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Text by Tony Dimartino •
Styling by Kathy Curotto
Some people
do amazing work at a young age, but not me,” says Theodora
Page.
Raised in an artistic, socially conscious family, Théo majored in
sociology at Skidmore and joined the Peace Corps in the mid-1960s, teaching baby
care and hygiene in Africa. “I was amazed by the folk art I saw all around me,
especially in Morocco, where I traveled during breaks,” she recalls. “Everywhere
I looked, I was bombarded by pure color and form.”
Back in the states, she worked for an arts organization in New York,
“trying to figure out what I wanted to do.” Over the next few years, she did
plenty: earned a master’s degree in teaching at Boston University, taught
elementary school, married, had two children (Rachel and Sam), and started an
interior design business with a friend. When her husband, Toby, got a job
teaching environmental economics at Brown University, she “took about a million
art classes” there and at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). “That’s
where I really started developing an eye.”
She found herself longing for the patterned designs and vivid colors of
Africa. During lunch one day with a group of women friends, she suddenly blurted
out, “I want to paint furniture.” With their support, she began. “I was awful at
first,” she admits. “It took time.” When a friend from her lunch group took one
of Théo’s first pieces to a local store and sold it, “that gave me the courage
to keep trying.”
(a) Théo’s studio, a converted breezeway between house
and garage. “I went on a clock-painting binge. I’m over it.” Most of
the artwork
is by her sister Linda Smyth or daughter Rachel (decorative
frames by Théo).
(b) The top of this box was inspired
by a garlic clove.
A friend commissioned the desk, (c). “Her house has lots
of William Morris patterns, so that was my guiding image.” The
black-and-red
color scheme on the side was influenced by Japanese
kimono design. Théo haunts
secondhand stores and prefers older
furniture. “It usually has wonderful lines,
and I like giving it a
second life.” (d) “I call this my Moroccan bureau, because
its pointed
curves remind me of the architecture in that part of the
world.”
(e) Sam, Théo’s son, made this in a woodworking class, and
she painted
it. “I had fun putting my art on his art.”
(f) Works in progress. (g) After the Théo
treatment, a pair of porch
roof supports turn into fanciful snails.
Patterned Behavior page
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