Taoism, Frank Lloyd Wright and Space Within

Frank Lloyd Wright photomontage (2016) •

Laozi [formerly Lao-Tze or Lao-Tse], Tao Te Ching (c. 4th century BC)—

Thirty spokes meet in the hub, but the empty space between them is the essence of the wheel. Pots are formed from clay, but the empty space within it is the essence of the pot. Walls with windows and doors form the house, but the empty space within it is the essence of the home.

•••

Jonathan Hale, The Old Way of Seeing (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), pp. 176-177—

[Frank Lloyd] Wright played with such [surface] decoration, but he abandoned it around 1900. Wright's continuity meant that each element and aspect—shape, color, texture—participates, not as one thing on another but as one thing with another. This is why Wright came to understand that materials required expression for what they were. The purpose was not to be morally honest, but to let each element be seen and experienced individually. In the unity of a Wright building, every component is active.

The essence of each material stands out. Wood is not painted, because paint would conceal its "woodness"—its color, grain, odor. Paint would muddy the experience of continity, which accords value to everything. So the wood is unpainted. The blocky rectangularity of brick is revealed so that each brick reads as a clear element. Wright would never paint brick…because the idea is to emphasize "brickness." The Wright building does not use brick, it is brick. But geometry comes ahead of material in a Wright building…But even the pattern is not dominant. Wright uses pattern to bring out space. Space, the nothing, is dominant.

• Montage by Roy R. Behrens (© 2016). Public domain image sources: Carol M. Highsmith photograph of V.C. Morris building, and Al Ravenna, photograph of Frank Lloyd Wright (New York World-Telegram and the Sun Collection), both from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs.

See also: Roy R. Behrens, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (2016). 

Frank Lloyd Wright | His Favorite Jokes

Roy R. Behrens, Robie House Montage (2016) •

David Henken (Wright apprentice and engineer, in a letter to his wife), in Priscilla J. Henken, Taliesin Diary: A Year with Frank Lloyd Wright (New York: W.W. Norton, 2012), p. 92—

[After Christmas dinner in 1942] Frank [Lloyd Wright] read some jokes from a gift book he received, killed himself laughing at each joke so that we couldn't hear them at all. I managed to piece a few together as samples show.

Father: When George Washington was your age, he was working as a surveyor and making a success of himself. 
Son: When he was your age he was President of the United States.

Grandmother to granddaughter: Dear I want you to promise me never to use a certain two words—one is swell and the other lousy.
Granddaughter: Why, of course, I'll promise. What are the words?

•••

Frank Lloyd Wright—

Television is chewing gum for the eyes. 

•  Image sources: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs, and NASA. See also Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (2016)

Frank Lloyd Wright Gold Medal | 1982

Frank Lloyd Wright gold medal (1982)

Above  Frank Lloyd Wright half ounce gold medal. American Arts Commemorative Series. US Treasury, 1982. Wikipedia Commons. Heritage Auctions. Public domain.

•••

Edgar Tafel, Years with Frank Lloyd Wright: Apprentice to Genius. New York: Dover Publications, 1985, pp. 85-86—

If we [Frank Lloyd Wright's apprentices] expected one thing, he did another. If we did something one way on one day, it was not necessary to do it the same way the next. Coming back from [an unexpected detour into] Canada, we went through Niagara Falls. When we got to the border, the customs man asked, "All of you born in the United States?" Before we could stop him, Manuel [an apprentice woodworker] yelled out, "Born in Nee-kah-RAAH-wah" and then admitted he hadn't brought his papers. None of us knew we were going through Canada, so it had never occurred to Manuel to bring his documents. "Follow me," said the official, and we watched him lead Manuel off to the customs detention office. That was it for Mr. Wright. He got furious, burst out of the car, and besieged the office. I waited in the car for a while, then got curious. I went to the office to see what was up. There was Mr. Wright stomping around and declaring to everyone that he was a great American, that he was a friend of Carl Sandburg and Clarence Darrow, that he was an internationally known architect, that he'd never do anything that wasn't thoroughly American. The customs officials were completely dismayed. They let Manuel go, and we returned to the car and drove on toward Buffalo. Within five minutes, Mr. Wright was snoozing. He could fall asleep anywhere, anytime.

Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City (2016)

Prairie School, Iowa and Frank Lloyd Wright

Prairie panoramas (c1910). Library of Congress Prints and Photographs.

W.O. Mitchell—

High above the prairie, platter-flat, the wind wings on, bereft and wild its lonely song.

•••

Loren Lown—

We have left less than one-tenth of one percent of our prairie. The rest of it died to make Iowa safe for soybeans.

•••

Bill Bryson (The Lost Continent)—

I had forgotten how empty and flat it [the American Midwest] is. Stand on two phone books almost anywhere in Iowa and you get a view.

FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (2016)

Frank Lloyd Wright | Judge Not

Page spread from Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City (2016)

Edgar Tafel, Ed., About Wright: An Album of Recollections by Those Who Knew Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: John Wiley, 1993, p. 255—

In 1946 I sat, apprehensive, for the interview part of the New York license examination. The interview was held in a formal and imposing setting—I was at one end of a long table facing eight judging architects. They passed my application folder ceremoniously among themselves, each either grunting or sniggering—a few smiling—as their eyes fell on a certain folder notation. There seemed to be mystery afoot. When my folder reached the last reviewer and the closest to me, I took a look at it. I notice a familiar Wright red square on the letter at the top of the group of recommendations. Knowing immediately that it was from Wright and being unable to restrain my curiosity, I asked if I could hear what Wright had written about me. The judge replied in a dour tone, "He says we aren't qualified to judge you." I was allowed to take the examination and I passed.

Frank Lloyd Wright | Sleight of Hand

Cover | Frank Lloyd Wright and Mason City (2016)

Edgar Tafel, Ed., About Wright: An Album of Recollections by Those Who Knew Frank Lloyd Wright. New York: John Wiley, 1993, p. 69—

A building committee from a Lutheran church came to see [Frank Lloyd] Wright; they discussed a program and went away, being told to come back in two weeks. When the two weeks were about up, Gene [Masselink, his assistant] suggested to Wright they call off the visit to see the plans—they hadn't been started—at the last minute. Mr. Wright had the plans for an abandoned job, a small shopping center, brought out of the vault, and he change the titles of the areas; the bank became the sanctuary, the supermarket became the Fellowship Hall, the stores were entitled classrooms, and on and on. The Lutheran title was inscribed just as the Lutherans arrived, and Mr. Wright showed them the drawings, with accustomed gusto and aplomb. After he finished his talk, the pastor said: "Lord, we thank thee for leading us to a great architect, who has designed in your honor, an edifice we will use and enjoy. Amen." Heads were raised; the clients departed; end of story? The building never got built.

Joseph Podlesnik Poster | Nick Baumann 2016

Joseph Podlesnik Poster © Nicholas Baumann (2016) •

Above Poster by Nicholas Baumann, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa, in celebration of the photographs of Joseph Podlesnik. An artist, photographer, and filmmaker (BFA University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, MFA Cornell University), he is associate professor and lead faculty for foundations at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. In 2016, he received the Inez Hall Outstanding Faculty Award. He lives in Phoenix AZ.

Podlesnik's photographs (reproduced with his permission from Almost Seeing) are of particular interest because (despite appearances) they were not constructed in Adobe Photoshop by sandwiching multiple layers. Nor are they double exposures. They are simply single frame, through the lens camera shots, by which he makes astonishing use of light, shadow and reflections.

•••
 
Frank Luther Mott in "The SPCS" [Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Speakers] in The Palimpest (State Historical Society of Iowa). Vol 43 No 3 (March 1962), pp. 114-115—

I think the best speech I ever made was one to a Rotary Club which had asked me to discuss "Freedom of the Press" during Newspaper Week. I shall favor my readers with the entire speech herewith: "Mr. President. Gentlemen of the Rotary Club: There is no such thing as freedom of the press. I thank you." Then I sat down, to the consternation of the program chairman. Of course, I spoiled it all later by yielding to the urging of the president to go on and say something about it anyway, and I talked for a while about the nature of freedom and the controls to which the press is subject. It would have served right and served me well for my smart aleck "hamming" if the Rotarians had all walked out immediately after I had sat down, but they were so intrigued by the spectacle of a man who actually appeared not to want to make a speech that they stayed it out.

• Photograph used in the poster copyright © Joseph Podlesnik. All rights reserved.

Joseph Podlesnik Poster | Kaycee Miller 2016

Joseph Podlesnik Poster © Kaycee Miller (2016) •

Above Poster by Kaycee Miller, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa, in celebration of the photographs of Joseph Podlesnik. An artist, photographer, and filmmaker (BFA University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, MFA Cornell University), he is associate professor and lead faculty for foundations at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. In 2016, he received the Inez Hall Outstanding Faculty Award. He lives in Phoenix AZ.

Podlesnik's photographs (reproduced with his permission from Almost Seeing) are of particular interest because (despite appearances) they were not constructed in Adobe Photoshop by sandwiching multiple layers. Nor are they double exposures. They are simply single frame, through the lens camera shots, by which he makes astonishing use of light, shadow and reflections.

•••
Jack Pritchard, View From a Long Chair. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984, p. 124—

{Bauhaus designer Laszlo] Moholy-Nagy had a wonderful way of using words as if in error or through not understanding—sometimes, I suspect, on purpose. On one occasion John Betjeman had taken him to a party. As Moholy left he said to the hostess in his strange pronunciation, "Thank you for your hostilities." She was a little taken aback, and when Moholy told John Betjeman what had happened, Betjeman said: "Oh I don't worry—she is hostile to everyone."

• Photograph used in poster copyright © Joseph Podlesnik. All rights reserved.

Joseph Podlesnik Poster | Megan Wellik 2016

Joseph Podlesnik Poster © Megan Wellik (2016) •

Above Poster by Megan Wellik, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa, in celebration of the photographs of Joseph Podlesnik. An artist, photographer, and filmmaker (BFA University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, MFA Cornell University), he is associate professor and lead faculty for foundations at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. In 2016, he received the Inez Hall Outstanding Faculty Award. He lives in Phoenix AZ.

Podlesnik's photographs (reproduced with his permission from Almost Seeing) are of particular interest because (despite appearances) they were not constructed in Adobe Photoshop by sandwiching multiple layers. Nor are they double exposures. They are simply single frame, through the lens camera shots, by which he makes astonishing use of light, shadow and reflections.

•••

Evelyn Waugh, A Little Learning (Boston: Little Brown, 1964), p. 29——

I remember a small sharp disappointment on the death of a pet rabbit. It developed a growth in the jaw and was sent to the vet to be killed. This was explained to me and I was reconciled to its loss. But the vet on his own initiative decided to operate. He sent the animal back a week later pronouncing it cured. I greeted it ecstatically and it died that night.

• Photograph used in poster copyright © Joseph Podlesnik. All rights reserved.

Joseph Podesnik Poster | Lauren Garnes 2016

Joseph Podlesnik Poster © Lauren Garnes (2016) •

Above Poster by Lauren Garnes, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa, in celebration of the photographs of Joseph Podlesnik. An artist, photographer, and filmmaker (BFA University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, MFA Cornell University), he is associate professor and lead faculty for foundations at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. In 2016, he received the Inez Hall Outstanding Faculty Award. He lives in Phoenix AZ.

Podlesnik's photographs (reproduced with his permission from Almost Seeing) are of particular interest because (despite appearances) they were not constructed in Adobe Photoshop by sandwiching multiple layers. Nor are they double exposures. They are simply single frame, through the lens camera shots, by which he makes astonishing use of light, shadow and reflections.

•••

Leonard Woolf [British writer, husband of Virginia Woolf] in Sowing: An Autobiography of the Years 1880 to 1904. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1960, p. 151—

And [British philosopher] Bertrand Russell has described the pleasure with which one used to watch philosopher [G.E.] Moore trying unsuccessfully to light his pipe when he was arguing an important point. He would light a match, hold it over the bowl of his pipe until it burnt his fingers and he had to throw it away, and go on doing this—talking the whole time or listening intently to the other man's argument—until the whole box of matches was exhausted.

• Photograph used in poster copyright © Joseph Podlesnik. All rights reserved.

Joseph Podlesnik Poster | Eldina Siljkovic 2016

Joseph Podlesnik Poster © Eldina Siljkovic (2016)

Above Poster by Eldina Siljkovic, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa, in celebration of the photographs of Joseph Podlesnik. An artist, photographer, and filmmaker (BFA University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, MFA Cornell University), he is associate professor and lead faculty for foundations at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. In 2016, he received the Inez Hall Outstanding Faculty Award. He lives in Phoenix AZ.

Podlesnik's photographs (reproduced with his permission from Almost Seeing) are of particular interest because (despite appearances) they were not constructed in Adobe Photoshop by sandwiching multiple layers. Nor are they double exposures. They are simply single frame, through the lens camera shots, by which he makes astonishing use of light, shadow and reflections.

•••

Morse Peckham, Man's Rage for Chaos: Biology, Behavior and the Arts. New York: Chilton Books, 1965—

Our lives are bathed in a continuous flow of signs which we interpret to catch the world in an ever-shifting network of categories. The condition of human life is continuous categorical metamorphosis. We are forever engaged in constructing around us an architecture of categories as fluid and yielding to our interests as the air. There is nothing man has not sacrificed, including millions of his fellow human beings, in the vain effort to fix that architecture, to stabilize his categories. But all knowledge, all science, all learning, all history, all thought are unstable, cannot be made static, even by the majesty of the law armed with the power of brute force.

• Photograph used in poster copyright © Joseph Podlesnik. All rights reserved.

Joseph Podlesnik Poster | Kaycee Miller

Joseph Podlesnik poster © Kaycee Miller (2016) •

Above Poster by Kaycee Miller, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa, in celebration of the photographs of Joseph Podlesnik. An artist, photographer, and filmmaker (BFA University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, MFA Cornell University), he is associate professor and lead faculty for foundations at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. In 2016, he received the Inez Hall Outstanding Faculty Award. He lives in Phoenix AZ.

Podlesnik's photographs (reproduced with his permission from Almost Seeing) are of particular interest because (despite appearances) they were not constructed in Adobe Photoshop by sandwiching multiple layers. Nor are they double exposures. They are simply single frame, through the lens camera shots, by which he makes astonishing use of light, shadow and reflections.

•••

Ralph Waldo Emerson—
Weed—a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered. 

• Photograph used in poster copyright © Joseph Podlesnik. All right reserved.

Joseph Podlesnik Poster | Jordan Goldbeck

Joseph Podlesnik Poster © Jordan Goldbeck (2016)

Above Poster by Jordan Goldbeck, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa, in celebration of the photographs of Joseph Podlesnik. An artist, photographer, and filmmaker (BFA University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, MFA Cornell University), he is associate professor and lead faculty for foundations at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. In 2016, he received the Inez Hall Outstanding Faculty Award. He lives in Phoenix AZ.

Podlesnik's photographs (reproduced with his permission from Almost Seeing) are of particular interest because (despite appearances) they were not constructed in Adobe Photoshop by sandwiching multiple layers. Nor are they double exposures. They are simply single frame, through the lens camera shots, by which he makes astonishing use of light, shadow and reflections.

•••

Norwood R. Hanson in Patterns of Discovery. Cambridge University Press, 1958—

Seeing is an experience. A retinal reaction is only a physical state… People, not their eyes, see. Cameras, and eyeballs, are blind…there is more to seeing than meets the eyeball.

• Photograph used in poster copyright © Joseph Podlesnik. All rights reserved.

Joseph Podlesnik Poster | Ellen Holt 2016

Joseph Podlesnik Poster © Ellen Holt (2016) •

Above Poster by Ellen Holt, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa, in celebration of the photographs of Joseph Podlesnik. An artist, photographer, and filmmaker (BFA University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, MFA Cornell University), he is associate professor and lead faculty for foundations at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. In 2016, he received the Inez Hall Outstanding Faculty Award. He lives in Phoenix AZ.

Podlesnik's photographs (reproduced with his permission from Almost Seeing) are of particular interest because (despite appearances) they were not constructed in Adobe Photoshop by sandwiching multiple layers. Nor are they double exposures. They are simply single frame, through the lens camera shots, by which he makes astonishing use of light, shadow and reflections.

•••

Saki in The Chronicles of Clovis. New York: Penguin Classics, 1989—

"Is your maid called Florence?" "Her name is Florinda." "What an extraordinary name to give a maid!" "I did not give it to her; she arrived in my service already christened." "What I mean is," said Mrs. Riversedge, "that when I get maids with unsuitable names I call them Jane; they soon get used to it." "An excellent plan," said the aunt of Clovis coldly; "unfortunately I have got used to being called Jane myself. It happens to be my name."

•••

H.G. Wells in Tales of Life and Adventure and Tales of Wonder. London: Heron Books, 1968—

"It's giving girls names like that [Euphemia]," said Buggins, "that nine times out of ten makes 'em go wrong. It unsettles 'em. If ever I was to have a girl, if ever I was to have a dozen girls, I'd call 'em all Jane."

• Photograph used in poster copyright © Joseph Podlesnik. All rights reserved.

Joseph Podlesnik Poster | Brandon Fagle 2016

Joseph Podlesnik Poster © Brandon Fagle (2016) •

Above Poster by Brandon Fagle, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa, in celebration of the photographs of Joseph Podlesnik. An artist, photographer, and filmmaker (BFA University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, MFA Cornell University), he is associate professor and lead faculty for foundations at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. In 2016, he received the Inez Hall Outstanding Faculty Award. He lives in Phoenix AZ.

Podlesnik's photographs (reproduced with his permission from Almost Seeing) are of particular interest because (despite appearances) they were not constructed in Adobe Photoshop by sandwiching multiple layers. Nor are they double exposures. They are simply single frame, through the lens camera shots, by which he makes astonishing use of light, shadow and reflections.

•••

Jeanette Winterson, Sexing the Cherry. New York: Grove Press, 1998—

I call him Jordan and it will do. He has no other name before or after. What was there to call him, fished as he was from the stinking Thames? A child can't be called Thames, no and not Nile either, for all his likeness to Moses. But I wanted to give him a river name, a name not bound to anything, just as the waters aren't bound to anything.

• Photograph used in poster copyright © Joseph Podlesnik. All rights reserved.

Joseph Podlesnik Poster | Kate O'Dell 2016

Joseph Podlesnik Poster © Kate O'Dell (2016) •

Above Poster by Kate O'Dell, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa, in celebration of the photographs of Joseph Podlesnik. An artist, photographer, and filmmaker (BFA University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, MFA Cornell University), he is associate professor and lead faculty for foundations at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. In 2016, he received the Inez Hall Outstanding Faculty Award. He lives in Phoenix AZ.

Podlesnik's photographs (reproduced with his permission from Almost Seeing) are of particular interest because (despite appearances) they were not constructed in Adobe Photoshop, by sandwiching multiple layers. Nor are they double exposures. They are simply single frame, through the lens camera shots, by which he makes astonishing use of light, shadow and reflections.

•••

Helen Barbour, quoted in Remar Sutton and Mary Abbott Waite, eds., The Common Ground Book: A Circle of Friends. Latham NY: British American Publishing, 1992, p. 237-238—

A group of us were driving up to a place in northwest Scotland. There were three of us in the backseat, Alastair, me, someone else. And we went past a house on the left side of the road which had turf on the roof with crocuses growing. It was March or April. And I turned to Alastair and said, "One day, when we have a house like that, we'll have crocuses and daffodils on the roof." Then I was immediately quiet because I realized what I'd said.

Alastair was very quiet for the next day or two…then he proposed.

• Photograph used in poster copyright © Joseph Podlesnik. All rights reserved.