Valorie Fisher
I was born Ohio in 1957. My siblings were born in Alabama and California, and when I was seven we crossed the Atlantic Ocean leaving Swarthmore, Pennsylvania for “Swinging” London. We lived in London for the next seven years, where I grew up on humbugs, bubble and squeak, Mary Poppins, and Monty Python’s Flying Circus.
When I was fourteen, my family packed up again, this time crossing the English Channel to Italy. For the next three years, we lived in Milan and Rome, where I happily adapted to gelato, Giotto, fettuccine and Fellini. After finishing high school, I returned to London for a year and worked as a photographer’s assistant.
In 1975, I crossed the Atlantic again to study art at the Museum School in Boston. Four years later with a BFA from Tufts University and the Museum School, I moved to New York City to be a struggling artist. I struggled successfully over the next twenty years working with art galleries, museums, photography collections, and as a photographer, and prop stylist. My gypsy gene inspired travels to India, Mexico, Italy, Spain, Portugal and France. Somewhere along my zigzagged path, I met my husband, had two children and moved to a 200-year-old farmhouse in the northwest corner of Connecticut. In 2000 inspired by the birth of my second child, I wrote and illustrated my first children’s book, My Big Brother. Since then, I have written and/or illustrated six more books, When Ruby Tried to Grow Candy, High Can a Dinosaur Count?, Ellsworth’s Extraordinary Electric Ears, My Big Sister, Nonsense! (by Edward Lear) and Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little (by Peggy Gifford).
When I was fourteen, my family packed up again, this time crossing the English Channel to Italy. For the next three years, we lived in Milan and Rome, where I happily adapted to gelato, Giotto, fettuccine and Fellini. After finishing high school, I returned to London for a year and worked as a photographer’s assistant.
In 1975, I crossed the Atlantic again to study art at the Museum School in Boston. Four years later with a BFA from Tufts University and the Museum School, I moved to New York City to be a struggling artist. I struggled successfully over the next twenty years working with art galleries, museums, photography collections, and as a photographer, and prop stylist. My gypsy gene inspired travels to India, Mexico, Italy, Spain, Portugal and France. Somewhere along my zigzagged path, I met my husband, had two children and moved to a 200-year-old farmhouse in the northwest corner of Connecticut. In 2000 inspired by the birth of my second child, I wrote and illustrated my first children’s book, My Big Brother. Since then, I have written and/or illustrated six more books, When Ruby Tried to Grow Candy, High Can a Dinosaur Count?, Ellsworth’s Extraordinary Electric Ears, My Big Sister, Nonsense! (by Edward Lear) and Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little (by Peggy Gifford).
