An Abundance of Light is Coming Your Way!
In one week from today, my new picture book, AN ABUNDANCE OF LIGHT, a Story of Matisse in Morocco, will be available in stores and libraries and I am so happy to be able to finally share it with you!
Picture books can take a while to become a book and in this case, it has been ten years since I first thought of turning Matisse’s two pivotal years in Tangier, Morocco into a story. Ten years!! I was looking through early manuscripts, sketches, color thumbnails, and saw through the files of manuscripts that there are at least 60 revisions— each one slightly different as I honed in on the story I wanted to tell. And the sketches are piled into mountains of different mediums, different ways to portray Henri Matisse, and how to capture the light of Tangier. It has been a massive labor of love to bring this new picture book to you, dear readers, and so worth it!
I love the process of making a book, which is not to say there are not days of despair or thoughts of quitting, but this story captured my heart the minute I read the exhibition catalogue, Matisse in Morocco, published in 1990 by the National Gallery.
catalogue from Matisse in Morocco exhibition, National Gallery, 1990
In 2015, my daughter invited us to Tangier, Morocco to meet her fiancé. I had never been there before, so to get ready, I read the catalogue from cover to cover and suddenly could not wait to see what the light was like that had transformed Matisse and his paintings after spending several months there in 1912 and 1913.
With a story already beginning to find words in the right places, I put together a sketchbook containing pictures of all of the paintings Matisse had painted, along with notes about his time there, and left plenty of pages blank so I could sketch my own impressions while visiting Tangier for the first time.
My journal from my first visit to Tangier, Morocco. 2015.
Three paintings by Henri Matisse during his first visit to Tangier, 1912.
Some of my sketches from my first visit to Tangier, 2015.
After that first visit to Tangier, the story of Matisse’s two years in Tangier, Morocco was stuck inside me and though I had other books to illustrate and other stories to finish, it stayed with me until I finished a final draft I was happy with and was ready to begin the illustrations.
I have been back to Tangier several times since that first visit— to see my daughter get married, then again to visit for more research and sketching, and then again to celebrate the birth of my first grandchild. And I hope I have many more visits to Tangier ahead of me. Inshallah.
Sketch by Henri Matisse
Me, sketching the same mosque 110 years after Matisse.
And now, my picture book will soon be available for everyone with a library or bookstore nearby. Available August 26th, 2025, Beach Lane Books, Imprint of Simon & Schuster.