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TOM SHEFELMAN’S childhood home in Seattle, Washington, was blessed with a library of beautifully illustrated editions of the classics such as Robin Hood and The Last of the Mohicans. He knew the stories through the pictures before he began to read them. On his ninth birthday he was given a set of Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia. He remembers opening one of the volumes to a picture of the Temple of Karnak on the Nile River and marveling at the mighty columns that dwarfed the man standing between them.

His mother, a singer and sometimes painter, “tried but failed to make a musician out of me,” Tom says, “so she settled for artist.” He was always drawing and cartooning. It became his ticket to social acceptance and good grades. Only “mediocre” in elementary school, he began to excel when teachers let him illustrate his reports.

In high school he drew cartoons for the school newspaper. But when an architect visited on Career Day and showed his drawings of beautiful buildings, Tom, still dreaming of the Temple of Karnak, decided on architecture. “My attorney father was relieved. He was afraid I might become a starving artist!” As it turned out, Tom is now both architect and artist, dividing his time between his architectural office in a historic building and his studio at home in Austin.