My life is a series of failures. This is a story of just one of those failures. Tomie dePaola was a teacher at New England College. He taught design. I took a number of his courses. Tomie was passionate about design. I identified with that passion. Tomie taught me about the power of color, and the curve. Also, he was a story teller. As a story teller he taught the importance of progression. I found Tomie to be inspirational

The students claimed Tomie was queer, or gay. Tomie was identified as one of two gay professors. The other taught cinematography. Tomie never spoke of his orientation. The othe professor, it was all he would talk about. This was back in the 70’s, I had just turned 20. I was extremely naive, and truly did not understand what they were talking about. I just knew it was some sort of thing.

The cinematography professor called himself “Dark Star” and made movies about his life with method called Cinema Verite. I watched a few in his classes and thought they were very strange. Yet his classes were packed, he was treated like a rock star. 20 years or so later I saw him on PBS, filming himself dying of aids. As far as I could tell his story was a grim grayscale montage of bleakness.

Tomie on the other hand did not draw crowds. He was happy with his small classes. His stories were about color and light. In real life he was a struggling children’s book author and illustrator that was just coming into success. His story Strega Nona was recently published and that was beginning to bring him fame. Tomie invited his students into his home where he showed how there could be happiness in a simple life. His house, where he lived with his friend was a simple, neatly maintained, old New England cape style house. The walls were all white with colorful decorations. The wide pine floors were finished in natural color. The home was a model of simple utilitarianism.

More than any other teacher, I wished that Tomie was a member of my family. I wished that he was an aunt or uncle, grandparent or cousin. There was a happiness in his soul that was infectious. I just wanted to sit around the table with family and enjoy a big bowl of magic pasta.

My own family situation was not so good. Different members of my family were in constant war with each other. Members would blame each other for their own actions. No wonder I just wanted a bowl of magic pasta. Somehow to appease the infighting, my family placed me in an asylum. I was quite surprised by this turn of events as I had never done anything to hurt anyone, or anything.

Eventually insurance monies run out and I was released from full time confinement. Bewildered by life I was seeking answers. Tomie had said that his door would always be open to his students if we wanted help in the future. I figured out where Tomie’s new home was and arrived unannounced one day.

I was not forthcoming about what had happened to me, and Tomie did not ask. He did welcome me into his new home, and made me a cup of coffee. I let him know had never drank a cup of coffee before. I asked for lots of cream and sugar. I was not going to turn down a cup of coffee from Tomie. The conversation turned to Tomie’s work, and his marvelous new studio. He was like a child in dreamland. There was a beautiful place for all his treasured objects. Every brush had a home, separated by type and style. I was amazed by all the different papers. Each type of paper had its own drawer. Then as the papers became stories, each story had its own drawer. It was the quintessential place for everything, and everything in it’s place. It was a bit of heaven on earth. Truly aspirational.

The takeaways were Love What You Do, and you don’t get anywhere without work. So I would take any job, and work like my life depended on it. Because in a way it did, the asylum would have me back. I had seen how the inside of such places work. It is hard to get out. Eventually I became successful. I had money for the extras in life. I decided that I wanted to build a plane. I had always dreamed of flying.

The plane I wanted to build was a RV-9A. It is offered as a kit from Van’s Aircraft. Vans Aircraft is a leading manufacturer of kit aircraft. The RV-9A is a two seat aluminum aircraft powered by a Lycoming engine. The kit provided all of the materials used to assemble the airframe, and used something like 10,000 rivets to hold it together. Even the assembly manual was inspiring. There was a certain Zen like quality to making an airplane. I chronicled much of the process on a website AHYUP.COM a now defunct site that can only be visited by using the Wayback Machine or other web archive. The process was very educational, to my amazement parts fit. I learned how things fit together precisely. I was so happy to have my own aircraft factory. I have not worked on anything better in my life. I had reached Nervana.

Back in the 1975 BMW commissioned it’s first art car. The Alexander Calder BMW 3.0 CSL. It was stunning. By far the most famous car paint job of the era. At least it was in my world. I was a big fan of Alexander Calder’s kinetic sculptures. Talk about kinetic art. AlsoI had a friend that had CSL BMW. It was an amazing car to drive all by itself. Famous car, famous artist. What could be better. Every year or so BMW would commission another art car. Today there are 20 BMW art cars.

Can you can see where I am going with this? When I was ready to paint my plane I wanted Tomie to design the paint job. There are wonderfully painted aircraft, however they are mostly an expression of the owners emotions. Think of motorcycle gas tanks, or maybe lowriders. Most race cars are an expression of the sponsor. Then there are the generic stripes that are an expression of flight through the air.

When my plane was ready for paint, I was going to ask Tomie dePaola to design me a paint job. Tomie had a recognizable style because of his fame. His work had a childish whimsy to it. I wanted that experience expressed on my aircraft. I think he would have enjoyed such a thing. However it never happened. I do stupid things like buying high and selling low. I sold the plane long before it was ready for paint. Tomie is gone now, I will never have the chance to ask. Another missed opportunity.

Just call me Captain Failure. There are good things in my failure though. Nobody was hurt, and other people made money from my mistakes. I am here to make other people look good. There just could have been more happiness in life had I succeeded.

The other day I thought, why not ask AI to make me a Tomie Plane? Well, I found out that is going to be really hard to do. I came nowhere close to getting a result. I would have got a better result making a CAD model and painting it myself. So what did I end up with? Another feather of failure to stick in my cap. I have quite the headdress.