Under the artificially twinkling sky of Abilene’s downtown Paramount Theater, the curtain pulled back and the audience was introduced to “the man whose name is synonymous with brilliant.”
Brian Selznick burst into Abilene’s Art Walk Thursday, Oct. 14, in snazzy silver shoes, a stylishly coordinating belt and a blast of personality. Selznick is the Manhattan-based author and illustrator of several award-winning children’s books, including The Invention of Hugo Cabret and The Houdini Box. He is also the illustrator of Frindle and The Doll People.
From the moment his presentation began, the atmosphere inside the historic theater was buzzing with the energy of his clever and creative enthusiasm.
“I thought it was the perfect place,” said Asja Leznina, sophomore art education major from Estonia. “It was so fairy-tale-ish, and his stories are like real-life fairy tales.”
The National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature (NCCIL) brought Selznick to Abilene and hosted his evening at the Paramount in conjunction with the current showing of his work at its downtown gallery, which will be on display until Jan. 29.
“I didn’t expect somebody that awesome to come to Abilene,” said Leznina.
Selznick gave an engaging, multimedia presentation about his life, work and creative process – including baby pictures, his favorite childhood storybook (Remy Charlip’s Fortunately), and pictures of himself inside a statue of a dinosaur.
His presentation revealed both a dedication to his craft and a natural talent. He showed doll-models and clothes he made by hand and pictures of monsters he drew as a grade-schooler that could easily hang in Shore Art Gallery next to senior art students’ work.
“I always thought it was important to draw what I wanted,” Selznick said.
Selznick concluded his presentation with a showing of Georges Melies’s “A Trip to the Moon,” which he narrated with characteristic flair. Dan McGregor, associate professor of art and design, attended the event and was especially enthusiastic about Selznick’s presentation, praising his “beautifully hatched drawings that feel like they are made of static and dust.”
The playful, curious Selznick privately admits to sculpting shapes out of his kneaded erasers and taking inspirational naps on his desk when he gets stuck during his creative process. He likes magic, monsters, movies and mysteries, and his artistic heroes range from Caravaggio to Maurice Sendack.
His advice to aspiring Selznicks is simple: “Do what you like. Love your project – there has to be a reason for it to exist.” After a thoughtful pause he adds, “And don’t be afraid of failing.”
The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Selznick’s latest and most celebrated work, won the Caldecott Medal and is currently being made into a 3D film directed by Martin Scorsesi. Influenced by his interest in early French cinema, Hugo Cabret is a unique, 533-page combination of words and illustrations that pulls us into a boy’s world in a 1940s Paris train station – a world filled with machinery, silent movies and mystery. With each turn of the page the reader enters another engaging scene, sometimes expressed in words and sometimes in Selznick’s beautifully rendered, carefully composed graphite illustrations.
For Selznick, “a book is a technology,” and he utilizes this technology to its full potential. Every page of Hugo Cabret feels magical, somehow managing to weave a story about automatons, friendship, clockmaking, mystery, trains and family into a book that is really all about historic French filmmaking.
Like the interlocked parts of the story’s machinery, Selznick has carefully crafted and fitted the pieces of Hugo Cabret into an intricate and ingenious machine. He also gives readers the tools and freedom to enjoy it, and leaves it up to them to keep the story in motion with each turn of the page.
Selznick’s presentation revealed the otherwise hidden cogs and gears of his imaginative process that create his fantastic and complex world – a world that, like Selznick’s favorite kind of story, “feels magical, but isn’t.”
