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Lisker was looking for work and, as it turned out, Kroupa had just read a manuscript she thought Lisker might be interested in.
The result is the award-winning "Please, Malese! A Trickster Tale from Haiti," written by Amy MacDonald and illustrated by Lisker.
The book was released in August at a reception at the Gallery of Graphic Arts in New York City, where Lisker’s paintings for the book were on exhibit. Suggested for children ages 4 to 8, the book has won a 2002 Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Platinum "Best Book" Award, and reviews excerpted on amazon.com are positive.
The School Library Journal cites the "bright, flat backgrounds and rounded peasants dressed in vibrant, stylized prints. Their cheerful, primitive style suits the story, and children will enjoy following the zebra-striped cat that is Malese’s constant companion." That cat is a Lisker original. It’s not in the story, but it has been a hit in the pictures.
Publisher’s Weekly calls the art "an exuberantly painted Caribbean backdrop," and describes the characters as "angular folk-art figures with expressive eyes and mahogany skin."
Booklist says the drawings are "energetic," and Horn Book Magazine says, "Lisker uses color to great effect."
For the artist, the process of going from manuscript to completed book is a tale, as the saying goes, of inspiration and lots of perspiration. It unfolds, however, not in the skyscraper headquarters of publishing houses in New York City but in a smallish room in a big house on Rathbun Street where Lisker and her husband, Bill Calhoun, and their dog, Honey, live, work -- and create.
"Malese" is Lisker’s 13th title, but it’s hard for her to say how long she works on the average 32-page picture book.
"The ideas, the execution, it’s hard to know when to start counting," Lisker says. She read the manuscript for "Malese" in 1998 but completed a couple other projects before she could start drawing.
But that doesn’t mean the book wasn’t on her mind.
"I had to think for a while, and I looked at lots of Haitian art. I have to feed my imagination during the research stage," she says. It helps her calm the anxiety that accompanies the start of every new project when she isn’t sure what direction to take.
"Then, I just have to get down to it."
Most of the responsibility for the look of the book lies with the illustrator, and Lisker gives herself free rein at first.
"I illustrate everything that touches my fancy. For me, that’s the best approach. Just start scribbling. Open the floodgates. Try to loosen up." The down side of being prolific is that she comes up with at least three times as many illustrations as ever will be used.
But Lisker has help, human and canine, with all her projects.
"I go to Bill with my big pile of sketches. He’s a natural editor. I feel like his name should be on every book," she grins. Together they sort out ones to show to the editor for final recommendations.
The book takes shape when Lisker puts together a dummy that shows which illustrations go where and how the text will break from one page to the next.
"Your choices are shaping the reader, shaping the story," Lisker says. "It’s the organization, the rhythm of the story, seeing the patterns from a distance. It’s the architecture of the book."
Once the dummy is approved, Lisker can start on the part she likes best: the finished art. But even at this point, she gets anxious.
"I sketch onto the canvas with pencil, then I trick myself," she says. "I say I’ll do just a little color."
But once again, the creative floodgates open.
"I don’t have a word for it, but by the third week of work it’s exhausting. It’s using all of me.
"It’s a marathon. Three months of going strong, then I have to come up for air and bake or cook for a couple days," she laughs. Lisker loves to cook and frequently contributes recipes to The Call’s food pages. Honey, her Lab mix, helps, too, "because she forces me to go for a walk every day."
She works her way through the book, illustration by illustration, using acrylic paints on canvas. "Each piece I finish cheers me on," she explains.
"Once you begin, it’s hard, hard work," Lisker says. That’s why she chooses manuscripts carefully. "If the writing is alive, I can always go back to it" for inspiration. "If it’s flat, it’s not going to feed you over a two-year period.
"A friend once said to me, ‘Your pictures are so full of joy, but the process you describe is so full of anxiety.’ On the last night of ‘Malese’ I was sick to my stomach," she admits. "Either I’m a masochist or there is some fulfillment," she reasons. "There is something that I get out of this, but it’s taken me a long time to trust it," says the 42-year-old artist.
"It" is a talent that easily could have been denied. Lisker says her parents "pushed" her into art. Her mother is a children’s book illustrator, and her stepfather is an artists’ agent. Both graduated from art school and wanted the same for Emily and her siblings.
Emily wasn’t so sure.
"When I’d get bored, my mother would say, ‘Go paint your bedroom. That’s what Van Gogh did.’ She’d tell me to paint and then she’d critique my work. I can remember getting paints for Christmas and crying," Lisker says.
When a high school art teacher also recognized Lisker’s talent and started to "push," too, Lisker left her Larchmont, N.Y., home with a friend who was a student at Brown University and discovered Rhode Island. She held a variety of jobs, including restaurant cook, before doing what she had to do: enroll at the Rhode Island School of Design.
"Bill (her husband) says I have no choice. I have to be an artist," Lisker says now. "I tried to give it up, but I just started doodling again."
She is, moreover, well into her 14th book. Completed illustrations for a story about Russian artist Marc Chagall hang on the wall in that smallish room on Rathbun Street.
And there is all the completed work in the successful "Please, Malese!" to cheer her on. Even the angst-ridden Lisker can smile and say, "I like how it came out."
