
DATE: Tuesday, February 25, 1997            TAG: 9702240143

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E3   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY ANN BARRY BURROWS, CORRESPONDENT 

                                            LENGTH:   80 lines

``TAKE JOY'' EXHIBIT A DELIGHT MUSEUM'S TASHA TUDOR DISPLAY SURE TO PLEASE CHILDREN OF ALL AGES

WHEN WINTER weather makes a trip to the zoo impossible, here's another way to see animals:

Until April 6, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Center in Williamsburg has two marvelous rooms devoted to Tasha Tudor, one of the nation's foremost illustrators of children's books. The grandmotherly Tudor, who tucks her gray hair into vintage lace caps and dresses like the storybook characters she draws, has a special affinity for animals.

The real-life animal residents of the New England farm where Tudor lives all have proper names, like Rebecca and Owen. And in her drawings, she presents animals as human characters, but in accurate natural form; her fox is every bit a fox of the wood, though he may be wearing gloves.

The exhibit is a sure child-pleaser, combining Tudor's animals and depictions of Tudor - who milks her own cows and even blasts a shotgun in the direction of deer that invade her gardens - herself.

A toddler will sit among the cardboard dogs, squirrels and rabbits arranged on the floor. A 10-year-old will inspect the drawings depicting all the holidays of the year. Few children will be disinterested.

When my husband and I took our 5-year-old, Morgan, to the exhibit, she was mesmerized. She skipped from display to display, saying ``Look! Look!'' She insisted that we take her picture next to the life-size cardboard cutout of Tudor surrounded by her beloved animals.

The exhibit includes costumes, marionettes, teapots, toys, dolls and other items on loan from this remarkable woman. One display shows her desk and artist's palette. Another shows the tin roaster she cooks with in her fireplace. (She still lives without electricity!)

Tudor's dollhouse is a must-see. As is a video showing this octogenarian on her hillside farm.

The walls are covered with large and small displays of her illustrations. The exhibit is every bit as entrancing as any Disney Store - or more, as parents aren't pressed to buy anything.

Tudor's first books were published in the 1950s. She illustrated her own stories and such other famous books as ``The Secret Garden.''

Today, her body of published work includes cookbooks and garden books and a hot-selling autobiography, ``The Private World of Tasha Tudor.'' These are available in the gift shop, where you can sign up for a drawing to win a Tasha Tudor illustration.

Near the exhibit is a portico where Tudor has instructed museum personnel on the preparation of garden displays, which artfully hold the talismans of winter, spring, summer and autumn.

The exhibit is appropriately called ``Take Joy,'' for it holds many delights. MEMO: Ann Barry Burrows is editor of ``4mothers,'' a Norfolk-based

newsletter written by mothers of young children. To suggest an outing

for this column, please dial 640-5555 and press 4666. ILLUSTRATION: [Photo]

ANN BARRY BURROWS

Children listen as a woman reads stories written and illustrated by

Tasha Tudor at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller museum.

VP map

Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection

For copy of map, see microfilm

IF YOU GO

``Take Joy,'' an exhibit about children's illustrator Tasha Tudor

runs through April 6 at the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art