BOTTLE HOUSES

California folk-, visionary-, outsider-, or just plain artist Tressa Prisbrey left behind a “village” of houses, walls, monuments, and pavements constructed from thousands of bottles and other castoffs. Here, she and her work get appreciative profiles from Paschkis, who portrays a spry elder in casual clothes and quirky bonnets surrounded by glorious, color-coordinated displays that glow like geometric ranks of gems, and Slaymaker’s plain spoken insights: “But Grandma Prisbrey wasn’t a regular sort of person who did things in a regular sort of way.” Capped by Grandma’s own cogent observation that her drawing skills might not be worth a hoot, but “there are different kinds of art,” and closing with a spread of color photos and further information about her Bottle Village, this joins the likes of Patricia Zelver’s Wonderful Towers of Watts (1994) and Jan Greenberg’s and Sandra Jordan’s Action Jackson (2002) in exploring some of the distinctively individual ways the urge to create has expressed itself. (Picture book/biography. 7-10)