Moonlight and Music: The Enchanted World of Gayleen Aiken

by Gayleen Aiken, Rachel Klein

Welcome to the wonderful world of Gayleen Aiken, a unique artist whose paintings depict scenes, both real and imagined, from her life. In this charming storybook, she recreates the realm of her childhood and peoples it with an extended imaginary family, the fun-loving Raimbilli cousins.
Not formally schooled in art, Aiken relies on a variety of inspirations for her comic books, music, her hometown of Barre, Vermont, and, most of all, her delightfully singular imagination. Her paintings teem with vivid color and fantastic imagery, and the notes she writes in the corner of each one are the work of a natural storyteller. The book's text draws from those notes and from letters the artist sent to writer Rachel Klein.

29 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1997

Reviews

[Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gayleen Aiken is a reasonably well-known self-taught/"outsider" artist, but as far as I can tell, there's no good exhibition guide or full-length study covering her life and work. What there is, at least in print media, is this slim volume, which features a small selection of her work (mostly from the 1990s) paired with brief, whimsical descriptions from Aiken herself.

It's a quick read and one that left me with a million more questions. But it's beautiful and gentle, full of appreciation of a bygone world, and well worth checking out if you have an interest in self-taught artists, rural Vermont, and/or authentic Americana.

[Jamie Bronstein · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book; the art is adorable.