Five Questions with Elissa Chaffee

Today's interview is with Elissa Chaffee, director of development for the American Craft Council.

What is your favorite/most-read art or craft book in your personal collection?
I still have my 1981 book How to Draw Funny People by Bob McKay. It’s a little dog-eared from all the years of use, but it comes with me every time I move. I have kids, and have had a lot of fun with the Muppets Big Book of Crafts. I’m a huge Muppet fan and have a large animal puppet collection — I have a wombat, a lemur, a snail, a scallop…

What book or magazine would you like to sneak out of the ACC Library?
Oh, that’s tough. There are so many fascinating books in the library. It’s probably a tie between Norwegian Folk Art: The Migration of a Tradition edited by Marion Nelson, and 60s Decorative Art edited by Charlotte and Peter Fiell. We are thinking about remodeling our kitchen, and I’ve been getting ideas from both books.   

What book(s) are you currently reading? Any kind of book is fine!
I tend to be reading several books at once. My kids are 12 and 9 and voracious readers, and I like to read some of their books so we can discuss them. Currently, that includes The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and Goblin Secrets by William Alexander. I got sucked into the George R. R. Martin A Song of Fire and Ice series and am reading the third book, A Storm of Swords. But I like to revisit classics — sometimes because I love them (Pride and Prejudice is always on my bedside table), and other times because I’m looking to see if my view has changed. For example, I recently re-read Jane Eyre to see if I would like it better now, only to learn that I still find Mr. Rochester unappealing.

What hooked you on craft? What's the first craft you remember seriously catching your eye?
As a kid, my parents made sure I had art supplies and encouraged me to be creative. I was always making something — a habitat for my pet hermit crab, Halloween costumes, jewelry, etc. I have a very vivid memory of my mom taking me to an art class at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, where I learned to make marbled paper. In college, I took a ceramics class from Timothy Lloyd (a metalsmith), which was fantastic.

If you could master a new craft, what would it be?
I would love to try working with wood and making furniture. Either that or felting. I had a lot of fun trying Swedish slöjd (handcrafts) and making wire hooks and ornaments at the ACC Salon Series in December when we partnered with the American Swedish Institute.

Five Questions is a brief Q&A about books and craft, with people who love and use the American Craft Council Library.