Future Lab(s) Gallery in North Adams

How Anna & Maria met:

Maria- I was sitting in a school in the Eastern Himalayas, scouring the internet. I’d just completed a children’s book set in Sikkim and wanted to find an illustrator who could make the magic of the place come alive. I had no idea that the publishing industry did not work like that. I only knew that the way Anna Vojtech's illustrations rendered the spirit of the natural world—The way even a blade of grass vibrated with life!--would make her the perfect illustrator for a book set in Sikkim.I emailed her. Miraculously, she emailed back.Then she came to Sikkim (no small feat), taught the kids how to make books, and yes, illustrated my story, Miss Lee and the Mosquito. Our art speaks naturally with each other's. Like we do: about men and women, the smell of rain... and the magic of unexpected encounters.

Anna- One day I received an unexpected email. The sender introduced herself as a teacher at Taktse School in Sikkim, India. In the school library she found some books I have illustrated and she liked, and would I, please, consider to illustrate her story? I tried to tell Maria that she would have to find a publisher first, what would have been the usual way. A few weeks later came an unexpected phone call. It was Maria, calling from her American home in Beverly, Mass. An hour later, she walked into my studio in Gloucester! Like an unexpected visitor whom I have known forever. There was so much to talk about, about our lives, our husbands and sons, our work. Soon after I traveled to Sikkim, a magical country in the Himalayas. I worked with children at the Taktse School, I explored and sketched and learned about the place and the people. That world grew into my heart…Maria’s first book “Miss Lee and the Mosquito”, illustrated by Anna Vojtech, was published by Scholastics, India in 2011.