By Carol Hinz
Editorial Director, Millbrook Press

Bob Rackza’s latest book is Speaking of Art: Colorful Quotes by Famous Painters. The book presents quotations from a whole range of artists, from Vincent van Gogh to Georgia O’Keeffe to Grandma Moses to Keith Haring. Each quote is paired with one painting. In the spirit of the book, I’ve complied quotes from various people who were involved with the book. (Alas, I couldn’t talk them into each creating an accompanying work of art!)

“Choosing one quote to represent each artist felt a little bit like choosing one color to describe a rainbow.” –Bob Raczka, author

“Beautiful paintings are the perfect beginning to the design process. However, it’s a challenge to design a book cover with artwork that cannot be cropped or physically touched by any other graphic elements—typically you want design elements to overlay and interact.” –Zach Marell, creative director

“For me, the hardest part was narrowing down the quotes from the artists. Bob’s research turned up more than we could fit in the book, and I wanted to use them all!” –Carol Hinz, editorial director (and text editor of this book)

“Researching the paintings for this book made me curious about other paintings with similar titles. Keith Haring had multiple Untitled paintings in 1986 (and several in other years), and Frida Kahlo had many self-portraits with monkeys. It’s fun to wonder why Bob picked this particular Untitled and Self-Portrait with Monkey instead of the other options.” –Erica Johnson, photo researcher

“Paul Klee said, ‘A line is a dot that goes for a walk.’ It’s tempting to read this book as an instructional manual—as if, infused with great artists’ wisdom, I, too, could be come a master. But I tried taking a dot for a walk, and things didn’t turn out quite the same for me. You win, Paul Klee.” –Julie Harman, production editor

“Clever and inspiring.” –School Library Journal review