This folding table is very interesting because, first of all, it’s an old card table. My dad made a new wooden top for it. And when I went away to art school after I graduated from high school, I took that table with me. And I used it in my room after school to do my art projects. I had a little, portable drawing board — which really is like a breadboard size — that I would prop up on top of it with a tin can or something so it would be diagonal. And I could use my t-square on it.
When I got out of art school, I got a job in an advertising art studio and I folded that table up and it became my first dining table when I got my first apartment. But, of course, then during the day I had a bigger drawing board at work.
Later on, when I left the studio and began freelancing, I bought a big drawing table. I still kept that card table folded up in my closet and I would use it for cutting mats and wrapping packages. Sometimes when I do books with watercolor, where I want to work flat, I work on that table. So it’s still with me.
At the moment, I have lent it to the Milwaukee Art Museum because there’s a retrospective exhibit of art from my children’s books. So I said, “Let’s put the folding table in there with some chairs and put some colored pencils there and a pad of paper and see what happens.” And every time I go to the art museum, there are kids sitting there drawing. Sometimes they leave the drawings for me. Sometimes they take them home. But it’s still working its magic!
