Chris Van Allsburg’s life as an artist began at U-M, but only after he fast-talked his way past an admissions officer and was enrolled in the College of Architecture and Design.
“It had never crossed my mind that someone could go to college and make art,” Van Allsburg wrote in the autobiography on his Web site. “I hadn’t taken any art in high school, but I liked to draw and it occurred to me that studying art could be a lot of fun.”
He told the admissions officer that there were no art classes on his transcript because his artistic skills were so advanced that he studied art privately on Saturdays rather than in high school. “None of this was true,” he wrote.
But it worked, and so began the artistic career of the well-known and well-loved children’s book author and illustrator. Last week, Van Allsburg’s star rose even higher with the release of the movie “The Polar Express,” based on his Caldecott Award-winning Christmas story.
The film uses a technique called Performance Capture. Actors wear sensors that record their movements; then the images are blended with computer graphics.
“The challenge of turning a novel into a film is worrying about damage by elimination, but the danger here was adding things. … We wanted to make a story that wasn’t just puffed up with hot air but that extended the theme and looked at the trip as an adventure,” he said in an Associated Press story.
As a student at U-M from 1967-72, the Grand Rapids native built sculptures in the School of Art & Design’s former home in Lorch Hall. He also made a five-foot model of the Chrysler Building in tooled leather. He worked in his own Ann Arbor sculpture studio during the day and entertained himself there at night by creating drawings like the one depicting the Grand Canyon with a lighthouse perched on the rim.
“I don’t think I’d be doing what I’m doing today if it were not for the experience at U-M,” Van Allsburg has said.
His creativity and imagination are subjected to the visual stimulus of television and movies, Van Allsburg once told a U-M audience, and his mind continues to conjure images that play out as mini-films.
“My ideas don’t always start at the beginning,” he said. “Some start at the end or middle, and then I have to figure out the rest.”
