In Conversation with Sally Blakemore (cont.)
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Ed. note - This interview was published in the November 2009 edition of Movable Stationery: Volume 17, Number
4 by the Movable Book Society. It appeared in an abridged form due to space constraints. The article above is
presented in its entirety.
Ed. note - This interview was published in the November 2009 edition of Movable Stationery: Volume 17, Number
4 by the Movable Book Society. It appeared in an abridged form due to space constraints. The article above is
presented in its entirety.
KO: I was happy to hear that you continue to play your marimba and accordian. Can you tell me a little about your
current musical outfit?
SB: ShonaSlovakia AfroGypsy Fusion, is our new band, a trio that expands into a large marimba ensemble
depending on the venue. We are improvising and fusing not only Shona music from Zimbabwe, which is like early
African jazz, with Gypsy accordion music and New Orleans style street funk that Nick Gadbois, an illustrator that I
worked with at John Muir 20 years ago brings with his guitar. The Chinese erhu [2 stringed instrument played with
a bow in China] that I recorded while I was working on the NASCAR book, coincidentally, can be combined with
these early blues formats as a high melody that floats on top of the pentatonic chord structure. We are working on
more fused concepts in our playing.
ShonaSlovakia AfroGypsy Fusion - Chemtangure
Rusty and I have now played marimba for eight years and continue to teach children who are part of our larger
performing band. I have opened up my studio to other teachers and groups who all share in a communal musical
experience. In January, we are starting an elder marimba program for Renesan, a continuing education program
for seniors. A Japanese Taiko drum group teaches and rehearses there. Ethnosphere Music Lab, an incredible
non profit that promotes live global music is housed there. The director Alan Kapulski is from New Orleans and
Chicago and I am the president of his board. He teaches approximately thirty children at WildMaker. A Nigerian
drummer, Akeem, hosts drumming circles there and Jesse Garcia, our first marimba teacher (when he was 14
years old) also teaches a children’s band in our studio. It is a very busy studio!
current musical outfit?
SB: ShonaSlovakia AfroGypsy Fusion, is our new band, a trio that expands into a large marimba ensemble
depending on the venue. We are improvising and fusing not only Shona music from Zimbabwe, which is like early
African jazz, with Gypsy accordion music and New Orleans style street funk that Nick Gadbois, an illustrator that I
worked with at John Muir 20 years ago brings with his guitar. The Chinese erhu [2 stringed instrument played with
a bow in China] that I recorded while I was working on the NASCAR book, coincidentally, can be combined with
these early blues formats as a high melody that floats on top of the pentatonic chord structure. We are working on
more fused concepts in our playing.
ShonaSlovakia AfroGypsy Fusion - Chemtangure
Rusty and I have now played marimba for eight years and continue to teach children who are part of our larger
performing band. I have opened up my studio to other teachers and groups who all share in a communal musical
experience. In January, we are starting an elder marimba program for Renesan, a continuing education program
for seniors. A Japanese Taiko drum group teaches and rehearses there. Ethnosphere Music Lab, an incredible
non profit that promotes live global music is housed there. The director Alan Kapulski is from New Orleans and
Chicago and I am the president of his board. He teaches approximately thirty children at WildMaker. A Nigerian
drummer, Akeem, hosts drumming circles there and Jesse Garcia, our first marimba teacher (when he was 14
years old) also teaches a children’s band in our studio. It is a very busy studio!
KO: Besides these pop-up artist books, you have created dozens of
novelty books over the years. Can you share some of your favorite
projects from the past?
novelty books over the years. Can you share some of your favorite
projects from the past?
KO: Last month your latest book, NASCAR Pop-Up Book: A Guide to the Sport, was released. With two dozen
pop-ups and pull tabs and even a 12 second sound chip, this ten-inch square book looks like a formidable
introduction to stock car racing. What was your experience with this title?
SB: During my time as a teacher, Gibbs Smith Publications in Utah approached me to create a book for NASCAR.
I had proposed a pop-up book about the Wild West to Gibbs ten years before. I was delighted to take the project,
which turned into two years of design and manufacturing. I spent three weeks this July 2009, producing the book
in Panyu and Shenzhen, China. NASCAR Pop-Up Book: A Guide to the Sport was delivered two weeks ago to rave
reviews. My brother produced the twelve second audio chip that announces the start of the race on spread three.
pop-ups and pull tabs and even a 12 second sound chip, this ten-inch square book looks like a formidable
introduction to stock car racing. What was your experience with this title?
SB: During my time as a teacher, Gibbs Smith Publications in Utah approached me to create a book for NASCAR.
I had proposed a pop-up book about the Wild West to Gibbs ten years before. I was delighted to take the project,
which turned into two years of design and manufacturing. I spent three weeks this July 2009, producing the book
in Panyu and Shenzhen, China. NASCAR Pop-Up Book: A Guide to the Sport was delivered two weeks ago to rave
reviews. My brother produced the twelve second audio chip that announces the start of the race on spread three.
KO: Arty Projects Studio, Ltd. has evolved over the years to accommodate the direction of the children’s book
market and your various interests. What is the current vision of the company and what wild rides do you want to
take us on next?
SB: Arty Projects Studio, Ltd. was formed to “keep the child spirit alive”. Not many children have nature to explore
in our techno world and crazy culture of distraction. Our vision statement describes how important it is to just
“play”, “discover” and “explore.” I design books that use the back and front of each spread to really pack the books
with information and “nonlinear” discovery. I find many children who have difficulty reading, as I did in school, can
be lured into books that are illustrated novels and sculptural paper fantasies. These children (and adults) are
introduced to miraculous worlds of paper reality that include words within a pop-up world that creates true magic
in their minds. The wonder that lives between two covers, especially in pop-up fantasylands, is what we are here
to produce.
Last year, I worked with White Heat, Ltd. again to paper engineer Extreme Bugs, with the designer, Willabel Tong,
and it will be in the bookstores this Fall. Around this time, The New Yorker hired me to be one of the illustrators
included in an advertising mini-take-over of the magazine. I was asked to speak at a cocktail party in the Conde
Nast building and there I met my favorite illustrator Giselle Potter (who illustrated Toni Morrison’s The Big Box).
Giselle was hired by The Getty Museum to create a new pop-up book and they hired me to create the paper
engineering. I was totally thrilled to work with her drawings. This book is in process now.
At the moment, my new working partner, Marcia McCoy and I are creating educational and novelty products that we
will propose to Target stores for next year. We are relying on unique concepts, manufacturing savvy, great art and
novelty design to produce educational novelties for children and adults.
I am also teaming up with Melissa Turk, an artist agent in NYC, and Neecy Twinem, an illustrator and author, in a
new venture called Brainstorm Productions. As a virtual studio team we are utilizing each others’ strengths in this
changing publishing world to create really new and fresh concepts and techniques. There is nothing I love more
than a team or a band!
Visit www.artywildmakers.org for all the wild music events going on at WildMaker Studio and Arty Projects Studio,
Ltd. You can also e-mail Sally Blakemore at: artyprojects@cybermesa.com to get more details direct from the
source.
market and your various interests. What is the current vision of the company and what wild rides do you want to
take us on next?
SB: Arty Projects Studio, Ltd. was formed to “keep the child spirit alive”. Not many children have nature to explore
in our techno world and crazy culture of distraction. Our vision statement describes how important it is to just
“play”, “discover” and “explore.” I design books that use the back and front of each spread to really pack the books
with information and “nonlinear” discovery. I find many children who have difficulty reading, as I did in school, can
be lured into books that are illustrated novels and sculptural paper fantasies. These children (and adults) are
introduced to miraculous worlds of paper reality that include words within a pop-up world that creates true magic
in their minds. The wonder that lives between two covers, especially in pop-up fantasylands, is what we are here
to produce.
Last year, I worked with White Heat, Ltd. again to paper engineer Extreme Bugs, with the designer, Willabel Tong,
and it will be in the bookstores this Fall. Around this time, The New Yorker hired me to be one of the illustrators
included in an advertising mini-take-over of the magazine. I was asked to speak at a cocktail party in the Conde
Nast building and there I met my favorite illustrator Giselle Potter (who illustrated Toni Morrison’s The Big Box).
Giselle was hired by The Getty Museum to create a new pop-up book and they hired me to create the paper
engineering. I was totally thrilled to work with her drawings. This book is in process now.
At the moment, my new working partner, Marcia McCoy and I are creating educational and novelty products that we
will propose to Target stores for next year. We are relying on unique concepts, manufacturing savvy, great art and
novelty design to produce educational novelties for children and adults.
I am also teaming up with Melissa Turk, an artist agent in NYC, and Neecy Twinem, an illustrator and author, in a
new venture called Brainstorm Productions. As a virtual studio team we are utilizing each others’ strengths in this
changing publishing world to create really new and fresh concepts and techniques. There is nothing I love more
than a team or a band!
Visit www.artywildmakers.org for all the wild music events going on at WildMaker Studio and Arty Projects Studio,
Ltd. You can also e-mail Sally Blakemore at: artyprojects@cybermesa.com to get more details direct from the
source.
The development process was quite difficult because not
only did we have to use a NASCAR style sheet (20 pages
of do’s and don’ts), but timely approvals from NASCAR
were needed at each stage of the book. Their
publications expert, John Farrell and his technical racing
specialists worked directly with the editors at Gibbs
Smith in double doses of approvals, changes and
alterations. Plus changing materials and situations at the
tracks and new developments along the way to increase
the safety of the cars caused some setbacks. The
deadlines were intense. Doug and I were up working
together and with our Chinese manufacturing partners till
sometimes 4 A.M., sending e-mails and drinking tea
bleary-eyed until the sun came up in the U.S. and went
down in China. The obstacles around finishing the book
included not only a two week delay caused by the
flooding of Doug’s studio when hurricane Hannah drifted
up the coast, but a family tragedy at Christmas at Doug’s
home, pricing scenarios that changed the cost,
breakdowns of machines (rats that invaded my beloved
color copier, destroying it completely as the last copy
needed to finish the mechanicals for printing oozed out of
the slot dumping tons of black toner on my toes) and
some technical problems made it one of the most
memorable books I have ever created.
only did we have to use a NASCAR style sheet (20 pages
of do’s and don’ts), but timely approvals from NASCAR
were needed at each stage of the book. Their
publications expert, John Farrell and his technical racing
specialists worked directly with the editors at Gibbs
Smith in double doses of approvals, changes and
alterations. Plus changing materials and situations at the
tracks and new developments along the way to increase
the safety of the cars caused some setbacks. The
deadlines were intense. Doug and I were up working
together and with our Chinese manufacturing partners till
sometimes 4 A.M., sending e-mails and drinking tea
bleary-eyed until the sun came up in the U.S. and went
down in China. The obstacles around finishing the book
included not only a two week delay caused by the
flooding of Doug’s studio when hurricane Hannah drifted
up the coast, but a family tragedy at Christmas at Doug’s
home, pricing scenarios that changed the cost,
breakdowns of machines (rats that invaded my beloved
color copier, destroying it completely as the last copy
needed to finish the mechanicals for printing oozed out of
the slot dumping tons of black toner on my toes) and
some technical problems made it one of the most
memorable books I have ever created.
NASCAR was totally out of my realm of knowledge.
While many of my books are whimsical and really for
young children without any real factual information
represented, this book is a cross-over book for many
ages and required a very technical approach.
NASCAR sent me to my first race in Phoenix. Rusty
and I spent 10 hours at the track stationed primarily in
the pit area during the race. The book is really my
impression of a total NASCAR experience all
absorbed in one day of racing. I really enjoyed
observing this incredibly large (75 million fans)
subculture in the USA and Europe. I was the art
director as well as the writer and paper engineer and
manufacturer. Doug Chezem, an incredible digital
illustrator out of D.C., was a true asset. His sense of
humor and knowledge of racing, along with the
computers and software that creates his exacting
images were extremely valuable to the pace of this
project. Through Doug’s incredible labyrinth of
computers and hard drives he brought the real “life”
and color to this book.
While many of my books are whimsical and really for
young children without any real factual information
represented, this book is a cross-over book for many
ages and required a very technical approach.
NASCAR sent me to my first race in Phoenix. Rusty
and I spent 10 hours at the track stationed primarily in
the pit area during the race. The book is really my
impression of a total NASCAR experience all
absorbed in one day of racing. I really enjoyed
observing this incredibly large (75 million fans)
subculture in the USA and Europe. I was the art
director as well as the writer and paper engineer and
manufacturer. Doug Chezem, an incredible digital
illustrator out of D.C., was a true asset. His sense of
humor and knowledge of racing, along with the
computers and software that creates his exacting
images were extremely valuable to the pace of this
project. Through Doug’s incredible labyrinth of
computers and hard drives he brought the real “life”
and color to this book.
SB: Our biggest best seller to date has been
Peek-A-Moo!, a simple lift the flap book that
has been printing for over 12 years. We have
manufactured 390,000 copies of this toddler
classic. Andy Baron, another paper engineer
in Santa Fe, had left White Heat and we
grabbed him to work on Circus! A Pop-up
Adventure and Four Feathers in Percy's Park.
Andy’s ability to think twelve steps ahead in
the engineering process, instead of my three
was a joy to watch! Others include, Ocean Pop
and Pull, Pooh’s Christmas Box, GOLF, Tales
of Tails and What’s for Dinner and What’s for
Lunch, which are large format toddler flap
books.
Peek-A-Moo!, a simple lift the flap book that
has been printing for over 12 years. We have
manufactured 390,000 copies of this toddler
classic. Andy Baron, another paper engineer
in Santa Fe, had left White Heat and we
grabbed him to work on Circus! A Pop-up
Adventure and Four Feathers in Percy's Park.
Andy’s ability to think twelve steps ahead in
the engineering process, instead of my three
was a joy to watch! Others include, Ocean Pop
and Pull, Pooh’s Christmas Box, GOLF, Tales
of Tails and What’s for Dinner and What’s for
Lunch, which are large format toddler flap
books.
Interior spread of NASCAR Pop-up
Page 2