Josie Stocks, Art Director
“To create one’s own world takes courage.” Georgia O’Keeffe
Creating the world of The Space Child’s Mother Goose has been the privilege of a lifetime. The beloved illustrator of the original Space Child is Marian Parry, a woman who taught watercolor at Harvard, experienced the elegance of Paris, and drew stick-figure-like bird people.
Marian Parry’s world is fresh with whimsicality, joy in the mundane, and the love of minutiae. Building upon this world reinspired the child in me.
One of my favorite backgrounds that I worked on was the opening sequence in Professor Freddy’s office. The scene is dark, saturated in deep indigo’s with golden light pouring in from a single window, reflecting on the trophies collecting dust on his bookshelf. A chaise lounge chair sits in the middle of the room, fringe decorating the edge, pillow oriented towards the light. This is the office of a typical scatterbrained professor. It’s adorned with sticky notes on the walls, hundreds of books, a forgotten mug of coffee, boxes of old accolades and inventions that never went anywhere.
I painted this with the more chalky textured and graphic appeal taken from my favorite inspiration, Chuck Jones cartoons from the 1960s. They were always so striking to me, and to modern sensibilities now, they feel imbibed with the retro feel we wanted to capture in our show. The color palettes come from my deep love of color harmony, and I wanted to capture the vibrancy of the world I imagined while reading Winsor’s take on mother goose poems.
I just hope I did Ms. Parry justice!
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