Book of Hours Q & A
Clare McFadden interviewed by Dr Robyn Sheahan-Bright AM for Walker Books

What was the initial inspiration behind this book? Was it inspired by an image, by particular words, or by an experience, a memory, or someone’s actual experience?
There were many sources of inspiration for this book – including all these things: words, images, memories and actual experience. One source of inspiration was the nature of time and the theory from physics that time is non-linear. I started thinking about how I might introduce the idea of time to children. Of course, the idea of time as non-linear is not just particular to physics. The Dreaming of First Nations people in Australia is non-linear too– encompassing past, present and future – what anthropologist W.E.H. Stanner, in an attempt to introduce this concept— in his 1956 essay ‘The Dreaming’— to non-Indigenous readers, described as an ‘everywhen’.

So these are the kinds of ideas that informed my thinking, but to give a more practical example: On the ‘Oceans’ page, you see the main character on the same stretch of shoreline: firstly as a toddler, then with her father as a tween, then departing on a boat as a young adult. This same landscape holds all these experiences in the character’s life – and of course, if time was non-linear, or if we could exist ‘outside’ of time, we’d see all these moments all at once. And that’s what we see at the end of the book, the old lady seeing her life –in all its moments– all at once.

The book also offers a way to consider time more broadly: how do we think about time? A small child knows it’s the end of the day when it’s time for dinner, when there are stars in the sky, when they are reading a bedtime story – we might also think about the measuring of time by how many sleeps there are to a birthday, or a trip to the beach. The seasons help us make sense of time too. Where I live, we see the Jacarandas coming into bloom as a sign that school is almost over for the year!   

I guess another source of inspiration, which is related to this idea,  was thinking about the different journeys in our lives – The journey of a day in the life of  a toddler (as told in the book) is a considerable one! So I was thinking of these three journeys undertaken by the one character – A 24 hour day when she’s a toddler, the migratory voyage she takes as a young adult and then the character’s whole life journey (from when she is a tiny baby to a very old lady). I also was thinking about how all these different journeys and different times in our life make up who we are, whatever age we are. For the old lady in the book, there is a part of her who is still the little toddler exploring, another part of her is the young person taking her first big step out in the world – emigrating from her home country to a new country.. all these parts of us, all our experiences, shape who we are today, no matter what age we are.

Did you have actual places in mind when you wrote this text? The child appears to have been born on an island then as a young adult travels via ocean liner to a new life possibly in Australia? Is that correct?
Yes that’s right! It was such a challenge to create the world of the book for Book of Hours as it spanned time, eras and place, and the places depicted were not always places I had visited in the real world. The old country where the girl is born. The migratory voyage she makes as a young person. The coastline where she spends her childhood. For a long time, I felt tentative to draw anything because I didn’t know how one part of this world connected to anything else. I collected hundreds of photos from the various times and places the book is set in, tracked the sea routes of post war migration and examined the floorplans of traditional thatched cottages.

I think it’s very important to get details right – to honour those whose experience we are depicting, and make things feel authentic, but also because I think if you are creating a world that has elements of the magical, it has to be grounded in an unwavering reality– it’s the details of the real world which make the magical elements real.

After a lot of research, many sketches that didn’t work (I even considered making models so I could better see how these places in the book fitted together!)  I slowly felt the world come to life. Sketch by sketch, I started to see the world reveal itself to me. I hope the reader will feel this too.

I have mentioned the religious origin of the title in these notes. Was that something you particularly wanted to suggest, or was the title selected simply because it is such a spare and concise summary of the meaning behind this text? 
I was definitely inspired by the medieval Book of Hours.  The original Book of Hours were books of prayers for particular times of the day and the year. A more recent Book of Hours which I also drew inspiration from is ‘Thomas Merton’s A Book of Hours’ (edited by Kathleen Deignan). Merton’s reflections and writings are arranged into four sections – Dawn, Day, Dusk and Dark. I found something so beautiful about honouring these times of the day and night and taking a moment to reflect. In many of the medieval books of hours, there was a focus on the illustrations and illuminations- what Art Historian Wendy Stein describes as ‘painted prayers’.  So this concept served as one of the entry points for me into Book of Hours – as an honouring and marking of the times in our day and the times in our lives in the way that a prayer or reflection does.

*Note – several Australian libraries have medieval Book of Hours’ in their collection – some of them digitised should teachers wish to look at these with their students. (National Library of Australia, State Library of NSW and State Library of Victoria all have books in their collection).  The link below to the Metropolitan Museum of Art has links to the digitised books in the Met’s collection.

The text has a poetic quality and is both profound and very evocative and suggestive of feelings. What came first – text or image?
The text came first. I wrote it like a poem really. However, the concept of the book (three intersecting stories told through three sets of illustrations but using the same text) came before that. So, as I was writing the text I was certainly thinking about how it could apply to all three stories as told by the illustrations. I’m always thinking about how the illustration and text work together to tell the story - so even though the text came first, as I was writing I was at the same time thinking about the concept and how I might illuminate the text through the illustrations. I don’t think I could separate the text from the illustrations in terms of my process because I’m always seeing things in my imagination – even before I’ve put it on the page.

Teachers, this is something that might be reassuring for your students – I was a very messy writer at school!  I was also more interested in drawing than I was in writing. Just because you’re not a neat writer or a good speller it doesn’t mean you’re not a great storyteller! I’d like to pass on to children who are struggling with writing -  to try different ways to tell your story – maybe you’ll tell a story mainly through illustration or you could record a story orally and have a grown up transcribe it for you? There are many ways to tell a story!

The images are glorious. What art medium did you use in the book? Can you describe the process entailed?
That’s a lovely thing to say and it makes it all worth it as the process was not so glorious!! Teachers, this is something I’d love to pass on to children, to your students, reading this book – that sometimes the things that you have to try again and again at are worth all the struggle in the end.

I had the concept of the book – three stories told through the illustrations supported by a single text – but it was a really big challenge to work out how I would actually execute this idea!  When I was developing the story, I had a table with notes on each illustration which also included the year or the time of day in which that part of the story took place– this was particularly important for the story of the character’s life. I wanted to make sure I got details right: what was the model of an aeroplane from the 1970s? What would a cottage look like at the time and place in which she grew up? How would I show the character changing through the years and how would I make sure the reader knew who the character was in each of the illustrations?! Even though the book is not as didactic to mention times, places, dates, I think by making all these details accurate it grounds the book in real time and place and thus makes the story all the more authentic.

It took me AGES to do the illustrations for this book. Some illustrations I did three or four times until I was happy with them.

The media I used was rag paper (paper that is made of cotton rather than trees – this makes it highly absorbent) and acrylic paints. Because the rag paper is so absorbent, you can use the acrylics in a very watery kind of way – so it can look more like watercolours in some ways. I made the frames that are around each image by hand – cutting them out of paper – the white frame (for the life journey) was made of photographic paper, the blue, white and red frame (for the voyage journey) was made from copying old airmail envelopes and the old fashioned frame (the day journey) was made from copying the rough edge of an old fashioned photo. I think making things by hand (even something like the frames) gives more warmth to the book and makes it seem more authentic.

As these notes discuss, the book is about memory and the passing of time; it’s about the changes that occur as a life is lived. The ocean is symbolic of many of the ideas explored in the text. What do you hope that children will take from this book?
It’s my great hope that children will make their own meaning from this book. As the teachers reading these notes will already know, children are reflective, curious and philosophical thinkers. I hope that Book of Hours serves as an entry point for children to explore their own ideas about time; the important people, animals, and environments in their life; and the moments that make up our days.

Stein, Wendy A. “The Book of Hours: A Medieval Bestseller.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/hour/hd_hour.htm (June 2017)