Most parents first hear about Tony DiTerlizzi from their children. The young have relied upon his illustrations as navigational guides for exotic realms, ranging from the kingdoms of “Dungeons & Dragons” to a much-needed “Monsters Manual,” which curiously omits images of any politicians. Young readers even learn that, with the proper imagination and some crudely aeronautical apple crates, you can ignore NASA technology and take a trip to the Moon.
From now through May 28 at Stockbridge’s Norman Rockwell Museum you can view more than 150 artworks and mementos highlighting the past 25 years of the expatriate Floridian’s career.
It’s an intriguing exhibit. Where else on the continent will you find a genuine 1938 Buck Rogers XZ-44 Liquid Helium water pistol under glass or, through digital screen wackiness, have a chance to interact with trolls, dwarf knights and ghosts.
“When I was kid I would draw all the time,” DiTerlizzi told a standing-room-only audience at the museum on opening night. “Some kids drew way better than I did…I just didn’t stop doing it.”
As a child, when he drew characters from “Winnie the Pooh” on the freshly painted walls of his bedroom, some parents may have grounded their son until he reached middle age. Instead, the wall was cleaned, butcher paper was unrolled and taped at kid-level and his obsession to draw continued.
“I wasn’t lucky because I could draw,” he told the audience. “I was lucky because I had parents who encouraged me to draw.”
He recalled that, as a tyke, his mother would read childrens’ classics to him, from “Peter Pan” and “The Wizard of Oz” to “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.”
As a youth in Boy Scouts, his dad would lead his troop on hikes and overnight camping. This instilled in DiTerlizzi a love of the outdoors.
Both of DiTerlizzi’s parents had interests in art. His father, a Pratt & Whitney engineer, took courses with The Famous Artists School, a correspondence program endorsed by Norman Rockwell.
DiTerlizzi recalled that his parents owned a coffee table book that depicted every “Saturday Evening Post” cover painted by the illustrator. As a child, he could only pore through the pages when his parents were present, given the expense of the hardbound.
“This book kindled my imagination,” the 48-year-old said. He was mesmerized by Rockwell’s attention to detail and the images of an earlier America.
At age 10, DiTerlizzi entered an art contest held by Pratt & Whitney in which he was competing with adults. He won first prize.
During that same period, he had difficulty reading. A fifth grade teacher suggested that he also illustrate the stories.
“From that time on books came alive to me in a way that they never had before,” the illustrator said.
He was also intrigued by the flora and fauna in his neighborhood, in particular collecting and sketching members of the insect kingdom. When he graduated from eighth grade a teacher gifted him with his own lifetime collection of bugs and beetles.
“I kept that collection under my bed until the specimens disintegrated into dust,” DiTerlizzi recalled. Insects, often in friendly or comical form, can be found now throughout his art.
In his senior year an art teacher told the 16-year-old that he should prepare a significant portfolio, necessary for applying to art school. The illustrator decided to retell Alice’s adventures with rocker Elton John as the Mad Hatter. He used pens, magic markers and luminous colors that would glow under black light.
“Views From Wonderland” was passed around the school and even the thugs, suckers for black light, had a new-found respect for the skinny, self-described “art nerd.”
“As soon as I handed it in I knew I wanted to create children’s books for the rest of my life,” DiTerlizzi said.
Graduating from The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale in 1992 with a degree in graphic design, the illustrator then followed in the footsteps of many scholars.
“I moved back home,” he said.
Friends encouraged DiTerlizzi to submit artwork to Tactical Studies Rules, Inc., which, at that point, had been publishing Dungeons & Dragons for the past 18 years.
His work routinely bounced back without approval.
“It was like each rejection actually got me stronger in my resolve,” the illustrator said during an opening night interview. “I got to understand the importance of rejection and (its way of) testing just how bad you want something.”
He asked the publishers for advice and, just a year after graduation, he received a major commission to create 100 monsters for the firm’s first color publication.
DiTerlizzi worked on the project in his parents’ home on the same kitchen table where, a decade earlier he’d drawn D&D images as a youngster. Many of these creatures were adapted from beasts he’d first created as a child.
“I am a product of never giving up,” he told the audience.
If his career trajectory wasn’t rocketing upward, it was at least semi-meteoric.
Intending to catch the eyes of children’s book editors, he realized this required being closer to the publishing house action in New York City. At the time he was creating a story of a small boy’s interstellar quest for sugary moon pies. Although the illustrated work was rejected by a prominent publisher, it sparked the interest of an assistant editor. Also from the south, he was aware of the irresistible magnetism of the sweet comestible. When the editor moved on to Simon & Schuster, he commissioned DiTerlizzi’s breakout 2000 book “Jimmy Zangpow’s Out-of-this-World Moon Pie Adventure.”
Among the illustrator’s talents is that he can paint in various styles and the story is homage to the elegant coloring and dramatic clouds of Maxfield Parrish.
That artist, best known for his neo-classical backgrounds and androgynous figures, is among a legion of illustrators who have influenced DiTerlizzi. Intrigued with Britain’s Golden Age, he cites the classical English illustrator John Tenniel, creator of the pen-and-ink renderings for the original “Alice in Wonderland” as an inspiration. He adds another Victorian Age artist, Arthur Rackham, whose work echoes in many D&D images as well as in the atmosphere of any Hobbit movie.
Among more contemporary illustrators, he has an affection for Dr. Seuss. “It’s an unbelievable imagination,” he said during an interview. “It’s raw. It’s childlike, and then on top of that he’s writing it in rhyme. It’s like literally spinning three plates at the same time!”
The success of Zangpow led two years later to a black-and-white Gothic rendering of “The Spider and the Fly” based upon the English poet Mary Howitt’s 1829 poem. DiTerlizzi paid homage to spookmeister Edward Gorey (“The Gashlycrumb Tinies, etc.”) in illustrating the downward spiraling tale. Adding to the eeriness is the smug slickness of an eight-legged spider who wears a tuxedo, spats and a top hat.
There were editors who felt that the book wouldn’t fly, however, it reached the New York Times’ best-seller list and the illustrator received a Caldecott Award for his renderings.
Soon after DiTerlizzi teamed with young-adult novelist Holly Black for a cornucopia of popular books beginning with “The Spiderwick Chronicles.” An eponymous movie was released in 2008 to critical acclaim.
Despite these successes, the illustrator hasn’t succumbed to stuffiness or snobbery. In the exhibit’s companion catalogue “Never Abandon Imagination,” (NRM; 84 pgs. $20) he recalled a formative experience while a youth. When seeking an autograph from a well-known illustrator, the adult never made eye contact, and rattled off his signature quickly without comment. DiTerlizzi never forgot the incident.
Over the course of opening night, he gave two speeches. In the first, the illustrator told several funny, self-effacing stories of growing up with artistic yearnings. He also noted that several of his mentors, including his high school art teacher and his first children’s book editor were in the audience along with noted colleagues as well as his parents. Several times DiTerlizzi was overcome with emotion.
He complemented his wife Angela, who is also a prolific children’s book author (“I Wanna Be A Cowgirl,” “Some Bugs,” etc.) as well as his daughter Sophia, who has assisted him in coloring images.
At the conclusion of his second more serious speech, which addressed the importance of keeping childlike wonderment and imagination alive, he received a standing ovation.
Among the points DiTerlizzi made that evening was that “boredom can be a very positive thing.”
Many of us have attempted to solve boredom with Netflix, beer, crosswords or by studying famous 19th century British naval battles. DiTerlizzi suggests, however, that tedium serves a purpose.
He realized that, as a youth, solitude was special.
“It’s not being engaged in anything, that idea of being alone” he told the audience. “What happens when you finish processing all the active stuff, for me that was when I was most creative.”
The illustrator noted that children today, often overscheduled, don’t have a chance to be bored or in solitude or to see the limitless possibilities of their own imagination.
“This exhibition is a celebration of the past 25 years of my adult life,” DiTerlizzi told the audience, “…but, to be honest, this isn’t an exhibition for adults. It’s for the children. It’s for the next generation.”
“Never Abandon Imagination: The Fantastical Art of Tony DiTerlizzi” continues at the Norman Rockwell Museum through May 28. Open wkdys 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. ; wknds 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Closed Christmas and New Year’s Day. Admission: Adults $20; students w/i.d. $10; Ages 18 and under, free. Directions: From Stockbridge’s Main Street signs direct you to Route 102 west. Within two miles take a left onto Route 183 south. The museum is a half-mile on your left.