Drawing
full houses
For a number
of years now, Dave Spellman’s work has been drawing full houses—in
every sense of the word.
A graduate
of UCLA in technical theater/design, Spellman started working for Caltech’s
Office of Public Events in 1970 as a scenic artist and lighting designer,
and is currently the stage manager for Beckman and Ramo auditoriums. In
this capacity, he faces the challenge of coordinating all technical stage
activities before, during, and after events, often putting in long evenings
on top of his usual hours. But in the end, Spellman’s efforts enable
OPE to produce major theatrical performances—in venues originally
designed only for lectures—that draw crowds from all over Southern
California.
And when
the lights finally go out for the night, he returns to his other passion:
drawing Victorian houses in intricate detail. When he was about eight
years old, Spellman recalls, he began using the family typewriter—“and
quite a few of the family postage stamps, now that I think about it”—to
request guidebooks from historic houses in the United States and Europe.
“Of
all the various types of architecture I was introduced to, the Victorian
style captured my attention more than any other, because of the many adventurous
and romantic design elements,” he says.“
I’ve been drawing houses ever since.”
That lifelong
interest, together with his artistic bent, recently culminated in the
publication of Spellman’s first book. Victorian Houses: A Treasury
of 100 Original Designs is a collection of elevation line drawings that
includes examples in the Italianate, Romanesque, Second Empire, and Queen
Anne styles. He says, “The idea of a collection of drawings in a
single volume seemed like it could be a useful tool for preservationists
and others who might have an interest in Victorian buildings.”
Spellman’s
illustrations had previously appeared in architectural publications, magazines,
and books, most notably on the cover of Sustainable Cities: Concepts and
Strategies for Eco-City Development. Because he wasn’t a known author,
however, he was hard-pressed to find a willing publisher for the book,
and so decided to publish it himself.
He rendered
the illustrations over the course of a year, culling bits and pieces from
his many photos to create new designs. (Each drawing takes him a minimum
of three days, “pushing it.”) He then set up his own publishing
company, Hill House (www.hillhousepublishing.com)
because, he says, “you have to have a ‘publisher’ in order
to have any credibility with bookstores, even though Hill House is just
me.”
The book
came out in September, and is now carried by the Caltech Bookstore, as
well as bookstores in San Francisco, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Chicago
and, “of course, on Amazon.com.”
Having financed
the book entirely out of pocket, Spellman says the project has mainly
been a labor of love. “It’s the creative process that I enjoy
most, and if I have to choose between a good business decision or a good
artistic decision, I’ll go with the artistic decision.” Still,
he hopes to turn enough of a profit to publish more books in the future.
A revised
edition of Victorian Houses, including floor plans for each of the illustrations
(that’s about 400 more drawings) is planned, and he’s also considering
a book on castles, inspired by a recent trip to England. His other hope,
he adds, is that “sales of the book might possibly allow me to reimburse
my parents for some of those postage stamps I used back in the ’50s!”
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