ARTIST PROFILE
Coloring Outside the Lines
The Whimsical & Soulful Art of Traeger DiPietro
By Diane Alter
There’s a quiet kind of colorful magic on Martha’s Vineyard–the kind that seeps into the salty air, the clatter of lobster boats, and the slow hush of waves brushing the shore. For artist Traeger diPietro, that magic is both muse and mirror something he channels with wonder and a deeply soulful eye. His work, much like the man himself, doesn’t conform to boundaries. It doesn’t ask permission. It just feels.
“I don’t paint inside the lines,” he says with a smile, sitting in the sunlight of his Vineyard home. “In fact, I aim to do the opposite.”
Traeger’s journey began far from the Island’s shores, in the coastal town of Swampscott, Massachusetts. Born in Salem, raised in a tight-knit sports community, he grew up juggling baseball bats and sketch-pads–equal parts athlete and artist. His father and brother are carpenters. His mother and sister, creatively spirited. From an early age, Traeger was a contra-diction of grit and sensitivity.
“I was the kid who was always breaking my crayons when I drew,” Traeger chuckles. “I’ve always been more like a bull in a china shop kind of artist, and I still feel that way. You know, a bit rough around the edges. I start a piece, rendering with lots of marks and it looks rough and raw, but then it shapes up.”
Traeger says his art is always about the idea. “I want to come up with an idea that I think is beautiful, paint it, share it with the people that I love and make that idea last forever,” he says.
“The objective is to capture and paint the pure, free, and fleeting beauty of say the Morning Glory Farm flowers or the simplicity of a clammer on the beach.”
Family and friends encouraged Traeger’s path to an art career and to the Vineyard.
“I had great friends and a solid family. I played sports, but I always had this side of me that was...different,” he recalls. “I’d show up to baseball practice in Chuck Taylors, and people didn’t quite know what to make of me. In high school, I had this artsy girlfriend and started making art to impress her.” Art may have started as a side note for Traeger, but it quietly grew roots.
After college–where he majored in art and still gave baseball one last try–he took a chance and followed a friend to Martha’s Vineyard for what was supposed to be a single summer. The gig? Driving a truck all day and going home and painting all night.
That was 25 years ago. He never left. “I came for the summer, and I just kept making art. Eventually, I got into local galleries,” he says. “Now, it’s full-time. It’s all I do.”
Art That Feels Like a Hug
Walk into a room with Traeger’s work, and you don’t just see a painting, you feel a mood. His contemporary body of works consist of paints, old magazines, charcoal, glitter and all other types of mediums that he calls “the magic”.
His characters are often faceless, innocent, whimsical–yet powerful in their simplicity. An astronaut gazing up at glowing orbs, children clutching teddy bears as their shadows stretch into lions, astronauts and aquanauts exchanging gifts of stars and water bubbles. “I create children because they are a reminder of how powerful we were and how free,” he explains. “Those kids–that’s you, that’s me, that’s all of us. Our goals were to have manners and treat people the way we wanted to be treated. To give.”
Traeger’s art evokes nostalgia and calmness via soft shapes, gentle lines, and muted colors. It embraces childlike elements and dreamlike qualities while depicting cozy scenes and imaginary worlds that feel safe and inviting. His style captures universal moments of joy and peace through simplified forms that create an emotional connection transporting viewers to simpler, more innocent times.
His most recognized characters include the “Messenger Man,” a faceless figure in a suit who spreads positivity, wishes, color, and love. Then there’s the Aquanaut and Astronaut–representing equality and loving life from the bottom of the ocean to the top of the universe–they are characters from completely different worlds, we aren’t sure of their race or gender or any specific details. They connect and join forces even though they are completely different. In one painting, the aquanaut holds the ladder while the astronaut changes a lightbulb in a star–a metaphor, perhaps, for cooperation in an age of division.
“They’re different. But they help each other. They share. They surf. They paint together,” Traeger says. “They represent the idea of being in a world where we’re helping and being a team rather than pushing away and being self centered.”
Creative Chaos and Beautiful Beginnings
Traeger’s process is as layered and spontaneous as his art.
A single day might start with feeding his dog, Happy, and his two cats–Winslow (named for Winslow Homer) and Theo (after Van Gogh’s brother). Coffee in hand, he’ll bounce from one piece to another–impressionistic oil scenes of fishermen, contemporary mixed media art, sketches that later become canvases.
I don’t work on one piece at a time. I’m all over the place,” he admits. “I let my mind roam. I keep a list of ideas on note pads and sticky notes everywhere, sometimes it’s as little as a sticker on a piece of fruit that can spark his idea’s. Anything can be art if you look at it right.”
The island constantly feeds that creative fire. The ocean, the fishermen, the sand, the light–it all shows up in his work, often in subtle ways.
“I love clammers and lobster boats. Not sailboats–lobster boats. Boats with wear. With story. You can see the calluses on the hands that work them. That’s beautiful to me.”
A Heart Bigger Than the Canvas
Though Traeger isn’t a biological father, his life is filled with children, specifically Nico and Marina, the kids of his partner, Lauren. They are muses and creative partners in their own right. “You’ll see Nico’s blue rainbow in my work and Marina’s flowers,” he says.
“They live partly in Boston, but when they’re here, we have a blast. (They are on the 2024 Ag Fair poster). They remind me why I do this–why I depict kids paint-ing creative, bright, and light things.” Also, Traeger is on the board of Island Autism and has created an apparel line, T-shirts and sweats, including the Moby (badword) t-shirts. Island Autism is his nonprofit where he dedicates some of his ideas and time.
Traeger is working on a painting of a boy whose shadow is a black panther, inspired by a friend’s childhood favorite animal. Or the girl holding a teddy bear, unaware her shadow roars like a lion. These paintings of the children and their animal shadows are expressing their inner power that they don’t see yet until they look a little deeper.
From Swampscott to the Stars
Traeger is represented by galleries on the Island –The Granary, North Water Gallery, and Field Gallery–and more recently, by New England Contemporary in Rhode Island. He also sells directly through his website and accepts commissions.
Traeger may joke that his art isn’t “super serious or mind breaking” but there is absolutely genius in its gentleness–a profound understanding of what it means to be human, to love, to lose, to remember how to play.
“Life is hard enough,” he shrugs. “We need art that gives people a hug. I put love and honesty into it every day. If someone sees it and feels just a little lighter, that’s the homerun.”
When asked if he has a favorite painting or a piece he is most proud of Traeger quickly responded, “I haven’t made my best painting yet.”
And maybe that’s the real magic of Traeger – knowing that the best is still ahead and that he has the heart to keep reaching for it.
For more information or to see more of Traeger’s work traegerdiPietro.com, traegerdipietro@yahoo.com, 617.828.9867
Traeger and his work is also on: Instagram, Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) Traeger is represented by galleries on the Island – The Granary, North Water Gallery, and Field Gallery