Dancing Through Fields of Color

Dancing Through Fields of Color: The Story of Helen Frankenthaler
by Elizabeth Brown (Author) and Aimée Sicuro (Illustrator)

Booktalk: They said only men could paint powerful pictures, but Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) splashed her way through the modern art world. Channeling deep emotion, Helen poured paint onto her canvas and danced with the colors to make art unlike anything anyone had ever seen. She used unique tools like mops and squeegees to push the paint around, to dazzling effects. Frankenthaler became an originator of the influential “Color Field” style of abstract expressionist painting with her “soak stain” technique, and her artwork continues to electrify new generations of artists today.

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Guest Post by Elizabeth Brown

Elizabeth Brown holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and is a writing and humanities college professor. She lives with her family in the Chicago area. Dancing Through Fields of Color: The Story of Helen Frankenthaler is her debut picture book and a Junior Library Guild Selection for Spring 2019.

Q. Describe your writing process:
A. Word choice was key! Choosing the most powerful and fitting words was so important to me and one of the most important parts of my writing process for the book. I wanted to capture Helen Frankenthaler’s artistry as well as her intensity in this picture book biography of the early life of Helen Frankenthaler. She had such a divine sense of color which blossomed as child and continued to develop throughout her formative years. This led to the artist she ultimately became. I carefully chose words that described her process, the development of her soak-stain method, and the roots of both human emotion and nature – all of which are threaded throughout the book and in her body of work overall. I really wanted to bring out her close relationship with her father, her struggles after his death, and her love of the sea and countryside. Making sure I chose just the “right” words was a huge part of my writing process for this book. For example, I wanted to choose the right words to match the colors in Mountains and Sea, For example, I chose “cobalt and crystal” to describe the colors of the sea, “saffron, vermillion, and spring green” to showcase the countryside Helen loved so much throughout her young life, and “periwinkle” and “ochre” to express some of Helen’s poignant memories of her father.

Another important aspect was to make sure that I chose engaging words and phrases to depict abstract expressionism. I wanted to use words that fit the art style and movement yet worked to describe abstract art to young children. I definitely did a ton of research on abstract art, the abstract expressionist movement, women in the 1950s art world, color field painting, and Helen Frankenthaler’s early life. It was so important for me to choose the correct words to describe all of these aspects, and this took many drafts and reworking as I developed the manuscript. For example, to explain when Helen looks beyond her schooling in Cubism as a college student in order to explore her ideas on color as emotion and feeling: “Painting feelings couldn’t be contained in black lines or organized into shapes or objects.”

I enjoyed the process of working and reworking the book as I revised. One of the main things I do whenever I write is to take time to process and think about each draft as I revise. This was one of the most beneficial things that helped me as I wrote this book and as I wrote my other forthcoming picture books as well.

Q. Tell us about your debut book:
A. As I said above, my debut picture book is a biography of the young Helen Frankenthaler, who would ultimately become one of the most influential artists of the Abstract Expressionist movement. It encompasses her life from young child through the making of her groundbreaking Mountains and Sea, painted at age 23. I chose to focus on this part of her life to show the development of her artistry from childhood and to explain how color was such a huge impact on her future work. The book describes how she came to develop her style – the soak stain method – where her oil paints were thinned with turpentine – spread on unprimed canvas and then pushed, pooled, and allowed to “dance” on the canvas while soaking into the canvas fibers. This new process ultimately sparked the Color Field movement which was then emulated by other artists. Finally, it delves into how Helen overcame the male domination of the 1950’s art world by experimenting and working hard. Overall, Dancing Through Fields of Color: The Story of Helen Frankenthaler is a book about finding one’s way, developing developing and believing in one’s self, and in celebrating the creation of art.

Thanks for sharing your new book, Elizabeth!
Happy #bookbirthday tomorrow!

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