Private World of Tasha Tudor, Vol. 1
Tasha Tudor has written and illustrated more than seventy-five beloved children's books since her first, Pumpkin Moonshine, in 1938. Now seventy-seven years old, she lives on a farm in southern Vermont, where she has recreated an early Victorian world. To capture this intimate portrait of Tasha Tudor, photographer Richard Brown followed her throughout a year on her farm. By interweaving Tudor's own words and more than 100 color photographs, Brown has evoked the essence of Tudor's uniquely...
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Tasha Tudor has written and illustrated more than seventy-five beloved children's books since her first, Pumpkin Moonshine, in 1938. Now seventy-seven years old, she lives on a farm in southern Vermont, where she has recreated an early Victorian world. To capture this intimate portrait of Tasha Tudor, photographer Richard Brown followed her throughout a year on her farm. By interweaving Tudor's own words and more than 100 color photographs, Brown has evoked the essence of Tudor's uniquely appealing personality and way of life. The inspiration for Tudor's art is evident in her delightful surroundings. Foremost is the magnificent garden she designed and rightfully calls "Paradise on earth." A lively menagerie is always underfoot, indoors and out, including her trademark corgies, the Nubian goats she milks twice a day, the one-eyed cat Minou, the chickens, fantail doves, and the cockatiels, canaries, exotic finches, and parrots that inhabit a virtual village of antique cages. We watch Tudor at work in a corner of her winter kitchen, her "chipmunk's nest," on the delicate watercolors and drawings that illustrate the books and calendars that have charmed three generations. Examples of her work are scattered throughout the book, including many drawings from her sketchbook and vignettes never previously published. Her enchanting three-story dollhouse is featured in detail as are her handmade dolls and marionettes as well as the candlelit tree that is the centerpiece of Tasha Tudor's old-fashioned New England Christmas. Born in 1914 into Boston society (she sat on Oliver Wendell Holmes's knee as a child; Mark Twain and Albert Einstein were also her parents' friends), Tudor felt from an early age that she had lived before, in the 1830s. She says, "Everything comes so easily to me from that period, of that time: threading a loom, growing flax, spinning, milking a cow." Dressed in antique clothing, spinning and weaving her own linen, cooking on a woodstove with nineteenthBookList"What you want is entirely a state of mind. I think happiness is a state of mind. Everything here gives me satisfaction. My home, my garden, my animals, the weather, the state of Vermont." With these words Tudor brings together the crux of her philosophy--one made famous through her children's book illustrations. Her highly prized books and artwork sing of life in the 1830s: a time, Tudor says, she is irresistibly drawn to. Her home in Vermont and her entire life-style echo this spirit as she lives each day--without twentieth-century amenities--gardening, milking her goats, spinning and weaving, and drawing pictures. Brown, a noted photographer, takes readers on a seasonal photographic tour of this world, bringing to life Tudor's home, gardens, boisterous complement of corgis, and preparations for her annual Victorian Christmas. The simplicity of the author's words balances nicely with the photographs, which, in turn, circle back to the artist herself through the included cameo drawings.
\ Barbara Elleman"What you want is entirely a state of mind. I think happiness is a state of mind. Everything here gives me satisfaction. My home, my garden, my animals, the weather, the state of Vermont." With these words Tudor brings together the crux of her philosophy--one made famous through her children's book illustrations. Her highly prized books and artwork sing of life in the 1830s: a time, Tudor says, she is irresistibly drawn to. Her home in Vermont and her entire life-style echo this spirit as she lives each day--without twentieth-century amenities--gardening, milking her goats, spinning and weaving, and drawing pictures. Brown, a noted photographer, takes readers on a seasonal photographic tour of this world, bringing to life Tudor's home, gardens, boisterous complement of corgis, and preparations for her annual Victorian Christmas. The simplicity of the author's words balances nicely with the photographs, which, in turn, circle back to the artist herself through the included cameo drawings.\ \
