Ossip Zadkine: (re)considering the artist’s empathetic work — searching for “a true reality and a real truth”

Prometheus (1956), Bronze
Ossip Zadkine (1890–1967), Sculptor
Saint-Germain des Prés, Paris
photograph by © versluis 2010

Traditionally, Prometheus was ridiculed as the purveyor of good gifts to humankind — Zadkine’s Prometheus (in a beautifully subtle contrapposto pose) asks whether humankind is using the gift of fire for good or for ill. The consideration of Zadkine’s artworks again seem relevant in these disconcerting times.

One of the best reflections of Zadkine’s work was by Dutch artist, Henk Krijger (1913-1979). The following excerpt, subtitled, A christian style, is from Jan de Bree’s fine article, “Henk Krijger and the Institute for Christian Art / Patmos, 1969-1973”:

Krijger in his article Drie Overwegingen, discussed the christian artist and the development of a christian style. In his considerations he turned to the Russian sculptor, Ossip Zadkine, and showed how Zadkine’s work was important for the christian artist. According to Krijger, Zadkine, like so many other modern artists, experienced a cultural crisis. In his distress he searched for a ‘true reality and a real truth’ and broke through to the deepest deep, ‘the primordial state in which horror, fear and lostness were the characteristic emotions.’ Like Zadkine, the christian artist also was to break through to the deepest deep. The Christian had to break through the ‘schriftge­ leerden-wet or leer’ (the law or doctrine of Bible scholars) to the depths where prayer, the cry to God (an existential outburst) broke forth and a conversion took place. Going against the certainty of human knowledge and casting oneself upon God made the christian artist not a rebel against God, but a witness of the Word. He would be a witness of the Word in his own language, his christian art, with a true style. That is conversion.

The turning away from a kind of academic knowledge or dogma, as Krijger later called it, to an intuitive, emotional knowing was one of his main points in his view of art. …(1)

1. de Bree, Jan. “Henk Krijger and the Institute for Christian Art/Patmos, 1969-1973.” Hommage `a Senggih: A Retrospective of Henk Krijger in North America. Ed. Jan de Bree. Toronto: Patmos Gallery, 1988. 25-26. Print.

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Dordt College graphic design and printmaking student: Kwan Yong Park, South Korea

Kwan Yong Park 
Untitled
Two-Color Linocut 2016
Several Dordt College art and design students, taking printmaking for the first time, recently had their artwork selected in a juried Regional Exhibition. Dabin Jeong, Youra Song, and Kwan Yong Park were among the twenty-five regional artists featured in Orange City Arts’ exhibit April 22–30, 2016 at the DeWitt Theatre Arts Center at Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa.

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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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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.”

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Benjamin Henry Latrobe (1764–1820) architect of the Baltimore Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The Baltimore Basilica, built from 1806-1821, was designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Latrobe is known as the first professionally trained architect in the United States, and was Thomas Jefferson’s chosen architect of the U.S. Capital Building. Photograph by versluis 2013.


A watercolor showing the architectural elevation and cross-section indicating the interior details. The bell towers are are not the same as was actually built. This piece is in the Baltimore Basilica archives, photograph by versluis 2013. 


The wonderful details of the “coffered” dome and skylights. Latrobe’s chandelier design is an exact reproduction. Photograph taken with available light by versluis 2013.


Interior view showing the pews, organ loft, and side windows, which apparently were suggested to Latrobe by Thomas Jefferson. The fresco shown above is one of four designed by Latrobe honoring the four gospel writers of the New Testament. Photograph taken with available light by versluis 2013.


View of the masonry vaults that support the huge weight of the dome. Latrobe’s mathematics and engineering ingenuity seems very modern. Photograph taken with available light by versluis 2013.

For the design of the Baltimore Basilica, built from 1806-1821, Latrobe worked with Renaissance-style engineering ingenuity to produce a remarkable building. The Basilica is of the neoclassical typology, which was au courant at the turn of the 18th century in Western Europe, particularly in France. However, Latrobe’s brand of neoclassicism creates a striking edifice that freely and soberly translates the spirit of ancient Greek architectural principles and proportions, which results in a distinctively American architecture. The spare interior balances elegantly with the wonderful details of coffered dome and skylights. The combination of formal simplicity and structural complexity is harmonized to the service of Roman Catholic liturgy and symbolic of God’s grace. With a minimal amount of ornament (decoration meant monarchical decadence to Latrobe) the monochromatic yellow color scheme helps accentuate the effect of a worship space that is filled with natural light (the light of inner heaven) entering through the dome and large, clear glass side windows.

To give further insight into this building, The Catholic Review published an article by Suzanne Molino Singleton to commemorate a major restoration of the Basilica completed in 2006.

Singleton’s essay quotes Jeffery Cohen, architectural historian from Bryn Mawr College, who writes, “The basilica’s architectural significance is less a matter of such single features, and more a matter of monumental yet simplified geometry that vividly brought this more severe phase of neoclassicism to the heart of an American city. ” (1)

Singleton continues by saying, “Mr. Cohen explains that Latrobe had worked in this vein on a smaller scale in Philadelphia, and more in internal spaces at the U.S. Capitol, “but in Baltimore he had more scope and scale, and it challenged him to explore more complex possibilities of architectural iconography and lighting.” (2)

Because of its hilltop building site, the Basilica, at the time it was constructed, would stand out for all to see as a symbol and beacon for religious freedom in the new democratic republic. Today the Basilica is surrounded by the city buildings of downtown Baltimore and has become integral in its urban environment. 

1. Singleton, Suzanne Molino. “An Architectural Masterpiece.” The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Ed. Daniel L. Medinger. Baltimore: The Catholic Review of The Catholic Foundation, 26 Oct. 2006: B29-30. Print. 
2. Ibid. B30.

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“Carl Regehr: The Lost Journals”—Journal entry, January 12 1983

Image from the STA Design Archives

We’ve featured the work of Carl Regehr before in this blog. So we thought it would be fitting to end this month with this piece from a recently published book titled Carl Regehr: The Lost Journals. Regehr was a pioneer in Chicago design history, an honorary member of the Society of Typographic Arts, and professor and design educator at the University of Illinois/Champaign at the time of his passing in 1983.

Thirty years ago this month, Carl Regehr (1919-1983) entered the following passage into his journal, dated January 12 1983:

Review, David Smith Show at Nat’l Gallery, Wash. D.C., 1/2–4/24–’83
Among the pleasures that retrospectives offer is the comforting discovery that artists are not born great. To see a career all in development is to begin to understand what it takes to make raw talent into genius. Many factors influence the process, but one trait keeps reappearing throughout the history of art: 

In the alchemy that transforms promise into achievement, a key ingredient is the ability to handle contradictions and transcend limitations, the artist’s own and those of his time and place. His friend Robert Motherwell, said, “Oh, David, you are so delicate as Vivaldi, and so strong as a Mack truck.” Mary Ann Tighe (1)

1. Best, Marjie, Jana Regehr, and Jack Weiss, eds. Carl Regehr: The Lost Journals. Chicago: The Society of Typographic Arts, 2012. N. pg. Print.

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John A. Swanson’s “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,” c.1970 screen print collage

John August Swanson from Los Angeles was a guest artist at Dordt College on Wednesday and Thursday October 10–11. John spent time discussing his work with students and staff. In this photograph Swanson talks about one of his earliest works “Let Us Now Praise Famous Men” which is a screen printed collage from c.1970. This particular print on display is from the collection of Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota. By the way, John is wearing the “Fear Is The Opposite Of Faith” T-shirt from Sojourners. 

It was a great privilege to have John on campus for a couple of days.

Much of Swanson’s body of work as well as his early prints are lyrical expressions advocating fairness, justice, and equality. As John states:

When I was starting my work as an artist from 1968 to 1975, I was influenced by political ideas and movements, and the songs and speeches of the 1960s and 70s. I created a series of works similar to newspapers—collages of lettering, artwork, and photos, an “exploding newspaper.

Using my knowledge of photography, and working in darkrooms, I overexposed photographs to simplify them, and create stark solarized images, which I felt complimented the lettering [that I drew by hand or carved from rubber erasers]. I combined the lettering, photos and rubberstamp images with texts that were meaningful to me: the words of the writer, James Agee; the poet, Lawrence Ferlinghetti; and the labor leader, Cèsar Chávez; as well as song lyrics.

The title of the print comes from classic literature, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. The publication was a collaboration between writer James Agee and photographer Walker Evans. The book chronicles the lives of three sharecropper tenant families in Alabama in 1936, during the Great Depression.

For Swanson’s poster it’s very striking how he mixes and assembles typographic styles and images and portrays the book title followed by the passage, which is reproduced below in boldface. Agee, writing on a summer night, prefaced the words found in the poster saying:

A man and a woman are drawn together upon a bed and there is a child and there are children: … 

Moreover, these flexions are taking place every where, like a simultaneous motion of all the waves of the water of the world: and these are the classic patterns, and this is the weaving, of human living: of whose fabric each individual is a part: and of all parts of this fabric let this be borne in mind: 

Each is intimately connected with the bottom and extremest reach of time: Each is composed of substances identical with the substance of all that surrounds him, both the common objects of his disregard, and the hot centers of stars:  

All that each person is, and experiences, and shall never experience, in body and in mind, all these things are differing expressions of himself and of one root, and are identical: and not one of these things nor one of these persons is ever quite to be duplicated, nor replaced, nor has it ever quite had precedent: but each is a new and incommunicably tender life, wounded in every breath, and almost as hardly killed as easily wounded: sustaining, for a while, without defense, the enormous assaults of the universe: 

So that how it can be that a stone, a plant, a star, can take on the burden of being; and how it is that a child can take on the burden of breathing; and how through so long a continuation and cumulation of the burden of each moment one on another, does any creature bear to exist, and not break utterly to fragments of nothing: these are matters too dreadful and fortitudes too gigantic to meditate long and not forever to worship. (1)

1. Agee, James, and Walker Evans. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. New York: Ballantine Books, 1960 / Fourth Printing 1972. 53-54. Print.

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John August Swanson as graphic designer: 1972 Cesar Chavez United Farm Workers Poster

John August Swanson, Struggle for Justice: 40th Anniversary Poster, 2012/1972
© John August Swanson 2012

“It is my hope that this art work [my posters] might serve as an inspiration and a tool for those working to organize those who have been displaced and marginalized by economic injustice into compassionate communities empowered to implement justice and  bring peace.” —John August Swanson

The Dordt College department of art and design is busy preparing and anticipating the next art exhibition featuring the Richard and Helen De Vos collection of John August Swanson's iconic advent series of serigraphs. The exhibition will be installed in the Campus Center Art Gallery from October 10 to December 2.

In addition, we have become inspired by Swanson graphic design work. Compared to Swanson's serigraphs very little is known about his social activist posters. Illustrated above is John's recently reissued poster from 1972 titled "Struggle for Justice” which is a 40th anniversary commemorative piece. Of import is that the poster has as much relevance today as it did in 1968 and the poster is a significant reminder that challenges still exist for racial and economic justice in our society.

About the poster Swanson writes the following on his website:

The poster, STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE, was first created forty years ago, in 1972 to help raise money for the United Farm Workers. The original printing was limited to one hundred posters. 

As I recall, the union provided me with a statement from Cesar Chavez’s 1968 speech. My idea for the poster design was to use his words to create a “newspaper,” a black and white montage of photos and lettering. For the lettering, I used a variety of typefaces; many of these were rubber-stamp alphabets I had carved from rubber erasers and other materials. His words became my “headlines,” accompanied by images showing the struggles of the United Farm Workers in our agricultural fields and the attacks from the giant agribusiness corporations. I also used other photos depicting labor, race, and economic struggles throughout the 20th century in the United States. I interspersed the words and photo images, hoping that this would be an interesting design and would best communicate the message of our continuing struggle to bring justice for all.

In 2011, I felt the message still resonated with strong grass-root movements: the energetic actions of the Occupy Movement, the growing awareness and participation of the Global Warming and Environmental Movements, the struggle of workers to protect their labor unions, and the renewed effort of the Peace Movement. I decided the poster should be reprinted. The original poster was revised with new images, revised spacing, and adapted text. Now, I hope this poster will bring Chávez’s powerful words to students, to union workers, and to those who struggle for justice. I hope this work will encourage, strengthen, and empower those who seek a just and peaceful world.

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Steve Prince’s “One Fish: Old Testament” art exhibit on display at Dordt College

Psalm I: Slow Dance, Linoleum cut, 18 inches x 24 inches, from the Old Testament Series
Image courtesy of Eyekons Gallery © Steve A. Prince

Information from Dordt's news release:

For Steve Prince, art is a tool used to battle social issues like violence, racism, and injustice. His art is “a conduit of God’s grace, helping people make sense of their lives and realize that their actions have consequences,” said Prince. “There are a lot of things we haven’t dealt with in our souls, so I like to deal with them in my artwork.” The result is art that is interwoven with social metaphors and symbolic messages.

Prince has brought “One Fish: Old Testament” to Dordt College. The exhibit is housed in the college’s Campus Center Art Gallery and in the Ribbens Academic Complex art galleries through October 2, and features recent artwork including drawings and linocuts. The public is invited to enjoy the exhibit free of charge daily from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Indicative of Prince’s work, the exhibit is filled with images that show his incredible imagination and drawing abilities. “Old Testament” is a “love series” that is metaphorically inspired by the Bible, says Dordt College art professor and gallery coordinator David Versluis. In much of his work, Prince visually interprets the biblical narrative and gives it a fresh context in a contemporary and urban framework.

Founder of One Fish Studio based in Silver Spring, Maryland, Prince is an artist, educator, and art evangelist. Having grown up in New Orleans, Prince allows the city’s rich traditions in art, music, and religion to pulsate through his work. He says, “The concept of One Fish Studio is derived from Matthew 4:19, when Christ said, ‘follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.’”

Prince’s faith calls him to be an artist; his work is an unending exploration of that faith and its relationship to his life, his culture, and his community. “We are all living epistles, whether we want to be or not,” said Prince. He will expound on some of these themes when he comes to campus on Sunday and Monday, September 2 and 3.

An exhibit reception will be held on Sunday from 7 to 8:30 p.m. with an artist talk at 8. He will also speak Monday at 11 a.m. in the B.J. Haan Auditorium as the first in a series of First Mondays Speakers.

The public is also welcome to participate in a Watercolor Callagraphy Workshop on Monday from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m.

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Highlighting a print by John Page: elegant geometrical roof domes on barns and chicken coops

John Page, “Chicken House”, 1984, color intaglio, 35.5” x 23.5”, Image is courtesy of Roy R. Behrens. [1]

While doing research for another project I inadvertently found “Chicken House” by John Page (b. 1923) in the 1985 exhibition catalog “Iowa Printmakers’ Invitational Exhibition, Traveling Exhibition.” Under the auspices of the Iowa Arts Council, John Huseby organized and curated the show. Regarding Page, Huseby writes the following description in the exhibition catalog, “At the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, John Page, a former [Mauricio] Lasansky student, has been teaching printmaking for a number of years.”[2] John is now professor emeritus, having retired in 1988.


A wonderful pair: L: Hen House, Engraving, 8", 1976, Allamakee Co. Iowa; R: Hen House, Engraving with watercolor, 8", 1976

John mentions that the main motivation for “Chicken House” was an old abandoned hen house that, as he says, “I found in northeast Iowa, off a gravel road near the schoolhouse we owned in section sixteen in Allamakee County. It was rather weathered and weed-surrounded. It was surprisingly small (one had to stoop to go inside), and I later found it was a Sears catalog kit especially for farm wives to raise chickens for their eggs.” [3] Page developed his hen house studies by recording the building in the condition and environment as he found it (see above, engraving and engraving with watercolor). More than documentary, with these images he seems to bring out the lyrical and poetic “ruins” which is perhaps a play on the Roman ruins engraving/etchings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi. As if referencing Piranesi, Page imaginatively gauges the elements in the scene in order to suggest the golden rectangle geometry that seems to be implied in the compositional center and structure of the print.

Viewing the engraved images as studies John provides this insight into “Chicken House”:

Looking more creatively, I saw how the horizontal drip-line of the dome was just the half point of the face and that a circle beginning with the dome could be made to complete (partly the shadow line), the dome and face making a complete circle. The chimney pipe could have reference to the Golden Rectangle. I was doing a lot with that proportion in other work, and that tends to project to what you see. You will notice that the rooster’s head is right at the focus of the whirling squares. You will also notice that “proper perspective” is not seen on the width of the windows as they recede or on the shingles on the dome. I rather like the way the aquatint leafy green part came out and the continuation of the square motif on the upper sections. [4] 

It’s interesting that John liked the “continuation of the square motif.” Perhaps it is a metaphor that he appreciated finding the chicken coop near property on “square” section sixteen in Allamakee County, Iowa. From these images it’s apparent that John can draw very well and are indicative of his artist sketchbook habit.


Tonsfeldt’s Round Barn, 1918, Le Mars, Iowa. Photograph by versluis, 2012

Discovering John Page’s print, “Chicken House” was a wonderful reminder of the unusual and unique beauty of round barn architecture. Shown above is the Tonsfeldt’s Round Barn in Le Mars, Iowa and it’s an especially well preserved example of early twentieth century round barn architecture found in Iowa. Interestingly, the barn has a center silo that provides both feed storage and a supporting column for the structure.

In 1916-18 H. A. (Peter) Tonsfeldt was being progressive when he envisioned his iconic round barn. He wanted the efficiency of round barn technology and beauty of a classical, Renaissance style cathedral dome to display his prized polled Hereford bull and purebred cattle. Apparently it took two years for Zack Eyres and his Le Mars, Iowa Construction Company to build the 5200 sq. ft., 82x68 feet (25x20.7meters) round wooden barn. The barn, completed in 1918, still exudes fine craft and exceptional quality. Herman and Clara Lang purchased Tonsfeldt’s farm in 1928. After Clara’s death, the farm was sold and the new owner’s donated the barn to the Plymouth County Fair Board and in 1981 the barn was moved to the fairgrounds in Le Mars.[5]

1. Image taken from “John Page – A Retrospective Exhibition in Three Parts” (catalog), University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, 1992.
2. Huseby, John. Iowa Printmakers. Des Moines: Iowa Arts Council, 1985. n.p. Print. 
3. Page, John. “Chicken House color intaglio.” Message to the author. 5 July 2012. Web.
4. Ibid.
5. Horlyk, Earl. “Repairing Le Mars' historic Round Barn.” Daily Sentinel. Ed. Tom Stangl. Le Mars Daily Sentinel, 15 Oct. 2007. Web. 3 July 2012. <http://www.lemarssentinel.com/story/1284479.html>.

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Thirst / 3st posters on display at Dordt College

The Dordt College Department of Art and Design is currently featuring poster designs created by the Chicago-based design studio, Thirst.

The exhibit is currently on display in the Dordt College Art Gallery located inside the Campus Center, and it will run through July 15. The public is welcome to enjoy the exhibit free of charge Monday through Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Founder of Thirst and Graphic Designer Rick Valicenti has shared a sampling of posters that span the company’s nearly 25-year history including the 2011 Show Boat poster which is part of the seminal Lyric Opera of Chicago poster series, a decade of Illinois Institute of Design College of Architecture Lecture series posters, and the internationally acclaimed LOEB posters for Harvard’s Graduate Students of Design.

The exhibition was assembled by art (graphic design) professor David Versluis who spent the spring semester on sabbatical in Chicago working at Thirst. “This is the largest collection of Thirst’s posters outside of their studio,” said Versluis. “Viewers seem to be keenly aware that this exhibition is smart and special with exceptional imagination. Each poster has high visual impact while collectively this body of work is stunning.”

Valicenti has been influencing design internationally since 1988. He is a leader in design, taking on roles of practitioner, educator, and mentor.

In John Foster’s book New Masters of Poster Design, Valicenti says, “The best part of designing a poster is the hardest part of designing a poster—deciding what to actually print. Unlike when designing a catalog or book, the designer has but one page to express the program, the event, or the system, not 32 or 332 pages! I thoroughly enjoy the challenge.”

In 2011, Valicenti was awarded the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum Award in Communication Design, an honor designated by the White House. The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) honored Valicenti the Medal in 2006, the highest honor of the graphic design profession, for his sustained contribution to design excellence and the development of the profession. He was recognized as an AIGA/Chicago Fellow in 2004 and has been a member of Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI) since being invited in 1996.

Valicenti has juried the President’s Design Awards for the National Endowment for the Arts during the George H.W. Bush and William Clinton Administrations. Valicenti also serves on the Board of Directors of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work has been published in major graphic design publications including Eye.06 (London), Émigré (twice) and Idea (in Tokyo). His book, Emotion as Promotion, was published by Monacelli Press in 2005.

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A photographic montage of the original Carl Street Studio, Chicago

This is a view (northwest elevation) of Edgar Miller and Sol Kogen’s original Carl Street Studios which was erected in 1927. The street name changed sometime in the 1930s to West Burton Place and the building is located in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood. In the last 25 years the studio has become a single family residence. Obviously, I’m not the first to highlight the Carl Street Studios but felt the pictures were interesting enough to be featured. (select the images for a larger view)

The mosaic street number sign at 155 West Burton Place and the home-made commemorative sign honor the Edgar Miller and Sol Kogen collaboration that began in 1927 and continued for nearly a decade. (select the images for a larger view)

A prominent architectural feature is the bay window with carved timbers. The wood timbers and trim was designed and carved by Edgar Miller in a stylized manner and suggests a strong indigenous folk art character. Inset terracotta tiles represent the mythical Greco-Roman deity Dionysus / Bacchus who was regarded as an inspiration to artists, philosophers and writers as well as being a friend to the spiraled horned eland and the antlered elk. Another interest of Miller is the horse motif and equine tiles which are inset on the sides of the bay. (select the images for a larger view)

The initials S and K for Sol Kogen become an integral part of the iron entry gate which is framed by a solid post and lintel threshold and mosaic sidewalk.  The exterior walls of the original house were covered with a new facade of common brick and featured ornamental textural elements and patterns. Edgar Miller designed and made his work himself. Miller felt that it was the responsibility of the artist to not only design the work but have the skill and ability to make it and install it. For Edgar, the best art for the home was literally built into the architecture. (select the images for a larger view)

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Gerrit Noordzij: having a good time when you’re teaching

Above is a Vimeo frame still of Gerrit Noordzij as he’s sketching and explaining the design of letterforms during his talk at TypeMedia on 25 March 2010. Erik van Blokland posted the video.

Noordzij is the renowned graphic designer and teacher at the Dutch Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. A great little book titled, The Stroke: Theory of Writing (1985) was written by Gerrit Noordzij and translated fairly recently by Peter Enneson (thank you, Peter). The publisher, Hyphen Press, states, “The Stroke stands out as the most concise and complete summary of Noordzij’s theories on type.”

In an excerpt from an interview with Robin Kinross, Noordzij describes how he teaches his “binary system” to students — Noordzij prefaces:

… any writing of any civilization begins with the stroke, and the stroke is made with the tool [brush or pen], and if you have a stiff tool, then the shape of the tool dominates the character of your writing, and with a soft tool the impulse of your hand dominates the writing.

Noordzij continues to explain:

I always found it very nice to ask my students “is it this? or is it that?”… It’s a nice method. It’s the binary tree.… My system is good for finding your way in design.…

The journalist Margaret Richardson once asked me what my main objective was in teaching. I said, to have a good time. She thought that I was not serious. But I said I was serious. And why did I want to have a good time? As a teacher you can only have a good time when your students are sure that they have a good time. I tried to find things that the students found interesting. Thought-provoking things are always the best; they like that.

I wanted to ask my students to study the book Printing Types by [D.B.] Updike. Then after three weeks I would ask them about it. In my classes we didn’t have what is called a ‘discipline’. Imagine that you go to your students, show them these impressive thick volumes, and say that you will ask them about the book in three weeks’ time. What do they say? “Oh, that's too much! We have so many things to do!” I just took a paragraph from the book and read it aloud. They started laughing. I said: “how do you think that this man could be so famous and yet say such stupid things?” The next day they were crowding around me with quotations and arguments. Just ask a student to find the faults in Updike or in Morison or in me, and they will bring you arguments.

It is just as with a child playing a game. I think that many students have the feeling, often unconsciously, that playing this game could be important for everything else in their lives. It may not really go to the heart of the matter, nevertheless it’s a good problem for a school. It’s a problem that can be a metaphor for your real problems, and because it's just a metaphor you can play with it. Then the only thing that you have to do as a teacher is watch, and show that you are present. So that when people are doing dangerous things, they can afford the risk, because you are there. When you are at the back of the class, sometimes you see somebody look to see if you are still there. That keeps you alive, or at least it gives you a good time.

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M.C. Escher and the Keramiekmuseum Princessehof, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

Top photograph by versluis, 2004 — Credit for the close-up photograph below it is from SmitoniusAndSonata, all rights reserved.

Pictured above are ceramic tiles on the exterior wall of the Princessehof Ceramics Museum in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. The design is based on M.C. Escher’s 1949 woodcut titled the “Regular Division of the Plane With Birds.” The piece commemorates the fact that M.C. (Maurits Cornelis) Escher (1898–1972) was born in Leeuwarden.

Escher felt that the regular division of the plane using contiguous shapes was one of the most interesting problems he dealt with. In an essay titled “Coloured Symmetry” Prof. H.S.M. Coxeter quotes Escher as saying:

“A plane, which should be considered limitless on all sides, can be filled with or divided into similar geometric figures that border each other on all sides without leaving any ‘empty spaces’. This can be carried on to infinity according to a limited number of systems.”[1]

Escher goes on to say this about his interest in the motifs of animal shapes:

“… My experience has taught me that the silhouettes of birds and fish are the most gratifying shapes of all for use in the game of dividing the plane. The silhouette of a flying bird has just the necessary angularity, while the bulges and indentations in the outline are neither too pronounced nor too subtle ….”[2]

1. Coxeter, H. S. M. “Coloured Symmetry.” M.C. Escher: Art and Science. Ed. H. S. M. Coxeter, M. Emmer, R. Penrose, and M. L. Teuber. 2nd ed. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., 1987. 15. Print.
2. Ibid. 16.

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Eames House (1949): “Arts & Architecture” Case Study #8

Photograph by versluis, 2011

The Eames House seems, ironically, to contrast with nature and yet at the same time is integral to nature. This horizontal architectural structure of steel, glass, and sheet metal is close in proximity to the Pacific Ocean and becomes a backdrop for the strong verticality of magnificent eucalyptus trees.

Charles and Ray Eames, a husband-and-wife design team, were the principal designers for their house in Pacific Palisades, just northwest and adjacent to Santa Monica, California. The house, built in 1949 was one of the “Case Study Houses” commissioned in 1945 by John Entenza, editor of Arts and Architecture magazine. The main objective of the so-called Case Study Houses was to utilize wartime technology and materials to build modern homes that could fulfill the housing shortage after World War II. [1]

In A Global History of Architecture the authors write this short description about the Eames House:

For the Entenza project, the Eames initially had in mind a pristine Mies-like cube standing on two slender steel columns, cantilevered out from the slope of a hillside lot. However, in 1947, the Eames [especially Ray] decided to build the house more to conform to their personal lifestyle. Still using the same amount of steel, they designed it to enclose more space. The new house, anchored by a retaining wall, nestles against the hillside, parallel to its contours, making it a statement as much about the site, the location, and the inhabitants, as about the deployment of prefabricated industrial materials. Their house featured extremely thin steel framing, with exposed corrugated metal roofing; the building consisted of 18 bays, 2.3 meters wide, 6 meters long, and 5 meters high, which determined the rhythm of the structure. Glazed panels—transparent. opaque, or translucent, as the situation demanded, and occasionally interrupted by painted panels in bright, primary colors [however, gold instead of yellow]—appeared to be an homage to Mondrian. The windows were operable at midlevel, and sliding doors connected to and integrated the courtyard. Grass, plants, and trees surround the building on all sides. [2]

1. Neuhart, John, Marilyn Neuhart, and Ray Eames. Eames Design, The Work of the Office of Charles and Ray Eames. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1989. 106-21. Print.
2. Ching, Francis D. K., Mark Jarzombek, and Vikramaditya Prakash. A Global History of Architecture. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007. 719. Print.

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intrinsic color and pattern

“The Juggler,” a Parisian street performer who seems to be playing for the camera, is performing near the Carrousel Venitien at Place Saint-Pierre in Montmartre. This location is below the hill from the basilique du Sacré-Coeur (Basilica of the Sacred Heart). Photograph © 2010 by versluis.

Besides being one of the best street performances in Paris this performer was also visually compelling by the intrinsic color and pattern of his attire. In addition, this photograph tries to capture the unruffled balance and symmetry of the juggler’s dynamic movements.

One of the things suggested by this photograph is a passage from George Nelson’s book, “How to See” in which he writes, “Just how much any of us sees of the most intimate personal environments is an open question. Can you describe to colors and pattern of any rug in your dwelling? The wallpaper in the bedroom? When were they last looked at?”[1]

1. Nelson, George. How to See: A Guide to Reading Our Manmade Environment. Boston, Toronto: Little, Brown and Company, 1977. 224. Print.

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An AIGA visitor: Paul Berkbigler

Copyright for artwork and poster belongs to P.Berkbigler Design & Illustration © 2011.

The amazing Paul Berkbigler will be visiting Dordt College. As Paul says, “to talk about his life on the lamb as an escaped designer and illustrator working independently in the Midwest on projects across America. This event will offer you insights about the brave new world of working virtually from somewhere awfully close to your own living room.”

Join us in the Department of Art and Design Lobby from 4–5:15 p.m. on Wednesday, January 12 for an open Q&A session. This will be a chance to hear about how AIGA can directly help you.

Paul is a full-time, independent owner, proprietor and general honcho at P.Berkbigler Design & Illustration, which is based in Lincoln, Nebraska. Berkbigler also serves as Director of Education for AIGA Nebraska. His prior lives include: working at Studio X, a small design and illustration firm in St. Louis, Missouri, earning an MFA in graphic and interactive design at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and serving as a full-time professor of design & illustration at Concordia University, Nebraska.

His professional specialties include layout & design, interactive media conceptualization, planning and implementation, motion graphic planning and creation, copy writing, play writing, editing, critical analysis, visual communication research, digital and hands-on illustration, printmaking and print process familiarity.

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Quotations on creativity—Gertrude Stein

Portrait of Gertrude Stein, with American flag as backdrop (1935 January 4)
Photographer: Carl Van Vechten
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Van Vechten Collection, reproduction number LC-USZ62-103680

Graphic design students as well as writers may find this quote, by American expatriate writer/author Gertrude Stein, an interesting model for practice:

… ‘You will write … if you will write without thinking of the result in terms of a result, but think of the writing in terms of discovery, which is to say the creation must take place between the pen and the paper, not before in a thought, or afterwards in a recasting. Yes, before in a thought, but not in careful thinking. It will come if it is there and you will let it come, and if you have anything you will get a sudden creative recognition. You won’t know how it was, even what it is, but it will be creation if it came out of the pen and out of you and not out of an architectural drawing of the thing you are doing … I can tell how important it is to have that creative recognition. You cannot go into the womb to form the child; it is there and makes itself and comes forth whole—and there it is and you have made it and felt it, but it has come itself—and that is creative recognition. Of course you have a little more control over your writing than that; you have to know where you want to get; but when you know that, let it take you and if it seems to take you off the track don’t hold back, because that is perhaps where instinctively you want to be and if you hold back and try to be always where you have been before, you will go dry’ …

Quote found in “The Uses of the Unconscious in Composing” by Janet Emig (1964), 7-8. In her essay, Emig cites her source as: John Hyde Preston, “A Conversation with Gertrude Stein,” in Brewster Ghiselin, The Creative Process (New York, 1962), 159-160.

Emig, Janet A. “The Uses of the Unconscious in Composing.” JSTOR: College Composition and Communication, Vol. 15, No. 1, Composition as Art. JSTOR, Feb. 1964. Published by: National Council of Teachers of English. Web. 21 July 2010. http://www.jstor.org/stable/355938.

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A Letter by Gene Masselink

Leelanau County, Michigan, near Northport. —Photograph © 2010 David Versluis

Eugene Masselink, known as Gene to people affiliated with Taliesin, was Frank Lloyd Wright’s secretary as well as a very fine painter and designer. He came to Taliesin in 1933 and worked there until his death in 1962.

We’ve attached the video featuring Effi Casey, of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, as she reads one of Gene’s letters to an audience at the Taliesin Fellowship Apprentice reunion in 1992.

On a recent trip to northern Michigan we tried to find the specific view that Gene Masselink was referring to when writing the letter in c.1937. We could not locate the exact site that inspired Masselink, however, we did find a view that seems to come close and it’s pictured above. By now most of the farms are gone having been subdivided into smaller acreages for residential and water front properties. Orchards, vineyards, excellent wineries and small dairies, making great Raclette cheese, still exist and are actually making a small comeback.



Ms. Casey’s introduction:
Gene Masselink wrote this column upon his return from vacationing at the bluffs on Garthrie’s farm near Northport, Michigan.

Masselink’s letter begins with:
I stood upon the hill where four years before I had first stood and saw far beyond me and below me. The endless blue depth of water made patterns upon the undulating strips of land. In perspective, I saw clearer then I had ever seen before how the parts of my thinking and working and dreaming were at that time as separated from the whole of my life as the buildings of that small farm below are separated from each other.

Masselink’s letter ends with:
I stood upon the hill with all the blue of the world in my eyes and longed to immediately rejoin the endless work for organic creative life at Taliesin.

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French Curves in Honfleur

These natural and painted wood entrance doors were all found on the same street and not that far from the harbor in Honfleur, France. As architectural antiques the doors are very inviting as well as being interesting examples of French decorative and functional design. The natural wood door displays classic spirals while the green and red doors show some stylistic elements of Art Nouveau. In addition, the cast iron metal work functions as glass protection.

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