A Time to Weep

 

Last year I made my first illustration of The Goose Girl (click here).  I return again to the theme while prepping my portfolio for the SCBWI conference.  For those unfamiliar with the story, The Goose Girl is the dark and sorrowful Grimm fairytale about a princess who, on her way to be wed, is cast down from her position by her handmaiden and must live as the girl who tends the geese.  In order to ensure silence, the handmaid-turned-princess kills the princess' horse, Falada, severing its head and hanging it at the town gate.  But the horse had been enchanted; in life it could speak, and in death it continued to talk to the lowly goose girl as she exited town with her flock.

'Early in the morning, when she and Conrad drove out their flock beneath this gateway, she said in passing,   "Alas, Falada, hanging there!"   Then the head answered,   "Alas, young Queen, how ill you fare! If this your tender mother knew, Her heart would surely break in two."'

The end of 2012 and the start of 2013 has not been gentle. It's been a true time of sorrow in our family, with tragedy and another threat of loss looming on the horizon.  It's been a time for tears.  This made this artwork particularly difficult to draw, as it did nothing to lighten the mood of the house.  Even so, I think my sadness helped me to understand the pain of the Goose Girl as she caresses Falada as he hangs there on the town gate.

"Alas, Falada, hanging there!" Copyright 2013 Jessica Boehman

As Ugly as a Hedgehog

The story of Hans-My-Hedgehog has been the subject of a few posts here: one, which shows the grown half-man half-hedgehog Hans riding astride his rooster as king of the forest, (click here); the other, which is a self-portrait with said rooster and hedgehog (click here). Here is my second installment of Hans-My-Hedgehog, though really, it would be the first following the story's narrative.

As always, the Brothers Grimm version is grim indeed, focusing on the horror of the story.  They look to the father instead of the mother. The father wishes for a son to help him in his old age, to be heir to his farm:

'Once upon a time there was a peasant who had money and land enough, but as rich as he was, there was still something missing from his happiness: He had no children with his wife. Often when he went to the city with the other peasants, they would mock him and ask him why he had no children. He finally became angry, and when he returned home, he said, "I will have a child, even if it is a hedgehog."  Then his wife had a baby, and the top half was a hedgehog and the bottom half a boy. When she saw the baby, she was horrified and said, "Now see what you have wished upon us!"
The man said, "It cannot be helped. The boy must be baptized, but we cannot ask anyone to be his godfather."  The woman said, "And the only name that we can give him is Hans-My-Hedgehog."'

But they miss the point of view of the mother; they did not understand that longing for a child that can run in a woman's blood.

Anthony Minghella's version comes closer to the truth:

'That woman wanted a bairn so bad she wouldn't care what she got.  If she had a hedgehog, she'd bring its snout to her breast...No sooner said than done, she got her wish. No time at all, she has her boy, little ball as ugly as sin with a pointed nose and sprouting hair everywhere, a hedgehog baby with quills as soft as feathers."

One of my favorite renditions of this scene is by an illustrator named Ina, whose subtly-rendered drawings are filled with loving detail (click here).  Ina shows the nursing mother with her gentle, beastly baby. 

What would it be like to finally have that much-desired child, even if it were as ugly as a hedgehog? Would a mother truly scorn that child and make it sleep behind the stove?  Or would the mother love that child as the darling of her heart, would she cuddle it and rock it and nurse it in the night? Would she heat milk for it and feed it to him and sing lullabies into his quills?  What would you do?  This is what I would do.

"Rocking the Hedgehog Baby" Pencil. copyright 2012 Jessica Boehman

Die Bremer Stadtmusikanten

We moved to Northern Germany five days after my tenth birthday. Though we were originally slated to move to Bavaria, the famously beautiful part of the country, it was changed to Bremerhaven, a seaport on the North Sea.  My father went in advance of us and secured housing. I remember that video that he sent back for us of the house. We were nervous to move to a new country. I was in fifth grade and it was the first time any of us had lived abroad.  We didn't know any German and we would not be coming back to the States for three years...an interminable amount of time for me and literally more than a lifetime to my little brother Josh, who was still a toddler.

Bremerhaven had a military base, but the city itself was interesting to my eyes.  We lived a short walk or bike ride away from a beautiful, sprawling wooded park called Speckenbüttel. The downtown, also a short walk away, was cobblestoned and charming.  There were pastries and spaghetti ice to be had. At the port itself I watched boats sailing by and pretended they were pirate ships. I imagined I could see the coast of America and that I could see my friends waving at me from three thousand miles away.  I remember eating my first chocolate crepe there. My dad always got chocolate and banana, a combo I found odd at the time.

Really the best part of the year was Christmastime.  We lived about a half an hour away from Bremen. Actually, Bremerhaven was part of the Bremen state within Germany (West Germany at the time).  During Advent the town put on an amazing Weihnachtsmarkt, a Christmas market.  Vendors from all over I don't even know where came to sell ornaments and toys and the cutest stuffed bears and the most delicious foods.  One of my first really strong food memories was of these amazing mushrooms in this creamy sauce that one vendor sold here. We ate them alongside bratwurst stuck through brötchen and pommes frites.

My family at the Bronze pigs, Bremen.

Bremen boasted three other wonders. The first was a child's paradise, a street called Zur Böttcherstraße, which had this amazing toy shop that sold the best glass marbles and steelies and even a hand crank music box that played Für Elise, a song I loved as my friend Mandy's mother used to play it on the piano while I was at their home.  The second was this beautiful statue of the medieval hero Roland, which got my mind bent towards romance:

Roland statue, Bremen, Germany.

But the most famous part of Bremen was the statue of the Brothers Grimm folktale, "The Bremen Town Musicians," the story of a donkey, a dog, a cat and a rooster who all want to be singers. They meet each other on the road and have adventures together.  Can you spot me in the turquoise jacket? Hint: I haven't yet gotten my growth spurt.

The Bremen Town Musicians Statue, Bremen

I've been toying around with sketches for this drawing for years.  I finally re-imagined them as singers and musicians. In my mind, they are singing Mozart's "The Magic Flute."  Do you know the song? Then you can picture the rooster perfectly.  This drawing is an ode to those years of my childhood.

"The Bremen Town Musicians" Pencil. Copyright 2011 Jessica Boehman

A bit about me and Hans...

I came to art as a very young child.  I remember asking for a sketch book for a birthday or Christmas present when I was maybe six or seven. My mom bought me a small, grey-covered ringed sketchbook. In fact, I still have it. It's filled with marker drawings of superheroes of my own design and pencil sketches of my dog.  Though it was the first of many, I will always keep the first evidence of my love of art close to my heart.  

One of my first memories about art was during the brief appearance of Halley's Comet in the winter of 1985. I had just turned eight.  I remember my dad waking us from our beds in Killeen, TX, to bring us outside in the cold winter air. (Even in Texas, it did get cold in the winter). We peered up into the clear night sky with my dad's binoculars, looking at that fuzzy-tailed smudge of light a million miles away. At that time, I was head-over-heels in love with astronomy. I had read every book in the elementary school library about the stars and planets. I remember being so excited to have seen a comet that I stayed up for an hour or more after seeing it to draw a pastel image of it, seen through the black borders caused by the binoculars. I wish I still had that picture, because that was the day that I knew I wanted to be an artist. After that, there was no stopping me from drawing.  I eventually graduated with a degree in Studio Art and Art History, with a concentration in Illustration.

In contrast to my early discovery of art-making, I came to be an art historian much later, but it really started with a love affair with Bernini and Michelangelo in the ninth and tenth grades. I didn't know it then, but flipping through some art books was going to change my life.  The love intensified in college under two wonderful professors who encouraged me and taught me to teach through their own actions.  After many years of toil, a year abroad in Rome, and after meeting many wonderful friends, I eventually earned my master's degree and my Ph.D. in Art History. I now teach college-level students in New York City to find the beauty and humor of art. 

Though I work by day as a professor of Art History, my first love will always be creating art. When I'm drawing, I feel like that child again.

As for Hans, our story is twenty years old.  I had always loved fairy tales and myths as a child.  One of my favorite books is still the compilation entitled, "The Magic Tree and other Tales."  I was first introduced to "Hans My Hedgehog" through Jim Henson's The Storyteller series that briefly ran on TV. The script was so gorgeous and the visuals left an indelible mark on me.  The next year, we moved to northern Germany with my father, who was stationed there. One day I was playing with a friend at a nearby park and we saw something moving in the grass. It was a little, spiked ball.  I knew immediately what we were seeing, and at that moment, I do not think I had ever been more excited. We picked up the tiny hedgehog and carried him home. Looking back on it, we never should have done that, for a myriad of reasons, but he was soft and adorable and I was 12 and didn't know any better.  We only kept him for a few days before returning him to nature. Ever since then, I have loved those prickly little creatures.

"Hans-My-Hedgehog" Pencil. Copyright 2011 Jessica Boehman

This illustration came to life in Rome. I had a pad of paper and a pencil and no other art supplies except for a pen and one red marker. Here, I rediscovered my love of drawing, and decided to illustrate a scene from my favorite Grimm's tale:

"When Hans-My-Hedgehog had them, he said, "Father, go to the blacksmith's and have my cock-rooster shod, then I will ride away and never again come back." The father was happy to get rid of him, so he had his rooster shod, and when it was done, Hans-My-Hedgehog climbed on it and rode away. He took pigs and donkeys with him, to tend in the forest.  In the forest the rooster flew into a tall tree with him. There he sat and watched over the donkeys and the pigs. He sat there for years, until finally the herd had grown large. His father knew nothing about him. While sitting in the tree, he played his bagpipes and made beautiful music.  One day a king came by. He was lost and heard the music. He was amazed to hear it, and sent a servant to look around and see where it was coming from. He looked here and there but only saw a little animal sitting high in a tree. It looked like a rooster up there with a hedgehog sitting on it making the music."

So that's how I've rendered him, in that moment of making magic with his pipes, up in the tree, calling a siren song and a lullaby to donkeys, pigs and kings.