Charles Vess talks The Book Of Ballads

Over at CBR Charles Vess talks about The Book Of Ballads, The Original Art Edition. Here’s the salient AE related information.

How did this Original Art Edition come about?

Titan editor Steve Saffel asked. Then we had to get permission from the Library of Congress, where all the art resides in their permanent collection. Martha Kennedy, the head of their Prints and Drawings Division, suggested that Steve come down to Washington D.C. for a few days and scan all the original pages himself, and he did. I don’t know if you’ve ever been there but the holding of the Library of Congress are vast and exciting to see — so I believe that he enjoyed himself, when he wasn’t overseeing the scanning.

I have to ask, how did your original art end up in the Library of Congress?

I had this rather large selection of art, scripts and pencil breakdowns that I knew would be diminished if I were ever to break them up and sell off or give away individual pages. For a number of years I’d been looking for a home for them. I’ve given quite a lot of my art and book/GN collection to my alma mater, Virginia Commonwealth University, but for this particular body of work I was looking for a institution where people interested in art or music or ballads themselves could study the work.

I was complaining to two friends of mine who work in the Folklife section of the Library of Congress about my problem, and they looked at each other and said, “How about us?” The thought had never entered my mind before. Have work of mine in the Library of the American People? But it was a perfect fit, and I’m still very chuffed that those pages have a nice home.

For a complete look at this book please read our review: The Book Of Ballads, The Original Art Edition.


Charles Vess talks The Book Of Ballads
Book Of Ballads Original Art Ed HC

from Things From Another World