Bringing Books & Art to Life #254

Garry Mitchell:

Making art, probably of any kind, but the kind I do, it's a very organic process. It's ongoing and you know, one's constantly learning new things, rejecting other things, establishing a visual vocabulary and reaching for. This is why I think the look of work changed. You reach a point where you use up that vocabulary, you spoke as well

Chris Van Dusen:

as you can with it visually, and that really led into doing the illustrations for the children's books. So it was sort of a natural progression. But it was tough at first. I mean, it was, you know, if the phone didn't ring, I thought, well, I'm gonna have to go work at the call center, otherwise we're gonna starve. But l knock on wood, it worked out.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine radio show number 254, bringing books and art to life, airing for the first time on Sunday, July 31, 2016. Authors, illustrators and artists fill many roles, from teaching to creating. We enjoy some of their creations in the books we read, both as children and adults. Today we speak with Deborah Spark and Gary Mitchell, an author and an artist who are also college professors and have been happily married for many years. We also speak with popular Maine based children's author illustrator Chris Van Dusen. Thank you for joining us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Today it is my great pleasure to have in the studio with me my married couple who are both in the creative field but both also teach. This is Deborah Spark, an author, and Gary Mitchell, an artist. Deborah Spark is the author of six books of fiction, including most recently Unknown Caller, the Pretty Girl and Good for the Jews. Other books include Curious Attractions, essays on fiction writing and the anthology 20 Under 30 and the recently reissued Coconuts for the Saint. She teaches at Colby College and in the MFA program for writers at Warren Wilson College. A graduate of Yale University and the Iowa Writers Workshop, she lives with her husband and son in North Yarmouth. Thanks for coming in today.

Debra Spark:

Thanks for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We also have her husband, Gary Mitchell, who is an artist who has exhibited nationally and internationally. He has received fellowships from Yaddo, the McDowell Colony, the Edward Albee foundation, and the Provincetown Fine Arts Work center, among other places, and grants from the Ford foundation, the Massachusetts Arts Council and the Arizona Arts Commission, and the Maryland Commission on the Arts. Gary teaches studio art at Colby College. Thanks for coming in.

Garry Mitchell:

Thank you.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So we're borrowing you from Colby College, the two of you today?

Debra Spark:

Yeah, yeah.

Garry Mitchell:

Well, actually I'm on sabbatical, so yes, you're borrowing me, but Colby seems extra far away at the moment.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, so why are you on sabbatical? What are you doing these days, Gary?

Garry Mitchell:

I am working a lot in my studio. I'm experimenting. I'm trying things that either I haven't had the time to do or am now making the time to do. So essentially some large scale paintings and I also make monotypes which are much smaller.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And Deborah, I know that you are getting ready to release a book very soon.

Debra Spark:

Yes, yes, August 22 is the release date.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tell me about that book.

Debra Spark:

I need a quick way to describe it. Well, it starts, a man from Maine goes to Logan Airport to pick up his daughter who he's never met before because his wife left him when she was still pregnant 17 years earlier. It took daughter to France and there's been a lot of battles and he's never been able to see her. And then very abruptly one night the pre ex wife calls and says she's coming to America and you're going to take her for the summer. So he goes down to pick her up and she never arrives. And not only does she never arrive, the wife who up till then called repeatedly at night making harassing phone calls, stops making the harassing phone calls and he never hears from her ever again. And so it's sort of about the mystery of what happened. And I based it. I know three people who had really short, really crazy first marriages and I sort of combined details of each of their first marriages and it goes largely backward in time. So that scene at the airport is sort of the first scene in the book and then it goes backwards. So you figure out what Happened, happened to all these people, how they ended up where they are.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What I'm really interested in, in both of you is that you both teach. So there's this very outward and intentional energy around teaching. You both also have. You essentially have to promote your work as an author and as an artist. But then there's also this enormous piece of each of you that requires creativity. And that's a very different space than many people live within. To be able to come up with what you just said, Deborah, is. It's more challenging, I think, than people realize. So how does that work? How do you balance all of these different things and all these different roles and being the parents of a 16 year old?

Debra Spark:

Well, we actually do it in very different ways. And I think part of the way we're able to do it is that we take different roles in the family. So actually, why don't you say maybe what you should say what you do first? Because I think Gary is better at making time for his art than I am. But he also does a lot of things in the household that allow me to do what I call my for money work. So why don't you say, oh, well,

Garry Mitchell:

I'm the cook, the designated cook, which is great. Something I love, I really love to do. I'm kind of an intuitive cook. So I just need recipes as a starting point essentially. So I do that, you know, the various household chores that, as Deborah says, she might not have time to get to, which is all good with me. She has a much more full and active professional life than I do. So I'm there with more time. And as far as my work, it's just something I've done for so long that it's a matter of habit. And if I go more than a very short time without putting in some time in the studio, then I'll start to get restless. So there's a kind of a check and balance system there between our household life and the studio. And the only other thing I would say, as far as teaching goes, it supports my studio work in really obvious ways and at times not so obvious. But I see that as kind of an extension of my studio practice, really.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've been watching Colby as it really takes on this increased visibility in the art world, and not just within the state of Maine, but really all over the country. It's very impressive, the new art museum. And I've spoken with multiple artists who have actually had undergraduate degrees from Colby in art. And actually the same is true in creative writing, I believe. What do you think is Driving that.

Debra Spark:

I'm sorry, what are you asking specifically? What's driving the art?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Why is it so important to Colby to invest in art?

Debra Spark:

Well, you can answer about the museum better than I can.

Garry Mitchell:

Well, the museum, as you know, with the gift from the Lunder family, which necessitated the extension to the museum in its former state, has become. The museum has become a real crown in. The real jewel in the crown of Colby College, really.

Debra Spark:

And the state, because it's such a

Garry Mitchell:

fantastic museum and it's well funded and it's great for any of his teaching studio art. The studio I teach in is. Right. It's the third floor of the All Glass Museum Annex. So I literally walk through at least the lobby of the museum every single day, and I take my students down there. And if, you know it's a low moment in the class, that's always kind of an ace in the hole because there's always something that has to do with what we're studying. I don't know if that's the answer you're looking for.

Debra Spark:

And, you know, they just acquired the Picassos. Did you see that? And that's again, the Lundner family doing that. So it's that the museum sort of is driving it, but then obviously the students have all the benefit of it.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And there's also a lot going on in art as writing.

Debra Spark:

Yes, yes. And actually, at least for one more year. I'm the director of the Program in Creative Writing. And one of the things that. That the program has, which is really nice, is a really lively visiting writers series. We bring in a lot of people, actually, just in terms of just keeping it in Maine. Richard Ford came this year and that was a really great evening. And the president, well, I guess he's not entirely new because he's been there for a few years, but the president had this amazing dinner actually in the museum for him afterwards with the students. So it sort of made it even more of an event than it might have been otherwise. So I think that was really special for the students and for the professors and the community, because there are a lot of community members there, too.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

In addition to you, there are multiple other people who teach within the Creative Writing department who are published authors. Sarah Bronstein is one person whose name comes to mind. I'm sorry, Sarah Bronstein.

Debra Spark:

Yes. Sarah's wonderful. She's wonderful. I'm so glad we have her with us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Do you think that makes a difference, to be a published author and to know what that process is like as far as teaching?

Debra Spark:

Yeah. And it's Sort of. You have to. Now, I mean, the sort of. Sort of standard good practices is you can't really, or you wouldn't really hire anyone who wasn't themselves not only a practicing author, but a well published author at this point. So that actually, like with Sarah, my last class, I was teaching intermediate fiction this year. So some of my students will go on to have Sarah for advanced fiction last year, except not last year, next year. So on my last class, I had us I'll read a Sarah story from the New Yorkers because I thought it would be nice for them to be exposed to her work and to look at the story as carefully as they possibly could, to see some of her strategies and her thoughts before they ended up having her as a teacher.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I think I read that story.

Debra Spark:

Well, she's had two. She had one, I think about a year ago and then one about a year before that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So it must have been the one that was about a year ago. And I was impressed just with the fact that she had a story in the New Yorker.

Debra Spark:

Well, she's doing incredibly well. She's a great writer. And as a teacher, she's just a wonderful, bubbly, lively presence. Students love her.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've read an entire book that I have actually read about fiction writing, Curious Attractions, essays on fiction writing. And I found it really interesting because you wove in your own personal experiences with what you were talking about when it comes to writing. Specifically, I was interested in the conversation about your sister.

Debra Spark:

My younger sister.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I think that you have the sister that passed away from breast cancer.

Debra Spark:

Yes. Yeah. And since I know you've had breast cancer, I sort of want to jump in and say right away that that was so many years ago and before. Breast cancer treatment has changed so, so dramatically. And also, as you know, obviously because you're a doctor, she got breast cancer when she was 21. So obviously that's highly unusual. And it's a much more aggressive disease in young women than older women. And I'm sure if we knew now, and I'm sure if doctors knew now what we didn't know then, we would have treated it more aggressively from the start. I think we had made the mistake of going lumpectomy, radiation route initially, I think thinking she was a young woman and losing her breast. And, you know, that just seems so horrible then. And I think if it had been treated aggressively from the start, maybe she would still be with us.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Does that continue to impact the work that you do?

Debra Spark:

I think, yeah. You know, everyone in my family, you know, it's obviously a loss like that, a loss that comes really early. But I do think my second novel was sort of too much based on her. And almost everyone in my family and actually most people have read my work, I mean who have read all my work are like, eh, that's not your best book. And I think maybe I was a little too close to having lost her to write about having lost her. And aside from an essay I wrote about her, which I'm proud of, I think probably I have to write about that experience a little more indirectly to write about it effectively.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Is it true that creative work evolves over time so that something that you might have written about or some art you might have done when you were in your 20s is not going to look like something that you will have written about or art that you do when you're in your 40s and. And 50s?

Chris Van Dusen:

Yo.

Garry Mitchell:

I think definitely. So I think that making, making art probably of any kind, but the kind I do, it's, it's a very organic process and it's ongoing and you know, one's constantly learning new things, rejecting other things, establishing a visual vocabulary and reaching. This is why I think the look of work changed. You reach a point where you use up that vocabulary, you spoke as well as you can with it visually and it necessitates, I mean in my case, it necessitates a change. So you'll. I'm always a little suspicious when, when an artist's work looks unchanged over a period of decades. Generally I think, I think it's totally possible. I have nothing against it generally, I think it's from a lack of really pushing, pushing onward. And that's the most difficult thing to do, especially if what you have been doing with your former vocabulary is accepted. People pay money for it and you reach the point where you can't make that look of work anymore. You just have to take a deep breath and see what comes from it and establish an new vocabulary. And that's the change in making and in the look of the work.

Debra Spark:

And actually Gary and I don't really ever collaborate on our work, but last year I wrote a lecture, actually all those essays started as lectures for this graduate program in North Carolina that I teach in. And last year my lecture was called Jump Already and it was about literary artists, but also visual artists who get to a point in their creative life when they find themselves sort of doing and redoing maybe the same thing. And I wanted to look at those moments when people have a huge jump forward. And I was looking at Literary artists, mostly. But Gary and some of Gary's art colleagues up at Colby pointed me to some artists who had done that, who had work that you could see. You know, since you can look at a whole career in visual art in a way you can't in literary art sort of more quickly, you could see they've been working in one way for years and years and years, and all of a sudden there's this break and this whole new thing is going on. And I was trying to figure out in my lecture, and I'm kind of forgetting my conclusions, but what is it that gets a person to the next stage, especially people who've been working effectively. Rothko being an example. I mean, he was a very successful artist, but then there's a certain point where he makes this sort of break and he makes those late paintings, which are the paintings that everyone, you know, knows him for. The. I guess you call them color block paintings or what do you call them?

Garry Mitchell:

Well, they. They could be. They predate some of the color field paintings. I mean, that. That's the. For lack of a better word, the category. I'm sure an art historian would beg.

Debra Spark:

I think they come after color field because Clyfford still and people that were already doing it.

Garry Mitchell:

I said they predate.

Debra Spark:

No, they post date it.

Garry Mitchell:

Oh, they post date. Thank you. That's the great thing about living with a writer, you know, you can stand corrected and justifiably so.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I think it's fascinating to watch, actually. I think every couple has an interesting back and forth. But to watch somebody who is an artist and somebody who is a writer. But both of you have also a. Other vocabularies. You teach documentary radio.

Debra Spark:

Yep. Upper Cold Day.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So that's. There's an audio component there too. It seems as if you each have completely different languages or at least dialects that you're constantly choosing from.

Debra Spark:

I think so. I think when we first got together, which is many, many years ago, I had this idea that we would, oh, collaborate on this and that. And we cannot collaborate at all. And when we can't collaborate in cooking, you know, we're just. We don't work together well in the kitchen. It's sort of interesting that. It's just we're like parallel play people, like kids, you know, we sort of can play together in the same room, but we can't work on a project together, which is interesting. I think other, you know, artist couples are able to, but we. We don't.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I mean, that's okay, really. There's not Really a right or a wrong way to do anything, as long as you've developed your own rhythm.

Garry Mitchell:

Well, I know, generally speaking, with regard to my own work, I know things that Deborah, I don't know. But there are things I suspect she might like, and I know there are things she doesn't like. So, for example, I'm working on some fairly large scale paintings, and there's a lot of black in them, which is neither here nor there. But I know she would not be in any way interested in those paintings. So it's not that I. It just gets factored in. And I know what will appeal to her. She's only going to respond to it as anyone would, based on her own subjectivity. But the payoff for that, I think I get better compensated because she reads to me everything she writes. And while I'm really a very poor writer, I have to admit I. I listen as sort of every person. And when something sounds really, you know, corny or ridiculous, I might ask her, do you want this character to be obnoxious or annoying? And if she says no, I'll say, well, they really are. So I can give her little bits of things like that, but absolutely, obviously nothing to do with the craft. However, I get to hear it all through its various stages and drafts.

Debra Spark:

And actually, it's helpful for me to read my work out loud, just because as I'm reading out loud, I often hear things that I didn't realize I'd done wrong. It used to be I couldn't let anything out of the house without reading it to him. So if I wrote a book review or actually my Maine Home + Design articles, I just couldn't. I had to read them out loud. Now I don't read well. I don't write book reviews anymore. And I don't read my Maine Home + Design articles to you.

Garry Mitchell:

Oh, and I so miss it. I'm being phased out.

Debra Spark:

You can read them when they appear. But I used to need to. I think I got a certain amount of confidence about my work that isn't my fiction, that I could send it out the door without Gary listening. And I'm actually working on a Chekhov lecture right now. And I don't think I can. I don't think I can make Gary listen because I don't think he could stand it.

Garry Mitchell:

It's like 40 pages long.

Debra Spark:

No, it's not. It's long, though.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that actually raises an interesting point, at least one that I'm not sure that many people think about. And that is you write for Maine home design. It's a very different sort of writing than fiction writing.

Debra Spark:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How do you kind of move back and forth between.

Debra Spark:

I think they use different muscles. And I actually love. I mean, I love writing for Maine, Homer to Tyne, as people here know. And it's actually when he was talking about writing every day, I mean, painting every day. I don't write fiction every day, and I often feel anxious about it. Most people will tell you. Most writers, I think will tell you you have to wr every day. It's important to write every day. But I'm the kind of person who cannot do my art until I finish my professional responsibilities. So that means I tend to write much more over the summer and in January. And being able to do the other kind of writing, the writing for the magazine and other, you know, my lecture writing and other things, sort of keeps my fingers still doing it because I don't like not writing, but I can't sort of get to sort of my quote unquote, writing often until the semester has ended.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, that's. That actually makes. That makes a lot of sense to me. I mean, I have a hard time when I switching back and forth sometimes between being a doctor and doing writing for Maine Magazine and working on the radio show. I feel like you're right. There's many different muscles that we use, and sometimes the switches harder than others. But when you talk about the things that we should do when it comes to being a writer, people say you should write every day, you should write your fiction every day. I'm sure there's an equivalent in art. Can that sometimes just make. Especially college kids. Can that just make people feel a little anxious if they feel like they're not following the rules?

Garry Mitchell:

Yeah, well, I don't think there really should be any rules. I have artist friends that work on projects and work in stretches where they're doing a particular thing and then they're doing what appears to be particularly nothing. But there's. There are things going on. So, you know, because I have a particular routine, it works for me. Although I have to admit I waste a lot of time. I don't think. I'm not. I'm not much of a one for making rules about how things need to be done in a creative adventure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

How do you feel about that, Deborah, about making rules? Well, about, you know, are there rules and should people follow them?

Debra Spark:

Well, to me, you know, it's like I'd like to exercise every day, and I don't exercise every day. I feel like there are these things that I want to be doing, but I just don't have the time. And, I mean, I do want to be doing it, but I just can't. I've never been able to figure out how to do what I need to do professionally and in the family and the other pieces, I just think there's few too many pieces to try to attend to. So I feel like just do my best with that sort of thing. But certainly I wish I was writing every day, and I wish I was exercising every day. I just don't get to it.

Garry Mitchell:

Well, that notion of time, I think to do something, to choose to do something. For Deborah, to exercise, it means making choices not to do other things. So I realize that for all the time I take, you know, in my little world in the studio, there are plenty of things I'm choosing not to do, and that. That's the necessity. So it's not really a rule. But I would say, you know, I would say to my students, if, you know, you have to do a certain amount of work, especially since I'm giving them projects, but there's no real one way for them to get there, I don't think. So I stand, you know, to the. To the far side of leniency, I guess.

Debra Spark:

Well, and I'm probably on the other side. I mean, I feel like. I feel like a lot of financial responsibility to the family, obviously, so that I feel like, you know, right now I have to make these choices, which is to. I'm not full time at Colby. I'm three fifths time. And then I work for the magazine, and I work for this graduate program in North Carolina. So that's, you know, juggling all those three things and making the fiction and trying to be a good friend and take care of my son. It's just, it's. I probably need one fewer ball up in the air. But, you know, when I think, well, what do I want to take away? It's not. I really love. I love writing for the magazine. I love. I love teaching in North Carolina. In some ways, I wouldn't mind cutting back on my Colby work, but that's not possible because that's, you know, health insurance. That's the bigger part of the paycheck. So sort of where it's at is the best solution I've come up with.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It seems like you're describing something that a lot of people need to consider if they're going to be artists of really of any sort, is that most people are not right out of the gate going to be able to Produce works of art that consistently fund their lives.

Debra Spark:

Yeah, well, most. I mean, you know, most people don't. I mean, you know, we're friends with Rick Russo. I was just listening to him on Terry Gross last night. I was like, you know, he's an artist who makes a living at his art, but most artists don't. And, you know, in this culture, in this time, teaching has been for many artists, although not all the paycheck. And it's, you know, it's very time consuming. And with a college, especially a college like Colby, you, you know, they don't. And rightly so. They don't want you just come and teach your class and grade the papers. They want you really involved and completely available to the kids. And, you know, certainly if I sent Aidan away to an expensive college like that, you know, I want, you know, his professors to be super involved in writing long comments and really there. So, you know, it's a lot. It's a lot.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I wish that we had hours and hours more time because I am really fascinated by this conversation. It's something that kind of meanders its way through my mind on an ongoing basis. Just the balance. The balance between the responsibilities and the creativity and the balance between two people in a family who are trying to make everything work. The one last question I wanted to ask you, Gary, is you alluded to space. Space in a life and in this very delicate balance that we're always trying to achieve, there is a need for space in which it seems as though we're doing nothing, but really there's some, I guess, fallow ground that's. Something is happening there. How do you make that work? How do you create that space?

Garry Mitchell:

Well, it's kind of built in, I think, to other spaces. I said to Deborah, and she would be rightfully annoyed at me a few times, you know, when she's asked me something, I'm never not doing anything, and I don't think anyone is.

Debra Spark:

You said that or I said that.

Garry Mitchell:

Well, I might have said it. So we're all occupied with thousands of complicated concerns and agendas are always circulating around. And I think I would just revisit for a second what I said. The time is what I make it. And I don't feel like I'm at a disadvantage. But there are other things that I'm choosing not to do. So that even if there is a more. A less active time than what I might be doing in my studio, it's still. I'm still more thinking about the studio work than any number of other Things, but I'm aware of that. And so I just have to shift gears and where it seems appropriate. I hope that answers your question.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Yeah, no, I think it's a. I don't think there is any one answer to the question. I think it's. It is kind of the way that we each interpret our lives and I guess, commit to whatever answers we come up with as individuals. Seems like it. I don't know. True. I don't know.

Debra Spark:

But I know I'm not supposed to ask you a question, but how do you do it? I mean, you've got. Seems like you've got as many balls up in the air as I'm saying that I have, so how. And you. I know you run every morning and run marathons and.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, you know, I think it actually has something to do with what Gary was alluding to. I don't know. It's the draw of feeling antsy if you don't sort of fill a certain number of buckets, I guess, you know. So I think that for me, it's. I find some different satisfaction out of each of the things that I do, and it would be hard for me to give up one of them because each of them kind of pings a different, I don't know, set of neurons in my brain, I guess. So it's almost like I. Yeah. I don't know if that answers your question.

Debra Spark:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But I think that, you know, in Maine, we're very fortunate because we can live lives that have multiple different layers to aspects. Yeah. Well, I. I've been very intrigued by this conversation, and I'm really grateful that you took the time to, out of your very busy lives to come and talk with us today.

Garry Mitchell:

It's a pleasure.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, you are. You guys are so prolific, and I can tell that you're just so invested in the teaching and the raising of your son, and I give you a lot of credit for it. It's something that requires a lot of persistence and passion.

Debra Spark:

Thank you, Lisa.

Garry Mitchell:

Thank you, Lisa.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've been speaking with Deborah Spark, who is the author of numerous books and also a teacher at the MFA program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and also a teacher at Colby College, and also her husband, Gary Mitchell, who is an artist who has exhibited nationally and internationally, who has received multiple fellowships and grants and teaches studio art at Colby College. And they both live in North Yarmouth with their son, Aidan.

Debra Spark:

Aidan, yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Thanks for coming in.

Debra Spark:

Thank you.

Garry Mitchell:

Thank you very much.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

individual who I think is pretty well known to Mainers, especially Maine children. Little Mainers. I first became aware of Chris Van Dusen when I was working with Raising Readers because a couple of our Raising Readers books were yours. This is Chris Van Dusen. He is a children's book author and illustrator based in Camden. His first book, down to the Sea with Mr. McKee, was published in 2000 and he has since written and illustrated seven other books and illustrated eight more. Thank you so much for the work that you do and for coming in and talking with me today.

Chris Van Dusen:

Thanks for having me. Today.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Children's books, I love them and we were talking before we came on the air. All of our kids are old enough now that they probably wouldn't tolerate us sitting and reading the children's books to them. But it's such a fun thing. It's such a fun thing to be able to share that experience with little ones.

Chris Van Dusen:

It is reading, reading aloud especially. I write and illustrate picture books and those are the ones that really, you know, that's when you want to have a kid in your lap to read the picture books because the illustrations are large and the stories are engaging. And yeah, it's a great experience.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I was, I think I was reading in an interview that you did that one of your inspirations was Dr. Seuss. So I think you had said something about, you know, I learned how to do this rhyming mostly by reading Dr. Seuss. My wife would be reading this very serious book and I would be reading Dr. Seuss with the same amount of intensity.

Chris Van Dusen:

That's right. We'd get in bed at night and she'd pick up a novel and I'd pick up like Horton. Here's a who and we'd be both reading with the same intensity. But, yeah, I mean, I did. I did. I read. So far, all the books that I've written have been rhyming books. And so I did study a lot of Dr. Seuss books, and I had a lot already. And what I didn't have, I went out and bought. And so I just would read them over and over again. The only problem with that is sometimes you sort of pick up Dr. Seuss's voice instead of your own. And so when I start, it came. It was. I think it was. I was writing my third book, which is called if I Built a Car. And that was sort of using a formula Dr. Seuss had where it starts with the main character, sort of imagines something, and then it sort of turns into a fantasy, and each page sort of becomes a part of that fantasy, and then it ends. He's back in the same place, and it's all been his imagination. So when I first started writing that book, I wrote a couple pages and I read them. And I think it was my wife, Laurie, that said, I think you better read some Dr. Seuss again, because I think you're stealing his voice. And sure enough, it did sound way too much like Dr. Seuss. So I had to kind of back off and sort of find my own way. And, you know, eventually did.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So I wonder, I could be wrong on this, but it seems like those must operate slightly different parts of your brain to be doing the rhyming and the words and doing the illustrating that you're doing to go with the rhyming

Garry Mitchell:

and the words, right?

Chris Van Dusen:

Well, a lot of times, if I'm thinking about a book, I'll think about an illustration first, and I will pace out the story and sometimes even do little spot illustrations on sort of a page that has the. I call it kind of like a story map or something like that. And I sometimes do little sketches, and then I write the words according to what's going to happen on that page. So I plotted out the story first, and then I write according to what's going to happen on the page. So actually, the visual and the writing go hand in hand, but I actually have to write the story completely before I do the final illustrations, if that makes sense.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So do you. So if you map it all out, do you then go back and kind of get more specific with the words that you're using, as I see.

Chris Van Dusen:

So, you know, sometimes I'll have, like, a little. What I do is I basically have a piece of paper that I draw rectangles and those indicate the spreads. The two pages open in the book. And most children's books are 32 pages because they print them on these sheets of eight pages. So it's mostly 32 pages. Sometimes it goes 40. I've got my circus ship and I have. I wrote an illustrated book called King Hugo's Huge Ego, which was also a 40 page book. But mostly it's 32 pages. And so I just have to make sure my whole story fits on 32 pages. So I'll just. And sometimes I'll just write on these, these squares. You know, Mr. McGee drives down to the harbor and then he goes and boat out to the islands or something like that, you know, and I'll just sort of indicate what's going to happen on those pages and then I will write specifically, you know, to those pages.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So there's an interesting kind of fitting together of different art forms.

Chris Van Dusen:

Yeah. And it's. And writing in rhyme is a really weird thing too because you can't. Well, at least I can't sit down and start with the first page and write all the way through because I'll sometimes think of a rhyme that works best for the, for the end of the book. So I'll jot that down. And so I'm sort of working on this new story right now and I've got all these little scraps of paper all around the place. And sometimes, you know, I'll think of one first thing in the morning, I'll write it down on my bedside stand. I'll put. And so when it comes time to putting the whole story together, it's almost like a big puzzle. I have all these scraps of paper and I just have to make sure they mesh all together and work with a story. It's not a way I would recommend working, to be honest, but it works for me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

But isn't that kind of an important point, that it works for you? So there are always people who ask questions of artists and writers and illustrators. You know, how do you do this? What's the process? Thinking that they might emulate it, but you might not find a process from a specific person that you want to embed yourself.

Chris Van Dusen:

Yeah, I would. You know, I don't say, you know, if people ask me for advice on writing books, I never say, well, don't. I don't say do it my way because it's, it's, you know, like I said, like you just said, it works for me, but it may not necessarily work for them. And I'm always amazed When I hear about authors that. For, like, novels that say, well, I never know where the characters are going to take me. So that's another way of working that I just. That sort of baffles me. But I have to. I have to lay everything out. And most of my stories are pretty traditional. I mean, you know, they introduce a character conflict, there's sort of a climax, resolution. You know, it's. It's. It's a fairly traditional story arc. And so a lot of children's books now are more like, you know, long jokes or just. Or don't have the plot. I mean, I still rely heavily on a plot, and so that's just the way I write it and construct a story.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You were inspired to write a book about a ship that actually. A true ship that actually capsized in, I believe, a large storm that happened off the coast of Maine, leaving an entire circus and all the animals in it stranded and kind of swimming for their lives. But after reading this real story that occurred, and I'm not sure exactly when, but in 1836. 1836. So there are times when you take things from reality and you actually make something out of them.

Chris Van Dusen:

Yeah, and I actually really like to do that. I'm always searching for the next, like, you know, hidden main story or a little gem that might be fleshed out to a story. Yeah, that's. The book you're referring to is called the Circus Ship, and it came out in 2009, and it's probably my most popular book of all the books I've written and illustrated. A lot of people really, really respond to that book. And you're right, I read about this, you know, in a magazine about 30 years ago, this story about this shipwreck and. Or actually a ship caught fire. It caught fire off of Vinylhaven, and it was carrying a full circus. And it was a huge story at the time. I mean, it made headlines all over the. All over the world, really, because it was so unusual to have, you know, an elephant swimming in Penobscot Bay. But it was also a real tragic story. And I wasn't sure I was going to be able to turn it into a story that was appropriate for kids. In fact, I have a funny story. I live in Camden, and I was walking down the street one day and I ran into a friend of mine, Matt, and he grew up on. I think he spent some time on Vinyl Haven. And he said, what do you want working on? I said, well, I'm working on a new book about a shipwreck that happened off the coast of Maine. It's based on a true shipwreck. And he goes, it's not the royal tar, is it? That's the name of the boat that sank. And I said, yeah, how'd you know? And he said, well, I grew up on vinylhaven. That's still part of their things. He said, how are you going to do that? And I said, well, I've changed it around a lot. So basically what I did, I just took the idea of a ship carrying a circus sinking off the coast of Maine, and then I sort of. Sort of approached it like, well, what if instead of, you know, the ship catching fire, what if it. What if the animal swam to an island? And so I sort of, you know, took the basic idea and built a story more appropriate for kids around that.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you have some. You actually have memorized some of this story. Can you?

Chris Van Dusen:

Sure. See if I remember. Yeah. It starts five miles off the coast of Maine and slightly overdue. A circus ship was steaming south in fog as thick as stew. On board were 15 animals who traveled to and fro. The next day, it was Boston for another circus show. The captain, Mr. Carrington, was honest and sincere. He thought that they should drop the hook and wait for things to clear. But Mr. Payne, the circus boss, was terribly demanding. He stomped up to the helm where captain Carrington was standing and screamed, don't stop. Keep going. I've got a show to do. Just get me down to Boston town tomorrow, sir, by two. And it goes on from there.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I love it. And I can just like picture you actually sharing the story with children, which is something that you do a lot of.

Chris Van Dusen:

You do a lot of school visits. I do, yeah. I do a lot of school visits, a lot of library visits, and actually my Mr. Payne voice, I didn't want to blow out your microphone here, but my Mr. Payne voice can get really loud. And the kids at the front row, their hair goes back. But no, it's really fun. It's a fun read aloud book. And if you're not familiar with the book, there's like one of the last illustrations is a giant. It's almost like a game within this book because it's a large double spread illustration, A spread illustration of this town scene. And all the people on the island have hidden the animals from the mean circus boss who came back to the island to claim his animals. And kids just love to find all the animals hidden in this one picture.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So you were born, from what I understand, on St. Patrick's Day in 1960

Chris Van Dusen:

in Portland Maine Med.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So did you think when you were younger. Obviously not when you were born. That's a little too young. But did you think when you were younger that doing illustration and writing books would be in your future?

Chris Van Dusen:

Well, drawing was one of the things I always did, and it was. And the more I did it, I realized that it was the one thing I could do with a little bit of success. And so when I was in elementary school, middle school, high school, I mean, I kept drawing while a lot of my friends, you know, didn't think drawing was cool anymore. So I just kept drawing. And I was the guy who did the posters for the science fair and the concert programs and things like that. And so when it came time to graduate from high school, I realized that was the thing I wanted to do. And so I went to art school and I actually studied fine art painting. I thought I would be a. My idea at the time was to be a college painting professor. And so I'd have my summers off and I'd paint and I'd teach in the. In the winter. But that didn't exactly work out that way. And so I also took some illustration courses while I was at school. And it was good because I could fall back and rely on that. That's what I've done, and I really love it. I mean, I still use the skills and the lessons I've learned in my fine art, and I've applied it to the illustration.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And who are some of your inspirations as far as artists are concerned?

Chris Van Dusen:

Well, for fine artists, some of the painters that I really inspired by are Fairfield Porter, Edward Hopper, Winslow Homer, you know, they're all from Maine, actually. But, you know, some of the realists, as far as books go, I'm probably Most inspired by two a Dr. Seuss, as you mentioned, mostly for writing, and Robert McCloskey for the illustrations. I mean, I just. He didn't really write that many books. I mean, I think a total eight books. But he won the Caldecott twice. He won the Caldecott honor, like, three times. And it was ridiculously how good he was. And as a kid, I used to just pore over his illustrations. There was so much detail. There was so many things to look at. And it was such a sense of place when you picked up his books and you saw Sal and Jane running along the shoreline and waving up at the osprey, flying over. He just wanted to be there. It was just a place you wanted to. To be. And so I just really connected with those books, and I still do. I Just love those stories and especially those illustrations.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What was Your favorite? Robert McCloskey.

Chris Van Dusen:

I'd have to say one morning in Maine. I just really love it. And again, for the reason I just mentioned, it really had an incredible sense of space and a place, and I just wanted to be there. I wanted to be on that island. I wanted to. You know, I wanted dad to row me into Bucks harbor and. And get ice cream. And, you know, it was just a great. It's a very simple story, but it's just so heartwarming. And I think it's just. It's one of the perfect children's books.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It's interesting to me, because children's books, maybe it's something that we think it's. Oh, it's just something the little kids like, and there's no staying power. But you've just described Robert McCloud, obviously, that's one great. And I think Margaret Wise Brown and recently Dalev Ipkar, actually, some of her art has been incorporated in children's books. And they're actually. These books become classics for us, even as adults, and we read them to our children, sometimes our grandchildren. I mean, to be an illustrator and have that kind of an impact over time, that's really kind of a gift.

Chris Van Dusen:

It is, it is. And, you know, I would love to have my books stay around for 75 years. Like, make. I think Make Awakened for ducklings is 75 years old this year or something like that. And, I mean, it's still just such a great book, but a lot of the ones you just mentioned, you know, have the ties to Maine, and, yeah, those stories still resonate. I mean, Blueberries for Sal, it's just so. It's just the perfect story. It's just. They're great. They're great books. They're great books. And if they stand the test of time, that's a real testament.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

We've spoken to other illustrators. Scott Nash is one, and he's.

Chris Van Dusen:

I love Scott.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And, yeah, I think he's really great. And I love the fact that he and his wife are both so into creation, but also the business of art, which is, I think, an interesting balance that it's hard for all of us to try to navigate sometimes. One of the things that he has been passionate about recently is the work that's going on at Mecca, the Maine College of Art, and the illustration program there. And I wonder if you have thoughts about that, about the fact that we are doing such a great job now of making this art form available to people right within our State.

Chris Van Dusen:

Yeah. I think Scott's actually started the illustration department at Mecca, which is great. And a lot of my friends who are also children's book authors and illustrators are now on staff down there. I probably would be if I lived in Portland, but I'm up in Camden. But no, I think it's great. And I think it's especially important that Scott has formed that department using professionals in the field, people that are actually out there, you know, in the trenches doing the work, because they can pass that knowledge on. What it's like, you know, when an art director says, you know, I need sketches by this day and you have to make the revisions like that. I mean, it's real world stuff that they're teaching down there at Mecca. And I think it's a really strong program. Yeah, I think it's amazing. I actually went and talked to some of the kids a couple years ago when they were doing a circus poster idea. Because I had done. Years ago, I had done a circus poster for Ringling Brothers. Actually that was through Scott too. Scott was the one who gave me that job. But I went down and showed the circus poster and some of the sketches and some of the work I had done for that. And. And it was Jamie Hogan's class. Jamie Hogan is an illustrator, lives out in Peaks Island. And she was the teacher. I think she's still teaching there. And she would take her class every year to win the. One of the circuses. It wasn't Ringling, it was. I can't remember the name of the circus. But they would come to Portland every year and the kids would go, the students would go observe the circus and then do a circus poster based on the circus. So it's real. I mean, they're teaching real world stuff, which I think is really, really important.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And how about the. The business of creativity? Because I think this is something that not everybody gets as much of an education in. I mean, I'm very close to. A couple of people go to the Savannah College of Art and Design and I think they do talk about the business of living as an artist and putting your work out there and actually getting compensated for it. But it seems like it's complicated sometimes.

Chris Van Dusen:

Well, it is a little complicated. I have a friend up in the Mid coast area who writes and illustrates books. And she always said this, and I agree with her. She said, this is my job, this is what I do. And that's how I approach it too. I mean, I have the studios at my house. I have my studio at my house. And you Know when I'm under a deadline, when I'm working on a project, I have office hours. I go out and try to be out there by 9 o' clock in the morning. And you know, if I'm on deadline, sometimes I work till late at night. So I approach it like a job. But. And this is gonna sound like an oxymoron, but I don't think of it as a job because it's so fun. I mean, what I get to do and is just stay home and draw these incredible pictures and well, I don't know if they're that incredible, but to be able to draw like subject matter, that's really fun. Like for the Mercy Watson books, I remember I did a whole book that was a pig dressed up in a pink dress and it was just, you know, how many people get to stay home and draw princess pigs all day long. But so that's so. It's really fun. I mean, I'm not. There are times, you know, when the deadlines get a little bit much and you know, I am working till, you know, one o' clock in the morning and frantically trying to get some work out. But for the most part it's just. I'm so lucky and I'm so blessed to be able to stay home and do what I do.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Tell me about starting out. What was that like for you? What was that, what was it like to be a young artist and trying to get your work out into the world?

Chris Van Dusen:

Well, when I actually was working for a greeting card company. Well, let's, let's go back before that I went to school for fine arts, like we talked about before. So paint. I was actually a painting major and when it came out of school I thought, well, I'll just paint and have gallery shows. And that's how I make my money. Well, it doesn't exactly work out like that. So I started taking some illustration jobs and I was at the time, I mean, this was right out of school, so I was doing like logos for friends, you know, things like that. And then I got offered to be to work at a magazine for high school for, well, teenagers, high school kids. And they wanted me to be the cartoon editor, which meant I. People would send cartoons in and these are pretty professional cartoonists like from the New Yorker and stuff. And I'd go through the cartoons and pick which ones to put in the magazine. But I also started doing illustrations for the magazine at the time. So that's really where I started my illustration career. And after that I moved up to Maine back to Maine and got a job at a greeting card company. And I was doing illustrations for greeting cards. And they were sort of. This is during the 80s when it was kind of alternative greeting cards, and some of the subject matters were a little risque and stuff. But anyway, so I was doing illustrations for that, and that company was bought by a large company in Jersey. And I was given the choice of either staying with the company and moving to New Jersey. And since I had just moved back to Maine, I just said, no, that's not for me. I'm going to stay in Maine. So I went on my own, and I started freelance illustrating. And that was tough. That was taking every job you can. Could possibly get. I remember one of my. One of my very first illustration jobs was I did these exploded diagrams for swing sets, for wooden swing sets. And so I brought all these giant pieces of cedar back to my house and tried to figure out how they went together and illustrate them so it would make sense. So I was taking every job I could get. Eventually, over time, you get. You start doing more and more work that you really enjoy. And I found out that I really like doing stuff for kids. Kind of like cartoons, humorous illustrations for kids. So I started getting some work for kids magazines, and that really led into doing the illustrations for the children's books. So it was sort of a natural progression. But it was tough at first. I mean, it was, you know, if the phone didn't ring, I thought, well, I'm gonna have to go work at the call center, Otherwise, you know, we're gonna starve. But luckily, knock on wood, it worked out.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And you actually brought your wife with you here today, and you have two children, 25 and 22. So somehow you guys figured this out as a. As a family, how to kind of really get.

Chris Van Dusen:

Yeah, yeah. Well, actually, my wife, Lori, worked when I was first starting out. She was. She was still working. She worked at National Fisherman in Rockland, and she was the circulation manager, advertising promotion. Advertising. She was the advertising promotion person down there. And so she was bringing in the paychecks while I was waiting for the phone to ring. But it eventually worked out well.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it seems like that that's not an uncommon thing, that if you. You actually have to be dedicated to this idea as a family. One person has to be doing something, and the other person is doing something. And so it's never a unilateral decision. That doesn't tend to work out very well.

Chris Van Dusen:

Yeah, yeah. No, we work pretty well together.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And what are your kids doing now? Do they have any interest in or are they in the art field?

Chris Van Dusen:

They're both artistic, but I don't think they'll be doing it for a living. They share an apartment. They have an apartment up on Munjoy Hill and they both work up at Freeport. My oldest son, Ethan, works at the Patagonia store up there, and my younger son, Tucker, just got a job at the L.L. bean Outdoor Discovery School, and so he's working out there. He just graduated from Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont this May, so he's just starting out.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So what does the future look like for you? What do you see happening with your art and with your business?

Chris Van Dusen:

Well, I'm just going to keep going as long as I can. Still, I have several books. I have three books at printers right now. Two were with other authors and one I wrote. And I'm working on a new story right now. And I'm just going to try to keep going as long as I can. As long as the publishers still want my books, as long as the kids still want to read them, I'm going to keep making them.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Chris how can people find out about the books that you've written and illustrated or the books that you have illustrated?

Chris Van Dusen:

I have a website which is just Chrisvan Dusen.com and I'll spell that. It's C H R I S V A N d u s e-n.com and all my books are listed there. All local bookstores in Portland, I believe, carry my books. Longfellow, I'm sure I know. And none such carries my books. Sherman's as well. So they're, they're definitely around, they're out there and you can also order them online if you can't find them locally.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I've been speaking with Chris Van Dusen, who is a children's book author and illustrator based in Camden. His first book, down to the sea with Mr. Magee, which is actually a personal favorite of mine. So thank you for writing. That one was published in 2000 and he has since written and illustrated seven other books and illustrated eight more. Well, I look forward to your upcoming books, your three that are at the printers and I thank you for coming in and talking to me today.

Chris Van Dusen:

Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've been listening to Love Maine Radio show number 254, bringing books and art to life. Our guests have included Deborah Spark, Gary Mitchell and Chris Van Dusen. Follow me on Twitter rlisa and see my running travel, food and wellness photos as bountiful1 on Instagram. We love to hear from you, so please let us know what you think of Love Maine Radio. We welcome your suggestions for future shows. Also let our sponsors know that you have heard about them here. We are privileged that they enable us to bring Love Maine Radio to you each week. This is Dr. Lisa Bellio. I hope that you have enjoyed our Bringing Books and Art to Life show. Thank you for allowing me to be a part of your day. May you have a bountiful life.

Debra Spark:

Where I been

Garry Mitchell:

I can't stay

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

why

Garry Mitchell:

would you want to know what happened

Debra Spark:

anyway Even though I'm here today it's

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

not enough for you the words I

Garry Mitchell:

say

Debra Spark:

when you ask me I say la la la

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

When I answer you say la la la la la don't

Chris Van Dusen:

tell me you don't want to hear the ins and outs my way or how I spend my time without you La la la.