Posted on Sun, Sep. 14, 2003

WHITE BEAR LAKE AREA HIGH SCHOOL: Artist is a poet who knows it. Art teacher's book 'Ostrich Logic' started out as a lark.

CYNTHIA BOYD

Pioneer Press

The animals came first: detailed graphite pencil drawings of 26 more and less familiar creatures. The words came next.

The result is "Ostrich Logic,'' an intergenerational book of animal art and wordplay illustrated and written by Lou Ferreri, an artist for 30 years and art teacher at the South Campus of the White Bear Lake Area High School.

Ferreri is known for his animal drawings and his large, abstract paintings. In the local art world, he's been associated with COMPAS, the State Arts Board, Hamline University, the College of Art and Design and Metro State University. He's received arts grants from the McKnight Foundation and the State Arts Board.

Now he has added story and poetry to his art and self-published the result,

Ferreri said he wrote the book for adults who like to read to children, and for children who like to listen to the sound and rhythm of words. Call it a dose of Ogden Nash and a spoonful of Dr. Seuss.

His tone is often playful: "I met a flamingo who knew how to cook. It learned what it knew from a recipe book.''

There's a frog who is fed tea and oranges and a rhinoceros "who is not a hippopotamus or a Swiss chocolate or a chocolate kiss or a macadamia nut.''

Ferreri, too, is playful: a platinum-haired 56-year-old dressed in cargo pants and a linen blazer. He tells his beginning art students in a class of 39 that once he teaches them how to see the world around them, they can draw it.

The book is educational. Historical figures and unusual things find their way onto the pages, inviting conversation between adult and child. What is a macadamia nut, a child might ask. Who is Alexander Graham Bell?

Ferreri started writing the book four years ago, reading it aloud to children, elementary school teachers and his now 14-year-old daughter, then rewriting it.

School colleague Barb Bortot used Ferreri's book in her senior English class the first week of school, to teach that language can be fun and exact. She called the book "childlike" as well as "quirky and odd enough and complex enough that an older audience can latch on to it.''

"It's playful poetry, but very intelligent poetry,'' said Michele Cromer-Poire, owner of the Red Balloon Bookshop, which is selling the book. The book is also available online or at the Renaissance Festival at Ferreri's booth.

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LOU FERRERI

Age: 57

Job: Artist and teacher, White Bear Lake Area High School, South Campus

Just published: "Ostrich Logic," a book of animal art and wordplay (see more at www.ostrichlogic.com)

Hopes to: Help two of his art classes publish a class book.