Kathy Floyd from Wisdom Tales Press interviewed award-winning author/illustrator Paul Goble in April, 2014 about his life and work:
What do you think it is about your books that have attracted children, parents and librarians over the years? What makes them so special to readers?
I am indeed glad to think that the books are special to people. Is it the color, the layout? Is it the difference from the general genre of “children’s books”? (I have always felt a bit of a square peg in a round hole as far as children’s books are concerned.) Is it that I have always tried to add an extra dimension of spirituality, or of wonder to the story, for I very much feel it when working on the stories, and I like to think it might be the same with the artwork as well. Is it something to do with that I am old-fashioned?
What has been the most challenging aspect of illustrating the stories that you have chosen?
Figures, people, men and women, children! It has sometimes taken me all day to get the drawing of a figure “right”, or as near as I can get it. During the early years I used to think, and hope, that drawing would become easier in time, but it never did. All drawing is difficult, but figures in particular. I defy any artist to say drawing is easy, because if it is no struggle then the capabilities are not being stretched.
What do you hope that children, in particular, will get out of your books?
As a child, before I could read, my mother read often to me, specially the books by Beatrix Potter. When I could read for myself I had few books written just for children, but instead struggled through “chapter books”, likeTreasure Island, and Masterman Ready, Mr Midshipman Easy, mostly stories to do with the sea. When working on books, it was never my intention to write just for children but for adults as well. Perhaps this was because I never really knew what constituted a book for children! I have always thought that children rise to what they can take in from a book, and adults take in what they read at their own level of understanding. Most authors and illustrators seek to make the children laugh. I must just be more serious than most.
Is there any book you have not written or illustrated that you always wanted to do?
Having written and illustrated my first two books: Custer’s Last Battle andThe Fetterman Fight, I wanted to do a book about the Ghost Dance and the Massacre at Wounded Knee. It is a depressing slice of history and perhaps would have made a good book.
You were born in England but have a great love for the American Indians. What attracted you in particular to the Plains Indians from North America?
In the early years my mother read me the books by Grey Owl, and she made me a play tipi and outfit, complete with buzzard feather warbonnet. Later, as a teenager, and having read Black Elk Speaks – Being the life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, by J.G. Neihardt, and the Letter and Notes by George Catlin, (and much more), I was fortunate to come into contact with people who knew Indian people: Fr Gall Schuon, a Trappist monk of theAbbaye de Notre-Dame de Scourmont in Belgium, adopted by Black Elk and given the name Lakota Ishnala, Lone Sioux; Joseph Epes Brown who authored The Sacred Pipe and was adopted by Black Elk with the nameChanumpa Yuha Mani, He Who Walks with the Sacred Pipe. At an impressionable age, these and others helped to shape my life.
Your books include retellings of the sacred myths and legends from the Plains Indians. What kind of research do you do for each of your books?
Over the years I have read many myths. When one or another comes to mind, it is usually because I feel I understand its inner meanings, rather than just something quite foreign. Probably the myth exists in several quite different published forms or accounts. I am a traditionalist and I seek to go back to the oldest published sources because I feel those are likely to be the truest. I go to my Native American contacts and ask them to tell me the story, but usually they have no memory of it; ‘not one of ours, another tribe’s’, etc…, even if I know it was part of their tribal memory at one time. The oldest sources are to be found in museum and society records, usually rather difficult to obtain. These were authored by scientists who often had little knowledge of the story’s context and saw it merely as a whimsical tale. But it was told for a reason by the “buffalo eaters”, during the period around 1880 to 1920, a period when scientists were eager to record whatever they could before it slipped from memory, and the “buffalo eaters” were similarly eager to leave a record because their children and grandchildren were learning the ways of white people, and were no longer interested. It was an interesting period of cooperation, although today is little countenanced by Indian people, because, like all of us, they find the thought process too foreign, and certainly very much in the culture has changed since buffalo days.
Your Illustrations incorporate influences from American Indian ledger book art. Could you say a little more about this?
When I first saw ledger book art (Cohoe 1964; Bad Heart Bull 1967), I fell in love with its bright colors and its drawing. In my innocence I felt I could copy it! And looking today at my early books, Custer, Fetterman and Horse Raid, the influence of ledger book art is plain to be seen. But thereafter I slowly began to find my own style. The signature “white lines” were my attempt to brighten the art rather like bead and quillwork.
Where is your favorite place to work? What is your studio like, if you have one?
At home with my beloved wife, Janet! North light, south light, any window so long as the light is good. It has never mattered, so long as I can be quiet and listen to Bach as I work. I once complained to Marco Pallis that my conditions of work were not good and that I had difficulties. Never wait for conditions to be right, they never will be, he told me. He told how he once met a painter in Tibet of beautiful thangkas on silk. He worked in a corner near the kitchen in a three- or four-generation household, but when he painted he was totally cut off mentally from his surroundings. Marco told me I should try to be like that man. My work desk has been from just 4 feet to 18 feet wide, depending on the space I had. Nothing special.
Write or paint about whatever you love best! Get excited about it! Let yourself become obsessed in it! Even monomania?!
Your career as an author has been incredibly successful. If you hadn’t become an author/illustrator, what other career would you like to have pursued? Do you think you would have been good at it?
Furniture designer. I had already won several competitions, but my designs were considered on the whole to be too avant-garde, too modern, and I had already gone more into teaching in an art college than working freelance.
Do you have any special message for your readers?
I hope that children, parents, grandparents, teachers will all like the books. Nobody is too old, or too young to think about the inner meanings of a sacred myth. That is why I prefer books to be listed as for “all ages”. If it is not of interest to parents they will not read it to their children, for being read to is as important as reading to oneself. Ignore the designations which publishers so love to give their books!
References
Blish, Helen H., and Amos Bad Heart Bull, 1967. A Pictographic History of the Oglala Sioux. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Cohoe, WIlliam, 1964. A Cheyenne Sketchbook. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
| 
