The night before I interview artist and illustrator Tomie dePaola, he has a dream about the new arts center he hopes to see built on Colby-Sawyer's campus.
“They had dug the hole,” he exclaims, as we sit down to chat in his spacious barn-turned-studio in New London, N.H. “I was standing there looking at this hole and thinking, 'Is that big enough for a new arts center?' I don't know whether that's a prophesy or not, but I thought it was very positive.”
We are meeting to talk not just about his support for the arts center but also about his more immediate plans: He's busy preparing for the second part of what he calls a “double-barreled” exhibit of his work on campus. “Then,” material from his childhood through 1975, was on display last fall. The second show, “NOW,” opening a few days after his 80th birthday, will cover 1975 through the present. In the words of Professor Jon Keenan, chair of the Fine and Performing Arts Department and a friend of dePaola's who is working with him on the show, it will serve as “a celebration of his career, his creativity and his generosity of spirit.” The opening reception on Sept. 19 will be sponsored by Ledyard Bank.
“NOW” will include many of dePaola's familiar children's book illustrations, which have earned him awards including the 2011 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award for making a “significant and lasting contribution to children's literature.” He's probably best known for creating the eponymous pasta maker in Strega Nona, a picture book that garnered a Caldecott Honor Award in 1976, but he's illustrated more than 200 children's books over the course of his career. Included in the exhibit is original artwork for his latest book, Jack.
“NOW” will also feature many of dePaola's paintings, which he shows at galleries. He draws inspiration from Mexican folk art, Catholic iconography, and the artists he studied in the 1950s at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y. “The older I get, I'm more and more in love with Matisse,” he says. “And if I see a Giotto or a Fra Angelico that I've never seen before, it still catches my breath.”
When dePaola talks about his ideas for the upcoming exhibit, it's impossible to miss the excitement in his voice. “I've got energy at the moment, and I'm hoping it will last,” says dePaola, who had a spell of poor health a few years ago. He conceived the idea for “NOW” as a demonstration of his long life as an artist: He has a photo of himself at Pratt in the 1950s, posing in front of a painting of an apple. “My first, quote, 'important painting,'” he says. For “NOW,” he recreated the painting.
This will be a busy autumn for dePaola. Aside from opening “NOW,” he will design the set for the Fine and Performing Arts Department's production of Oscar Wilde's “The Importance of Being Earnest.” The artist has a long relationship with Colby-Sawyer's theater department. He designed the scenery for the center's very first production in 1959—and acted in it. After years of acting and designing, dePaola became technical director of the Sawyer Fine Arts Center in 1972 and taught classes. “If you go through the theater archives, there's my picture all over the place—in tights,” he says with a laugh.
These days, the artist/writer has another passion—raising money for the proposed new arts center on campus, the one he dreamed about the night before our conversation. “Tomie is a fantastic advocate not just for the arts at Colby-Sawyer but for the new arts center,” says Elizabeth Cahill, the college's vice president for Advancement, who speaks warmly of dePaola's willingness to lend his talents to Colby-Sawyer art workshops, parties and other events.
“The [current] building is antiquated,” he says. dePaola envisions a building that houses all arts classes and serves as a campus hub for creativity. “It should be like a little nest, a little oasis. In the arts, especially—and the arts are all related—the painting students can get something out of the theater students, because it's all the same kind of education. You learn by actually physically doing, and you need a space to actually physically do it. And then you have to see what everybody else is doing.”
When dePaola attended the opening of a student art show at Sawyer Center he was reminded again both of the need for a new arts center and of the artistic vitality already thriving on campus.
“The energy was so terrific,” he says. “All those kids were so proud of their work on the walls, and I said, 'Ah, this is what this campus needs again.'”
Ruth Graham is a N.H.–based freelance journalist. She is a frequent contributor to The Boston Globe, Slate, The Wall Street Journal and other publications.
