Beatrix Potter, born into the wealthy class of English nobility in 1866, was educated at home, like all girls of her social class. She kept a diary in code that was only cracked after her death in 1943, revealing the breadth of her mind and range of interests from her earliest years. Her first and most famous book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, was published in 1902 and became not just a classic but the standard for the whole domain of children’s books in the world.
I have always loved the keen observation of small animals that Potter’s drawings reveal. Clearly her interest in the richness of country life began in her idyllic summer vacations in Scotland with her family. As a child she always had little boxes of mice and rabbits that travelled with her from country to city. She was obviously and always a keen observer of such creatures, and later in life at a level of scientific rigor.
Beatrix Potter is for me a kind of inspiration as an artist that is sorely needed in our time. Many people who study with us at The Drawing Studio are starting at mid-life, often with an interest in art learning that has been long dormant – sometimes discouraged early on by practical parents, but certainly not recognized by our conventional systems of education. Teaching as many adults as I have, I notice how learning to draw often brings to the surface forgotten domains of personal fascination that have been waiting since childhood to be acknowledged and expressed. I call it ‘art-in-the-cracks’, unconventional, very personal, and often a wind of fresh air into the accepted role of art in the world.
A letter from Beatrix Potter
The little postcard shown here is very characteristic of the way Beatrix Potter shared, by writing and drawing in her postcards and letters, as natural co-languages that expand one’s full vocabulary of expression, a connection that all modern media now recognize.
Drawing, even more than speaking or writing, may indeed be the most basic of all languages, hidden away since childhood waiting for its time in the sun. Who among us is our next Beatrix Potter?
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