{"id":1531,"date":"2008-12-17T00:01:04","date_gmt":"2008-12-17T06:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1531"},"modified":"2008-12-17T00:01:07","modified_gmt":"2008-12-17T06:01:07","slug":"seven-questions-over-breakfast-with-stacey-dressen-mcqueen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1531","title":{"rendered":"Seven Questions Over Breakfast with
Stacey Dressen-McQueen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s something new I learned: Illustrator Stacey Dressen-McQueen is, in the grand scheme of things, fairly new to children’s literature. As in, she has five books under her belt. I’m a fan of her work (in fact, I reviewed one of her illustrated titles at 7-Imp back here<\/strong><\/a> in ’07), but I had assumed, as I’m wont to do, that there existed a big<\/em> long line of books she’s illustrated that I had never seen. Turns out I’ve seen most of them. And that’s lucky for me, because—as Publishers Weekly<\/em> put it when reviewing Candace Fleming’s<\/strong><\/a> Boxes for Katje<\/strong><\/a><\/em>—Stacey’s illustrations resonate with joy and fellowship. Here is one of the illustrations from that title, Stacey’s first illustrated title from ’03, which tells the story of a young Dutch girl who writes to her new American friend in thanks for the care package sent after World War II:<\/p>\n

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I find Stacey’s stylized folk art to be mesmerizing. Her work is bold and expressive and the textures and patterns so vibrant that I want to reach out and touch the pages. Yet her illustrations never overwhelm the text. In her latest illustrated title, The Elephant Quilt<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Susan Lowell<\/strong><\/a> (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, April 2008), Stacey’s work has never been better. Her paintings feature quilt patterns, bold paint strokes, heavily bordered characters in some instances that make them seem as if they’re leaping off the page, and lines made to look like stitches, all for the tale of Lily Rose and her Grandma, stitching a quilt that tells the story of their family\u2019s journey from Missouri to California by covered wagon in 1859. Kirkus<\/em> wrote that the story “bubbles over with verbal and visual vim,” and Booklist<\/em> praised Stacey’s “dramatic, mixed-media paintings portray{ing} majestic landscapes and frontier dangers as well as moments of family merriment.” <\/p>\n

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I always look forward to a title illustrated by Stacey, and The Elephant Quilt<\/em> made me seek her out and ask for an interview. Fortunately, she said yes to a breakfast chat. For her own breakfasts at her Oregon home, Stacey usually has “a Lara bar or something of the sort, and more coffee and vanilla soy milk after dropping my oldest, Finn, off at kindergarten.<\/font> My youngest, Emma, will be joining us with her bribe ice cream for peaceably leaving the play kitchen in Finn\u2019s classroom.” Ice cream for breakfast? I like her even more. <\/p>\n

So, let’s set the table and get the basics from Stacey before we sit down to eat our ice cream<\/del>…I mean, drink our coffee. (I dunno, maybe Emma will let me have a scoop or two.) And I thank Stacey for stopping by to talk about her work a bit and share some images with us. <\/p>\n

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7-Imp<\/font><\/strong>: Are you an illustrator or author\/illustrator?<\/font><\/p>\n

Stacey<\/font><\/strong>: Illustrator. <\/p>\n

7-Imp<\/font><\/strong>: Can you list your books-to-date?<\/font><\/p>\n

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Stacey<\/font><\/strong>: <\/p>\n