the event.

The hours on Sunday are from 1-5pm, hope to see you out!

Also, starting in January I will be all around New England running several workshops on Illustrating Children's books. I'll post the dates soon! So, if you are a library, art center, school, etc...write me back to book a date!

All the best,

Jamison
www.jamisonodone.wordpress.com

1 comment:

ArtNews said...

Midwest Book Review and Publisher's Weekly reviews of my books

"Stickfiguratively Speaking: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" is a sophisticated, delightful retelling of the classic children's tale by Jamison Odone. The quirky, black and white illustrations of Stickfiguratively Speaking bring the familiar characters encountered in "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" to new life. "Stickfiguratively Speaking: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" presents a new challenge and interpretation of a much beloved classic in children's literature, infusing new life into an old familiar. Children age 7 and up and parents will enjoy this revisiting of the Lewis Carroll original."

"Honey Badgers" Odone's debut book makes a deep bow to Maurice Sendak, with its somber palette and heavily crosshatched, pen-and-ink and watercolor wash illustrations. But the affectionate, dreamy text is his own. "I get along well with honey badgers," the boy narrator begins. "In fact, I was raised by a pair-Maurice and June. They are good parents," he adds. On the opposite page June, in a warm red overcoat, holds out her arms to a naked, Sendak-style foundling. (Honey badgers are carnivorous African mammals, making Maurice and June's solicitousness particularly heartwarming.) Telegraphic sentences on the left-hand pages ("We have a small stream nearby to sip from") accompany framed pictures on the right; here, the boy and Maurice, sporting warm sweaters to ward off the chill, drink on hands and knees, surrounded by a forest of gnarled trees. Visual references to myth (empty boats), fallen civilizations (Mayan stone sculptures), and wealth and education (velvet drapes and leather-bound books) give the story elegant resonance without weighing it down. "It is late now," the boy says. "I think I'll go to bed." Maurice and June stand guard as he sleeps under an enormous canopy. Odone, tapping into a powerful vein of fantasy (what child would not rush to move into a cozy den with two gentle, furry parents-) has created the kind of book certain children will cling to, years after they abandon the rest of their picture book collections."