Artful Author

he decline of arts education in the public schools, chronicled in such publications as the New Art Examiner, is a trend that educational consultant and writer Colleen Carroll ’85 views with alarm. Arts education is "absolutely not a frill," she says. "Test scores in reading and math are very important, but I think the arts are equally important for a well-rounded individual."

Acting on her convictions, Carroll has done something to make art accessible to more children: this fall Abbeville Press published the first 4 books in How Artists See, her 12-volume series aimed at 8- to 12-year-olds.

An engaging introduction to basic art concepts and techniques, the series has been enthusiastically received and is even offered in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s catalog for children. Publishers Weekly describes it as having "the makings of a classic—a core experience for budding art enthusiasts to build on." The review also says, "Carroll’s series focusing on animals, people, weather, and the four elements quietly eclipses the competition. The author’s gentle invitations to feel the heat from a Turner conflagration, gauge the fear of riding Hokusai’s storm-tossed waves, brave the chill of a Goya winter, or hear the music of Klee’s Dancing Girl stimulate the imagination and tweak the senses."

The books are visually inviting: each includes 16 full-color reproductions plus detail plates. Spanning art history from cave painting to very recent work, the selections represent European, American, Asian, and African artists, the obscure along with the famous. Carroll’s text asks intriguing questions and suggests activities aimed at fostering an appreciation of art—not only for art’s sake but also for the sake of motivating students to learn history and science.

The How Artists See series was inspired by her teaching and writing experiences. Having found working in art galleries unfulfilling, she became a teacher’s assistant in an elementary school. When one of the teachers encouraged her to show the children slides and engage them in questions about art, Carroll discovered her calling. She promptly went on to earn her certification at the University of California, Los Angeles, and find a job teaching sixth graders in a public school that had dropped art from the curriculum. After covering the required world history and culture, she introduced her class to the art of the civilizations they had learned about.

"All you have to do is ask, ‘What do you see?’" Carroll notes, "and they’ll tell you." Once the children were fascinated by the images, she would hook them by asking thought-provoking questions. Finally, she would give the class time to create their own art inspired by the styles they had discussed.

In 1991 she and her husband, Mitch Semel (brother of Andrew Semel ’84), moved to Fairfax, Virginia. When Carroll couldn’t find a teaching position there, she made herself a writer. As a freelance educational consultant she published study guides for USA Today, MTV, Nickelodeon, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, and other clients. She also developed the arts curriculum for the Edison Project, a controversial partnership of member schools for which she continues to consult.

In 1994, after relocating to New York City, she became intrigued by Vasily Kandinsky’s Landscape with Rain at a Soho exhibit. As she considered how she could engage children’s interest in the painting, she conceived her first book, How Artists See the Weather.

Carroll expects to publish volumes featuring land, buildings, the universe, and artists in fall 1997, and the final volumes the following year. In her first venture into fiction, she is writing storybooks to accompany a forthcoming series of art dolls from Abbeville. Next she hopes to create a high-quality children’s television series on the arts, a fitting culmination of her one-woman crusade to foster art appreciation.