Letters from Embervale™Chattanooga, Tennessee
For more than twenty years, I’ve taught children art in my bright little studio here in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It is a real place filled with paint, paper, laughter, half-finished projects, and children discovering what they can make. I’ve had the privilege of watching their imaginations catch fire again and again.
The idea for Embervale came home with me from a Florida beach trip. I had watched children drift toward screens even with the ocean right in front of them, and I kept thinking about what childhood used to make us wait for: letters, stories, surprises, the next chapter.
When I was a girl, a letter with my name on it felt like an event. My mama was an elementary teacher and later an education professor, and we dreamed that one day we would make children’s books together, her words and my pictures. She passed before we got to do it. For a long time, I could not imagine making that dream without her.
On that drive home, something shifted. I realized the stories could arrive as letters. The child could become part of the adventure. And the grown-up who sent the gift could stay part of the story all year long.
The Meldlings grew from an art project I have taught children for years at schools and here in my studio: combining animals into creatures that are surprising, funny, and completely their own. Embervale grew around them from there.
I am a grandmother of the heart, and I know how powerful it is when a child feels that an adult chose something just for them. That is what I want every envelope to say:
Someone believes in you.
With love,
