Transcription of Heather Chontos for the show Designing Maine #175
Speaker 1: You’re listening to Love Maine Radio with Dr. Lisa Belisle recorded in the studio of Main Magazine at 75 Market Street, Portland, Maine. Dr. Lisa Belisle is a physician trained in family and preventative medicine, acupuncture and public health. She offers medical care and acupuncture at Brunswick Family Medicine.
Read more about her integrative approach to wellness in Maine Magazine. Love Maine Radio is available for download free on iTunes. See the Love Maine Radio Facebook page or www.lovemaineradio.com for details.
Now, here are our few highlights from this week’s program.
Heather: Being a stylist, being an artist working in textiles, working in painting, working in drying, it’s all the same to me because it’s all form, line, color, shape, and when I’m creating a set for a photo shoot, it’s like me putting together shapes in my head for a painting. It’s the same thing. It’s just playing with different materials I guess.
Erin: Having that graphic design background has completely made things so much easier for me I think and I really believe that because I’m able to market myself and design my own brand. I think brands are really powerful.
Speaker 1: Love Maine Radio is made possibly with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Marci Booth of Booth Maine, Apothecary By Design, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin of Re/Max Heritage, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, Harding Lee Smith of The Rooms, and Bangor Savings Bank.
Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to Love Maine Radio, show number 175, Designing Maine. Airing for the first time on Sunday, January 18th, 2015. Maine is home to many talented artists and designers.
Today, we speak with Heather Chontos and Erin Flett, both of whom are making their marks on the world of style from fashion to home furnishings. You have seen their work nationally and internationally and publications such as Oprah Magazine. We are proud to have them designing in Maine. Thank you for joining us.
I am always intrigued to speak with people who have spent time outside of the State of Maine and then specifically choose to come back. I love speaking with creative individuals who are passionate about what they do and passionate about bringing their style and their vision to Maine.
Today, on Love Maine Radio, I’m interviewing Heather Chontos. She is a designer, artist, and stylist who has a studio in the State Theater Building in Portland. She has styled for Gourmet Magazine, Gap, Anthropologie, Coach, Travel & Leisure, Bon Appétit, and many more.
She’s also the mother of daughters’ Cody and Zana. I suspect that might be the more important thing in your life.
Heather: They’re the main feature for sure.
Dr. Lisa: Thanks so much for coming in and you have a great story and I’m glad you’re willing to share it with us.
Heather: Thanks.
Dr. Lisa: Heather, you’re originally from New York and you spent in Barcelona.
Heather: I did. I was a precocious teenager who went to the South of France when I was 13 with a family in New York as their babysitter and that was pretty much it. I decided at that point I didn’t want to live in the States which lasted for about 10 years, a little bit longer.
I applied for a study abroad program when I was 15 to go to Barcelona and I had graduated already from high school. When I went, I was actually 16, so I had already graduated and I loved it and I left out with an amazing family. They’re all artists and designers and it felt pretty homey for me to be there, so I stuck around probably a little longer than they were expecting. It was a good platform for me to start on the big adventure for sure.
Dr. Lisa: That’s interesting because … How old are your daughters now?
Heather: 15, almost 16 and 6.
Dr. Lisa: When you think about your daughter … It’s Cody who’s the older one. When you think about her being out and about in the world, how does that translate for you?
Heather: It terrifies me that she might do the same thing. I suppose it’s different because she … Cody was born in London. Her father is Swedish and she has pretty much spent the entirety of her life traveling. Her desire to hop around in that same way, it’s … She wants to do it, but she doesn’t feel as compelled to run off and find the world whereas I grew up in a family …
My parents still don’t have passports. They had never left the United States and it was a very different upbringing. I think that’s played a big part because we’ve had a lot of adventures. I guess she’s not having that sort of yearning for that kind of life where I definitely was having that.
Thinking about her going out into the world, yeah, it’s terrifying and we’ve been on our own since she was four. The fact that she may go off and do her own thing of … Well, she may, she will go off and do her own thing very soon. It’s almost like losing a partner which is kind of a funny thing to say about your own child, but we’ve grown up together because I was 21 when I had her, so it’s a whole new phase of life coming up pretty soon.
We’ll see what she does. I don’t know. She wants to go to school in Europe because she is actually a Swedish citizen and I might follow her, I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see what happens. She expressed that she like that to be the case and we could all go and live in Sweden while she goes to school so that we can be nearby. I don’t know, we’re very, very different. Very, very different.
Dr. Lisa: How would her younger daughter … I mean younger daughter, your younger daughter, her younger sister. How would she feel about that?
Heather: Yeah, she’s pretty easy going I would say. It’s a funny little unit that we have going on. It’s where a very tiny, little family and I think wherever Cody wants to go, Zana is going to want to go, of course. They’re really great. They’re super open to things being different and changing.
We just moved to Peaks Island like a month ago. It was a decision that happened in a day and our lease was up on our apartment in the West End and I found this adorable little house and they were like, “Yeah, that would be so fun. We’ll take the ferry and go to school everyday.” They’re in to it, so I think they’re both open to transition and change.
I try to express it as an adventure all the time. It’s not some daunting and negative experience. They’re always up for it, so it’s good.
Dr. Lisa: It’s interesting to hear that you come from a family in New York that was sort of content to be where it was. Your parents not having passports …
Heather: Still in the same place.
Dr. Lisa: Still in the same place, but you early on … You’re very different, but early on, you had something that happened to you that most people could never imagine. You lost your vision, you were 13 years old, so do you think that that shifted the way that you approach the world?
Heather: Definitely. I was always very interested in the possibilities of traveling. I think before I lost my eyesight, I wanted to be a marine biologist like every 13 year old girl does. I have written to the embassy in Australia and asked them how I could come live there so that I could come and study.
I was obsessed with Australia and I wanted to go there and become a marine biologist, and then … That was kind of pre losing my eyesight. I was very science oriented, very health oriented into running and very athletic and then I lost my eyesight and it just heightened everything so much. I guess at a very young age, I always had this understanding of how things are not always going to be the same and that major things can happen which can alter your life which I don’t think you should necessarily understand at age 13, but that was not the case for me.
It was eight months. It was about six to eight months, I can’t even remember. I woke up one morning. I had enormous amounts of pain and then my eyesight got blurry and by the end of the day, I couldn’t see anything. It was a matter of just months and months of playing around with medication and tons of testing and they didn’t understand it. The doctors didn’t understand it, so it was an intense process to go through.
By the time I was done, I had developed a different survival skill and I guess I just wanted to experience everything and see everything. That came on like a ton of bricks afterwards. As much as my parents are so … They’re home buddies and they work on their house and they make this beautiful place and they’ve never left it and they talk about moving now and I look at them and think it’s never going to happen.
They understood that I had experienced something and needed to just go off into the world and do what I needed to do because I had just gone through this crazy thing. They let me explore and they let me go and I worked and saved up money and got scholarships and went off and did what I needed to do, but it definitely became … The world became more visual obviously for me afterwards for sure and it continues to be that way.
I had a couple of episodes that happened throughout the years that may or may not be related, but I lost my vision for a period of a half an hour at one point when I was pregnant with Zana and it was terrifying because I thought that I’m losing my sight again. I remember being in the hospital at one point and the doctors preparing me for the fact that I was going to have to learn braille and then I may have to go to school for the blind and then I may never see again. They had no idea what was going on, there was no apparent real reason as to why it was happening.
Having those experiences … I think probably in the back of my mind I’m always worried that it will happen again because we don’t understand it and there’s no reasoning behind it, so there’s no reason why it wouldn’t happen again and that sounds kind of negative. I’m not living everyday thinking, “Oh my God, I’m never going to be able to see again.”
It’s definitely a thought, it happens, it passes through my mind. I’m very happy that I get to have this fun life where I create things and people really love it which is nice too. Definitely, it changed everything and it changed how I see most parts of my life and what’s important, what’s not important and all of that.
I imagine most people, when they go through something, that changes their perception of what their life is going to be like that they would feel the same I would think. Luckily, I got my vision back, it’s not something that has maintained being a problem in my life. I’m a lucky one. People get sick and never get better, so I feel like I’m pretty lucky because at least I came out the other side and I have a different understanding of things which is great.
Dr. Lisa: Really, it sounds like they really never understood why you lost your vision. You never really got a diagnosis. There’s not anything you can do to prevent this from happening again.
Heather: No. It’s a very strange illness. It’s called optic neuritis. Mine was bilateral with both eyes. Optic neuritis is something that happens in women in their 30s that generally are having an onset of multiple sclerosis. I remember at one point they were trying to find me a support group and they could only find three or four women in the entire United States that actually it happened to, but of course everyone was in their 30s and I was 13 and it was like there wasn’t a lot in common for us to discuss.
Of course, these people were actually really sick. They had multiple sclerosis. It’s a horrible, horrible disease and the fact that they were going through this that they were experiencing it on a very different level. Yeah, there was no … It just happened. They say it could have been stress. At age 13, I don’t know what kind of level of stress I was having that would create that. Yeah, there’s no reason. There’s no rhyme or reason to it, so it’s hard to pinpoint.
It’s an illness that’s very … Every time I go for a checkup, I have a team of students that come in and observe me like I am just the most fascinating guinea pig on the face of the … It’s basically your optic nerve becomes so inflamed that it no longer works and it hurts. It hurts a lot. You imagine having an inflamed nerve in your head which is basically what was why it hurts so bad. I couldn’t move my eyes, I couldn’t move my neck.
My optic nerve now is kind of amazing. It looks like the pictures of it are wild. It looks like those old illustrations from the war when like the … They show like the … When there’s shooting at each other and there’s just … There’s like bright orange, glowy looking sort of explosions in the sky. It looks like that and it’s kind of wild and people are just … Doctors and students are fascinated by it. It’s pretty funny because they just don’t see it. This doesn’t happen very often.
As far as I understand, I was just in Vienna in September and I went on a wine tasting tour and there was a conference there of neurologists and brain surgeons, some very, very smart people that were … They were on a conference and these guys were from Johns Hopkins and I asked them. I said, “You ever come across …” They said never in their 30 year career had they ever come across it, so that opened up a can of worms because …
There was a nice upfront conversation over many glasses of wine in the countryside of Vienna. Again, here are these doctors from Johns Hopkins that are looking at all these patients with many different illnesses and they had never come across it either. I guess I’m kind of special in that regard. It’s an interesting … That’s an interesting part of my story for sure.
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Dr. Lisa: It’s interesting to me to know that before this happened, you are more sciencey, and linear, and health, and then whatever happened in your brain at the time that this was going on has shifted things, and then when you came out the other side, all of a sudden, you literally saw things differently. Then you had turned this into you became very interested in art and you became very interested in the visual.
It sounds like you have two different kinds of things you do that you style for people, but then you also are an artist.
Heather: I don’t see them as being different. Many times, people ask me, “How did you become a stylist?” Being a stylist I guess is an extension of everything else. I went to college in London, I studied art history. I did a program that was actually art history and material studies, so it was studying chemistry and learning how to conserve artwork as well as studying the history of it.
My dorm room, my first year of college I met a student who was a painter, amazing painter and we started painting on stuff. I had always drawn but I had never really worked with paint before. It became very interesting to me and that progressed.
Then I was working with an amazing furniture designer in London and some woman came in one day and she said she was a prop stylist and that she needed to get some things for a photo shoot and I was like, “What? What is that? What is a prop stylist?”
She explained it to me and we went for coffee the next day and she talked to me about it and I was like, “I could do that. I could totally figure that one out.” I got a sketchbook and I drew all these scenarios of what would be interesting photo shoots and I colored them in.
I called 10 different editors in London and three of them said, “Yeah, come on in.” The first one, [Alfreda Pennell 00:20:38] was the … She’s still there. She is the design director at the Telegraph Magazine in London. I guess it’s like the Saturday magazine and she looked at my sketchbook and she’s like, “Yeah, I like these ideas. Do you think you could pull it off?” I was like, “Yeah, of course.”
I was 19 I think and so I did and she sent me to the house of this amazing, amazing, amazing photographer Bill Batten who is like one of the world’s best interior photographers. He works for World Of Interiors Magazine and just CasaVogue …
The guy was phenomenal and we played around at his house with all these things that I got from shops or … I knew all these designers because I have been working with furniture designers and then I made a bunch of the stuff myself and took it from there.
I think the thing is being a stylist, being an artist working in textiles, working in painting, working in drying, it’s all the same to me because it’s all form, line, color, shape, and have a successful image be created. Yes, you need to understand how photography works and you need to understand how an image will translate whether it’s in person in a window or whether it’s coming to print somewhere which you learn over time just through experience.
It’s all the same. It’s all the same thing to me. I don’t differentiate it. When I’m creating a set for a photo shoot, it’s like me putting together shapes in my head for a pating, it’s the same thing. It’s just playing with different materials I guess.
Dr. Lisa: The publications that you’ve worked for are really impressive.
Heather: Thanks.
Dr. Lisa: Gourmet Magazine, you worked briefly, you said, for Cooking Light, Bon Appétit, Travel & Leisure. What are some of the favorite things that you’ve created, scenes that you’ve created, things that you’ve been a part of? What has really drawn you in and caused you to be excited?
Heather: I started as an intern at World Of Interiors Magazine and the first photo shoot I did for them is probably still my favorite. World Of Interiors is still, to this day, just … They represent a different level of design thought and creativity that should be implemented more and it’s not. We’ve become very formulaic especially in this country where things are set out in very regimental as far as design trends go and it’s kind of boring. To me, sort of disappointing actually.
I think that my favorite … World Of Interiors would be number one, but I was the art director for the photographer Corinne Day. She passed away a couple of years ago, but she created a world in fashion. It was funny because a lot of the magazines on that list were all very food oriented, but before I did any food, which I do love working with, I did a lot of fashion.
We did stories for British Vogue and Italian Vogue that were just wild. She would pick me up in this Town Car and we would go to the craziest ends of London and find furniture that was ripped apart that I could paint or I could reconstruct and then we’d go to locations where sort of to crop it and falling apart and we would make it into this magical place where all the sudden this whole other scenario is being created.
Those were definitely my favorite days because I was allowed to just completely be me as a creative person. Then I moved back to the states … Yeah, I would say after that, Gourmet without a doubt. It was [Richard Freddie 00:24:51] who is the creative director there. He would give us a script and there was a story and there was always a character and there will be a location.
There wasn’t a lot of money to go to Brazil, so we did a story once in New Jersey and it was meant to be Brazil and we found these little kids on the beach whose parents let us very nicely take them and use them as models. We had models too. When you look at these photographs, it’s like, “Where did you go? Where was that shoot?” Some crappy beach in New Jersey that we just made.
We got these amazing props and create stuff and there would be the food stylist who was incredible making this amazing meal. It was this funny thing where the meal created a story and then there was a character that implemented that story. We did that over and over again in amazing locations with incredible photographers.
I am really fortunate that I have worked with some of the world’s best. My very best friend and my favorite, Jon Cornick, he is amazing. [Bill Brenowitz 00:25:57], Mikkel Vang, these guys are all over the world shooting for, not only interiors and food and fashion stuff, they do National Geographic, Travel Magazine and they go to the most incredible places.
Their visual perception of things is amazing, but I always remind them that when we do these stories that they would have nothing to photograph if it wasn’t for me. I like to take as much credit as possible. I’m sure they would disagree, but it is … Yeah, it’s been pretty interesting. I would say Gourmet would be my favorite in the States.
Dr. Lisa: Tell me about your art.
Heather: I’m mostly painting and when I’m not painting actual paintings, I do a lot of work on textiles. It’s pretty big and loud and abstract and colorful. It’s probably the one thing I think I’m truly the best at.
If I was going to say there’s one thing in this world that I should do, it’s probably painting because it’s just … It comes so naturally to me for some strange reason. I feel like I’m probably my most honest self when I’m doing it. That feels really nice and I try to do it … I do it every day. I paint every day at least for a couple of hours.
I love my life. I love my family and I think I have an enormous amount of love to give as a person and that doesn’t always come across. It’s not always easy to do that in your everyday life, I feel like I’m in my work I’m able to do that.
I was in Copenhagen last week actually listening with a friend of mine who took the train from Malmö, Sweden to Copenhagen and we had dinner and she’s amazing, amazing person. I had told her that … This woman had bought a painting recently and we had a conversation on the phone and she said, “You know, you do happy really well.”
I wouldn’t describe myself as someone who is extremely happy because that’s not … I don’t know, that’s kind of an understatement. It’s just one word that doesn’t instantaneously come to mind. Probably chaotic and somewhat complicated and obsessive compulsive if you would come to mind, but she said, “You know, I don’t …” She said, “I don’t think happy is …” She said, “I feel so much love when I look at your work.”
I almost cried because that was … It’s true. I think that that’s kind of how I feel. I feel like I’m full of love and joy for my life I guess, but definitely chaotic and definitely complicated.
Dr. Lisa: Well, you do get to be a whole person.
Heather: I do.
Dr. Lisa: You don’t have to pigeonhole yourself and to …
Heather: Yeah. No, thank you. I hate to be pigeonholed.
Dr. Lisa: I can tell.
Heather: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: Heather, after listening to our conversation, I’m sure people will want to be able to see your work. How can they do that and find out more about you?
Heather: I have a website. It’s just heatherchontos.com and I’m in the process of redesigning some of it, but everything is on there for the most part. There’s links to all the different works, so yeah.
Dr. Lisa: It has been a real pleasure to talk to you today. We’ve been speaking with Heather Chontos who’s an artist, designer and stylist working and living right here in Portland. I guess living technically on Peaks Island which is still Portland.
Heather: Still Portland, yeah.
Dr. Lisa: Still Portland, but definitely a great addition to our Love Maine Radio show, so thanks.
Heather: Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: As a physician and a small business owner, I rely on Marci Booth from Booth Maine to help me with my own business and to help me live my own life fully. Here are few thoughts from Marci.