Discovering Valdelluna 1 – Goldeen Ogawa

Part 1: Just Beings

Some stories are created: I build them up piece by piece; they grow over time and I tune them and prune them as needed. But other stories are discovered: every drawing, every word, sketch, sentence, is an exploration into the unknown of my own imagination. It is like the whole world already exists, buried under conscious thought, and I am simply uncovering it.

Valdelluna is one such story.

I “discovered” Valdelluna in someone else’s valley. This notebook, bearing decorations from the Finnish author Tove Jansson’s Moomin Valley characters, was given to me out of context along with a box of other notebooks and art supplies donated by my mom’s co-worker. I didn’t know what MoominvalleY was, or who Tove Jansson was, but I was intrigued by the books aesthetic. What today we might call it’s *vibe*. I was especially amused by what I found on the back cover, which I can only surmise got to English from Finnish by way of Japanese.

I had no idea what this meant, but it launched me onto a voyage of discovering the world it came from—in my own imagination.

Without looking up Tove Jansson or Moomin Valley I set off. On the very first page I found my directive for the whole world: “Just Beings.” The rest was just a matter of time.

I had no direction at the beginning (and this whole book would be just the beginning) but just followed my nose (and my pen) and the directive I put on the title page: “For drawings that I have not drawn before.”

Although I allowed myself to be guided by what little I could glimpse of Moomin Valley from the decorations on the book, for the most part I drew what those decorations inspired me to draw.

By keeping the drawings simple and in straight pen (no pencil re-tries!) I found the freedom to explore concepts I would not otherwise have attempted, for fear of them being too challenging. Some worked better than others.

Being (ha!) that I was working on “Just Beings” very quietly and privately, I felt free to incorporate other elements of current inspirations, such as *The Last Airbender*, positive that these silly doodles would likely not grow beyond what they were. In some instances, however, this was very much not the case, as on page 17 I met someone who would become very important indeed.

“Furry Umbrella” was based on the sketch I did of the big-eared Totoro-like creature on page 17, who would later be called Earbrella, and who is today one of the principal inhabitants of Valdelluna.

Again, while many of these doodles were “Just Beings” in that they were already in their final form, that form was a fertile testing ground for me to explore concepts, and to repeatedly make visual guesses as to what on earth the “Hattifatteners” could be.

Slowly patterns began to emerge. Characters repeated, and I found another key directive of Valdelluna: visual jokes.

Some drawings I spent more time on than others. Much like these comments.

I could never tell when I began a doodle whether it would germinate into a full-blown illustration or not. Most didn’t. But the ones that did, did so in a big way.

Like Eabrella, the Mist Spinner has become a principal of Valdelluna. With her walking crabtree and magic spinning wheel she is the reason there are sunny mornings in that misty moisty valley, and the silver thread she spins from mist is probably why any of them have clothes to wear.

Whether or not however the subjects of these early doodles have grown into something more, the making of them was (and is) a welcome escape from the trials of everyday life. Which is one of the root reasons I make art at all.

Whatever else was going on at the time, whether that was a family fight or jury duty, doing these drawings was my way of escaping into another world. A world of gentle monsters and endless possibility for peaceful afternoons and slow adventure.

“Are the inhabitants of Moomin Valley humans? Or are they animals? They’re neither. And they’re certainly not fairies. They’re -just “Beings.”-

This book was a gift from my mother's coworker. It came in a box with lots of plastic toys, keyfobs, and other merchandise from Japanese Anime and Manga. But Tove Jansson's Moominland is not either of those things. It is a series of books by a Finnish lady named Tove Jansson.
When I got this book I did not know who Tove Jansson was, or what Moomin Valley was. But the little drawings on the front and back (and on the inside) were so interesting that I knew I could not simply use this book to write things down in. Instead I was inspired to draw in it illustrations inspired by those drawings: to make my own version of Moomin Valley between the covers. And this is what I have done.
I hope you have enjoyed looking at the pictures, and remember:
Be careful, because the Hattifatterners are specially electric when new-grown!
Grace Ogawa
California
2010 — “Are the inhabitants of Moomin Valley humans? Or are they animals? They’re neither. And they’re certainly not fairies. They’re -just “Beings.”-

And that might have been all there was to Valdelluna, barring a few paintings here and there. The original Moomin Valley book was put away in a box and I didn’t find it for many years. Then in 2014 a friend gave me another door into it. That is to say, they gave me a book.

Continued in Part 2: My Travels in Valdelluna

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