Children's book author and illustrator Maggie Rudy spent part of her childhood living in England, where she visited Beatrix Potter’s farm on a formative third-grade field trip.
She has since been making mice and their worlds out of felt and scavenged materials for more than twenty years. Maggie lives in Portland, Oregon.
- "I had a couple of felt mice, bought in an English toy shop when I was a child. About 25 years ago, with young children of my own, I took a pattern from those old survivors and began to make my own versions. Then the mice needed somewhere to live, and the whole thing got out of hand.
I began photographing Mouseland for children's books in 2013. I'd previously worked as an artist, showing paintings and sculptures in a gallery. Building Mouseland is much more engrossing, because I constantly need to problem-solve materials and fabrication methods".
