Illustrator and author Lucky Platt is undeniably creative. Her imagination and creativity caught the eye of TWE’s founder and producer, Pamela Burke, while she was in Maine at the Farnsworth Museum’s 365 Gallery.
Lucky’s works are showcased in mixed media animation, life size bear paintings and intricate paper sculptures. She even cut up a shade to use in the design of an elephant equal in size to a juvenile elephant, inspired by the opening passage of Ed Yong’s book, An Immense World. Lucky uses an amazing range of medium.
I found her themes of resilience, healing, humor, inclusion and more recur in many of the different art medium she creates, including her children’s book Imagine a Wolf. Here’s a video that will give you an idea about her unique approach to art.
TWE wanted to find out more about her inspiration and give our readers and listeners a peek at some of her fascinating work.
EYE: When you take on a project, whether it be mixed media animations, paper sculptures, etc., what do you look to communicate?
LUCKY: I’m always thinking about my audience, and my ideal audience is children. I’m thinking about how and where they will experience my work. I’m hoping it’s something they haven’t seen before, and provokes questions and a closer look.
When I’m able to use materials that are accessible to children —like the elephant drawing, which is made from kids’ tempera paint sticks and colored pencils — I’m hoping they recognize those materials. My work is full of evidence of my hand, as well my thinking process, and my goofiness and lack of perfectionism.
Along with this, I hope it’s always obvious that the work was made with tangible, real-world materials. I use some digital tools in my picture book process, for thumb-nailing and early layouts, but I have zero interest in rendering final art digitally.
community collaboration in Waterville, ME
where Lucky was an artist-collaborator./
Photo Courtesy Lucky Platt
In addition to communicating something about the way the work was made, I hope my work also expresses something about story, because I always have a story in mind.
EYE: What motivates your themes of resilience, positive self-expression, acceptance and humor among other attributes?
LUCKY: I think it must be a combination of my experience as a child; my general outlook and feelings about being a human in a beautiful but often very messy world; and my experience living with cancer.
Like most people, I didn’t have a perfect childhood, but I did have real art materials in my hands from a very young age, and support and encouragement from my family and friends early on to find the thing I really loved, and do it.
I’ve always been drawing, telling stories and making things. Early on I’d find ways of making non-art jobs creative. I think that’s what art people have to do. My mom used to say, “Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid!” It’s so true.
Humor was a big part of my childhood. My youngest brother was practicing standup comedy from the time he was three or four years old. My sister is a comedic actress—my siblings and I all embraced hilarity, in part for its healing powers.
Humor and a kind of self-acceptance and lightness of being have also been important to me with breast cancer, which I’ve been managing and mostly living well with since 2012.
EYE: What is it about non-human creatures that intrigues you to use them in many of your illustrations?
LUCKY: I’m completely borrowing from the genius children’s book creator Brian Lies, who said that animals in stories are the best versions of ourselves. I’ve always loved spending time with animals—talking to them, listening to them, making up stories for them, drawing them.
As a kid I drew the horses on the farm down the road. I sat on a stone wall surrounding the pasture and drew them for hours. They were very expressive models. I grew up with dogs and cats, and currently have one of each, and they are also very expressive, and hilarious.
EYE: Are any non-humans a personal favorite?
LUCKY: Impossible to say a favorite, but I’ve probably created the most art about bears, in part because of their presence in my childhood. A black bear once knocked on the front door of our house. Bear families camped out on our patio and shamelessly interfered with our bird feeders. A bear cub actually hugged my sister – my mom wasn’t too psyched about that.
For years my mom has sent me clippings from the local newspaper of black bear antics in the neighborhood, and I’ve worked a lot from those images.
EYE: Could you please comment on the remarkable elephant installation you’ve done that we saw at the gallery.
Photo Courtesy Lucky Platt
LUCKY: I think of the big drawing—about 8’x9’–as a life-size illustration for the wonderful opening pages of Yong’s book. In 2023, I read the passage to a group of picture book readers, and they were on the edge of their seats.
I knew I had to do something with the text, so when the Farnsworth Museum offered the opportunity to exhibit in Animalia: Maine’s Illustrated Menagerie Exhibition with no size limitations, I proposed a very large work on paper.
I’d made a lot of life-size and larger-than-life bears in the past, but this was my first elephant. My model is an elephant my artist friend Yuna met in Africa last summer. For all of the animals in the drawing, I worked from photographs and videos as references.
In gallery-speak, the piece is technically an installation, because it encompasses the drawing as well as a paper sculpture of a potted sunflower, made from painted paper and paper maché. (Gallery visitors, if you haven’t been able to find the bumblebee, take a closer look at the sculpture.)
EYE: Do you have a favorite medium?
LUCKY: Wow, it’s impossible to have a favorite. I think the choice of medium can be very meaningful to the work. For my picture book Imagine a Wolf, I painted the central character, Wolf, in oils. It’s a character-driven book where Wolf is in direct conversation with the reader—I wanted a contrast between that weightier oil paint, and the backgrounds and periphery characters, which were rendered in a soft, fine lined mix of colored pencil and Micron pen.
I’m not the kind of illustrator who works in one medium or style—the picture book I’m currently working on looks nothing like my first one. I guess there are some mediums that are more practiced for me, like paint, especially oil and water-based paints—anything applied with a brush feels like home. I also really love dimensional illustration and building with paper. I’d love to make a whole book in paper sculpture.
EYE: Looking at all the different activities you offer in your workshops for kids as well as adults, would you please explain “crankies” which Pam saw you making with children at the museum. It’s such a wonderful word and idea.
LUCKY: Crankies are the original moving pictures! Long ago they were used in stage sets as moving backdrops operated by an enormous crank. The contemporary form is often presented in a scroll or panorama format inside a box with a viewing window and turned by cranks. They can still be enormous, or smaller than a matchbox.
I’ve been experimenting with some minis lately. A narrative plays out as you turn the crank. You’ll often see crankies accompanied by puppetry, lighting effects, musical instruments, and live narration. The performance is an important part. I’ve been making crankies for a few years, but I’m just getting interested in the performance aspect of the art form.
EYE: You’ve said you love to find art in unexpected places. Would you please elaborate?
LUCKY: This has been an interest and a way of experiencing the world for so long, I don’t remember when I first realized how important it is to me. I had a favorite professor in art school, Joseph Grigely—the book I’m working on right now is dedicated to him!—who would challenge us or anyone to make art for the checkout line at the grocery store.
He loved the tabloid headings, especially the ones about alien encounters and such. I think the art experience there was those headlines, in that physical place but also where the headlines take you in your mind.
I’ve always liked the unconventional answers, especially the ones that describe experiences that were felt deeply, that made them aware of their humaneness, experiences that are of this world but ‘otherworldly’ at the same time. These don’t have to be big events either; they can be very intimate, very small in consequence.
EYE: Do you consider yourself a gallery artist?
LUCKY: In my own work, I’m not really a gallery artist, even though I occasionally show in them. I prefer non-traditional spaces for exhibiting. Often the space comes first, then the idea for what to make for that space. I love working that way in general, and I think that’s particular to art in unexpected places.
I also really love a surprise if it also brings joy. I think that’s a great combo, a great human thing we are capable of.
EYE: Did anything surprise you in the process when you decided to write as well as illustrate your own book which challenges stereotypes?
LUCKY: It’s my first book, and I’m super grateful to Kristen Nobles, founding publisher of Page Street Kids, and my editorial and design team, including Courtney Burke and Julia Tyler. I learned so much from them on the job.
become the art for a crankie
Probably the biggest and most wonderful surprise from Imagine a Wolf is the life the book has out in the world.
I’m having so many adventures meeting so many readers. They have so many great questions and insights; they draw beautiful wolves and we’re howling together!
EYE: Where are your imagination and talent taking you next?
LUCKY: Thank you. I hope for many more adventures. I’m working on writing and illustrating picture books and an illustrated middle grade novel. I’m always experimenting with materials and process that might become part of an illustration or an artwork. I’m going to be as bold as I can be, and grateful as always to the mighty forces that keep coming to my aid.
EYE: Lucky, you are indeed remarkable! Thank you for your time and insights into the wonderful art world as you see it! Looking forward to your next projects and continued success to you! Animalia group exhibition of Maine can be seen through November 16, 2025.
Photos by P. Burke unless noted Courtesy Lucky Platt
Photo Courtesy Lucky Platt
To Follow Lucky Platt:
Instagram: imluckyplatt
Facebook: LuckyPlattBooks
Youtube: @Imluckyplatt
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