Tell me what you have in your pockets and I will tell you who you are. This is a bit the principle of the latest album by Isabelle Simler, who chose the bags of 42 professions (gardener, araneologist, veterinarian, hairdresser, optician, paleontologist, waiter, fashion designer, teacher, etc.) and found there a pretty breathtaking one Number of objects. With each duplicate we find new ones, spread across the pages. She lists them all and illustrates them. Without mentioning the name of the profession to which they correspond, it remains a matter of conjecture. For those giving the cat its tongue, just look at the numbered token and go to the end of the book.
Last week’s youth pages
Example number 6: “Three seconds / a pair of bellows / a needle remover / a pair of curved tweezers / four dials / tiny gold screws…”Number 22: “Wild herbs / a melodious linnet feather / a black ink pen / an Apollo / a Heart of Mary / a small notebook / and some free verse” or even number 35: “a lace cutter / a galoching hammer / shoe polish / a hook hook / three needles / a leather sole / a hammer / two shoelaces / and a shoe horn” (1). Suffice it to say that this bag game is similar to Mary Poppins’ well-known trick with her shopping bag, the apparent volume of which actually says nothing about its actual contents. When we read these lists, we could almost find ourselves singing them in the manner of Vian the complaint about progress and his consumerist litany of linguistic inventions.
Winner of the Grand Prix for Illustration 2022 for Ideas are funny creatures, Isabelle Simler had already raided her bags, but this time with symbolic children’s book characters in her album In the pockets of Alice, Pinocchio, Cinderella and the others… published in 2015. It was a little more imaginary. This is where we really get into trouble with certain trades: a geared motor, a soul point, a thread cutter, a Maryse spatula, an Erlenmeyer flask… Fortunately, the drawings were made with surgical precision and this attention was always paid to perspective and the volumes allow us , to deduce by elimination which tools are somewhat unclear and unknown to the battalion. An unvarnished description does not prevent some form of humor. At the lawyer an article from related law with a lucky medallion and a coffee stirrer. But the second and third covers are the most fun: all the tools (and a few plants and other spiders) are mixed up. Especially in apparent anarchy, the joy of saying things and giving orders often delights children.
(1) Watchmakers, poets and shoemakers.
