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Etienne Delessert
illustrator
(a) Meet a real-life children’s book giant. With some 80 titles to his credit, this Swiss-born, self-taught painter specializes in the invention of fantastical creatures and magical realms.

Rita Marshall
graphic artist
(b) Book designer, textile artist, and creative director, she is passionately devoted to the beauty of typography, not to mention celebrating other artists in her work.

Denyse Schmidt
quilter
(c) Her creations defy all expectations of what quilts are “supposed” to look like. It’s the challenge of reinventing tradition that keeps her designs offbeat and ever-evolving.

(a) Etienne’s passion for children’s literature brought him to the U.S. for the first time in 1965. “During that era, very few good children’s books were being published abroad,” he recalls.

You’ve never heard of Yok-Yok? (b) The red-hatted tree spirit, below right, is an icon throughout Europe and Asia. Etienne created the character for 10-second TV station breaks during his former life as an animator in Switzerland.

While Yok-Yok mania still reigns abroad, here in the states, Etienne is better known for his books, of course, as well as illustrations in popular journals. No one would ever guess that the world-famous Yok-Yok’s creator lives quietly with his wife, fellow artist Rita Marshall, and son, Adrien, in sleepy Lakeville, Connecticut.

(c) The English nursery rhyme “Who Killed Cock Robin?” gets a fresh interpretation through Etienne’s avant-garde illustrations. (d)Watercolors at work. (e) Scene from Story Number 1, his 1968 collaboration with dramatist Eugene Ionesco.

(f) Etienne works in the attic studio of his Victorian home. The hulking portrait on the easel is from a series of personal paintings of actual birds of prey morphed into people. “I like to pick a theme and explore it in all possible ways.” (g) Artists and photographers have often made Etienne their subject. (h) Scene from A Long Long Song, a surreal fantasy based on a nursery rhyme. (i) “The disorder of my pencils does not bother me.”

(j) He creates texture by rubbing watercolors off the canvas with a cloth. (k) Portrait of Darwin. (l) Scenes from the forthcoming Humpty Dumpty, in which the wall separates the haves from the have-nots.

(m) The artist’s books have been printed in 14 languages.
(n) Cartoonlike drawings are the storyboard for a work in progress. (o) An intricately drawn universe of his own making.

“My passion is designing very precious, very special books. The kind you pick up and examine page by page,” says Rita, thoughtfully pulling favorite volumes from her shelves. It’s hard to believe now, but she never intended to work in publishing.

In the early 1980s, (a) Rita Marshall was a graphic designer on the advertising fast track. “I convinced the creative director of my agency to fly me to Switzerland to work with this artist I admired, Etienne Delessert,” she recalls. Within days, she fell in love. Within weeks, she was living abroad and working for a French advertising agency. “It was crazy—flying all over, not understanding the French mindset,” she recalls. So when a publisher approached Etienne about developing a series of fairy-tale volumes, Rita happily shifted gears to illustrated books, mentoring talented artists like Monique Felix and Roberto Innocenti. Eventually, she even wrote her own title, the perennially popular I Hate to Read, and became creative director for the respected children’s publisher Creative Editions.

(b) Rita has been exploring quilt making, with an emphasis on graphics and lettering. Her “CH” design (an abbreviation of Confederation Helvetica) is an interpretation of the Swiss flag. (c) Illustration by Monique Felix, one of Rita’s favorite artists, on the cover of the Creative Company catalog. Rita is at the visual helm of its specialty children’s book imprint, Creative Editions. (d) A catalog the artist designed for the 2002 opening exhibition of the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts. The show featured Maurice Sendak.

(e) Works by husband Etienne Delessert, outsider artist Michel Nedjar, and Yellow Submarine illustrator Heinz Edelmann hang in Rita’s inner sanctum. (f) She turns Midwestern feedbags into colorful quilts. (g) “7th Letter of the Alphabet” quilt is an homage to the typographical allure of the lowercase letter “g”. (h) The converted garage studio features an upstairs room for textile projects. (i) Her library shelves are packed with a retrospective of projects. (j) Envelopes and stamps from Europe decorate a corner of Rita’s desk.

Her studio is in a former munitions warehouse in Bridgeport, Connecticut, though the only thing exploding there nowadays is color. Her palette and patterns shock purists, but her craftsmanship is strictly traditional.

A former ballerina, performance artist, and official seamstress to Trappist monks, Denyse clearly likes to shift gears. But she’s not impulsive. It wasn’t until she was immersed in her quilt business for five years that she quit her day job as a book designer and pursued the company full time in 2000. Today her line is carried in select department stores and catalogs, yet she still does custom. She’ll take your grandma’s dresses or dad’s ties, for instance, and turn them into a family heirloom.

(a) “Tulip Tree” is a new applique design. (b) Denyse’s inspiration board, with a portrait of her mom, Claire, who taught her to sew. (c) Photo of a vintage quilts the artist admires. “It has life and personality. It’s so real.”

(d) A schoolroom chalkboard serves as an impossible-to-lose “memo pad.” Floor-to-ceiling colors include tart, tropical bursts of blue and lime.

(e) Denyse Schmidt Quilts from Chronicle Books spawned a line of coordinating notecards and stationery. (f) “Beauty parlor” chairs in chrome blue and harvest gold typify the sorts of kinetic color combinations Denyse favors. In the background on shelves, old wool skeins salvaged from a local mill. (g) “Lazy Gal,” a limited-edition cotton design, is all about asymmetry. (h) “Ginger Roots,” features unlikely color combinations—but they work.

Denyse and her small staff do the piecing in the studio, (i) For the couture line, the labor-intensive hand-quilting is handled by Amish women in Minnesota. “In summer we have to wait longer because they have more outdoor chores.”

(j) Two DIY patchwork kitties from Denyse’s new book sit on the sofa. (k) Locker bins hold fabric scraps sorted by color. (l) A two-tone Log Cabin variation.

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