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The Illustrious Art of Eric Rohmann
Original illustrations by Caldecott award winning children’s book author & illustrator
Artist Reception, Friday, April 21, 5-7pm
April 7 - May 20, 2006
Meet Eric Rohmann, Normal Public Library, Community Room, Saturday, April 22, 2:30 p.m.
Tell Your Own Story, Saturday, April 29, Noon to 2pm - Family Art Activity – Create your own book that tells your favorite family story, $5 materials
Sponsored by Anne & Brian Boyden, Thomas Anthony Waller and Timothy Kent Gallery & Framing
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| Children's author and illustrator, Eric Rohmann, an ISU alumnus, will be the focus of an exhibit at the McLean County Arts Center. | |||
In the Eyes of a child
Arts Center exhibit focuses on children’s author, illustrator
By Dan Craft
dcraft@pantagraph.com
The man behind such contemporary children's classics as "Time Flies" and "My Friend Rabbit" was like any other visually oriented kid growing up.
He was quick on the draw.
"I've always made pictures," says Eric Rohmann, an Illinois State University alum who has been honored no less than twice by the Academy Awards of the children's book field, the Caldecotts ("Time Flies" was a Caldecott Honor Book in 1994, while "My Friend Rabbit" was a Caldecott Medal Winner in 2002).
And what pictures.
His award-winning illustrations are the subject of an exhibit at the McLean County Arts Center in Bloomington, an occasion also serving as a homecoming of sorts: Not only is Rohmann an ISU alum, he was employed at the Arts Center as a curator 20 years ago ("education coordinator" was the official title).
Visitors to the show will not only be able to view the final results of his painterly, yet always-whimsical eye -- they'll also witness the various stages he takes to get there, via original sketches done in pencil, ink, watercolor and oil washes.
Fans of Rohmann's five major works as author-illustrator will find all their favorites here, from the Jurassic denizens of "Time Flies" to the gourd-headed hero of "Pumpkinhead" to the fiery felines of "The Cinder-Eyed Cats."
Also on hand, of course, will be the irrepressible Mouse and Rabbit, along with their problematic airplane, from "My Friend Rabbit."
How could they not be on hand? The duo is so beloved, they're currently being pitched to Nickelodeon and The Cartoon Network as potential stars of their own TV series, the first attempt at transplanting characters from a Rohmann book to a new medium.
"I was a reluctant reader," confesses Rohmann, 48, of his Downers Grove youth. "My dad didn't read because he was dyslexic. And my mom only read a little. Over time, I started reading through pictures."
Meaning, naturally, comic books.
"I began with Krazy Kat, Little Nemo in Slumberland and the Disney cartoons. Then I graduated to super-hero comic books," he says. "And from there I moved to novels with illustrations by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Lin Carter."
The first actual adult novel he remembers reading was "How Green Was My Valley," mainly because he'd seen the movie version first. So pictures, in a sense, still ruled.
Meanwhile, Rohmann was communicating via pictures.
"I did the little battle scenes set in the back yard of my house, or the one where Godzilla comes in and steps on my sister -- that kind of stuff," says the creator of the somewhat less violent "Clara and Asha," in which a little girl makes friends with, not Godzilla, but a large and very huggable fish.
When Rohmann wrote letters to friends and family, they would come annotated with his illustrations. "They were little stories, fictionalized stories. I've seen the letters I sent in high school, and they were elaborate tales about me being picked up by giant birds and taken to Guatemala."
Clearly, the mind behind "Time Flies" was preparing to come out of the jungle.
As a student proper, Rohmann admits, he was not an overachiever. "I couldn't get into any colleges," he says. "On my ACT test, I scored an 8, and I was told even chimps could score a 12."
Despite that revelation, Rohmann decided he wanted to be a veterinarian, which seemed to make sense for a young man whose past was haunted by Godzilla, giant Guatemala-bound birds and smarter-than-him chimps.
But he wound up at Illinois State University in the mid-'80s, taking art classes in the print-making department and working with the likes of Richard Finch, Ray George, Harold Gregor and Jim Butler.
Through those associations and his tutoring in the print-making process, Rohmann found his muse, or, as he puts it, "my groove." He also landed his job at the McLean County Arts Center, circa 1987, then moved on to Arizona State University for his graduate studies.
As his approach to art continued to evolve, "I found that I could tell stories and use animals to do so," he says. "The reason animals are used in kids' books is because they're cute and they can become anything you want them to -- an alligator can become the crabby old man down the block. By changing him into an alligator, suddenly there's some delight to it. That's what you're looking for."
By the mid-'90s, Rohmann's groove was going strong, and the result was his first children's book, "Time Flies," which eschewed any text whatsoever in its tale of a bird, a dinosaur skeleton, a museum and the consequences of the bird flying through the dinosaur's bony mouth.
Though Rohmann's subsequent four books have incorporated his own text to varying degrees, he says he felt, in this case, words would have been redundant.
His target demographic of ages 3 to 9 flew with it, just like the bird. And so did the critics, which resulted in the volume winning the prestigious Caldecott nod, as a Caldecott Honor Book (not quite a Medal Winner, but close enough).
He calls getting an award like the Caldecott the first time out "your get-out-of-jail-early card -- most people who work in this field have to come out with three or four books first, and build up a readership and reputation with teachers and librarians."
One of the most striking aspects of Rohmann's books is the distinctive "look" of each: instead of franchising his style like many book illustrators, he starts from scratch each time out, which is why the rich oil painting approach used on "Time Flies" bears no resemblance to the print technique used on "My Friend Rabbit," the book that became a Caldecott Medal Winner for 2002.
Rohmann says he has no interest in patenting a signature look, even though "certainly it affects the sales of my books, because most of them don't look like one another." But he says incorporating the same style from book to book is "like having all the questions answered, and I could do it in my sleep. I wouldn't be interested anymore."
Luckily, he adds, "I am blessed to work with people who trust me, and I hope I trust them as well."
Though some might find it odd that one of America's most respected children's author/illustrators has no children of his own, he reminds us, "I have some experience with kids because I was once one myself."
And through his experience of transmitting the 7-year-old kid in himself to a larger audience, "I can make pictures that tell stories. And when I bind them and put them into a particular order, I can tell very sophisticated stories."
And he does, indeed, know and love his target audience.
"Kids are by far the best audience I could want," he says. "They're curious, enthusiastic, impulsive, willing to believe in the absurd and not indifferent when they pick up a book. They're also very generous, because they always find something they like."
What more could an author want, and get?
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With children's books as part of the upcoming show, laid out in the foreground, Alison Hatcher, curator of the McLean County Arts Center, works on hanging ''Stories Into Pictures: The Illustrious Art of Eric Rohmann.
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Eric Rohmann's children's books will be part of the upcoming "Stories Into Pictures: The Illustrious Art of Eric Rohmann, at the McLean County Arts Center.
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Photos courtesy of The Pantagraph/STEVE
SMEDLEY
