Today, the 13th, marks the 31st anniversary of James Marshall’s passing. And it falls on a Friday. Feels like the perfect time for a trio of UNEXPLAINED MYSTERIES.

STORY NUMBER ONE: THE MYSTERIOUS VOICE

It was late 1999 or early 2000. My work in children’s education media was taking off but I wondered if I wouldn’t want to direct myself to picture books instead. In a rare case of taking my destiny into my own hands, I dove deep into my local public library and looked for the books that resonated most strongly with me. As it turned out, it was the Marshall early readers. This surprised me. As a kid my favorite books were by William Steig and Jose Aruego and Ariane Dewey). I remembered many early readers (of those Frog and Toad rated highly, Amelia Bedelia and Encyclopedia Brown were there, too) but I couldn’t recall reading any Marshall in school. I knew his work best from much later when I used to read MISS NELSON IS MISSING! to my nephew and niece.

Excited by this new discovery, I looked up James Marshall and found a short biography that told me he died in 1992 of a brain tumor. Something inside me said “No, he didn’t.” I’m not sure where the voice came from. I remember it as a strong gut feeling, but I didn’t do anything with it. I would periodically search “James Marshall” on google (when it became a thing), but I never learned any new information.

It wasn’t until November of 2010 that I stumbled across a blog called “Wandervogel” and found a post by author Dan Dailey where he describes coming across across the cemetery in Marathon, Texas where James Marshall is buried. He eventually meets James Marshall’s mother and sister and learns that Jim had died of AIDS. It was the first time I had confirmation of something I realized I had already known.

The spooky question: What was that voice?

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STORY NUMBER TWO: THE UBIQUITOUS FACE

There’s a character that appears in many of James Marshall’s books. It’s this guy here:

He appears often enough that I’ve always figured it must be a self-insert, a caricature of James Marshall himself. Never having seen an author photo, I decided that James Marshall must have looked like television actor, Gerald “Major Dad” McRaney (I’m a child of the eighties and I watched a *lot* of TV). It made sense to me because if this:

equaled this:

Then it stood to reason that this:

Would equal this:

Many years later I would see my first photograph of James Marshall (again, on the Wandervogel blog) and I realized I wasn’t far off.

The Inexplicable Inquiry: How did I know???

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STORY NUMBER THREE: THE TIME-TRAVELLING DONUT SALESMAN

Speaking of uncanny resemblances… look carefully at the televisions in the appliance store window.

The Confounding Conundrum: WHAT AM I DOING IN CRAZY TIMES AT DANCE CLASS????

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Okay, so probably only one of those stories is a mystery. Story 2 could be a result of Marshall and I sharing a certain visual literacy, Story 3 is a straight up con (CONfounding CONundrum, indeed) but Story 1… I dunno. It could be intuition. It most likely was. But on the eve of Spooky Season I always wonder if it was something more.

I was tagged on Twitter the other day in connection to the Harry Allard essay I wrote as part of my Marshall Fellowship. That tag was a first, in fact, (if you don’t count me retweeting myself from my alt accounts) it doesn’t seem to get a lot of attention on the bird app. Twitter does suppress external links, but even if it didn’t, I just don’t know if people are in the habit of going to blogs anymore (he says as he spends another afternoon updating this one). But heed my word, reader: if you’re not visiting blogs, you’re missing out! There is a treasure trove of Jim related materials over at the UCONN Archives and Special Collections blog.

For day four of James Marshall’s birthday week, here’s a roundup of the Marshall Fellow articles.

Sandra Horning
Kids Are Really Smart These Days
Every Word Counts!
Meet William Gray

Julie Danielson
Finding the Artist in His Art

Jerrold Connors
Harry Allard Is Missing!

Kai-Fai Steele
James Marshall the Educator

Elizabeth Barnett
Pink Soup and Pink Loafers

Eliza Kinkz
In conversation with archivist, Kristin Eshelman. d’Archive podcast episode 46

Continued from here.

The process of researching involves looking through the digital catalogue with whatever search terms are relevant to your research. For me it was “James Marshall Miss Nelson Viola Swamp”. The database returns a list of boxes with their relevant contents. You fill out a form requesting one of these boxes (in this case #5), hand it to an archivist who retrieves it from storage and brings it to the reading room. Going into this I didn’t know if I was going to be required to wear white gloves as I went through the materials. I wasn’t, but I did find out pens are not allowed (you can only take notes in pencil). I wasn’t worried that I was going to spoil any originals, but I did feel a great sense of anticipation before opening the box. When you open it, this is what you find:

The number of materials presented to you can be overwhelming, but luckily I had an area of interest (Marshall’s collaborations with Harry Allard) to help me stay focused. I also told myself to take snack and brain breaks, I didn’t want to find myself with a massive headache halfway through my research.

Spoiler: I did, in fact, take picture of everything.

I definitely overdid it on pictures, but figuring this was a once in a lifetime situation, I wanted to be able to have as many resources available to me as I worked on my UCONN paper and Marshall’s biography (that’s the “homework” I’m referring to). Looking back, I should have traded a couple hours at the camera for the chance to get another box from the archives. In some ways they’re like boxes of chocolate, you never know what you’re going to get.

As I mentioned, the boxes are catalogued by their contents. The archivists, as they catalogue the materials, list every keyword that might be of relevance to a researcher. In this case my search for “Viola Swamp” returned Box 13 which held Marshall’s work on CINDERELLA (in some of the sketches one of the stepsisters was drawn as Viola Swamp). This wasn’t relevant to my research but the discovery was a happy accident, I gained a new appreciation for Marshall’s illustration with this diversion.

I was slow to appreciate Marshall’s illustrations. I think there’s often a crudeness to how he handles perspective and it can be hard for me to tell what is purposeful and what is accidental. Seeing the originals for CINDERELLA convinced me that his choices are deliberate. I’m coming to understand his drawings more and more.

On the other hand, his storytelling and processes as a writer are clear. I feel like I know exactly what he’s going for when he builds a story and I can almost track his choices through his manuscripts. I see some of the same in my work. Not just in how we work, but in how we see our work. I’ll never know how much alike we are, but if you’re going to compare yourself to anyone, why not one of the greats?

THE MELTED REFRIDGERATOR is a hefty (just look at the picture) autobiography by Marshall’s landlord-turned-friend, Francelia Butler. I scanned through this huge stack of papers for anything relevant to Marshall. There was a short bit that hints at Marshall’s sexuality. While known to be gay (at least to friends and colleagues), Marshall being a gay creator didn’t appear in any of the materials I looked at.

The Francelia Butler box came with a whole bunch of personal correspondences. She ran a series of “kiddie lit” lectures at the university and there were letters from some creators (Sendak) thanking her for the opportunity to speak and others (Seuss) sending their regrets that couldn’t participate. Each of these notes were handwritten and some had doodles. They were wonderful to see but it left me wondering:

Back to my research. I had almost exhausted the Miss Nelson related materials so I wanted to be sure to check out the audio and video part of the collection. In that I found a video of Marshall talking about working with Harry Allard.

This discovery wrapped up my feelings about the Marshall/Allard collaborations so I felt a bit more free to indulge myself in looking at other materials. I went to something Julie Danielson had insisted was not to be missed, the box of Marshall materials donated by Maurice Sendak. It held a very funny back and forth between the two friends where they exchanged some catty remarks about a fellow picture book creator.

It also held two THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT dummies which (as I clumsily attempted to write in my journal) took my breath away. That was followed by a visit with Bill Gray, Jim’s surviving partner.

I did spend some time outside the library. Besides visiting Bill, I went for a hike, went for a run, and had dinner with an aggressively friendly roommate.

It was a whirlwind of a trip and things were wrapping up quickly.

That’s the broadest view of my research trip. In all, I had 24 pages of notes and something like (no joke) 1,000 photographs. Wanting to preserve my memories as best I could, I took my last half hour of the trip to capture the moments that happened at the end of the day on Friday.

It was definitely an experience to appreciate. I’m forever grateful to Kristin Eshelman and Melissa Watterworth Batt for the opportunity. It’s worth mentioning that the library and its materials are available to researchers with or without the Fellowship. You don’t even need to make the trip in person, there’s a form for requesting digital scans of any material in the collection (it costs something, but not a lot). Still, though, there’s nothing like holding an original work by a creator you admire in your hands.

Madeleine asked in my last post if I could talk about my research process and my experience looking through the James Marshall Papers at the University of Connecticut. In response, here’s an excerpt from the journal I kept at that time:

“I hope all the pictures I am taking turn out. I feel like I could have the flash on. I am shooting in RAW format which should allow me to adjust the white balance later. If I ever do. I want to document as much as I can but I also want to be present with the work. I want to strap a Go-Pro to my head and film an unboxing but I also kind of don’t want to share this with anyone.”

Yeah, remaining present during my week in the archives was a top priority. If my handwriting seems particularly tidy in that photo, it’s because I forced myself to take my time with every part of the experience. Looking back, I might have just dived fully into the work and immersed myself in Marshall’s sketchbooks (I sometimes wish I did) but I am glad that I have this record of my research. The reason I’m excerpting that portion above is that bit at the end about not wanting to share the experience with anyone. If you’ve followed me on social media or watched any part of my livestreaming, you know I’m very open about my process, inspirations and perspective. I tend to be a lot more closed on the subject of James Marshall, at least on the part that involves ME, because talking about it sometimes feels self-serving. I’d rather the attention be on Jim himself.

There’s another part to that line that may sound slightly covetous, that I wanted to keep the experience to myself. And I did, but not for the reason you might think. I’ve always had this feeling, when hearing creators talk about their work, that at some point their story becomes an anecdote. Maurice Sendak describing, for example, for the thousandth time the editor who wanted to change the temperature of Max’s dinner from “hot” to “warm”. At what point does it change from Sendak talking about the importance of staying true to yourself to Sendak reciting a cute story he knows people love to hear? Is there even a difference? To me there can be, I do know that the week I spent with James Marshall’s original works was incredibly special to me and I didn’t want to dilute the experience by turning it into a series of 140-character one-liners. This attitude softened two years after my time in Connecticut with Kai-Fai Steele’s turn at the Fellowship when she shared a whole lot of photos on social media and I saw how much richer the experience could grow when you opened it to other people.

So that’s where I’m at. I feel more open to talking about my personal connection to Marshall’s works and to some degree my connection to Marshall himself. And I think ultimately this will give me a deeper understanding of the story I want to tell. That I’m telling. Sooooo… yes, Madeleine, I will happily share excerpts from my journal and talk about my research. It’s going to have to wait until tonight, though, because I have a whole bunch of donuts to make right now.