The artist is Trina Schart Hyman, an incredible and prolific talent who passed away in 2004. You can find a ton of tributes to her online from other illustrators and organizations, like the childrenâs literary magazine Cricket, which she helped create. She illustrated over 150 books, won the Caldecott Medal and Honors, and helped other artists land gigs for decades. She was also gay, hilarious, and one of the first white childrenâs book illustrators to include diverse characters.
âYou have to be so motivated that you have to want to draw so badly that itâs like taking away your oxygen not to draw. It has to be so much a part of your expression and your personality that you cannot live without it. You canât go for more than two days without drawing. I mean, it is that basic a need for me.â
â[As a child,] I was too imaginative and sensitive. I used to burst into tears at the slightest thing and I was terrified, of people especially. I had trouble, I think, separating reality and fantasy. I learned to read early and I loved to read and I just lived in storybooks and in pictures. That was more real to me than the world. And, in a way, it still is.â
âFor the past thirty years Iâve lived in a big old farmhouse in northwestern New Hampshire. Some part of it always needs fixing â thereâs always a room falling off or a roof caving in â but to me it is home. Mostly there are walls and walls of books that hold it up and keep out the cold. I live here with my partner, Jean, who helps me keep it all going, and our two dogs, two cats, and five sheep. Jean is a teacher and the director of a little school where kids actually have fun learning.â
[To fellow illustrator Jim Arnosky] âI want a page of hands. You need to learn to draw hands.â
[To Arnosky, who lived in a rural Pennsylvia cabin with his pregnant wife and kid] âIâm giving you this cover assignment on one condition: that you get water put in that cabin.â
[To author Eric Kimmel] âWhy is it that whenÂevÂer someÂone writes a stoÂry about knights, ladies, and dragÂons, they send this shit to me?â
[To a Caldecott commitee organizer who asked if she enjoyed the dinner at the ceremony] âOh, yes. Especially the dessert. It looked like a large chocolate penis.â
[To Kimmel] âLisÂten, Eric. I know this is scary for you now. Itâs realÂly nothÂing in the big scheme of things. Do you want to know whatâs going to hapÂpen? We live. We die. And in the midÂdle we have some good times and some bad times. Thatâs your stoÂry. Thatâs my stoÂry. Thatâs the stoÂry of everyÂbody who ever lived and whoÂevÂer is going to live. You just hope that when the end comes, it will be quick and wonât be too painful.
âAs for what you just told me, it will work itself out. The best result youâre hopÂing for probÂaÂbly wonât hapÂpen. But neiÂther will the worst. It will end up someÂwhere in the midÂdle. Itâs all about monÂey anyÂway, which is not that big a deal. Youâll write a check and that will be the end of it. Life moves on and so will you. I promise that the next time we get togethÂer weâll have a drink and laugh about it.
âThereâs one more thing I want you to rememÂber while youâre going through it all. Pills help. So does booze. And so do friends. So use them.â
[On the Dykes on Bikes at a mid-90s Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco, to Kimmel] âDid you see that, Eric? There are a lot of us.â
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