Leo Lionni, who created Swimmy, is an artist who makes me think about color and about "being the only one."
The only black fish
Among a family of little red fish, Swimmy alone was jet black. One day a big fish swallows his brothers and sisters, and Swimmy is left alone.
Wandering the sea, Swimmy eventually meets another school of red fish. He teaches them to gather together and swim in the shape of one big fish. Swimmy becomes its eye.
It is a story in which being the only one of a different color leads to a role that protects the whole school.
A technique called monotype
The pictures in Swimmy were made with a printmaking technique called monotype: painting a picture on a board or similar surface and transferring it onto paper. Since only one print can be made at a time, exactly the same picture can never be made twice.
Leo Lionni sometimes also used Japanese chiyogami paper as collage material. He did not fix himself to one technique, but chose the way of making that suited the story.
About Leo Lionni
Leo Lionni was born in the Netherlands in 1910 and worked in many fields, including painting, design and picture books. He died in 1999.
The Japanese edition of Swimmy was translated by the poet Shuntaro Tanikawa, and it appears in elementary school Japanese-language textbooks. Many people in Japan will have read it.
Being a different color
Swimmy does not try to fix being black. He stays black and becomes the eye of the school.
For someone who feels that they alone are somehow different, I think it is a little supportive to know there are moments when that difference becomes a role. I paint, too, so that the colors you were born with can stay, without being erased.
I think of Mermaid nao's commissioned art as work that finds the colors that are truly yours and puts them into one painting.
Sources
Itabashi Art Museum (Leo Lionni and Friends)
Bijutsu Techo (Original art from the picture book Swimmy comes to Japan: an exhibition on Leo Lionni's eventful life and picture book art)
Irohani Art (What did Lionni, the author of Swimmy, convey about "being yourself" in his picture books?)
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