Denise Fleming

On January 31, 1950 I was born in Toledo, Ohio to Frank and Inez Fleming. For almost five years I was an only child. In December 1954, my sister, Rochelle, was born. That same year my grandparents gave me a beautiful Siamese kitten named Abigail.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a neighborhood full of kids. We were always busy. We spent the summers sleeping out of doors, riding bikes, acting out stories, and creating villages from great big cardboard boxes that we dragged home from the appliance store.

The Sanger Branch Library was just a short bike ride away. Once a week I’d visit the library and pick out three books to read. I never imagined that years later, when the library opened the doors of its new building, I would be leading my friends and family on a tour of the Children’s Room—which was designed around my books.

I liked school and did well grade-wise, especially in English and art, but on almost every report card there would be comments about my messy desk and the fact that I spent too much time talking to classmates. Some things never change—I still have a messy desk, and at times I still talk too much.

Every Saturday from third grade through eighth grade I attended art classes at The Toledo Museum of Art. Sometimes the instructors would hold classes in the galleries where we studied different painters and their techniques. The Impressionists were my favorites. I wanted to live in their paintings. Before class my friends and I would wander through the galleries, making up stories to go with the paintings and sculptures.

My love of strong color was inspired by my mother’s decorating. She filled our house with brightly colored fabrics and painted the walls shades of deep green, yellow, lavender, and coral. She planted the gardens around our house with masses of flowers. My dad had a basement workshop where I spent hours making things out of clay, wood, paint, wheat paste and newspaper—whatever was available. My husband David also likes to make things. Together we’ve built furniture, rooms, stone walls and sculptures. If I had to give myself a title it would be “Maker of Things.”

During high school I took lots of art classes, but I never really thought about art as a career. As graduation neared, I realized I had to choose something to do. Since I liked art more than anything else, I applied to the Kendall School of Art and Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Kendall didn’t offer any classes in book illustration. But during art school I began to collect picture books as a source of inspiration for my own artwork. And it was in art school that I met my husband David. He was an illustration major.

After art school I worked as a freelance artist. It was years before I got up enough nerve to go to New York City and look for book work. There were books in my head that I wanted to share. But I was always more comfortable making art than writing. Writing has so many rules and I was worried I’d make a mistake. I decided I’d risk making mistakes and started to write. I was forty-one when In the Tall, Tall Grass was published. It was the first book I both wrote and illustrated.

When I get an idea, I rush to find a pencil and paper so I can write my idea down before I forget it. The handwriting on my first draft is large and sloppy as I have to write quickly. I don’t worry about spelling, grammar, or punctuation on my first draft—that all comes later. What is important is the idea. Sometimes I make little, scribble-drawings in the margins, as I use illustrations to help tell my stories. I read over my first draft and circle all the parts that I like.

Then I write a second draft, which I have my husband or daughter read aloud. That helps me check the rhythm and rhyme. If they stumble over a word or phrase, I know I need to work on that area. I write draft after draft. I can spend a whole day moving one word around.

Even though most of my books have few words, I start with hundreds of words. I write and rewrite until I have just the right words to tell the story. I keep a thesaurus and a rhyming dictionary close at hand in case I need a bit of help. I love language and rhythm and rhyme. Some words just feel good in your mouth.

Every now and then I have trouble making a story work. Often, I’m unhappy with the ending. I put the story away and don’t look at it for a while. When I take it out weeks or months later, I can see exactly what I need to change because now I’m looking at it with fresh eyes.

Many of my books are about nature. I can spend hours watching birds, insects, and other creatures go about their lives. My husband David, my daughter Indigo, and I have planted our yard to be wildlife-friendly. There are many plants that provide food for birds and butterflies, a garden pond, and lots of trees and bushes for shelter. All sorts of creatures—bats, bees, bugs, raccoons, possums, squirrels, box turtles, rabbits, owls, frogs, fish, toads, snakes, woodchucks, chipmunks, moles, shrews, and mice—live in our yard. Occasionally, a skunk visits.

People often wonder how I make the pictures for my books. I create them by a process called pulp painting, a simple paper-making technique. To create a pulp painting I make a mixture of water and small, brightly-colored cotton fibers. This mixture of water and cotton fiber is called pulp. I pour some of the pulp onto a wire screen. The water drains through the screen. The fiber stays on top of the screen and forms the base and background for my pulp painting.

For shapes with soft edges I “draw” on the background using squeeze bottles filled with colored pulp. For shapes with hard edges I cut a stencil of the shape out of a foam material similar to the foam meat trays use at the supermarket. I place the stencil on the background and pour brightly-colored pulp into the stencil shape.

To create unusual textures I add all sorts of different materials to the pulp such as coffee grounds, pine needles, or dried leaves. I build up layer after layer of color and shape. Once I have an image I am happy with, I flip the sheet of wet fiber off the screen, press it, and dry it. The result is in image in handmade paper!
I can’t imagine not making books. Every time I put words and pictures together to make a book it seems like magic. I feel very lucky to be able to make a living doing something that is so satisfying.

Related Exhibitions: Denise Fleming: Painting with Paper (2005)