Salley Mavor

Salley Mavor grew up in the seaside village of Woods Hole, Massachusetts in a family who connected with their community through art, music and dance. At home, there were always art supplies close at hand and a sense that time was available for creative pursuit. Drawing with crayons was never enough for Salley. She remembers feeling that her pictures were not finished until something real was glued, stapled or sewn to it. At a young age, she held an open minded view of what constitutes art, writing in a 1964 school essay at age 9, “Art is everything… records, clocks, blackboards, people, snowflakes and everything. That is why I like art.” As an illustration major at the Rhode Island School of Design in the 1970’s, she left traditional mediums behind, preferring to communicate her ideas with sculptural needlework. For most of her 40+ year career, she has followed this path, creating narrative scenes in bas-relief, much like miniature, shallow stage sets, with figures imposed on embellished fabric backgrounds. She has spent decades developing her signature style and working methods, carving out her own niche within the children’s book world and the fiber art community. Ms. Mavor has illustrated 11 picture books using her distinctive blend of materials and hand-stitching techniques, including Pocketful of Posies, which won the 2011 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award and the 2011 Golden Kite Award. Her popular how-to book, Felt Wee Folk is in its 2nd edition, inspiring creativity in all ages. My Bed: Enchanting Ways to Fall Asleep around the World is her most recent publication. She lives and works in her home studio in Falmouth, Massachusetts.