Elinor Mavor: What We Accomplish In Life Is Never Done Alone

Everyone's Story's viewership is for readers, writers, and everyone in-between. We're honored this week that Elinor Mavor is visiting, filling any gap between illustrator and editor. Elinor, a multi-talented woman, shares with us one of the key secrets in life. With her extensive history and a heart of gold, she looks forward to your comments. Plus, check out her very special, dynamic Giveaway that will definitely spice up your mid-summer!

Giveaway:
Directly from Elinor: "I would like to donate a rolled print of any piece of artwork in my Fine Art America galleries. To browse through the paintings, see artist websites." Leave a comment for Elinor in the comment section of this blog if you'd like to win a print. For convenience, please leave your email address within the comment. The winner will be announced on Friday, August 2nd.


                    Becoming an Illustrator/Editor by Elinor Mavor

I think I was born with a sketchbook in one hand and a book to read in the other.

As a little kid I was always walking around with my sketchpad, pausing to draw pictures of whatever crossed my path, mostly my cats. Sometimes people became the focus especially when my family and I went to meet my father at the train station in downtown Chicago on Friday nights where we always had to wait for what seemed like hours. Capturing the passing parade in pencil sketches filled my pages, induced some giggles between me and my sister who was doing the same thing, and caused the time to melt away.

Majestic Lion
Copyright by Elinor Mavor
All rights reserved

Heavily entwined with this obsession was the fact that I read everything I could get my hands on, which can eventually predispose a reader to have a razor-sharp eye for how someone else’s words are presented. I had a curious and diverse reading list it seems to me as I look back on it: Dicken’s Oliver Twist; Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; Grimm’s Fairy Tales; Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre; plus all of the L. Frank Baum books about Oz. It definitely leaned toward the dark and fanciful side.

I never imagined I would one day be making a career doing these things because my life took its own direction for quite awhile before I was ready and able to grab the reins. After graduating from Brown University, marriage and motherhood consumed my energies for the next decade. Then, divorce and single motherhood moved me from east to west and changed my course from housewife with two small boys to working mom and all the attendant problems. Reflecting on those years, I give myself kudos for handling my situation in a fairly reasonable manner. It forced me to quickly grow as a person and certainly made me a much stronger person as well. Having family nearby was, of course, an enormous help.

Baba Yaga
Copyright by Elinor Mavor
All rights reserved

Through one family member I found work as a secretary in the tiny office of a man who sold electronics to engineers. He discovered that not only could I write, but that I could draw quite well. A highly imaginative person, he had been dreaming about inventing products, plus producing and marketing them. What he found in me was the perfect partner to launch these ideas into reality with two small companies: Jeffords Industries and subsequently, Specialized Advertising Company. Bob Jeffords and I worked together on all of this for the next several years.

After that I ran my own small service bureau designing and producing menus plus brochures for travel and other types of businesses. Through my son, Scott, I met a man who hired me to edit and art direct two science fiction pulp magazines, which kept me busy for four years. Also, Scott brought me in to help him illustrate one of the only early video games that did not involve shooting things: The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes. Since he always told me he learned everything about the art business from me, it was an immense pleasure to see him working with Electronic Arts on a project and an even greater experience to have him call on me to help him get the job done.

Victorian Room for The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes
Copyright by Elinor Mavor
All rights reserved

All of those years added up to what amounts to a very intense education in my various fields of endeavor. Finally, it occurred to me that I wanted to specialize and not have to continue doing everything from designing, writing, illustrating and assembling an assignment for print production. I decided to go after just freelance illustration assignments. Well, it simply didn’t quite work out that way. Requests for designing and editing kept presenting themselves to me and I couldn’t refuse. So I now see myself as a “Freelance Illustrator/Editor” and if more is needed, I will probably rise to the cause.

Scene from The Mop Doll Family
Copyright by Elinor Mayor
All rights reserved  

Case in point: I just finished editing, designing and illustrating a charming 24-page storybook for Constance L. Cote, an American writer who lives in Ecuador. The book teaches a life lesson about prejudice in a gentle, funny story about a family of Mop Dolls and what happens when some mischievous little twin boys switch name tags at a banquet. Here is the aristocratic, evil Mrs. Moppafella who was forced to sit next to a poor soul named Mr. Scrub-Mop.

It’s fun to glance back like this, as well as to look forward to what the future may bring my way. And I have learned that what we accomplish in life is never done alone. Other people are very much involved. As, of course, is God. When I was a small child I saw on my grandmother’s bedroom wall a framed embroidery that said: “God helps those who help themselves.” I have never forgotten that. 

Elinor's Ah-hahs To Tweet:

Meet Elinor Mavor, talented illustrator & editor, on Everyone’s Story. (Tweet This)

Artist Elinor Mavor offers print of her artwork as a Giveaway. (Tweet This)

Why does Elinor Mavor believe “God helps those who help themselves”? (Tweet This)

How did artist & editor Elinor Mavor end up illustrating a video game? (Tweet This)

Author Bio:
Elinor Mavor has worked as art director for an ad agency, editor and designer of various books and a restaurant magazine plus writer of radio commercials and local magazine articles. She ran her own business producing illustrated menus and brochures for various products and businesses, and she served as editor and art director for Amazing Stories and Fantastic Stories, two famous old pulp science fiction magazines, from 1978 to 1982. A special treat was working with son Scott digitally illustrating a famous early Electronic Arts video game, The Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes. Presently she is a freelance illustrator/editor working with authors such as science fiction novelist Emily Devenport, children’s book writer Constance L. Cote and travelogue and thriller author Michael Edwards. Her blog, Mavor Arts, showcases her own artwork plus interviews and artwork of emerging and established artists from around the world. 

Connect with Elinor at:

http://www.mavorarts.com

http://linkedin.com/in/elinormavor

http://behance.net/elinormavor/

https://twitter.com/ElinorMavor