Divisionistic luminosity in glass: designs by Thirst for Skyline Design

Pictured above are entry doors to the showroom of Skyline Design, which is located in the Merchandise Mart, Chicago. Some of the artifacts that appear in these photographs are designs by studio Thirst and recently commissioned by Skyline Design. Gallery photo by versluis.

Information from Thirst states, “Thirst has four series in the Digital Glass Portfolio curated by Skyline Design. The portfolio is a collection of works by artists that transform public spaces, from Anne Lindberg to Bryan Nash Gill, all working on a large scale in the medium of printed glass for interior architecture. The portfolio won The Best of NeoCon 2013 gold awards by Contract Magazine in both Surfacing Materials/Finishes and Wall Treatments.”


Samples of the Thirst collection are displayed on the table in the foreground and include the facial profile on the wall. Gallery photo by versluis.

The effect of Thirst’s designs rely on optical blending which is determined by the division of color values into individual units generated by the developer’s code. Whether using the unit forms of dots (as in the facial profile image above) or tightly cropping typographic forms (shown below), the singular units are grouped in a regular pattern to form an entirety according to the principle of similarity that derives the image’s impact. The design becomes interactive because it requires the viewer to combine the colors optically.

Regarding this particular design, Thirst’s information says, “Phone photographs of the visual details found “classic beauty” from fashion and media are converted into a grid of circles, each punctuated by dots and lines of complementary colors.”


A close-up of the classic matrix of “dots and lines of complementary colors” that comprise Thirst’s “classic beauty” designs. Graphic courtesy of Skyline Design.


The Alphablox design, is shown above just right of center. According to Thirst, “Alphblox uses custom software to tightly crop and color letterforms in abstract, beautiful visual rhythms, inspired by the work of designer/artist Norman Ives and the foundation assignments of the Bauhaus.” Gallery photo by versluis.


The following passage from Thirst wonderfully expresses the sentiment of Alphablox: “The poetry of organic curves and rigid structures found hidden deep within an alphabet become amplified, turning a typeset phrase from Shakespeare’s famous sonnet from As You Like It which begins ‘All the world’s a stage…’  into pure pattern.” Graphic courtesy of Skyline Design.

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“a fine title, ‘Enlaced: a Burning Bush, Psalm 19’” —a quote from Calvin Seerveld at the Dordt College sculpture dedication

This past Monday afternoon, 4 November, the dedication of the Dordt College sculpture “Enlaced” took place with 25–30 people in attendance. The piece was recently installed west of Covenant Hall. The sculpture’s designer, Dordt College Art Professor David Versluis says, “The design is guided by a sense of an intertwining of a Christian perspective that’s found within Dordt College’s academic community.”

The dedication ceremony featured an introduction by Dordt President, Dr. Erik Hoekstra, acknowledgements by Versluis, remarks by Dr. Calvin Seerveld, and a prayer by College Chaplain, Rev. Aaron Baart. The photograph above and the one below shows Seerveld, who looks and sounds rather like a Rabbi, speaking at the dedication.


Seerveld was on campus that day as a First Mondays speaker (Dordt’s monthly speaker series). Regarding Seerveld, a Dordt news release states, “A prolific writer, speaker, and educator, Dr. Calvin Seerveld has dedicated his life to the study of aesthetics, redemptive art, and biblical wisdom.” Versluis says that the sculpture was inspired by Seerveld’s book Rainbows for the Fallen World where he characterizes Psalm 19 as all things are like “a burning bush of the Lord God.”

Here are Seerveld’s gracious remarks—taken from his notes:

Congratulations to artist Professor Versluis, to all who paid for Enlaced, and to Dordt College for promoting and receiving this artwork. It has a fine title: Enlaced: a Burning Bush, Psalm 19. 

This exceptionally good artwork, to my eye, is not strictly representational, but also not an “abstracted,” esoteric construction. 

It could be called a metaphor in COR-TEN steel. It sparks multiple suggestions:
Sure, the flames of a burning bush confronting Moses; the 7 (holy number) upright forms woven together suggest variety in unity…. Could there also be fingers of an unusual hand? 

This is not a monument, however—not pompous nor heavy set. There is upward movement; it appears almost airborne. Perhaps there is a letter design character behind it, telling you something, yet enigmatic…. It seems friendly to me, people-aware, safe, inviting, beckoning, sited for passers-by. 

Keeping in character with Professor Versluis and his modesty, quietly Christian…, redeeming [the want for] more attention—showing love for one’s neighbor, helping you to remember that your fellow student, prof, staff person cutting grass and cafeteria server, like Psalm 19 world-at-large are burning bushes! 

This is a very fine, larger-than-life, highly imaginative artwork. A surprise from such a quiet artist… that should remind generations to come: here at Dordt College, neighbors (Matthew 25), like trees and stones, are burning bushes—creatures of God’s grace for us to respond to with respect and love. We should thank God for the imaginative work/dedication that is present before us. (1)

1. Seerveld, Calvin G. “‘Enlaced’ Sculpture Dedication.” Dordt College. Sioux Center, IA. 4 Nov. 2013. Address. 

Dordt College President, Dr. Erik Hoekstra giving introductory remarks at the dedication.

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Alexander Girard: optical color blending suggesting the bright Mexican blanket.

Alexander Girard, American, 1907–1993
Manufactured by Maharam, American, founded 1902
Millerstripe Textile, 1973, reissued 2002
Wool and nylon upholstery
photograph by versluis

Reflecting the powerful effect of color this piece was displayed at the The Art Institute of Chicago in an exhibition titled, Sharing Space: Creative Intersections in Architecture and Design.

This exhibition, which occurred earlier this year, featured artifacts from the permanent collection of the Department of Architecture and Design.

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“Spindles” / “Sprites”: Frank Lloyd Wright / Alfonso Iannelli

Concrete Spindle sculptures, Midway Gardens, Chicago. 1913-14.
photograph by versluis

This photograph was taken at the “Modernism’s Messengers: The Art of Alfonso and Margaret Iannelli” exhibition at the Chicago Cultural Center. This important show ended in August 2013.

For these pieces the exhibition label states: “Often erroneously referred to as Sprites by today’s historians, these well-known Midway Gardens sculptures were referred to as Spindles at the time of heir creation. Frank Lloyd Wright largely determined the design, but the playful personality of the executed sculptures can be strongly attributed to Alfonso Iannelli.”

The following reflects the greater context of the Iannelli’s body of art and design work: “They weren’t looking for the rarified environment of galleries and museums,” said Tim Samuelson, Iannelli expert and cultural historian for Chicago, curator of the exhibit at the Chicago Cultural Center. “They wanted to put vital, modern art where you could see it, just walking down the street or opening a magazine or going to a theater and seeing a poster on the wall.”(1)

1. Burrows, Sara. “Art with a job to do: The Modernism of Alfonso and Margaret Iannelli.” Niles Herald-Spectator. Chicago Sun-Times, 10 Aug. 2013. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. http://niles.suntimes.com/things-to-do/arts/iannelli-DIC-08082013:article.

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marian bantjes: floral arrangement, “Sorrow”

Earlier his summer graphic designer, Marian Bantjes was featured as a guest artist/designer at Chicago’s 2013 Pop-up Exhibition titled “Work at Play” at Block Thirty Seven. The exhibition ran June 1–30 in tandem with Chicago Design Week that began the week of 9 June.

One of Bantjes’s pieces, in the show, was this poignant table top flower installation titled, "Sorrow" that was made during an 8 hour period on 10 June 2013. This photograph was taken on 12 June at 2:30 p.m.

Bantjes work always seems thoughtful and personal. This unique flower installation suggests a kind of traditional floral “mass arrangement” that is orchestrated with many flower pedals/leaves in several striking colors.

Perhaps there’s also the suggestion of “Dutch Style” floral arranging with the naturalistic garden style tropical materials and perennials with groupings of similar flowers and implied grid lines. It’s interesting that the total effect seems like a hand-tied bouquet.


The hand-signed label for “Sorrow”


This is one of Bantjes’s Valentines, which was in the show. It seems to have a Dutch Baroque style, and is correlated stylistically to “Sorrow”.

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The Dutch Influence on Peter Behrens

Chair, c.1902
Germany
Designed in the Jugendstil/Modern style by Peter Behrens (German, 1868–1940)
Ebonized oak and woven rush
Made by Anton Blüggel, German (Berlin).
39 3/4 x 18 x 21 1/4 inches (101 x 45.7 x 54 cm) Seat height: 18 inches (45.7 cm)
From the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago (photograph by versluis)

“This chair was designed as part of a dining room display for an exhibition of modern interiors at the Wertheim Department Store in Berlin.” —quote is from Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Dutch art historian Marty Bax writes, “Behrens’s views on the didactic relationship between the arts and craft and industry, and the determining role of aesthetics in the design process most likely were shaped by [J.L.M.] Lauweriks’s concepts. … (1)

Behrens is considered the most influential architect and designer in Germany before the First World War. The new ideas about the integration of art and industry he propagated at the applied arts school in Düsseldorf served as the richest ore to be mined for the pedagogical reform program the Deutsche Werkbund was to develop.” (2)



The label for this artifact published by the Philadelphia Museum of Art states:

Peter Behrens designed this chair for an exhibition of “modern interiors” at the Wertheim department store in Berlin in 1902, to which several other well-known architects and designers contributed, among them the Germans Richard Riemerschmid and August Endell and the Englishman Hugh Baillie Scott. One critic considered Behren’s dining room ‘one of the most interesting [interiors] of the whole series. It is a uniform creation where every shape is subject to the intention of an orderly will… A basic rectangular form… appears as flat ornament on the walls… in the porcelain service, the knotted carpet, and in relief on the silverwares. It takes three-dimensional form and… influences the shape of the furniture, the buffet and sideboard… as well as the construction of the backrest of the chairs.’

Behren’s geometrically systemized interior presented a marked contrast to the dining room of his own house in Darmstadt completed the previous year. There he experimented with the freely curved lines used by the Belgian Art Nouveau designer Henry van de Velde, whose house near Brussels had been widely publicized in Germany. Only in its arched back and waisted legs does this chair recall that earlier style, while its form is defined by the flat rectangular pattern of the pierced crest rail and horizontal stretchers that join splat and back posts. In its embodiment of an abstract geometrical order, the chair anticipates Behrens’s work for the Allgemeine Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (AEG), where as a pioneer in the practice of industrial design, he conceived not only the buildings but also the products and publicity material of this electric company. Kathryn B. Hiesinger and George H. Marcus, from Guides to European Decorative Arts: Design, 1900-1940 (1987) 6 (3)

1. Bax, Marty. Bauhaus Lecture Notes 1930-1933. Amsterdam: Architectura & Natura Press, 1991. 17. Print.
2. Ibid. 18
3. “Collections: European Decorative Arts and Sculpture.” Philadelphia Museum of Ar. Philadelphia Museum of Art, n.d. Web. 27 Oct. 2013. http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/74927.html.

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“Time well spent”—an I-29 barn-storming tour and a well-crafted workshop with Rick Valicenti: “Making it up as you go along, a preview for a life-long career”

Vermillion, South Dakota—9 October 2013: A group portrait taken of Dordt College and University of South Dakota workshop students with Rick Valicenti (center), Professor Young Ae Kim is on the far right (with hands on knees) and Dordt graphic design professor David Versluis is standing on the far left.


Rick is listening to a question from a student while others in the background are putting up their posters on the wall. Just behind Rick stands Young Ae Kim who’s the graphic design professor at USD.


Dordt senior students are recreating their posters from memory using traditional cut and paste collage methods. A USD graduate student is in the background working on his collage.

From October 8–10 Rick Valicenti, founder and design director of Thirst, was at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa for a barn storming tour of the area. The evening of the October 8, Rick gave a presentation titled “Time Well Spent” to the AIGA South Dakota Chapter at the University Center in Sioux Falls. Rick spent the night in Sioux Center, Iowa at Dordt College. On Wednesday the 9th we drove Dordt students to the University of South Dakota in Vermillion for a day long workshop with USD graphic design students. Then it was back to Dordt College for an evening encore (with slight changes) presentation of “Time Well Spent”. On Thursday the 10th Rick sent most of the morning touring Dordt’s campus and shared his insights with art and design students during the student Senior Seminar class.

The day-long workshop at USD was titled Making it up as you go along, a preview for a life-long career. Thirty-five design students participated with Rick for a productive, thoughtful, and reflective time together.

Here’s Rick’s entire syllabus for the workshop (published below with permission), however, as the workshop unfolded it became apparent that students needed more time to (re)make their posters and adjustments were made and the original syllabus became more improvisational. The questions were asked by Young Ae Kim:

“Making it up as you go along, a preview for a life-long career” a design workshop

What is the workshop structure?
At a high level it is a glimpse into the essential fact that being a designer is about being comfortable with NOT knowing where the next opportunity or idea comes from and how to embrace one’s own ability to nurture both opportunities and ideas throughout a lifetime. We will come to terms with the fact that others before us have navigated these waters and made wonderful work along the way.

On the practical level we will engage in the listening, responding, and then making process. This is the way of design.

• What will we hear?—our inner voice and each other 
• How will we respond?—intelligently 
• What will we (re)make?—something meaningful, beautiful, soulful, and of course wonderful 

HOUR ONE:
I am thinking we should listen to the past—the designers who have come before us. We will talk about their work, and in the end we will better understand what sensibilities we respond to and perhaps why we are moved by what they have brought into the world.

HOURS TWO TO FOUR:
We will each re-make a poster design we have identified in as much exacting detail as possible using glue sticks to collage the color of pre-printed magazine pages or another printed matter. We can add colored tape, and anything else that seems relevant. Let it be know that we will be scribes bringing something from the past into the future. Our ability to get it exact will be our responsibility. We will be as precise as we can be given the tools at our disposal acting as if we are court stenographers or monks recording sermons. It should be good illuminating crafted fun.

It should be noted that we will not be able to look at the original once the process of replication begins. It will only reside in our minds eye during the making process. There will be no headphones AS OUR COLLECTIVE VOICES, SIGHS, BREATHING WILL BE THE ONLY SOUND that fills the room. Only serious play and focus will fill our two-hour making time. Each person will in essence be a human filter as they channel those who made this design before them.

OBJECTIVE:
The replication of something held close will be an act of creative respect, homage, and adoration. In doing so, we will serve as a human filter of the past welcoming it into the future all the while absorbing the vision, aptitude, and sensibilities of someone who came before us. In doing so WE WILL BE ONE WITH OUR SUBJECT.

NOTE:
This approach is different than the ubiquitous design school assignment of creating a poster ‘about’ a master designer or ‘in the style’ of that designer. This assignment is actually all about ‘being one’ with our subject matter which will be the thread that runs through my public lecture.

HOUR FIVE AND SIX:
We will look, talk, see how close we came to the originals we replicated. We will make a few personal notes as to how it felt to channel someone else’s sensibilities and vision. We will assess our own personal creative stretch and growth. We will recognize our place in the continuum of designers. We will photograph our work and juxtapose it to the right of the original we will post this jpeg along with a closeup detail or two on a Facebook group page we make for the session. we will credit ourselves and we will acknowledge the original designer. we will send the Facebook post to our entire friend list. We will say goodbye to each other thanking them for sharing what will have been a most special day.

How do we prepare for this workshop? 
Think deeply about all of the poster designs they have seen and experienced throughout their life, in books, on the web, in the cineplex, wherever. Concentrate as to which of all these posters is THE poster design that moves them most. Collect thoughts as to why they are moved by this design.

• Is it the composition? 
• Is it the brilliant idea? 
• Is it the color? 
• Is it the typography? 
• What is it that moves you? 
• Research who did it, what year, what country, what firm, why, for what client, etc. 
• Be prepared to discuss their discovery with the class. consider it a personal treasure on show and tell day. 
• Before we meet capture an image of the poster. enlarge it in color at the highest resolution you can find. Bring a vertical 11" x 17" reproduction so we may hang it along with everyone else’s on the wall. Have a jpeg ready (see below) 

BEFORE WE MEET:
Trace the image understand everything you can about it know it as if you created it yourself by doing this you will get closer to being one with the subject.

What supplies are needed? 
Supplies will include: glue stick(s); x-acto blades 2-3 pieces of 15" x 20" (or larger) white illustration board; tape colored and/or clear gouache; brush magazines and printed stuff (START COLLECTING THEM NOW); no press type, no computer, no camera, no laser printer, no image making tools except their hands, eyes and mind however, each student will be encouraged to photograph their making process with a phone camera. Vine compilations of the making in time lapse are welcomed.

FOR OUR WORKSHOP SETTING:
We will need a projector attached to a computer. a pdf of each poster from each student should be compiled into one multi-page pdf. each student sequence will be as follows:

1. Slide 1: a black slide with their name in white set in any type face that best expresses who they are at any size and position on the frame. 
2. Slide 2: a selfie 
3. Slide 3: their favorite poster image 
4. Slide 4: their second and third choices as one side by side slide repeat the sequence for the next participant 

NOTE:
Each student should be prepared to talk about their findings and listen to what the others have to say about theirs.

I always enjoy this time with students… let’s make it easy, fun, theatrical.

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