Compliments for “Enlaced: A Burning Bush, Psalm 19” — a new sculpture for Dordt College, Sioux Center, Iowa

Enlaced: a Burning Bush, Psalm 19 — a sculpture for Dordt College
David M. Versluis, concept, design director, designer
8 feet at the base and 18 feet high
Weighs 6,550 lbs.
Southwest elevation looking toward Southview apartments

The dedication for Enlaced: a Burning Bush, Psalm 19 is scheduled for Monday November 4 at around 3:45 p.m.  Dr. Calvin Seerveld will be in attendance and will speak a few words. Seerveld’s “Burning Bush” insight from Psalm 19 in Rainbows for the Fallen World was part of the inspiration for the sculpture.

Sculpture Project Credits:
Thank you to the donors for generously funding the sculpture project.
Dordt College Art Committee, Sally Jongsma, chair
Lauren Ochsner, maquette welder, Golden Prairie Art, Maurice, Iowa
William Morren Design, LLC, industrial designer, Hillsboro, Wisconsin
Daniel Dykstra, engineering/structural analysis, Grand Rapids, Michigan,
D+M Metal, Inc., manufacturer, Comstock Park, Michigan
Stan Haak, et al., site preparation and concrete foundation forms, Dordt College Maintenance Dept.
Mark Van Voorst, Van Voorst Concrete, Hull, Iowa
Nelson Wynia, Nelson’s Welding and Machine, Sioux Center, Iowa
Mike Wynia, supervisor, Hoogendoorn Construction Inc., hoist service,
Canton, South Dakota

Regarding the sculpture here are some compliments from esteemed colleagues and acquaintances:

“Having stood alongside David during the original proposals, many technical plans, and delays, its a joy and a privilege to see and experience the final result, in the flesh.”
—Jake Van Wyk, Professor of Art, Dordt College. Van Wyk is an artist and teacher with over 35 years experience

“What a simple powerful presence it has.”
—Roy R. Behrens, Professor of Art, and Distinguished Scholar, University of Northern Iowa. Behrens was a nominee in 2003 for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Design Awards

“It looks fantastic!…. And I love the name!”
—Phil Schaafsma, founder and director of Eyekons, Grand Rapids, Michigan

“Brilliant”… “Magnificent”
—Rick Valicenti, founder and design director of Thirst/3st, AIGA Medalist and Fellow of the AIGA Chicago. Honored at the White House Valicenti was awarded the Smithsonian Cooper-­Hewitt, National Design Award for Communication Design in 2011

“…it looks wonderful.”
—Joseph Michael Essex, Partner, Essex Two, Chicago and Fellow of the AIGA Chicago


North elevation looking toward East Campus


East elevation looking toward Covenant Hall


Installation of the uprights to the baseplate on 20 August. Pictured R-L is a Hoogendoorn Construction worker, Nelson Wynia, Jake VanWyk

Read More......

A centennial piece: Purcell and Elmslie’s Madison State Bank “Skylight”

William Gray Purcell, American, 1880–1965 and George Grant Elmslie, American (born Scotland), 1869–1952
Skylight, 1913
From the Madison State Bank, Madison, Minnesota (demolished 1968)
Purcell, Feick and Elmslie, architects
Glass, zinc caming, (with three new replacement panels and new oak frame)
Mosaic Art Shops (E.L. Sharretts), Manufacturer, Minneapolis, 1912–1930
From the collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art
Photograph by versluis

This large art glass piece which is on permanent display at the MIA in Minneapolis has the characteristics of a frame within a frame design by collaborators Purcell and Elmslie. The original panels of the art glass, comprising the top and bottom rows will be one hundred years old this year; the center horizontal section of three panels are very fine reproductions.

The museum didactics for this piece state the following:

This is a recreation of the central skylight located over the teller cages of the Madison State Bank. The skylight originally comprised nine panels, however, the square central panel and two of the long border panels seen here are reproductions. For the bank, Purcell, Feick and Elmslie produced a long, narrow plan for the middle of a block. The exterior featured a window wall with aqua, orange, and yellow terracotta ornament enlivening the brick façade. This was similar to Purcell and Elmslie’s other bank designs and also to Louis Sullivan’s National Farmers’ Bank in Owatonna (1908).

Read More......

George Grant Elmslie and Alfonso Iannelli — two designers for the 1936 Oliver P. Morton School, Hammond, Indiana

George Grant Elmslie, American (born Scotland), 1869-1952
Main building cornice panel, Terracotta. 1936
Manufactured by Midland Terracotta Company, Chicago, 1919–39; Fritz Albert (American, 1865-1940), modeler
From the Oliver P. Morton School, Hammond, Indiana
(demolished 1991); William S. Hutton, architect, and George Grant Elmslie, designer
Collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, gift of Cathers and Dembrosky
Photograph by versluis

An interesting correlation of symbolism and motif exists between George Grant Elmslie and Alfonso Iannelli who were two designers for the 1936 Oliver P. Morton School, Hammond, Indiana.

A wonderful exhibition titled, “The Progressive Pencil: George Elmslie’s Prairie School Designs” is currently on view at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Regarding this piece the exhibition label explains the following:

In the 1930s, Elmslie collaborated with the architect William S. Hutton on three public elementary schools in Hammond, Indiana: the Oliver P. Morton School, the Thomas A. Edison School, and Washington Irving School. All three received funding from the Public Works Administration, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933.

The Morton school and the concurrently designed and built Edison school impressively combined Prairie School rectilinearity with Elmslie’s organic ornamentation and large-scale figural sculpture. This panel—one of a series crowning the cornice of the Morton school—features the dynamic “flying V” Elmslie favored, along with abstracted floral and foliate ornament.

Alfonso Iannelli
American (born Italy), 1888-1965
Screen for Oliver P. Morton School, Hammond, Indiana, 1936
Photograph by versluis 
Photograph taken from the exhibition, “Modernism’s Messengers: The Art of Alfonso and Margaret Iannelli — 1910 to 1965”

The panels were designed and made as multiples, stacked on one another and the joints grouted for the installation. The exhibition label for this piece states, “This panel was part of a decorative perforated terracotta screen above the entrance of the Oliver P. Morton Elementary School in Hammond, Indiana.”

Read More......

Margaret Iannelli, graphic designer

Margaret Iannelli (1893-1967), graphic designer and illustrator
Store poster for Bauer & Black Baby Talc, 1922
3-color, perhaps printed 2-color

This piece and the one below are part of the exhibition Modernism’s Messengers: The Art of Alfonso and Margaret Iannelli, on view in the Chicago Rooms at the Chicago Cultural Center until August 17. 

The exhibition tag for the piece above states, “Iannelli Studios developed an entire marketing campaign for Bauer & Black’s line of baby products based on Margaret Iannelli’s playful theme of toy animals.”

Japanese printmaking and European modernists influenced many young artists in the United States in the early twentieth century, including Margaret. In this poster the typography is hand-lettered and, along with the animal illustrations, was drawn with India ink to produce the color separations. The typographic lettering supplements the illustrated animal imagery perfectly.

The color complimentaries of orange and blue enhance each other well and give the poster a young and vibrant appearance. The gold/brown color suggests a mixture in specific percentages of the blue and orange.


Margaret Iannelli, graphic designer, hand-lettering, and illustrator
Proposed graphics for Character Magazine, 1934–35 (unpublished)
India ink and opaque white on illustration board

Read More......

Religious tolerance as conveyed by the architectural design of Stanley Tigerman

Stanley Tigerman
Inter-faith Chapel Competition, Model, 2004
Painted wood and Styrofoam
Collection of the Art Institute of Chicago
Gift of Stanley Tigerman, 2012.620

This is a piece from the Sharing Space: Creative Intersections in Architecture and Design exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago—the exhibition is on view until August 18, 2013 in Galleries 283–285.

Tigerman’s layout metaphorically suggests gathering around a reflecting pool in a campfire fashion. This circular re-formation centers on love and unity that suggests transformation.

The following is information from the exhibition didactics referencing this work by Tigerman:

Chicago architect Stanley Tigerman is a major figure in postmodern architecture whose projects are always framed and inspired by heady concepts of irony, rupture, humor, and allusion. Since the 1960s, his architectural practice has covered a wide range of territory, from elaborate, yet subversive single-family houses to sensitive designs for disadvantaged children and the homeless. Exquisitely created scale models form an important thread throughout his career and communicate the complex tectonics, colors, and geometries of his work.

Regarding the inter-faith chapel concept, “geometry allows Tigerman to create subtle references to history and cultural practices.… The chapel’s 12 pavilions represent geometric abstractions of traditional religious buildings around the world, aligned around an empty center or universal space to face the correct cardinal directions.”

Read More......

Chicago Design Museum’s 2013 Pop-up Exhibition “Work at Play”

The entry to the Chicago Design Museum’s 2013 Pop-up Exhibition titled, Work at Play. We had a delightful chat with Stuart Hall, gallery assistant, who stands in the background of this image.
 
A very interesting design exhibition occurred last month in Chicago. The 2013 Pop-up Exhibition titled Work at Play opened in conjunction with Chicago Design Week and ran for the entire month of June. Block Thirty-Seven, located at 108 North State Street, was the venue for one of Chicago Loop Alliance’s newest Pop-Up Art Loop galleries, a 17,000-square-foot space on the building's third floor. One of the charters of Pop-Up Art Loop is to: “Transform vacant Loop storefronts into vibrant temporary art galleries throughout the year. Taking its name from one of the original 58 city blocks established in 1830, Block Thirty Seven was there at Chicago’s birth. Today it stands as an iconic symbol of Chicago’s future.” The building is a symbol of regeneration and one of Chicago’s newest downtown landmarks.

The premise for the exhibition states, “For many, the compulsion to create is constant. It’s unstoppable. Beyond the hours at the office, we create, we make–we play. In an attempt to find our own voice, we may stumble upon a visual language that can speak for and, perhaps, inspire others. This year, we celebrate the blurred line between work and play.”

Here are a couple of examples from the exhibition:


Matthew Hoffman
Fresh Start/Start Fresh — 2013
44 x 77

Artist statement: “Fresh Start/Start Fresh consists of a rotational two-word ambigram created from a single connecting line. This optical illusion reminds us that every day can be a fresh start.”

Note: Shown above is my test of Matthew’s work where I took the liberty of playing with his word image of “fresh” by rotating and stacking it underneath. —thank you.


Thomas Quinn
Everything We See is a Perspective, Not the Truth — 2013
When viewing at a certain point, the text becomes aligned.

Artist statement: “Anamorphic typography is a special experience in which an arrangement of letters look perfectly set from a single point within a room, while looking wildly distorted from all other points. The message takes this experience and ties it to a larger point about seeing situations from another perspective.”

Read More......

Piet Zwart and El Lissitzky at “Sharing Space: Creative Intersections in Architecture and Design”

Piet Zwart (Dutch, 1885–1977)
Brochure for Bruynzeel lijstwerk, c. 1935
Tri-folded offset-printed flyer
Frederick W. Renshaw Acquisition Fund Art Institute of Chicago
Bruynzeel’s door and sash, mouldings and frames.
Photograph by versluis (taken through the picture frame glass)

At times it is easy to forget how radical the graphic designs of Piet Zwart and El Lissitzky were for their time.

For many years, beginning in 1930 Piet Zwart worked for the Bruynzeel company. In the beginning Zwart designed their annual calendars and other advertising materials. After a while he also served as an industrial and architectural designer for other products the company produced. In this piece Zwart utilizes scale and color of the hand profile that communicates and correlates handcrafted profiles of the wood mouldings. The black background bridges the negative space, typography, illustrations and photographic images. By highlighting the primary design elements the whole effect becomes very graphic.

A current exhibition at Art Institute of Chicago entitled, Sharing Space: Creative Intersections in Architecture and Design provides an interesting curatorial concept by juxtaposing several categories.

The exhibition statement explains, “In six sections—Color, Geometry, Structures, Hybrid, Surface, and Technology—objects are united by shared goals, strategies, and ideas, rather than by period or media.” The statement go on to say:

From the powerful effect of color to the rigor of geometry, this exhibition mines the permanent collection of the Department of Architecture and Design to reveal common creative concepts and formal strategies across the fields of architecture and design. These projects [such as the one shown above] in the Color section illustrate the diverse ways color can give design objects identity, improve functions, and promote new means of communication.

The piece shown below pertains to the Geometry section in the exhibition. Regarding this work, gallery information reads, “For graphic designers, geometry offers a tool for subverting conventional ideals of composition, as seen in the constructivist book cover design by El Lissitzky for a 1922 publication celebrating art in Russia.”


El Lissitzky (Russian, 1890–1941)
VESHCH = Gegestand = Objet, 1922
Cover design, Periodical
From the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago
Ada Turnbull Hertle Fund, 2009.507
Image from WikiPaintings (I’ve adjusted the color to more resemble the piece in the show)

Read More......