Ten Minutes With Elwood Smith
AN ILLUSTRIOUS ILLUSTRATOR
Elwood Smith is an acclaimed artist, best known for his whimsical illustrations that have graced the pages of The New York Times, Newsweek, Time, and numerous picture books and animations. A talented musician and beer connoisseur (Berkshire Brewing Company’s Drayman’s Porter is a favorite), he resides in Great Barrington, which he enjoys walking into daily.
When did you first discover the Berkshires?
When my wife Maggie and I began coming up to Norman Rockwell Museum. Then we began meeting her cousins for dinner in Great Barrington, which was a good halfway point between their home in Connecticut and ours in Rhinebeck, New York. We first met at John Andrews Restaurant, but when we discovered Baba Louie’s Pizza, we started meeting there three or four times a year. I like these towns—little hidden away places.
Tell us more about your long connection with the museum.
I value it very highly. It’s really an honor. When I had the show there [2011’s “Elwood’s World”], it was amazing to be hanging on the wall, and in the next room was Norman Rockwell. When I was a kid, my parents got The Saturday Evening Post. I would study the comics on the floor, and when it was a Rockwell cover, I just decided for myself that he was the best painter ever.
And you were a student of the Famous Artists School (FAS) correspondence course, which counted Rockwell as one of its founders?
It was a good primer while I worked in a milling factory, before heading to the Chicago Academy of Fine Art. I recommended FAS to a guy who was about to drop out of art school, and the next thing I know they contacted me saying “pick a gift.” I chose a drawing board, which I really needed, and used well into my career. I eventually donated it to the Rockwell Museum and afterwards, by chance, they acquired the full Famous Artists School Collection.
You also donated many of your original artworks to its permanent collection?
Yes, they took away 300 pieces of art for my exhibition, and 200 were in the show. Then Maggie died, and I just told them to keep it. They offered a commemorative bench for Maggie, right in front of Rockwell’s studio. She was a really good artist. As my rep, she took care of all the business and was getting a good foothold in designing websites and things.
Tell us about the work you have been doing since moving to the area, which is a bit of a departure from your illustration work.
Well, I’d been grousing about the business and wanting to drop out. I’d work hard on a drawing, and they’d come back and say, “that’s not really working for the editors.” So I’d have to do it over again. My Death of a Circus drawings were prompted in great part by Maggie’s passing, but just in general, “circus,” meaning life and death, are always present. It’s a little glimpse into my mind. I guess someone could analyze it and say that it’s a desperate cry for help, but it’s not. My whole career, even though it looks spontaneous, everything’s controlled. I always said, wouldn’t it be fun to color outside of the lines. So this was my chance! I’m embracing happy accidents.
Your most recent work literally came about by accident.
Yes, I call this my “Transformation Series.” When I’m on the phone talking with a friend, I’ll often draw faces in the photos of newspapers or art magazines. I started thinking, wouldn’t it be great if I had some way to transfer vague imagery into which I could draw? I discovered this tool, like a soldering iron, and read that the best way to transfer imagery is to use a laser print—the heat will transfer it. So I started transferring things—old-time comic strips like Little Nemo and Krazy Kat. It’s been a great starter point to draw things that I wouldn’t normally draw.
When did you move full-time to the Berkshires?
When Maggie died, I reached out to my friend and author Mary Pope Osborne and her husband Will, who have a place here in Great Barrington. Will and I played music together. Mary saw an ad for this place, and I loved it. It reminded me a little bit of our place in Rhinebeck. So I get on the phone with the owner, Janice Lee Kittner, and we just start talking with ease about so many things. She had had multiple deaths in her life, and I had just lost Maggie.
And the happy ending is that you became a couple!
Yes, I tell people if you buy a house in Great Barrington you get a partner with it [laughs]. They love that story!
How have you adjusting to the current circumstances?
Janice and I are doing well, making good use of our isolation, but we do miss gathering with friends and going out to dinner at least once a week. We are, of course, in the age bracket that makes us more vulnerable than those who in their 30s, 40s and 50s. I’ll be 78 on May 23rd, which is hard to comprehend, but I can’t deny I was born in 1941. Perhaps if the coronavirus reaper comes knocking on my door, he’ll sense my immaturity and give me a pass.
—Jeremy Clowe