A place of wonder Farnsworth museum features Maine children’s book illustrators in a tribute to Robert McCloskey

Driving north from Rockland a few days ago, a light snow was falling over Route 1, dusting the trees. As I crested a hill, the sun broke through for an instant, casting a quiet light over a snowy field above Penobscot Bay.

“Like an illustration in a children’s book,” I thought.

Having just visited the Farnsworth Art Museum, I could almost pinpoint the illustration it came from, for the museum’s latest exhibit, “The Stories They Tell II: Children’s Book Illustrations from Maine: A Tribute to Robert McCloskey,” features the artwork of 17 contemporary Maine children’s book illustrators, plus McCloskey, who died last summer as the show was being created.

The images in the exhibit range from the beautifully pristine to the wildly wacky. While the Maine landscape is represented by several artists, there’s no way to easily categorize the exhibit. There are about as many images of the animal kingdom, other nations and fanciful worlds, as there are of Maine.

Yet, so much of Maine does reflect a picture-book image of rural life that I have always wondered whether the reason the state has so many children’s book writers and illustrators is that they can get their sustenance right out the window – and then, there’s such a heritage. People who grew up reading “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,” “Blueberries for Sal,” “Charlotte’s Web” and “Miss Rumphius,” have had their world shaped by Maine. Should they become writers or illustrators, they might want to return to the source, feed at the same trough that nourished the authors and illustrators of these classics of children’s literature.

Debby Atwell, whose latest book, “The Thanksgiving Door,” is part of the Farnsworth show, thinks there’s something to my theory. “We don’t mind being poor as long as it’s beautiful,” she says, adding, “Chris van Dusen thinks it’s the water, I think it’s the forest as well. But there’s a deep vein of gold, here – and a sense of isolation. We’re still in a protective place here, different from the rest of the country.”

Holly Berry, who is showing watercolors from her new book, “The Impudent Rooster,” agrees. “We’re a little bit removed from all of that crazy chaos. We sort of live in storyland still.”

I also posed these questions to Farnsworth curator, Helen Fisher. Smiling sweetly, she demurred. “I’m not sure that Maine has more children’s book writers or illustrators than anywhere else – but Maine is definitely a nice place for artists and writers.”

Though you wouldn’t always know the images come from Maine. Like any artist, writer – or child, for that matter – the emotional range in this exhibit is large. Some emphasize the lyrical comfort of rural life, others, life’s oddities.

Van Dusen, born in Portland and now living in Camden, manages to do both. He’s also among those who write and illustrate their own work. Van Dusen has created a wonderfully hapless character he calls Mr. Magee, as in, “A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee.” Mr. Magee and his dog head to the mountains in an old-fashioned trailer. Everything’s fine until a bear begins nosing around at the trailer hitch. Suddenly, Magee’s trailer finds itself wedged on a rock above a waterfall. A very tall waterfall. The gouache original of the trailer on the waterfall is one of the delights of this show. To those familiar with some of these books, seeing the pages come alive is quite exciting. That’s true for the artists, too. Atwell says having her work at the Farnsworth “is like Cinderella. I’ve been living in Rockland for 20 years and finally to be in the palace is like a little dream come true.”

And yet, says Berry, it’s odd to have her illustrations framed and hung. “We make this work to look at in a book. It’s a three-dimensional object, in a way, you turn a page, each image is part of a whole, it goes with the text and that’s always considered when you’re designing a page.”

For those viewing the show, especially for children, the separation of image from book, seeing much-loved images much larger, and separate, can’t help but be a pleasure, from the beginning. The exhibit opens with the watercolors McCloskey made for “Burt Dow: Deep Water Man.” Burt Dow is a cheery, blustery, Maine lobsterman who manages to find himself, his pet seagull and his leaky, old dory inside the belly of a whale. So what does he do? Clean out his dory – wouldn’t you? The accumulated dirt and oil and grunge becomes a Jackson Pollock inside the whale’s belly. The exhibit is filled with such double delights.

I had the luxury of talking about McCloskey and other artists in the show with Fisher while cozied up in the gallery itself. The museum has created a little reading nook set between Dahlov Ipcar’s stunning animal-centered watercolors and Atwell’s color-laden acrylics. The nook comes complete with comfortable chairs and a crate of Maine children’s books, just one example of the exhibit’s real child-friendliness.

This show echoes a 1990 exhibit of children’s book illustrators curated by Suzette McAvoy. Several artists in this show also appeared in the earlier one. While the Farnsworth doesn’t have an actual slot for exhibits that appeal to children, it does like to include children in planning its exhibits. Last summer it hosted an exhibit about pirates, featuring illustrations for children’s pirate books by N.C. Wyeth, Howard Pyle and others. Two years ago, it created a show of Maine-made puppets. “We do get more young people and more local people when we hold these kinds of shows,” says Fisher.

Ashley Bryan is the one artist in this show who had work in both the puppetry exhibit and this. Bryan, who lives on Little Cranberry Island, creates pastel-colored, rhythmic watercolors to illustrate poems and fables.

Also in the show are Heather Austin of Orrington, Kelly Paul Briggs of Camden, Stephen Costanza of Belfast, Carol Inouye of Thomaston, Loretta Krupinksi of South Thomaston, Mary Beth Owens of Walpole, Peter Parnall of Waldoboro, Dawn Peterson of Falmouth, Jim Sollers of Rockland, and prolific illustrator Melissa Sweet of Rockport. Fisher says she tried to include all major Maine illustrators, only to discover that there were several she missed.

While there’s no binding theme to the images of the show, there is an underlying sense of integrity. It seems clear that each of these illustrators cares not only about their own process, but about reaching out to others. Says Inouye, “The work has to be meaningful to me, it is important that I feel comfortable with the story.” That aching to communicate, whether it’s the Southwestern spareness of Parnall or the abundance of pasta in Costanza’s humorous “Noodle Man,” is apparent in all these illustrations.

As we scrape the frost from inside our windows on these frigid days, maybe we’ll remember how the frost-rimmed windowpanes of picture-books seem to be made of nothing but peace, comfort and warmth, offering all children a safe haven, wherever they may be.

The Farnsworth museum is open from Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Sunday 1 to 5 p.m. Admission is $8 for adults, $7 for seniors, $4 for students 18 and over, and free for Rockland residents and those 17 and younger. For information or reservations for events, call 596-6457.

Donna Gold can be reached at carpenter@acadia.net.

The Stories They Tell II Events

. Reading Aloud, 1 p.m., Sunday afternoons, Feb. 8, March 14, April 4 and May 9.

Maine authors and illustrators, along with museum volunteers, will read books from the show, followed by discovery activities related to the exhibit. Free with admission.

. February Vacation, Feb. 17-20, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Tuesday-Friday. Performances, films and workshops. Activities and events related to the show will be presented by visiting artists and museum staff. For children ages 5 to 7, the cost is $5 for a single session, $10 for the day and $35 for the week. For children ages 8 to 12 the cost is $6 per session, $12 for the day and $40 for the week.

. Cover to Cover, Jan. 20-Feb. 5, Tuesday and Thursday evenings, 6 to 8:30 p.m.

Adult classes in writing and illustrating children’s books. The first week focuses on creative writing, the second week on illustration and the third on binding the book. Cost is $55 for each two-day session, $150 for the series.