Dreams Spelled Backwards at Laguna Beach Library

A zebra with the head of a giraffe, the wings of a bee, and the tentacles of an octopus.

A pajama-clad girl astride a dolphin leaping through a star-spangled cosmos.

A sun-drenched view of castles, palaces and cultivated fields that is at once a bucolic landscape and a sleeping dragon.

These are some of the surprising images in the new book, “The Land of Smaerd.” written by Andrea von Botefuhr and illustrated by Bryn Barnard. Barnard will be at Laguna Beach Public Library at 1 pm on Sunday October 11th to talk about his part in the creation of Smaerd and show paintings. Latitude 33 will be on hand to sell copies of the book.

“When Jack von Eberstein, CEO of KnpwWonder Publishing, offered me the chance to illustrate “The Land of Smaerd” I was intrigued by the possibilities,” says Barnard. “I’ve written and illustrated mostly nonfiction, like my work for NASA and National Geographic. But there is a long and sumptuous illustration tradition associated with dreams, from Alice in Wonderland to Little Nemo in Slumberland to the Wizard of Oz. Trying to add to that pantheon was a terrific honor and a huge challenge.”

“Smaerd” is “dreams” spelled backward. “The Land of Smaerd” is a journey in verse through the land of dreams, where children have the opportunity to expand their imaginations, chase away nightmares, and shape their own reality. Barnard’s paintings are glowing, detailed, and highly saturated statements in the tradition of the Maxfield Parrish. Like Parrish, Barnard uses multiple, semi-translucent layers of glazing, a Renaissance technique, to achieve his effects. It took him over a year to create the book’s sixteen paintings. They are complemented by mandalas created by von Botefuhr’s sister, Angela Russell.

Barnard is a 1974 graduate of Laguna Beach High School. He studied at the University of California, Berkeley and Art Center College of Design in Pasadena.

He has been a Fulbright fellow, a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs, a batik factory worker and a member of a Malaysian shadow puppet theater troupe. In addition to his illustrations for “Smaerd” he has written and illustrated “Dangerous Planet” and “Outbreak,” published by Crown, and the upcoming “The Genius of Islam,” published by Knopf. A solo exhibition of his “Outbreak” artwork is on display through January at the Smithsonian’s Global Health Odyssey Museum at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta