When my daughter Anna was born I suddenly found myself with time on my hands, and an enormous need for creative expression. I would take Anna for walks in a pushchair in the park, and rather than talking to the other mothers, I preferred walking alone, literally writing stories in my head. It was also around this time when my night’s sleep became full of the most vivid and amazing dreams. I realized that these dreams, often involving lone journeys through deserted streets and landscapes, came into being as a compensation for the temporary “shrinking” of the external world (my movement curtailed due to having a young child).
I found a freedom in the interior landscape, which I wanted to share with others, especially children, who are so familiar with it. And so I collected the various short stories that I wrote up in my head during days’ mundane activities, and weaved a narrative around them, centered around a little girl called Violet, who passes through two worlds: the world of external reality, and the world of dreams, and who seeks a way of bringing these together. I illustrated the book myself, incorporating leaf, flower and other natural textures. The book is also a homage to my grandmother, because it was she who instilled in me the love of storytelling.
Ispent years of my childhood wondering the hill of Petrin in the city of Prague with her every day after school, while she made a story of anything at hand, intertwining local legends, amazing family histories, personal experience, gossip, films that she watched the night before on TV, infusing these with her own vivid flair for poetic exaggeration, bringing out strange connections and synchronicities. The ordinary was transformed into magical and it is this gift of childhood, the celebration of the imagination, which I believe needs to be nurtured and protected, in children but also adults.
Tereza Stehlikova/ Animation PhD
