On Tuesday, October 21, 2009 the Arts & Humanities Academy at the Hannaford Career Center had a special guest speaker: Ashley Wolff. Ashley, a 1974 graduate of Middlebury Union High School, is an artist who has illustrated sixty children’s books. She is best known for Miss Bindergarten’s Kindergarten and the Stella and Roy series.
Wolff graduated from Rhode Island School of Design and has lived in San Francisco for the last several years. While she doesn’t anticipate moving back to Vermont, she did share with the students that Vermont is in her bones. Vermont scenes appear in many of her books.
Wolff uses many different styles of illustration, including lino cut, faux lino cut, watercolor, collage, and pastels. She had a lot of advice for would-be free-lance artists: have a tough skin because you will experience rejection and you need to be willing to try again, be ambitious (always have your portfolio handy) but be humble as well and willing to do grunt work, meet deadlines.
The illustrator of Baby Beluga had three words for the students on being successful as an artist: patience, persistence, and practice.
Ashley Wolff was invited to speak by former MUHS classmate and current A.R.T. program instructor, Steve Small.