Bottle Houses: The Creative World of Grandma Prisbrey [Hardcover]

Melissa Eskridge Slaymaker (Author), Julie Paschkis (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 5 and up

Being inside one of Grandma Prisbrey's houses was like being inside a rainbow or a kaleidoscope or a jewel.

A vibrant portrait of American visionary artist Grandma Prisbrey

The walls of Grandma Prisbrey's houses glowed and glittered with color because she made them out of bottles. Large and small, fancy and plain, Grandma Prisbrey salvaged every bottle she could find.
Soon people started calling Grandma Prisbrey an artist. "I can't even draw a car that looks like one," she said. "But I guess there are different kinds of art." Lush and lyrical, this is an evocative introduction to the world of visionary, or untrained, art.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 5–From trash to treasure, this is the story of how visionary 20th-century artist Grandma (Tressa) Prisbrey built Bottle Village in Simi Valley, CA. Ostensibly begun to house her extensive pencil collection, the village grew to include a chapel, a pyramid of headlights, and a round house (with a round bed, dresser, and mirror inside). Prisbrey used bottles retrieved from a nearby dump, mixed with cement, to create her remarkable structures. On her trips there, she also amassed a huge doll collection, which she built a house for, and other materials that she used in her structures. As the number of visitors grew, she constructed a sidewalk from broken tiles and other found objects, including a license plate, bottle caps, and buttons. Appropriately, Paschkis's artwork glows with color, just as the bottles that formed the village are described as sparkling and glowing. The bright gouache illustrations float against white backgrounds, giving them a folk-art quality. Curving flowers and flying birds convey a sense of movement and energy that complements the lively text. Direct quotes from Prisbrey add immediacy to the narrative. Photographs of Bottle Village and a short biography are appended. The idea of making something beautiful and unique from what others see as worthless has innate child appeal. This lovely book introduces youngsters to an artist and type of art that may be completely unknown to them.–Robin L. Gibson, formerly at Perry County District Library, New Lexington, OH
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 1-3. As an introduction to the genre variously known as outsider art, self-taught art, or visionary art, Grandma Prisbrey serves the purpose well. Her whimsical creation, a whole village of houses made of multicolored glass bottles gathered from the dump, will engage children, as will her endearing eccentricities (she dyed her cats pink, blue, and yellow). Bright and riotous in the Maira Kalman vein, Paschkis' watercolors depict Prisbrey at work surrounded by lovely folk-art metaphors for her fertile creativity: twining vines, giant unfurling flowers, and flocks of birds. The text by newcomer Slaymaker is lively enough, though it does little more than string together homespun quotes from Prisbrey herself ("They call me an artist . . . even though I can't draw a car that looks like one") with hardly any biographical context. Concluding photographs are accompanied by an endnote explaining that Prisbrey's creation was damaged by a 1994 earthquake and directing curious readers to visit the Preserve Bottle Village Web site, an excellent resource that fills in details missing from the book itself. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR); First Edition edition (April 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805071318
• ISBN-13: 978-0805071313
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,194,411 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars People Who Build Glass Houses..., May 4, 2005

By 

M. Allen Greenbaum (California) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Bottle Houses: The Creative World of Grandma Prisbrey (Hardcover)

Bottle Houses tells the true story of Grandma Prisbey, artist, collector, and builder. Although not as famous as Simon Rhodia of Watts Tower fame, she similarly constructed edifices out of discarded glass and other objects. Her creative urge led to a whole complex of varied structures, united by the use of found objects. As Grandma Prisbey said, "What some people throw away, I believe I could wear to church." Unfortunately for her-and for us-some of the buildings were damaged by the 1994 quake in Simi Valley, California; however, much remains, and there is a "Preserve Bottle Village Committee" working to restore the Village.

Melissa Slaymaker does a superb job of drawing us into the story. Right away, she describes Prisbey's, nonconformity, and independence: "...she didn't have a house. She was too busy to have one." "Grandma Prisbrey had some land in California, but she didn't have enough money to build a house in a regular way. But Grandma Prisbey wasn't the sort of person who did things in a regular sort of way."

Prisbey went to the local dump, using "what some people throw away" including "furniture, stoves, refrigerators, dishes, clothes, batteries....even dolls. Hundreds of dolls."

The most important of these junked items were the colored bottles. Using everything but milk bottles (apparently against the law) she stacked bottles atop each other and held them in pace with cement. With these as her basic building materials, she built bottle houses for her collections of pencils and dolls, a bottle chapel, bottle birdbath, wishing well, rumpus room, and the round house ("everything in it was round. It had a round fireplace, a round bed, and a round dresser with a round mirror over it." Other creative projects include a house of shells and a "singing tree," hung with thousands of bottles that rang like chimes. She built a pyramid out to headlights and 150 gold lipstick cases, and dyed her three cats (vegetable dye is supposedly safe) pink, green, and blue! Slaymaker and Paschkis portray Grandma Prisbey as an artist without formal training or conventional drawing talent, who still created beautiful, original, works that delight the eye and express her individuality.

The bright illustrations and decorative "folkish" art designs by illustrator Julie Paschkis add greatly to Slaymaker's text. Paschkis captures the luminosity of the colored glass bottles, using shading and reflection in her gouache illustrations. Other illustrations are reminiscent of old stencil patterns and mid-20th century graphics. Paschkis scattered her drawings over the page, yet they retain a uniform style, echoing the feeling and look of Prisbey's Bottle Village. Colors have unusual and beautiful hues, and Paschkis conveys the vivid, multi-colored mosaics accurately and with flair. The back of the book shows photos of Grandma Prisbey, some of the structures and a link to the Preserve Bottle Village Committee website (http://echomatic.home.mindspring.com/by). I strongly suggest viewing the site, and I higly recommend this enjoyable, eye-pleasing book.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A world of glass, May 21, 2004

By 

"michaelkuehlen" (Germany) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bottle Houses: The Creative World of Grandma Prisbrey (Hardcover)

This beautifully illustrated children's book tells the story of charmingly quaint Grandma Prisbrey who builds herself a house made of empty bottles (and just a whee bit of mortar) -- making her feel as if she lived inside a rainbow or a diamond. A little glass shed for her pencil collection, a well (made of blue bottles, of course) and a glass chapel are added later on. The furniture -- if she does not build it herself, from bottles -- and all kinds of knick-knacks to make the houses even prettier come from the local dump.

Sounds like a beautiful story? Well, it's a true story. Grandma Prisbrey lived in California, where she built "Bottle Village," later placed on the National Register of Historic Places. 1994, six years after her death, Bottle Village was seriously damaged by an earthquake. This book shows her creations when they were all still sparkling ...

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "GRANDMA PRISBREY POWER", March 9, 2005

By 

mcHaiku "nmi" (Brown County INDIANA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Bottle Houses: The Creative World of Grandma Prisbrey (Hardcover)

Since the days when Simon Rodia built the "Watts Towers" in Los Angeles, I have wanted to visit other projects that were "flights of Imagination" ..... and this story of Grandma Prisbrey's Bottle Houses naturally claims my applause. Here's to COLOR, CREATIVITY & INDEPENDENT THINKING ! What fun for the illustrator, and for us all!

In 1956 Grandma P. left her open-road life to settle in Simi Valley,California. She needed room for her souvenir pencil collection first, and a bottle house was the result of salvaged bottles, a strong arm for mixing mortar and persistence. Her sons helped with roofing & hanging doors as her little 'compound' grew.

But this was no Hyannisport! Tressa Prisbrey's unstifled creative juices led to other structures, small & tall: a house for dolls, a bottle chapel, birdbath, wishing well and a bottle Rumpus Room. There is a round House of bottles, and a Singing Tree where more than a thousand bottles hang & sing like wind chimes! She 'branched out' and used other materials, even potted cactus, and she laid pathways for the many gawking visitors & picture-takers.

A "Preserve Bottle Village Committee" works now to protect the future of this imaginative artistry; it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. REVIEWER mcHAIKU enthuses over the author & illustrator who bring us Grandma Prisbrey's colors bursting like Roman candles: a memorable legacy for all to share.