Art Is Not An Elective For Everyone

James Ransome

He did this one

I met the incredibly talented visual artist James Ransome about a decade ago. He illustrated one of my books.

I sat in an auditorium and heard the tale of how he'd discovered his love of graphic arts by reading comic books. He showed an amazing image of the first pen drawing he'd ever done. It was fantastic. It was difficult for me to understand how he'd done the work with a ball point pen, but that's because I'm not a visual artist.

I've met a number of talented artists in my life. A good friend of mine, Clay Carmichael, who is the award-winning author of Wild Things and Brother, Brother, and a fabulous illustrator to boot is married to Mike Roig.

Clay Carmichael

Mike makes some of the most beautiful kinetic sculptures I have ever seen.








This week was another one of those experiences where I got whiplash. I started in Swan Quarter, NC at a small school. I had Kindergarten through fifth, and then sixth through eighth.

The principal told me that the eighth graders at the school had arrived as Kinders when he was the elementary principal. When he moved to the middle school the kids had come with him. Now he was the high school/early college principal. He reckoned if he stayed long enough, he would be the only principal in the state who'd shepherded one group of kids from kindergarten to associates degree.  He was very proud of that.

He told me to watch the eighth grade while I was performing. They were not the most academically gifted kids, in fact, he confided, they were considered at risk kids, but they were really talented. He told me a story about how they'd written and choreographed their own piece for the Christmas play when they were in fourth grade, and it was better than anything the teachers had done.

I did the show. We had a great time. As I was leaving, the principal was geeking out about how into the whole event the eighth grade had been. He kept telling me how they weren't "smart" or anything in the sense of school, but they liked things like this. As I was leaving he said in parting, "It's a shame we don't have a music teacher here."

So, a group of kids who like music and dance don't have an outlet for it at the one place they spend most of their time.

This "at risk" group of kids who might very well respond to arts centered education doesn't have access to the arts. They don't have performing or visual arts. Brilliant.

This morning I was at Durham Academy in Durham, NC. It's a private school...with a gorgeous modified black box theatre, state of the art sound system, music rooms, Djembe drums, choral rooms, grand piano, and a full-time dedicated music teacher. Their facility is less than a decade old and it is envy inducing. They also have a theatre program, visual arts curriculum, band...the whole suite of arts.

Before my show this morning, the music teacher had a small group of third and fourth graders who sang a call and response song for their peers and parents. Before the event began, I heard one of the little boys say, "This is the coolest thing I've ever done at school!"

For some kids, art isn't just something fun they get to do. It is a fundamental part of how they interact with the world.

My son is studying three-dimensional digital design and animation.

Here are some of his pieces.

He is also a pretty fierce beatboxer, has done some theatre, and is pretty amazing at putting together stories.


My daughter is not planning to study visual or performing arts. She is a logical, science oriented girl. In fact, she is really interested in physics or engineering. She attends a boarding school that specializes in such things.

 That does not mean she doesn't find joy and stress relief in the arts. She's been in a number of plays including being Anne in the Diary of Anne Frank. She loves attending musical theatre and she is an excellent fiction writer.

She also designs and draws mandalas.

She did this one for my parents

She made this one for my niece and nephew

She made this one for my sister and her husband

Both of my kids use art as a way to relax and refocus, and my son hopes to make his living as an artist.

How different would their lives be if their father and I were not drawn to the arts, and there were no arts in their schools? What if they never even knew you could be an artist as a career? What if they didn't have any place to practice their talents with people who understood and nurtured them?

What about the kids who learn best through the arts? What about the kids who could learn math through music? What about the kids who could use visual arts as a way to reading? What about the kids who could use singing as a way to increase literacy or vocabulary?

When the budget hammer drops, art is the first thing they cut. Imagination is the first thing on the chopping block. Dance isn't all that important, right? Forget that having it might help that really hyper kid learn how to focus on his/her body.

Theatre Arts aren't important, right? Forget that they might help that kid learn how to stand in front of a group of people and speak with confidence. I mean, when is that ever going to be a necessary skill?

Music? I mean honestly. It isn't like there are reams and reams of studies about how music aids in learning math and patterning, right?

It isn't like any of those things are life skills. Oh, and it isn't like any kid in that school will ever actually want to become an artist. 

Ax the arts!

I sat in that state of the art building this morning listening to jazz come through the fabulous speakers as the first, second, third, and fourth graders filed into the room and thought, "Every school should be so lucky."

For some kids, art is not an elective...it is the only way.

When will we ever learn.....

Happy Creating.

Jacqueline K. Ogburn - A Curious Collaboration: Writing Picture Books

Jackie Ogburn is a writer you should know!

I write picture books for children.  Yes, it is fun. No, I don't draw the pictures. 

A Great Book For Storytellers

This means that I find myself collaborating with invisible partners, people who are necessary to complete the work in its final form.  I write to tell my story, to get the imaginary characters out of my head and onto the page, but I also have to write in such a way that  leaves room for the creative input of strangers -- the illustrator and the reader.

At the time that I am writing a new story, that part of the job is as solitary as any other writer.  In that solitude, wrestling with the page, I have to keep those future partners in mind as well as the demands of my characters and the story.

It helps to have a visual imagination, because picture books, like movies and plays, are a visual form.  A picture book needs movement, changes of scene and focus, something in the text that prompts the turning of the page so a new image can be revealed.  That visual imagination has to be present on the page, but also restrained.

The Reptile Ball

My writing has to evoke images, without describing too much.  Picture books are also a miniature form. Every word counts.  Again, like plays, the focus is on action and dialogue.

I can use a few telling details to establish character, such as showing Cora Lee's nature in her “lemon-pucker mouth and hair scraped back into a hard little bun,” in The Bake Shop Ghost. But the rest of the visual aspects of the story are the domain of the illustrator and I have to let go the rest of my ideas of  how it should look.  I had to keep my sticky little fingers away from describing other details of my baker, to turn her over to the illustrator, Marjorie Priceman, who so aptly provided Cora Lee with pointy-toed shoes and sharp elbows to round out her prickly character.

Love this book!  Of course, she did name one of the main characters after me.

I don't meet with  the illustrator when they are working on book. Out of my ten books, I have met only one of the illustrators while he was working on the story, James Ransome.  I had provided a book of photos of jukeboxes as reference material for the story, and he was generous enough to welcome my suggestions on other details. Usually this collaboration takes place through the editor.  I have been lucky enough to have editors who let me see sketches, so I can make comments on the art.   

Jukebox Man

Picture books are meant to be read out loud. Like poetry, the sound and rhythm of the words are as  crucial as the sense. I don't write with a restricted vocabulary though.  Children are surrounded by words they don't know everyday.  They learn new ones through context and often delight in them.

A Dignity of Dragons  A beautiful exploration of language!

The other collaborator I write for is the one who reads the story aloud.  That is frequently an amateur, a tired parent reading the book as a bedtime story for the first time or a teacher reading to a class full of kids. Phrases that I can say smoothly don't always work so well for other readers.  At this stage, I call on the help of friends rather than strangers, and have someone else read it aloud to me. I listen for the awkward pause, the tangled line in that other voice.

The Magic Nesting Doll inspired a company to actually make the nesting doll in the book!

This is an excellent story to share!  I tell a version of it...with permission of course!

My writing also has to be lively enough to stand up to frequent re-reading, because my final stranger and most important critic is the child who is read to, whose highest praise is, “Again. Read it again.”

A North Carolina native, Ms. Ogburn received a bachelor's degrees in English and Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. For ten years, she worked in New York book publishing, primarily as a children's book editor. She is the author of eight picture books. Her previous book, The Magic Nesting Doll, received a starred review from "Publishers' Weekly" and has been translated into Greek and Korean.

Want more info about Jacqueline K. Ogburn?  Of course you do, who wouldn't?  

Here is a thorough biography including a full bibliography and history of her genesis from editor to author!

Here is an interview she did called For The Love Of Story.

Want to contact Jacqueline Ogburn for an author visit?  No problem.  You can find her through

Writers and Illustrators of North Carolina (WINC for short)

And, because I can't get enough of it, another look at the trailer for the movie that was inspired by the Bake Shop Ghost

Happy Reading!