Austin architect contributed modernist buildings to city’s landscape by Michael Barnes from The Austin American Statesman. Peek:
“Thomas ‘Tom’ Shefelman, who helped design several of Austin’s outstanding modernist buildings…. Seattle-born Shefelman, a graduate of the University of Texas School of Architecture and the Harvard Graduate School of Design, also illustrated children’s books and painted watercolor scenes from his travels, often in tandem with his wife, Janice Shefelman, who survives him.”
Note: Tom was 89.
A few members of Austin’s children’s-YA writing community shared their thoughts about Tom.
Author Lindsey Lane:
“I will never forget the time I opened up the arc of I, Vivaldi (Eerdmans, 2008) and saw Tom’s drawing of Saint Mark’s Square. I gasped. I felt like I was there. The heart of it. The movement of it. The soul of it.
“‘Tom…’ I whispered. ‘This is holy.’
” He smiled. We didn’t say much. He looked pleased that his work had touched me.
“Tom was such an elegant man in the way he put his heart and soul and vision into his work.
“The work was the satisfaction. That it touched me was the smile on his face.
“Tom, the essence of him, makes me think of the First Corinthians:
‘Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.’
“Thank you, Tom, for being that presence of love in everything you did.”
Author-Illustrator Shelley Ann Jackson: “I feel honored to have had work hanging alongside his in an Austin SCBWI show and grateful for the beautiful books we have to remember him by.”
Meredith Davis interviewed Tom and Janice, for an Austin SCBWI member profile last year. The couple talked about their process of creating books for children together. Tom said he hoped his illustrations would provide young readers with “a visual experience outside their own, which enlarges their world and makes them tolerant of differences.”
