Ken Nutt

Author / Illustrator

Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Awards – Picture Book Category

1984 Recipient

” Awards and grants provide affirmation and recognition. Tastes vary, and public institutions are often able to respond to only a particular aspect of the things artist make. Private philanthropy widens the scope of what is valued. “

What are you currently doing?

I am currently living and working in Stratford, Ontario. My goal has been to spent a significant part of each day doing the things I love best –– drawing, and more recently writing. Mostly, I have succeeded. I run a weekly life-drawing workshop to keep my figurative skills in shape and am writing and illustrating a cycle of stories set in a fictive version of Ontario that is not quite as strange as the real place.   

What did receiving the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award mean to you? 

Creating good art involves personal risk and moving the personal into the public makes artists a sensitive bunch of people. I won the Ruth and Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award (then the Sylvia Schwartz Children’s Book Award) for the first book I illustrated, Zoom Away. The award gave me the needed push to quit my day-job and make art my career.

What does private arts philanthropy mean to you as a working artist?

On one level, awards and grants are a source of money. They allow artists to make more work. But they also provide affirmation and recognition. Tastes vary, and public institutions are often able to respond to only a particular aspect of the things artist make. Private philanthropy widens the scope of what is valued.