Red Birds And Hairy Tortoises

The Unique Stained Glass Creations Of Ann E. Wehner

By Brad Goins

A while back, the husband of local author Eloise Hunter Huber asked local artist Ann E. Wehner if she’d be interested in creating a stained glass image of the cover of his wife’s children’s book The Tortoise and His Hair. He intended to give the stained glass image to his wife as a Christmas present.

Wehner “got excited by the challenge.” It was a project that was right up her alley. Wehner says she “loves the concept of personalizing images” that are “uniquely special to an individual.”

The story in The Tortoise and His Hair concerns a tortoise who’s born with a full head of hair. Some of the other animals laugh at him because he’s obviously different. But the tortoise’s parents make the best of him, naming their offspring SHAMPOO and being careful to tend to his hair.

But the tortoise grows up unhappy about the quality that makes him so different from the others. “This stinks!” he complains. “It’s simply not fair. / Why’d I get stuck with a head full of hair?”

His mother bucks him up, telling him, “Being different is good. It should NOT make you sad.” She shows him how he can use the hair in a wide variety of ways — in dreadlocks or spiked or dyed styles — to keep himself amused and create new personas. He can also wear a hat (which the other tortoises really can’t).

She introduces him at the barbershop, where the barbers go nuts about him. They’re tired of animals without hairy heads, who are a drag on the barber business.

Eventually, the tortoise learns to use his unique tonsorial feature to his advantage, creating a personal style with which he uses his hair to charm others.

Accessible Art With Lots Of Movement

The book has lots of simple line art with large monochromatic areas made up of a single hue. For instance, the reader will get to see plenty of images of the pure bright yellow of the sun and of the tortoise’s belly. Such direct art will appeal to children and to adults as well.

There’s a lot of movement in the story. The tortoise, who frequently moves from place to place and person to person, often appears several times on a single page. I think readers will be especially taken by illustrations of his long hair being blown about in the breeze — sometimes to the extent that it tickles his tortoise nose and makes him sneeze.

Wehner introduced a few artistic variations into her stained glass version of the cover. She made a good portion of the tortoise’s long brown hair red and orange, and even threw in a bit of bright yellow. She introduced some patches of bare dirt into the ground on which the tortoise egg sits. In Wehner’s version, the worm near the tortoise is a subdued violet rather than bright yellow. Her blue sky “pops” a bit more than the pastel sky in the cover. She succeeds at working plenty of vivid colors into her interpretation of the original work.

Gift Of The Red Bird

Wehner completed a similar project recently when she designed a stained glass image for Paula D’Arcy’s book Gift of the Red Bird. She says D’Arcy’s book conveys the message that many people are calmed when they see a bright red female cardinal fly into their yard.

The image Wehner created for the this book cover makes a powerful impression. With its fiercely red hues, Wehner’s bird pops out of the blue-grays of the branches and sky that surround it.

Aside from the bird, the only part of the image that’s not swallowed up by the blue-gray background is a tiny bright red bloom that sits on a branch slightly to the left of the bird. It creates a sense of balance, ensuring that the bright red bird doesn’t completely dominate the image. The bright bloom also conveys the notion that not all the nature outside of the bird is dark and homogenous.

Work And Creation As Therapy

Wehner first learned to work in stained glass in a Leisure Learning class at McNeese that was taught by area artist Frank Thompson. She went on to teach the class herself for three semesters.

Wehner had long been passionate about working with stained glass. As she worked at her career, she pursued her artistic venture on the side. After she retired, she also became passionate about creating a business venture that would revolve around her stained glass work.

Wehner now spends most of her daylight hours in the workshop for Wehner Glass, the business she runs out of her home. She says going into the workshop and immersing herself in stained glass work “is therapy for what ails me.”

Search for “Wehner Glass” on Facebook to see images of her work. You’ll also be able to see her work and meet her at her booth at the Downtown Lake Charles Art Walk on April 28. (The Art Walk is sponsored by the Arts Council.)

More Information

The art for the cover of the book The Tortoise and His Hair was created by local artist and art teacher Erin Casteel. A SWLA native, Casteel is an art teacher. She is the creator of the “Ignorance Is Bliss” comic strip.

Eloise Hunter Huber has written a second children’s book: The Goose with the Golden Legs. Huber is on Facebook.

Both Huber and Casteel are members of the Southwest Louisiana Children’s Book Writers’ and Illustrators’ Guild.