ART / DESIGN TALKS begin Wednesday, May 7

NEW SERIES of talks on art and design, beginning Wednesday, May 7, 2025, at the HEARST CENTER FOR THE ARTS in Cedar Falls IA. Presenter: Roy R. Behrens.

Mary Snyder Behrens / currently exhibited work

Mary Snyder Behrens / 2025

Tomorrow afternoon marks the opening "artists' reception" for an exhibition (12:00-2:00 pm), titled the 2025 Group Fiber Show, at the Burlington Art Center (301 Jefferson Street) in Burlington, Iowa. 

Shown above is one of the featured works, a dress made entirely of used tea bags, titled The Tea Party Dress, created by Iowa-based artist Mary Snyder Behrens (2025). More examples of her work can be accessed online here.

Despite its recycled components, the elegance of this artwork is undeniable. To see it only in photographs is one experience surely, but its nuanced richnesses become far more evident when viewed in person. You won't regret it.

book design and when work is truly meaningful

Above Merle Armitage cover design for his book, George Gershwin, Man and Legend. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1958.

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Bernard Wolfe, Memoirs of a Not Altogether Shy Pornographer (Garden City NY: Doubleday and Company, 1972), p. 157.  

[THERE IS a Law of Laws] that says, it's not the paycheck you get that determines the value of the work you do, it's the inspired and organized energy you put into the project, the invention, inner direction, personal thrust no matter what payroll you're on, the best payrolls are your own, the best jobs are free-lance. That says, the difference between those who do and those who get done to and [who get done] in is what's hungered for, the life on your feet or the life flat on your back. That says, there are the active ones, the makers; then there are the passive ones, the made. That says, work ethic be damned, what we're talking about is the nature and direction of hunger, whether your need is to stiff the world a little or be steamrollered.

Chap-Book Style Poster for Bicycle Club / 1895

Above Will H. Bradley, Bicycle Poster (1895).

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Billie Holiday—

They think they can make fuel from horse manure…Now, I don’t know if your car will be able to get 30 miles to the gallon, but it’s sure gonna put a stop to siphoning.

title slide / what have you to share with us today

Speaking of class meetings and education, while they still exist, I am currently preparing a series of three online talks (for OLLI Drake) about various aspects of art and design. One source of pleasure in preparing these is (of course) to share my ideas about the process of designing. Another source is the process of designing the slides that are actually used in the talk. This is the title slide for the third talk in the series.

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Vernon Fisher, Navigating the Stars (Chicago and Kansas City: Landfall Press & Karl Oskar Group. 1989). p. 24—

One little girl never brought anything to sharing time. Other children might bring an authentic Indian head-dress acquired on a vacation in Arizona, or a Civil War sword handed down from Great Granddad, but whenever the teacher asked: "Dori, do you have anything to share with us today?" she only stared at the top of her desk, shaking her head firmly from side to side. Then one day, long after her turn had mercifully passed, Dori abruptly left her seat and walked to the front of the class. With everyone's startled attention she began: "Today on the way to school I found something that I want to share." She held her arm stiffly out in front of her and began slowly dropping tiny pieces of shredded Kleenex. "See?" she said. "Snow."

dreams of fields / book of essays coming soon

An advance announcement has just been made by Ice Cube Press (North Liberty IA) of my soon to be published book, titled DREAMS OF FIELDS: Memory Traces of Iowa’s Past.

It’s a collection of twenty-five essays that I’ve published over many years. They are accounts of people and occurences in Iowa’s past, some of which are all but unknown, while others are familiar, but presented in a different light.

I doubt if many people know, for example, that Ralph Waldo Emerson walked across the winter ice on the Mississippi River to speak in Iowa towns, Cedar Falls among them. Or, what took place in 1939 when Frank Lloyd Wright and Grant Wood spoke at the same festival in Iowa City.

Who knows that Iowans from Manchester, including three of my great aunts, lived among the Navajo in New Mexico for three decades, promoted Native American arts, and published books about sandpainting and other traditions in Navajo life? One of the most celebrated American women photographers was Iowa-born, as was the artist who (unnamed) drew the cartoons for Robert Ripley’s syndicated features—Believe It or Not.  

The book is currently out for review. It will be officially launched at a reading on Sunday, August 17, at 2:00-3:00 pm, at the Hearst Center for the Arts in Cedar Falls. Mark that down!

In the meantime, don’t hesitate to share the news with others who yearn for the past of our state and our nation. More information can be found, and pre-orders can be placed online at <https://icecubepress.com/2025/01/27/dreams-of-fields/>.

metamorphosis / shape-shifting and animation

Of late we’ve been exploring the workings of metamorphosis, the transition of a single form from one shape to another. A phenomenon not unrelated to shape-shifting, evolution diagrams, and animation sequences.

Among the best inventors of metamorphic sequences was a Victorian artist named Charles H. Bennett (1828-1867). He was more generally known for comic illustrations, such as those for children’s books. He's worth looking into.

Above and below are examples from a series of metamorphic images that were initially published weekly in The Illustrated Times (c1863) as Studies in Darwinesque Development, which was later republished posthumously in a book titled Character Sketches, Development Drawings and Original Pictures of Wit and Humor (1872).

 

Buffalo Bill look-alike becomes an airborne hero

Wherever I’ve lived, I think I’ve always been interested in what has happened in the past in that state, region or location. South, East, West, Midwest. Wherever. I am often amazed by the things that I’ve found. This month I’ve published a new essay about an Iowa-born performer who partly made his living from pretending to be another Iowa-born showman, the illustrious William F. Cody or Buffalo Bill. 

The wannabe impersonator, who ended up adopting the name of Colonel Samuel Franklin Cody, eventually moved to Europe, where he became the British equivalent of the Wright Brothers—that is, he invented some of the first powered aircraft, and piloted what is considered to be the first airplane flight in England. You can find the entire story in the February 2025 issue of The Iowa Source (Fairfield IA), but it’s also online here.

dinner scraps of great horned owls and others

Wikipedia article: A pellet, in ornithology, is the mass of undigested parts of a bird's food that some bird species occasionally regurgitate. The contents of a bird's pellet depend on its diet, but can include the exoskeletons of insects, indigestible plant matter, bones, fur, feathers, bills, claws, and teeth. 

Photograph copyright © Mary Snyder Behrens 2025.