Visiting Artist / Illustrator, - Bridget Strevens-Marzo

Bridget opened the lecture with a short discussion about how the picture book has generally been used within a limited age range, of say between 7 to 8 years of age or less, for much of the past century. It is only in the last 20-30 years or so that this method of creating pictures and comic style dialogue has opened up to an adult market.

During the 1990s, in the UK, publishers were suddenly restricted to how they sold their publications to national libraries. This was because library funding was severely cut at that time, and so they had to diversify and create new sources to market.

It was during this time that Bridget Matsuo attended the Bologna book fair, (and this has been one of the key market resources that has not only allowed her illustrations and her authorship a new route to publication, but a whole generation of illustrators and authors now use this book fair), held annually in the city of Bologna in Italy.

Bridget has most recently been working with the publishers known as "Tate Publishing". Traditionally this group printed catalogues and art books specifically for the Tate Museum's, however they have now diversify it to start to publish alternative forms of media and books, the illustration book in particular.  The irony is that kids books are now being published by Tate Publishing to such a degree, that it is keeping many of these similar sized publishing companies going.

The larger publishers, for example Penguin and Thames Hudson, have difficulty in moving quickly in the dynamic book publishing market, and so smaller publishers such as Tate are able to quickly respond with new picture style books in short timescales for small markets / production runs.

Bridget relayed the older story of the time that she was asked by a publisher "what kind of children's illustrator are you? A fox or a wild boar?" This question was posed to her from the French group Beyard Publishers. (Interestingly this refers to an analogy of the Fox going out to seek new opportunities in the woods, using his cunning and expertise to source new types of food, whereas the wild boar (in French context this I think means a hedgehog) waits around the same territory within the woods and just shuffles his nose amongst the letter of leaves picking up acorns as and when he can!... In France, this little story has been used to articulate how someone's personality might be...
Bridget went on to explain how she met Dave Mackie at the Bologna book fair, and got into conversation, where he suggested that she should take her book that she had recently created (an accordion style booklet at that time) to this French publisher Beyard Jeunesse Publishing.  She did, and as a result of this chance meeting the Bayard Jeunesse Publishing group has been Bridget's main publisher pretty much, ever since.

Bridget works under to separate websites, which could almost be considered as pseudonyms. They are BridgetStrevens.com and BridgetMarzo.com.

The most famous books to date that Briget wanted to show off were the series created "Tiz and Otts - Big Draw" recently published by Tate. This is an interactive "doodle" book. The name "Tiz", refers to the cat whom is a busy and wily individual, and who uses a pencil to do his drawings and which therefore subtley refers nicely to the idea of illustration. The other character in the book is based on a donkey called "Ott". The donkey is slow and methodical and uses a brush which is an allegory to fine art of course!

Bridget is a member of the International Society of Children's Book Makers which (known as "Scuby") includes membership for "pre-publishers", i.e. graduates and new writer / illustrators, and is a particularly useful source for new illustrators and graduates generally.

Tips;

• Bridget's characters all have individual personalities and as such she is keen to ensure they have "relationships". These relationships link each of the characters to each other, but also to the viewer, and then to the greater world around. In her illustrations, drawings of "eye-contact" provides empathy in her characters. The "glance" in a character gives all the personality and empathy and real feel to her stories.
• Another hint is that the hands should always follow the eyes when illustrating, and vice versa that the eyes should follow the hands figuratively speaking. 
• It is clear that Bridget's own knowledge of child psychology has been deeply researched.
• Whenever looking for a new opportunity, Bridget shares the idea of "dummy books" to her editor, but avoids creating a highly polished and printable book, otherwise, what are the publishers going to actually do for their money?...   What is important when negotiating with a publisher is empathy. Give the editors and the art directors something for them to buy into. Give them something to create for themselves, something for them to do! Make frameworks as a hook to your stories, rather than creating a whole finished article with perfect illustrations and narrative.
• By using different animals as a bridge to diversity and ethnicity this fits in to the modern culture. A very subtle way of making different traits and racial diversity is to use different animals.
• When creating work always follow the people, their work is to play. And to play beautiful and play beautifully.
• Some suggested websites are Scooby, "words and picks.co.uk" this is a writer centred website.
• One of the key influences on Bridget's work has been that of William Stieg.

Conclusions.

Much of Bridget's work seemed very similar to my own childhood memories from the series of the Busy Busy World series, I think, created in the 1950s and 1960s. I need to research some of these original books as they used various "animals in a real-world" example to show (particulalry American) children how society works.
The French version that Bridget referred to is: Poumme DeApi,  et cetera.