Palo Alto Weekly 03.12.2010 - Section 1

Arts & Entertainment

PALO ALTO GRAND PRIX

Illustrating a life

ROAD RACE SERIES

Palo Altan crafts a picture-book biography of sculptor Isamu Noguchi

by Diana Reynolds Roome

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Vivian Wong

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OCTOBER 23

ith 16 children’s books to her credit, Palo Alto illustrator Christy Hale has expanded her horizons: Her latest book is her first as both author and illustrator. “The East-West House: Noguchi’s Childhood in Japan,â€? a picture-book biography, focuses on the early years of Japanese-American sculptor, designer and landscape architect Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988). It looks at his experience as a biracial child in Japan, and his growing creativity. “Isamu never felt he belonged anywhere,â€? Hale said. “He was a fascinating person, so mercurial, and his work life spanned more than six decades.â€? “The East-West Houseâ€? has proved to be a highlight of Hale’s work life as well. It has garnered high praise, including being named as one of the best children’s books of 2009 by the book-review journal Kirkus Reviews, where it was described as “a welcome entrĂŠe to one artist’s inspiration, aspiration and imagination.â€?

(Another local on the Kirkus Reviews list is Palo Alto’s Betsy Franco, chosen for her book “Zero Is the Leaves on the Tree.�)

While Hale was creating “The East-West House,� what particularly stuck in her mind was the influence of Noguchi’s lonely, peripatetic childhood in Japan with his European-American mother, after his Japanese father left them to start a new family. Spurned or teased by other children because of his different looks and Western dress, the young Isamu “looked inside and looked to the natural world,� Hale said. “His mother ... taught him botany, exposed him to art, gardening, and saw early on In her Palo Alto home, Christy Hale uses a paper that he got pleasure from working with his hands. She puncher to create flowers and leaves for her book ilwanted him to have an opportunity to meld his dual lustrations. heritage.� as author as well as illustrator, she has been preparThis wish culminated in the building of a house with ing to write a book for a long time — possibly since both Eastern and Western features on an abandoned winning an honorable mention in the California State piece of coastal land in Japan — an experience that Poetry Contest while she was at Paly. Among other writprofoundly affected the young Isamu, and became the ing workshops, she has attended poetry classes through central metaphor of Hale’s new book. Though only 8 Stanford’s Continuing Studies program, and feels that years old, Isamu helped to design, supervise and even poetry is very much connected with children’s books. build elements of the house. “You’re working towards an essence,� Hale said. “PoLater, he returned to the United States where he was etry is very visual, and a picture book has very little lanborn, becoming successful in several fields. For ex- guage. So you think through sound, patterns and rhythm ample, he was a stage designer for choreographer Mar- as you do in poetry, even if you’re aiming for prose. I tha Graham for 30 years, and worked with visionary wanted the language of my book to be very spare and architect Buckminster Fuller, and the Noguchi Museum open.� In addition, Noguchi’s father was a poet, and in New York is dedicated to his work. Today, his work his own work often expresses a stark simplification of is still sought after, as evidenced by the recent unveiling forms, she said. of a Noguchi sculpture at Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center.

The qualities of simplicity and elegance are reflected Yet despite his later success both in the United States in the soulful illustrations for “East-West House,� which and Japan, the source of his creativity was always his capture a Japanese sensibility in terms of design yet “longing for affiliation,� Noguchi once said. have an originality that is all Hale’s own. One aspect is Hale moved to Palo Alto from Massachusetts at age Hale’s unusual choice of materials. The subtly colored 10, which coincidentally was the year she decided she and textured backgrounds come from such materials wanted to become a children’s-book author and illus(continued on page 31) trator. She graduated from Palo Alto High School and earned fine-arts and master’s degrees in teaching at Lewis & Clark College in Oregon.

She later lived in New York, receiving a degree in illustration and design at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, but moved back to Palo Alto with her husband and young daughter in 2001 after finding “burnt papers from the twin towers on our front stoop.� “My own version of EastWest was a different one,� she said, but included loneliness as well.

Hale’s bi-coastal career has been long and full. She has been an art teacher, designer and art director for several New York publishers, and a curriculum designer for educational publisher Scholastic’s Instructor magazine.

Though “The East-West An original page from Hale’s book “The East-West House,� showing her House� is Hale’s first book multi-textured approach.