A studio visit with Robert Salmieri, the creator of A DAY IN THE PARK
From his classical training, to his time as a fine textile designer, to his passion for modern abstractionism, Robert Salmieri has had an artistic career spanning decades. Through it all, Robert has taken inspiration from nature, time, and his love for his family. Perfect for ringing in the coming spring, his picture book A Day in the Park showcases Robert’s varied skills and unique style, all while celebrating the utopia that is a thriving city park.
For this interview, Robert graciously welcomed the Enchanted Lion team into his Brooklyn studio to give us an inside look at his process for creating one of our favorite titles. We hope you enjoy this peek into the life and work of a one-of-a-kind (and truly kind) picture book creator!
ELB: A Day in the Park is a joyful celebration of all the animal and plant life that thrives within the boundaries of a city park. What was your inspiration for making the book?
RS: We adopted a dog and her name was Trixie. She was extremely shy and very fearful. When we brought her into the house for the first time, she was even afraid of a door opening up, like the door was going to fall on her. The day after I got her, I took her to Prospect Park, and I realized it was her safe place. She was so relaxed. So every day I took her to the park, for twelve years. It became an obsession and was really good for me. We explored all the trails and saw so many things in the morning, during the day, and at night. Trixie was amazing. And then our kids—who are adults now—all got dogs of their own, and Trixie decided: “I can trust all of these people, they all have dogs!” She does occur in the book a couple of times. This book is personal for me. And I think that’s probably where the best art comes from—from your own inner experience.
ELB: In the first pages, we see highrise buildings surrounding the park “in the middle of the bustling city.” What drove you to set a nature-focused story in an urban space? Does it play into the idea of escaping in nature and finding nature wherever you can?
RS: Yeah, that’s what the park is for me. I can’t imagine myself living far from nature, and you can really experience nature at Prospect Park. People have day-to-day worries and obligations, and it’s great to get out of yourself and be immersed in a world that has nothing to do with you. It’s doing its own thing, and that’s wonderful. That’s discovery.
ELB: The book starts with the sunrise of a new day, then moves through afternoon, evening, and night, ultimately back to another sunrise. What was the reasoning behind having that cyclical nature to the story?
RS: I walked in the park every day, sometimes twice a day—in the morning, the afternoon, or the evening—and I saw all the things that take place in the park in one day. We saw so many great aspects of the park. Basically, it’s my experience of all those times of the day that I was in the park.
ELB: The rhyming verse is perfect for reading out loud. How did the creation of the text evolve? Did you always know from the beginning that the book was going to be in that rhyme scheme?
RS: The book just fell into place. First I made the images, and then I laid them down on the floor in the studio, and the words just started to come to me. The writing happened in the course of two or three days. The text came to me in verse. It has a rhythm to it; it’s sort of like walking. Then I had to fill some parts of it in. It really did itself, in my mind. To me, that’s how a painting works, too. You start with an idea, and it just tells you what to do.
ELB: Can you share a little bit about your process for creating the illustrations?
RS: I’m an abstract painter at heart. Sometimes, I’ll spend hours painting and time just goes away. The piece is just communicating with me, and I hope that my paintings communicate a message to the viewer. Everyone reads a painting in a different way anyway, but I do interject real motifs from life into my work. It’s a takeoff point for people to say, “Oh, I see what this is.” I started by painting a ground with some kind of interesting watercolor effect. The process was playful. I painted all kinds of textures on pieces of paper, and then I cut out collage pieces for a tree or a bush or an animal. The fun thing about working in collage was that I didn’t know where it was going. For me, it kind of echoed the experience of walking through the park. You see something for the first time, and there’s the element of surprise. It was a surprise for me also. I didn’t know exactly what the page would look like. I played with it; I wanted it to have a feeling of play and discovery. And I felt that that would also translate to people looking at the book.
ELB: There are so many different styles of art in this book. The animals, people, and plants each have their own look—there’s no single formula. In the back of the book, you share that you’re also a painter, printmaker, and designer. In what ways have those other artistic pursuits informed the artwork for this book?
RS: This was my first book. I’ve always been a painter, ever since I graduated college. It’s my passion. I spent 20 years as a textiles designer in the home furnishing industry, painting collections for decorative fabrics, wall coverings, and bedding. That gave me great training and made me very versatile in how I can work. Some of my designs are old-school traditional and some are very contemporary. It gave me a broad range of aesthetics and a deep knowledge of color. My head goes into abstraction when I paint because I like the nonverbal communication that goes on and I want people to experience it on their own without too much information about recognizable objects. I like to work in a realm. I like to check out different things and then come to the painting with the information that I gathered. And A Day in the Park fits into that, too. For a while, I used to make a sharp distinction between my textile designing and my painting, and then I realized: it’s all me. Currently I’m painting in big sketch pads, and one page after another, I just do whatever I feel like. If I feel like painting like a child, then I will. If I feel like painting tight drawings, then I will. It just frees me up. So when it comes to making a painting or an illustration, I have all of these motifs and all of this stuff in my head, which trickles down. That’s how I function as an artist.
ELB: You clearly are very inspired by nature and time. Are there any specific artistic inspirations that have stuck with you in terms of how you work?
RS: I can always see something that’s relatable or interesting to my art. But of course I have my favorite artists. Thomas Nozkowski, I think he’s a great painter. He is more or less abstract but he touches on notes that really resonate with me. I like Philip Guston, who’s a totally different kind of painter from Nozkowski. He came up with the abstract expressionists, and early in his career he was very, very successful with his abstract paintings; later he painted more representational imagery, often large paintings with thick paint, emotionally and psychologically powerful. Now he is known mostly for his later paintings. Picasso is of course one of my favorites, just because of all of the different things that he touched on in his life. One painting could be pretty different from the next, and I totally appreciate that. He played a lot. To me, that’s what it looks like if you’re a genius and you can do anything and you just feel like playing. I think that’s what nature does, too.
ELB: What kind of brushes do you use?
RS: I like funky brushes. I have a couple that have a really nice tip, but I also like brushes that have aged. I use house paint brushes; I like the texture, I like to struggle with it. If the painting is starting to look too pretty, I unconsciously, or sometimes deliberately, mess it up. Pretty is just too easy. I could make pretty all day long with my background in the textile world. It’s not who I am.
ELB: Do you have any favorite children’s book authors or illustrators?
RS: Leo Lionni. I love his work. And I love his books: the illustrations change from one book to the next, and they’re fun and they’re inventive. I wanted to make a book that was visually interesting and fun.
ELB: One of the great things about Lionni’s work is that he seems to be okay with imperfections… He embraces them.
RS: Oh, yeah. Accidents—you have to utilize accidents, they’re the things that make the piece interesting. To everyone, actually—the artist and the viewer. Picasso said, “Painting is one accident after another.” It frees you up. There is no perfection. It’s all an illusion. And it depends on how you want to make that illusion. Which then becomes a personal kind of choice.
A Day in the Park
A Day in the Park beautifully captures the surprises, joys, and natural wonders that can be found in a city park. The rhyming verse makes it a perfect book to read aloud, and children will love spotting the sunbathing turtles, energetic dogs, and soaring birds nestled within each turn of the page. The collage style illustrations are rich with color and texture, and perfectly encapsulate the intricacies and vibrancies of the natural world. We love this book all year, but it is especially perfect to celebrate spring—as the natural world around us erupts into riotous color and life.
A Day in the Park is on sale, just in time for spring. We hope you enjoy this picture book!