Burn was born in Portland, Oregon to explorer, mountaineer and United States Forest Service worker Lage Wernstedt and his wife Adele. The family resided on Guemes Island near Anacortes. After being interviewed by writer June Burn for the Bellingham Herald,
Mr. Wernstedt and his family became friends of the Burns and built a
summer cabin near theirs on Waldron, a small island without ferry
service.
Doris Burn at her home in Guemes Island, WA |
Burn attended the University of Oregon and the University of Hawaii, and graduated from the University of Washington. She married South (Bob) Burn after World War II and the couple made their home on Waldron Island.
She had four children, whom she taught for one year on Guemes Island's
one-room schoolhouse. Burn separated from her husband, but they remained
lifelong friends and neighbors.
Burn worked on her meticulous illustrations in the evenings, in "a
small cabin where she spends the day at work after chopping enough wood
to keep the fire going through the day, hauling two buckets of water
from the pump for washing brushes and pens and brewing 'a perpetual pot
of tea'".
Waldron Island was without electricity, telephone service, running
water or merchants. All of her goods and supplies were brought by boat
from the mainland.
In 1956 Burn took a portfolio of illustrations to publishers in New
York and was encouraged to continue working. Her children remember her
working late nights by lantern-light with the fireplace burning down to
embers.
Doe's oldest son, Mark Nathaniel Burn, was the inspiration for her first book, Andrew Henry's Meadow (1965),
the story of a boy who, ignored by his family, builds a retreat for
himself in a nearby meadow. He is soon joined by other children for whom
he also builds houses, tailored to their interests and hobbies. Andrew Henry's Meadow won the Washington Governor's Art Award and was a Weekly Reader
book club selection. It was reissued in a 40th anniversary edition by
San Juan Publishing in 2005. She went on to write two other works, The Summerfolk and The Tale of Lazy Lizard Canyon, and illustrated eight others.
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A similar watercolor assignment exploring the treehouse theme. |
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