The Calloway County Public Library is Proud to be a 105th Anniversary Children’s Book Week Event Host.

The Calloway County Public Library is proud to host author Jayne Moore Waldrop for a storytime event featuring her books "She Remembered It All: The Art of Memory Painter Helen LaFrance" and "A Journey in Color: The Art of Ellis Wilson". Waldrop will conduct a read-a-loud of the books followed by an opportunity for participants to create their own art based on the styles of LaFrance and Wilson. Both artists were from Graves County, Kentucky.
This event is free to attend, and all art activity materials will be provided.

"She Remembered It All: The Art of Memory Painter Helen LaFrance", a children’s book, explores the life and art of Helen LaFrance, a Kentucky memory painter and outsider artist who captured a lively, vibrant view of rural life in a changing world. Her nearly century-long creative journey began at age five when her mother taught her to draw and later to paint with pigments made from berry juice, laundry bluing, and plant leaves. LaFrance developed a unique style of creative expression and worked outside the conventional art world. Her work has been compared to other well-known outsider artists like Grandma Moses, Horace Pippin, and Clementine Hunter.

"A Journey in Color: The Art of Ellis Wilson" is the story of the artist’s path to become a classically trained artist. Growing up in rural western Kentucky in the early 1900s, Wilson needed to convince his family and neighbors that art was a path worth choosing over becoming a farmer or teacher. He also had to find an art school that judged him for his talent and not for the color of his skin.

Jayne Moore Waldrop is a writer and attorney who loves telling stories about her native western Kentucky. She is the author of A Journey in Color: The Art of Ellis Wilson (Shadelandhouse Modern Press); Drowned Town (University Press of Kentucky), an INDIES Book of the Year Award silver winner in fiction and a 2022 Great Group Reads List selection (Women’s National Book Association); Retracing My Steps and Pandemic Lent: A Season in Poems, both published by Finishing Line Press.

For more information, please email contactccpl@callowaycountylibrary.org.