In Mary's Garden

As a girl, Mary Nohl "was happiest when her hands were busy making, building, creating things." Later she returns to the Wisconsin lake house she'd helped her father build and begins a lifelong art project, erecting a menagerie of larger-than-life sculptures inspired by her world travels. Touches of whimsy reflect Mary's outsized imagination; digital collages of scratchy, affectionate paintings mirror this sense of wonder. Bib.

As a girl, Mary "was happiest when her hands were busy making, building, creating things." As she grew up and traveled around the world, those early interests developed into a love for art. She returns to the Wisconsin lake house she'd helped her father build and begins a lifelong art project there, gathering found items from the beach, assembling scraps, building frames, mixing concrete, and erecting a menagerie of larger-than-life sculptures inspired by her travels. The authors embellish their picture-book biography of artist Mary Nohl (1914-2001) with touches of whimsy -- her dogs Sassafras and Basil assist beyond the bounds of ordinary canine capacity, for example -- reflecting their subject's own outsized imagination. The illustrations -- digital collages of scratchy, affectionate paintings on an assortment of papers -- mirror this sense of wonder; careful readers will see a variety of friendly creatures swirling amid the clouds and hiding in tree trunks. An afterword, including two photographs and source notes, offers a more detailed account of Kohl's life and work, notes about her detractors ("Some people didn't understand Mary's unusual creations, and called her a witch"), and a hope for her legacy to endure. thom barthelmess