MEET THE MAKERS
A CAT, A MOUSE, AND AN APP SOMERVILLE’S MARISA WOLSKY HAS SPENT HER CAREER HELPING EDUCATE KIDS THROUGH PUBLIC TELEVISION. HER LATEST PROJECT LETS YOUNGSTERS EXPRESS THEIR INNER ARTIST. BY ERIC J. FRANCIS | PHOTOS BY ADRIANNE MATHIOWETZ
F
or 30 years in public television, Somervillian Marisa Wolsky has been able to focus on her raison d’etre: making educational content fun for kids. Her latest project has proven to be one of her most popular: the interactive “Scribbles and Ink” drawing app, based on children’s books by author and illustrator Ethan Long. “Children’s television has 32 Meet the Makers | scoutsomerville.com
always been a passion of mine,” says Wolsky, an executive producer at WGBH. “I wrote my thesis in college about Sesame Workshop and ‘Sesame Street.’” At the time they met, WGBH had been working with Long on another project. Long introduced Wolsky to his “Scribbles and Ink” books, whose titular characters— Scribbles the cat and Ink the mouse—had adventures that
prominently featured making art. She liked them so much that WGBH licensed the books with the idea to produce a TV show. Most of Wolsky’s work as a producer focuses on STEM projects (those that teach science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,) but she was drawn to “Scribbles and Ink” precisely because art comes naturally to the PBS audience, which is
mostly ages 4 to 8. It was pure serendipity that PBS was looking for a new project in which video and gaming were integrated, and Wolsky realized that “Scribbles and Ink” would be a perfect fit. Forty other people applied to work with the PBS team, but Wolsky and Long were awarded the opportunity. Of course, it wasn’t quite as
