Ashley Bryan
words to my life's song book cover.
Ashley Bryan was many things in his 98 years of life: a painter, illustrator, collage maker, toy maker, author, poet, World War II veteran, teacher, student, philosopher, and the recipient of countless awards and honors. He became renowned for bringing Black characters and African folk tales to mass audiences. But most of all, he was a lover of life whose inner joy spilled out through his pores.
Born in 1923 in Harlem, Bryan grew up in the Bronx, driven to create. His parents, immigrants from the Caribbean island of Antigua, and his teachers, supported his vivacious drive. Not even getting drafted to serve in an all-Black unit in Europe during World War II stopped him making art: He processed the life, the destruction, and the racism he experienced on sketchpads, and if those weren’t available, on toilet paper.
It was while attending the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture after the war that Bryan fell in love with the place that would eventually become his home: the village of Islesford on Little Cranberry Island, off the coast of Mount Desert Island. For years he spent his summers there, moving to the island full-time after retiring from teaching to work solely on his artistic endeavors.
Bryan died at the age of 98 in 2022, but the island still brims with the life he created there. There’s the two-room schoolhouse renamed for him in 2012; the Congregational church whose sea-glass windows he created; and the Storyteller Pavilion, a chapel-like gallery built next to his former home that is filled with his sea-glass window panels, puppets, and other artworks and books. The pavilion is open to the public seasonally. For those unable to make the trip to Islesford, Bryan’s work can also be seen elsewhere in Maine, including the mural he painted at South Solon Meeting House.
Author: Stephanie Bouchard
