Skip to main content

It Jes' Happened: When Bill Traylor Started to Draw

By

It Jes' Happened:  When Bill Traylor Started to Draw
by Don Tate, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie
Lee & Low, 2012.  Unpaged.  Biography

     Bill Traylor grew up a slave, and after the Civil War, share-cropped with his family on their former master's land. As a child he pulled weeds, fetched water, and chopped wood. Later he would pick cotton and plow the land with an old and cantankerous mule. When his wife died and all his children moved away, Bill moved to Montgomery, Alabama, but since he didn't know how to do anything but farming , he couldn't find enough work to support himself. He slept in a mortuary among the coffins and when he was eighty-five years old he started to draw, first with the stub of a pencil and later with paints and colored pencils provided him by a young artist friend. By the time he died, Traylor had drawn and colored hundreds, maybe thousands of pictures onto the backs of boxes and of discarded paper bags, that eventually won him fame as one of the great self-taught artists in American art history. Tate and Christie's book conveys beautifully what Traylor's life seemed like to him, in his own style. One would have like to have seen more of Traylor's actual work, but the Blue Man with Umbrella and Suitcase on the very last page is a good representative of Traylor's naive folk art, the perfect ending to a heart-breaking but life-affirming book.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If You Like...KPop Demon Hunters

By
KPop Demon Hunters has been one of the most talked-about movies of the summer. If you loved this movie as much as I did, you don't want the magic (or the music) to stop. Try reading these books that touch on some of the same topics and themes as the animated hit! Brick Dust and Bones By M. R. Fournet New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2023. Fiction. 247 pages. Orphaned Marius works in the family business--as their cemetery's ghost caretaker. However, Marius also moonlights as a monster hunter in order to earn the costly Mystic currency he needs to bring his mother back from the dead. As the window to bring his mother back begins to close, Marius's exploits get more and more dangerous, and he may have set his sights on a monster too big to handle on his own. Like Mira, Marius longs for familial connection, and his work as a monster hunter will satisfy the thrill of demon hunting for fans the movie. Where's Halmoni? By Julie J. Kim Seattle, WA: Little Bigfoot, 2017. Comics. W...
Post a Comment
Read more

Books That Take You There: Hawaii

By
As summer turns to fall, I always wish for more warm days before the cold comes. So if you, like me,  want to ship yourself to a tropical paradise, try out one of these books that will take you straight to Hawaii, even if it's only in your imagination. Aloha Everything Written by Kaylin Melia George Illustrated by Mae Waite Brooklyn, NY: Red Comet Press, 2024. Picture Book. This book, which won the 2025 APALA Award for Best Picture Book, tells the story of a Hawaiian girl who gains connection to her culture through hula. She learns about her ancestors, native folklore, and the true meaning of aloha. This book, which is written in verse, is lengthy and is probably better for elementary-aged kids rather than toddlers, but kids will be drawn in by the excellent story and the gorgeous, bright illustrations. Punky Aloha By Shar Tuiasoa New York: Harper, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, 2022. Picture Book. Punky's grandmother needs butter to make her fresh, baked from scratch b...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dragon Run

By
Dragon Run by Patrick Matthews Scholastic, 2013.  336 pgs.  Fantasy      Al Pilgrommor is excited for Testing Day, when he will receive his rank, a tattooed number on the back of his neck, and a path forward to his future occupation and life.  He feels confident because his parents were fours on a scale of seven, but he is worried for his friend Wisp who doesn't have much of a chance of scoring above a two at best. But when Al is scored a zero, he not only has no prospects, he may lose his life as the dreaded Cullers are unleashed to kill him and his family to purify the land's bloodlines.  Al's world is ruled by dragons--the lords and supposed creators of humankind--so he thinks that even if he survives, he will have to make his living as a beggar or thief. But when Al sticks up for his Earther friend in front of Magister Ludi, he is drawn into the struggle of a secret organization hoping to destroy the Cullers, and perhaps the dragons them...
1 comment
Read more