Illustrator Spotlight: Gijsbert (Nick) van Frankenhuyzen

Horses, sketchbook, Dad's contract, Sleeping Bear, Isle Royale storm, and Erica the welder: Illustrator Gijsbert (Nick) van Frankenhuyzen

Charlie Barshaw coordinates our regular Writer Spotlight feature and interviews children's book creators. In this piece, meet illustrator Nick van Frankenhuyzen.

I’ll admit, I don’t know my geography. Netherlands is a country, and Amsterdam is its capital, and the people are called Dutch; I learned all that on Google. You were one of seven van Frankenhuyzen siblings, what do you remember of growing up in your native country?

One of 8 siblings, 4 boys and 4 girls. I remember spending all my time outside as a very young boy, even playing in the rubble from World War Two. We had moved  from Goes where I was born, to Wageningen in 1956 because my Dad got a job as an entomologist at the Plant Protection Service based in that city. Four years later we moved to the outskirts of the city, to a new home, very close to the woods. We all spent a lot of time there, good memories.

Always drawing as a young boy, his father encouraged Gijsbert to make art his career. After high school, he attended and graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts in Arnhem, Holland. That’s a big step, supporting your art. Do you remember your first piece of art? What did you like to draw when you were a young artist?  

One thing Dad told all us kids growing up: Make your hobby your career.  My hobby was drawing. Especially horses, but I drew everything that looked interesting to me.

This is what happened:  On my fifth birthday,  my Grandma gave me a Big Box full of crayons, big fat juicy ones.  And I produced a 3 feet high by 12 feet long “mural” in the hallway of our home. My first piece of art. I was proud of it, my Dad was not, to say the least.  

The next day he gives me a sketch book and says; Next time you want to draw,  do it in here. No more drawing on the wall!  A week later my sketch book was full. What should I do? Back to drawing on the wall?  Dad had a better solution. "When your sketch book is full, you give it to me and I will get you a new one.”   

This was very special. Remember, it’s ten years after World War Two. People were poor. All us kids only got presents for a birthday and Christmas. Twice a year. That’s it.   I return my full sketch book to my Dad, I get a new one? The more I draw, the more new presents I get?  Yes, that’s how this worked out. A new book every week.  Dad dated those many books and saved them.

My drawings at this young age were just like any other kids, it was the ‘every day’ drawing that changed things slowly, I got better and better. My (crayon) grandmother was the first person that bought a “painting” from me, I was eleven years old. It was a painting of a horse in a field near where we lived.

Young Nick

At 17  I am ready to go to art school. And then Dad handed me a contract with 3 points: 

Point 1: I can go to Art school, but I have to choose a profession, I could not become just an artist.  

Point 2: If I got accepted, I  had to finish; I could not drop out (Art school was a 5 years, 8.30 am till 4 pm, 5 days a week.)  

Point 3: I had to live at home.  I could not go live in an old house with a bunch of other art students.  

Without the contract there would be no art school  so I signed the contract. I know now that I graduated 5 years later, because I had to follow those rules. Dad was right. I’m glad I’d signed that contract, even though I did not like it.

Shortly after my graduation I got a good paying job at an advertisement agency, making commercial art, layout, design, type setting, photography, illustrating etc.  I had learned it all in art school.  

I was a working artist, but after a year I knew I did not want to do this much longer.. Commercial art was not for me..( I did learn how to work very fast.)

You immigrated to the United States in 1976. What was the impetus for moving across the ocean to Michigan?

In 1974 I visited a friend in Michigan and loved it. So much room, compared to a very crowded Netherlands. (The Netherlands  has 18 million people and is 6 times smaller than Michigan with 10 million people) 

On my visit I saw a copy of the Michigan Natural  Resources Magazine. This Magazine was what I was looking for, I could do this. One year later after many letters and phone calls I got an invitation to come talk about everything.                                           

I got the job and immigrated to Michigan in 1976 , to become the Art Director of the magazine. For the next 17 years I worked for this Magazine, doing the lay out, paintings, photography, dealing with the printer etc. 17 very good years. 

Till Engler killed the Magazine in 1993 . He called it a ‘useless publication’  After 64 years he killed it. And I am unemployed now.  

I decided to build my own studio and start painting. The next 3 years I worked for MSU, Fort Michilimackinac, Fort Mackinac  murals and exhibits and many other businesses and school and libraries. I was was busy again.

 In 1995, he illustrated his first children's book, The Legend of Sleeping Bear, finally fulfilling his dream of illustrating children's books. Had you wanted to illustrate children’s books all along? Which children’s book illustrators inspired you while growing up?

I was asked by a publishing company called Sleeping BearPress to illustrate The Legend of Sleeping Bear. SBP was a golf book publisher and not doing well. They wanted to get their name out, get noticed. 

They figured that if they did the Legend of Sleeping Bear they would get recognition. They were only going to do one children’s book. Well, it took off and changed SBP to print nothing but children’s books from then on.

When I grew up there were not many children’s books that were illustrated. But at about 12 years old I did see an illustrated book and I thought, that would be fun.  

And one day in 1997 SBP asked me to illustrate their first Children’s book. In about a 20 year span, I illustrated 35 books.

 

I retired from illustrating a couple of years ago. To do things for myself, without deadlines, things just for me. Like working on my prairies and photographing everything in our backyard. I can spend hours in my blinds taking pictures.

"Finally after eight days of blue skies and sunshine, a thunderstorm shook the cabin during the night. It rained so hard, water leaked through the cabin roof... It's nine o'clock and the waves on the lake must be 10 feet tall. It's cold, rainy, and very windy. I asked for it. I got it, but now I don't know if I want it... The lake is very impressive now, white caps everywhere, waves crashing into rocks, places where I was standing yesterday are now under water. I went out and did three paintings during the storm, weighing my easel down with rocks."

That’s an excerpt of notes you took while artist-in-residence at Isle Royale in 1992. How do you paint in a raging thunderstorm?

I waited till there was a break in the rain (you can still paint with oils in a little rain) It’s the wind that is the problem. I would hang a backpack filled with rocks under my easel) It worked.

The solitude of this place is the most appealing thing about Isle Royale. I have never painted uninterrupted that much in my life. It was an opportunity of a lifetime and a challenge to transfer such overpowering landscapes to canvas." More than 30 years since, have you been able to focus on art the same way?

No, Isle Royale‘s painting excursion was the best so far in all of my life, 27 paintings in 21 days.

He started illustrating children’s books in 1998 and has done a total of 34 books.  Does Sleeping Bear Press print all your books?

I did a total of 35 books, of which 5 were done by Robbyn and me. Robbyn also wrote an alphabet book about bees, illustrated by someone else because I did not think I could do it justice.   All my books are through SBP. They send me manuscripts and I start painting. SBP was my only publisher.

How did you meet Robbyn Smith? (Please be aware that I asked her that question about you.)

My story would be the same and I like for her to tell it.

It seems like you deliberately chose Michigan. Is it similar in climate to the Netherlands?

It was Michigan because that’s where the Michigan Natural Resources Magazine was located, in the DNR buildings in Lansing.  I also think that Michigan is one of the best States (Great Lakes for one thing)

I love  Michigan.                                                                                   

The Netherlands gets way more rain during the year and less snow than Michigan.

You're an illustrator, but have you ever considered writing?

I don’t write, I only illustrate. There are days that my English, my second language, is not so good, especially when I spent time writing letters in Dutch to my brothers and sisters. That’s the time I speak two languages badly. So no writing for me. 

Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen. How often, and how badly, does your name get mangled?

Daily,  it’s even misspelt on my driver’s license (not my fault).

Van Frankenhuyzen is an unusual-enough name so that one might figure that Kees and Bea, and badass welder Erica, and Colorado dentist Jan van Frankehuyzen were related. Do you know any of them?

The last name van Frankenhuyzen belongs to my direct family. There are more, if they are spelled different it’s not my family, If it is exactly the same it is my family. Like Kees. That’s one of my brothers who lives in SSMarie in Canada.  It has to be just like this: van Frankenhuyzen 

I am pretty sure that I am the only Gijsbert van Frankenhuyzen in the United States of America (and I married Robbyn Smith)

I checked the Jan van Frankenhuyzens and all of them are family, one is my brother Jan.  I could not find a Jan who is a dentist. Welder Erica could be but I got stuck looking her up. Since the Internet I have been contacted by several van Frankenhuyzens ... all family. All same spelling. 

I have been out of the country for 50 years and lots of family has been born since 1976, more generations I don’t know about. People I have never met.

You and Robbyn bought some land and returned it to its original prairie.  What’s your philosophy about humans and land management?

We put our whole property (40 acres) in a Mid Michigan Land Conservancy . That means it can never be developed- for ever. Even after we’re gone. We’re doing this for our grandchildren and their grandchildren. 

Nature is very important for us. There will be no gas station or Walmart on this property- ever. We have 5 wildlife ponds with wood duck nesting boxes, prairies, with 50 bluebird nesting boxes, woodlands and about 5 miles of  trails. 

A neighbor with a 106 acre property that is  connected to our property also joined  MMLC. All this land is now safe from ever being developed. I like to get all my neighbors involved in this.( I’m working on it.)

Which are some of your favorite paintings, and why?

A doe and a fawn

I have a couple of paintings that are not for sale. One is of my youngest daughter Kelly, working on a painting, another one is the last painting I painted for the Magazine ( a doe and a fawn) and a painting I did of Robbyn.  Those are some of my favorites  and you probably know why.

What’s next for Nick van Frankenhuyzen and your wife, Robbyn?

To continue photographing everything around us, grow more wildflowers, stay healthy and vote blue.