On a grand scale: Artist re-creates architectural masterpieces using paper

Published 6:17 pm Monday, November 24, 2008

Dexterity is usually something that wanes with age. Yet for Islander Dick Dewitt, who turned 94 last Friday, his hands have remained nimble and strong. And for the past 10 years, those hands have been in constant motion rebuilding some of the grandest structures in the world. With the precise slice of an exacto knife, a bit of glue and countless sheets of perforated paper, Dewitt has assembled a tiny and precise world of castles, skyscrapers and monuments, all from the comfort of his workstation at Covenant Shores.

“It keeps me busy, and it’s enjoyable,” said Dewitt of his hobby.

And for 10 years, it has kept him continually busy. He began by ordering the building kits (ready-to-assemble flat patterns) from France, paying with Francs in the form of money orders to get the correct currency.

Eventually, he got in touch with a shop in Redmond, Wash., that directed him to an Oregon store with a vast array of choices. The catalog he currently orders from has everything from submarines to the Space Needle to Chinese tea houses available for ready hands.

Currently, Dewitt has built more than 50 creations that span a millennium of varied and rich architecture.

Some of the places he has constructed, Dewitt has seen with his own eyes. Notre Dame, he said, is perhaps his favorite piece to date. As a younger man, Dewitt recalls standing on the streets of Paris gazing impressed at its Gothic exterior.

“I really like doing the French ones — the castles, the chateaus, the historical stuff,” he said, as he glanced to a freshly built Cathedral de Reims lying on his office table.

“But sometimes they get too complicated,” he said, picking up a pile of one-dimensional gargoyles the size of a fingernail (which are conspicuously missing from the turrets of the cathedral). “Here’s what I do with these,” he said, smiling and sliding the eerie-faced creatures into his garbage can. “Who can cut things that small?”

Not only are the structures often complicated by limitations on just how intricate a scrap of paper can be cut, but they are occasionally riddled with instructional hang-ups.

Dewitt said because the instructions are usually translated from English to French, they can be confusing at times.

“It will say like, ‘Connect piece two to piece seven,’ and you don’t know if that means connect those two pieces together, or to connect pieces two through seven,” he said.

Dewitt said domes, as well as other roofing types, can be quite difficult. Though he feels his version of Saint Basil’s Cathedral — with its colorful and iconic onion-shaped domes — is particularly striking.

“I liked that one, it was good,” he said of the Russian cathedral.

About five years ago, Dewitt garnered the interest of the Mercer Island High School French department. His chateaus and castles, as well as their French-language instruction packets, were recognized as an educational tool. What started with a small display in the library, ended up as a more permanent home for all of his constructions.

Currently, they fill a glass display case and line the brimming bookshelves, inviting students to visit a miniscule foreign monument as they sit catching up on homework in one of the library’s armchairs.

“They’re actually really cool,” said sophomore Eliana Belenky. “I wish I could make stuff like that.”

Before retiring, Dewitt was a production manager for a publication called “Preview,” which took him all over the world — to Bermuda, to the Adirondacks during blackfly season, to Europe. Dewitt said his wife, Muriel, was a model, and together they raised a family, eventually moving from the East Coast to Mercer Island to be closer to his daughter.

Since his retirement, Dewitt has become something of a puzzle master, spending countless hours assembling pieces to amass various creations. Even the wall decorations in his Covenant Shores home display the skill of his still-nimble hands. On the wall of his office is a clock made out of a jigsaw puzzle, the pieces forming an old-fashioned grandfather clock.

Even in his younger days, Dewitt was using his hands to create works of art. Displayed prominently on a shelf in his home is a model ship called the Sovereign of the Seas. Its intricate structure, delicate paint job and multitude of parts couldn’t have been simple, and Dewitt shows it off proudly.

“I guess I’ve been doing this kind of thing for a while,” he said. “I might be slowing down, but I suppose I will keep at it.”

Thanks to his recent birthday, Dewitt has new buildings to assemble. Perhaps, he’ll go with a castle or tower next, and his nearly century-old hands don’t seem to be slowing him down at all. Perhaps, it’s the same curiosity of foreign places he’s had all his life that keeps him going. And perhaps, we are always the same age on the inside.