Every Day Is Special: Martin

Showing posts with label Martin. Show all posts

August 12 – Happy Birthday, Ann M. Martin!

Posted on August 12, 2016

When Ann M. Martin was too little to write, she was already dictating stories to her mom, who wrote them down for her. I wonder if her mom realized, “Hey, my little girl will probably grow up to be a best-selling author”?

That little girl became a student at Smith College, a teacher, an editor of children's books, a full-time writer, and THEN a best-selling author!

Her series The Baby-Sitters Club sold 176 MILLION copies!!

This is not made any less amazing when you realize that Martin only wrote the first 35 books in the series before a staff of “ghost writers” started working on the series. After all, that staff WAS working with the characters and format and even “voice” that Martin had already established.

By the time the series ended, there were 213 books in the series, and Martin wrote between 60 and 80 of them.

The books, which were published between 1986 and 2000, were so popular that there were several spin-offs, including “Baby-Sitters Little Sister” books (more than 100 in that series!) and graphic novels, plus a TV series and a film.

Ann M. Martin also wrote two novels-in-letters – P.S. Longer Letter Later and Snail Mail No More – with author Paula Danzinger, plus loads of other non-Baby-Sitters Club books. Her book A Corner of the Universe won a Newbery Honor in 2003.

Have you ever enjoyed a book series? Which one?

Also on this date:

International Youth Day

National Middle Child Day

World Elephant Day

Vinyl Record Day

Anniversary of the discovery of the largest T-Rex

Anniversary of the extinction of the quagga

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

September holidays
September birthdays
Historical anniversaries in September

March 22 – Happy Birthday, Agnes Martin

Posted on March 22, 2015

Her art is often called minimalist:

Minimalist art is often abstract—it isn't a picture of something just as we see it; it isn't representational.

It is often geometrical—featuring perfect (or almost perfect) lines and geometric shapes rather than organic forms.

It seems to say that less is more.

Agnes Martin, born on this date in 1912, rejected the label “minimalist.” Instead, she called herself an abstract expressionist, which is the art movement that preceded and to some extent led to minimalism. Another abstract expressionist said about art:

“The more stuff in it, the busier the work of art, the worse it is.”

Martin herself said this:

Martin was born in the little town of Macklin, in Saskatchewan, Canada, but she lived and studied and worked in some big, exciting cities, including Vancouver (also Canada), Albuquerque (New Mexico), and New York City. When she was in NYC, she lived in a loft in the same building with other struggling artists, and she installed her own plumbing as well as made other needed repairs. (She probably learned about practical home-repair and renovation stuff from her mom, because her mother made the family's living by buying old homes, fixing them up, and selling them again.)

At age 55, Martin built—all by herself!—an adobe house in New Mexico, and lived alone there the rest of her life. Apparently other artists sought her out, and Martin built three more buildings on her land—not sure if they were guest houses, or studios, or stores from which people could buy her art works, or what!

I read in several places that, in those later years, Martin lived a simple, quiet life. She didn't have a radio or TV, and she didn't read a newspaper for 50 years.

While “in exile” from the world, living in New Mexico, Martin wrote as well as painted, completing several articles and books. Her paintings became even better known and more often shown, winning many awards and honors. Her art works traveled around the world, being exhibited in many important museums in many large cities. From what I could discover, Martin did not travel with her art, although she was delighted by the special Agnes Martin Gallery in the Harwood Museum of Art in Taos, New Mexico, and she often visited “her” gallery (pictured below).