Caricaturist like no other

Tom "Huf" Hofstedt expects to see a few friends at the Bellevue Arts and Crafts Fair today and over the weekend. They're the customers who come back year after year for another caricature by the artist who has been a fixture at the Bellevue event since 1981.

"I've got my regulars," Huf said yesterday from his home in Tacoma. "They become friends when you draw them year after year, and I know many of them by name."

Huf tracks families. He delights in watching the children grow a little more each year, seeing them become adults and ultimately bring their children to his booth to be immortalized in pen and ink.

He's one of 325 artists whose work — from ceramics and fiber art to furniture, glass, photography and clothing — will be at the fair. Special events include chalk artist Brian Majors drawing a mural in front of the Bellevue Arts Museum and free entertainment from local musical groups on the Celebration Arts Stage.

Art has been in Huf's blood since he was a child. His family lived in the Tri-Cities during World War II, then moved to Spokane. His third- and fourth-grade drawings were elaborate pictures of airplanes, tanks and soldiers.

"By the fourth grade I could draw every fighter airplane that had been in World War II," he said. "People could tell what model they were by my drawings."

In fifth grade he experimented, drawing a classmate's face.

"I can still almost picture the kid," said Huf, who celebrated his 70th birthday earlier this month. "I can't remember his name, but the picture looked like him."

Praise over the picture made him switch from airplanes to faces. Teachers spotted Huf's talent and encouraged him. After high school, he applied his talents to sign painting.

When Seattle began gearing up for the 1962 World's Fair, Huf moved to the Puget Sound area, figuring it would be easy to get a job. He landed two, one in a sign shop and another as a pastel portrait artist during the fair. There he met Till Schmid, known as the "World's Fastest Cartoonist."

"Till Schmid needed help because the fair was open too many hours for him to cover," Huf said. "I was the lucky guy who got to train with him."

Huf's caricatures, like Schmid's, are done on an overhead projector. Crowds gather to watch the artist at work as he draws the subject with a large head on a smaller body, doing a favorite activity such as playing tennis, cooking or running.

From the World's Fair, Huf went to Disneyland, where he earned 33.3 cents for each caricature.

"I became really fast because there would be hundreds of people waiting for a picture," he said. "About six years later, Schmid came to Disneyland to work beside me. He had his sign up, 'World's Fastest Caricaturist.' Not long after that, he took down the sign. I was doing more pictures than he did."

His personal record is 100 in an hour and 568 in a single seven-hour shift.

In 1969 he moved to Honolulu and set up a booth in a market near Waikiki Beach. Huf and his family returned to Washington 12 years later. He works about eight fairs and festivals a year, plus a number of parties and conventions. For larger events, he sometimes recruits his daughter and two of his sons — all animators in the movie industry. A third son is a CPA.

He didn't need his son to calculate the figures. Huf estimates he has drawn more than a million caricatures since he started in 1962.

"I'm a valid artist," he said. "It takes artistic ability to do caricatures and have them look like people. My favorite thing is to have someone tell me that my pictures hang on their wall, that my work is part of their family legacy."

Huf will be in booth Q-35 at the Bellevue Fair. His caricatures sell for $6.

Sherry Grindeland: 206-515-5633 or sgrindeland@seattletimes.com