From fairy tale to novel to snowy animation

Dear artistic reader,

I first struck on the idea for my novel The Snow Child when I discovered the Russian fairy tale Snegurochka. An old man and woman have one great sorrow — they are unable to have children — but one night they build a little girl out of snow, and she comes to life. This simple folktale has been told through lacquer paintings, opera, ballet, and many other forms. But my own inspiration came from a paperback children’s version of the story with illustrations by the Alaskan artist Barbara Lavallee.

So it is wonderful and surprising, with my novel now published, to learn that The Snow Child is continuing this chain of inspiration. Having read my book, a UK artist completed a series of  ice sculptures and ultimately produced this “ice animated” short film in Finland. It is beautiful and magical.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bhj1lKQYd4s]

 

In his blog, the sculptor wrote:

In October a publishing firm had sent me a proof of a book called the Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey, it had not been published at the time and I found it quite magical and was very lucky to read it before anyone else.  This led to me writing my own story about an Angel that Had No Wings, and this became the theme for an Ice Sculpture Trail in Bradford.  So it dawned on me that this girl would want to play with the Lights that I think are just simply Life, the sparkle of Life that is within us all that just wants to play.  But as with many things that sparkle is often shy and they run away from the girl.

You can read more about the film on his blog, at www.sandsculptureice.co.uk/blog/.

With much gratitude to the talented artist Jamie, and cheers to you all,

Eowyn

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