Robert Frost / let what burrs will stick to them

Nature-Themed Poster © Roy R. Behrens 2019

Louis Untermeyer, FROM ANOTHER WORLD: The Autobiography of Louis Untermeyer. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1939—

…[the poet Robert Frost] was the friend of [British poet and critic Lascelles] Abercrombie whom [American poet Ezra] Pound had challenged to a duel, the weapons to be unsold copies of their books at thirty paces. (p. 208)

[Frost] wrote to me: “There are two types of realist—the one who offers a good deal of dirt with his potato to show that it is a real one, and the one who is satisfied with the potato brushed clean. I’m inclined to be the second kind. To me the thing that art does for life is to clean it, to strip it to form.” (p. 209)

[Quoting from Frost’s preface to his own Collected Poems:] “Scholars and artists thrown together are often annoyed at the puzzle of where they differ. Both work from knowledge; but I suspect they differ more importantly in the way their knowledge is come by. Scholars get theirs with conscientious thoroughness along projected lines of logic; poets theirs cavalierly and as it happens in and out of books. They stick to nothing deliberately, but let what will stick to them like burrs where they walk in the fields.” (p. 210)

song, carols, hymn, chants or even a drone

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Above Roy R. Behrens, Paul's New Acquisition (© 2021). Digital montage.

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Joseph Langland (Poetry! What in the World are You Saying?)—

I wanted to sing to you to say, not to be forgotten, that poetry is among other things, song, varied carols, hymns, chants, or even a drone. But it is verbal music; the word is its god, and the poet its worshipper. I never was much interested in helping anyone into poetry because he had exciting ideas, but the moment I find someone who is enchanted by a phrase I think that he might be trained to lift whatever he thinks into a whole holy city of the imagination.

As much chance of surviving as a sewer rat

American book designer Merle Armitage

In the early 1940s, shortly after the novelist Henry Miller had moved back to the US from Paris, he concluded that a noncommercial artist in America "has as much chance for survival as a sewer rat.”

Refusing to borrow or to hire out for "stultifying work," he sent out a letter inviting support from the readers of The New Republic, requesting, among other things. "old clothes, shirts. socks. etc. I am 5 feet 8 inches tall, weigh 150 pounds, 15 1/2 neck, 38 chest, 32 waist, hat and shoes both size 7 to 7 1/2. Love corduroys.”

The appeal worked and a number of curious mailings arrived, one of which contained a complete tuxedo. "What'll I ever do with this?” Miller asked a friend, then used it to dress up a scarecrow that sat for a generation on the picket fence in front of his Partington Ridge house in Big Sur, California.

Among other gifts was a cash contribution from Merle Armitage, an Iowa-born book designer, civil engineer, set designer, concert promoter, gourmet cook, art collector, and author. Armitage was living in California then, and soon after, when he visited Miller’s home for the first time, he described his own profession as that of an “impresario." "But I have heard that you were a writer,” replied Miller. "If the truth were known," Armitage explained, "I write books so that I will be able to design them.” In fact, by that time Armitage had designed nearly two dozen books, some of which he had also written.

But Miller was incredulous: “Does a book have to be designed?” he asked. “A book is a book, and I don’t see how you can do anything about it.” more>>>

Elena Diane Curris Design Exhibition | 2018

Opening on October 8, 2018, at the Gallery of Art at the University of Northern Iowa is the first of an on-going series of biennial design-themed exhibitions. Titled The Reach and Richness of Design: The Elena Diane Curris Biennial Design Exhibition, it consists of five components representing architectural design, editorial illustration, industrial design, information graphics, and wood type and typography. Included are works by Frank Lloyd Wright, Dennis Ichiyama, Ad Reinhardt and others, as well as historical artifacts from the collections of Jessica Helfand, and Paul D. Whitson. The exhibition is one part of The Elena Diane Curris Endowment, which also provides for the return to campus annually of past graduates of the UNI Graphic Design program, which is housed within the Department of Art. more>>>

Collections Poster | Maris Price

Poster © Maris Price 2016

Above and below Posters on the theme of collections and recollections by graphic design student Maris Price (2016), Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa.

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Mircea Eliade, Journal IV, 1979-1985 (University of Chicago Press, 1990)—

22 June 1979
At 7:30, at the Tacous’: reception for the marriage of their daughter, the beautiful Florence, to the son of Claude Mauriac. At 8:00, with G. Dumézil at the home of his son, the doctor. Splendid apartment. At dinner, Claude Lévi-Strauss—very charming toward me. But we didn’t talk much. Only in the taxi did I realize I’d taken Lévi-Strauss’s raincoat by mistake.

Poster © Maris Price 2016

Collections Poster | Rachel Bartholomay

Poster © Rachel Bartholomay 2016

Above Poster on the theme of collections and recollections by graphic design student Rachel Bartholomay (2016), Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa.

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Joseph Gerard Brennan in The American Scholar (Autumn 1978)—

[British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead] himself had moments when he was not quite sure where he had put things. One day in the early 1930s he had Professor James Melrose of Illinois to tea at the Whitehead cottage…It occurred to Whitehead that his guests might like to see the work in progress on a library addition to the house. So he led them outside, first carefully putting on Professor Melrose’s hat which he found in the coatroom closet and assumed was his own. After the excursion he returned the hat to the closet, but at tea’s end, when he and Mrs. Whitehead prepared to accompany the guests to their car, he went there once more for his hat. This time Melrose beat him to it and retrieved his lawful property. Whitehead reached up to the place where his visitor’s hat had been, made a little exclamation of surprise, then trotted some distance to a spot where his own hat hung on a hook. It was clear to his guests that the author of Process and Reality did not realize there were two hats, but believed that his own had in some unaccountable way changed its place.

Collections Poster | Heidi Schmidt

Poster © Heidi Schmidt 2016

Above Poster on the theme of collections and recollections by graphic design student Heidi Schmidt (Spring 2016), Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa.

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Anton Bilek, American Army soldier, interviewed in Studs Terkel, The Good War (New York: Pantheon, 1984)—

One time [during WWII, while interned in a Japanese prison camp, where he worked underground in a coal mine], at the end of the day, while I was waitin’ for the little train to take our shift out, I laid back against the rock wall, put my cap over my eyes, and tried to get some rest. The guy next to me says, “God damn, I wish I was back in Seattle.” I paid no attention. Guys were always talking about being back home. He said, “I  had a nice restaurant there and I lost it all.” I turned around and looked and it’s a Japanese [soldier]. He was one of the overseers. I was flabbergasted.

He said, “Now just don’t talk to me. I’ll do all the talkin’.” He’s talkin’ out of the side of his mouth. He says, “I was born and raised in Seattle, had a nice restaurant there. I brought my mother back to Japan. She’s real old and knew she was gonna die and she wanted to come home. The war broke out and I couldn’t get back to the States. They made me come down here and work in the coal mines.” I didn’t know what the hell to say to the guy. Finally the car come down and I says, “Well, see you in Seattle someday.” And I left. I never saw him after that.

Shunting, Hooting and Milking the Bull

Montage © Roy R. Behrens 2015

Elias Canetti (The Human Province)—

He lays sentences like eggs, but he forgets to incubate them.

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Samuel Johnson—

Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull. 

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Sir Frederick John Burrows—

Unlike my predecessors, I have devoted more of my life to shunting and hooting than to hunting and shooting [alluding to his former career as a railway man].

Vesterheim Talk on Mid-Century Modernism

Vesterheim Museum talk (Decorah IA)

Above Coming soon to the Vesterheim, The National Norwegian-American Museum & Heritage Center, in Decorah IA, at 2:00 pm on Sunday, March 29, 2015. Less Is More, More Or Less: The Roots of Mid-Century Modern Design, a richly illustrated talk by author and graphic designer Roy R. Behrens, Professor of Art and Distinguished Scholar at the University of Northern Iowa. More>>>

Mad Dog Poster | Sara Peters

Wrestling poster © Sara Peters (2014)

Above One of sixty-plus "Mad Dog" Vachon posters designed In the spring of 2014 by graphic design students in the Department of Art at the University of Northern Iowa, to promote the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum in Waterloo IA. Produced as a community project in a beginning graphic design course (as taught by Roy R. Behrens), this is one of three posters designed by undergraduate student Sara Peters (©2014).

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B.F. Skinner, Particulars of My Life. New York: New York University Press, 1984, p. 44—

She [his mother] had one ability about which there was no doubt: she could find four-leaf clovers. If she saw a patch of clover on someone's lawn, she would bend down and almost immediately come up with a stem with four leaves.  She would frequently find two or three while the rest of us searched in vain. Her satisfaction was intense, and she never overlooked an opportunity to demonstrate her skill.

Mad Dog Poster | Alexa Weilein

Wrestling poster © Alexa Weilein (2014)

Above One of sixty-plus "Mad Dog" Vachon posters designed In the spring of 2014 by graphic design students in the Department of Art at the University of Northern Iowa, to promote the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum in Waterloo IA. Produced as a community project in a beginning graphic design course (as taught by Roy R. Behrens), this is one of three posters designed by undergraduate student Alexa Weilein (©2014).

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Allan Sly, "Excerpts from Taped Reminiscences of Black Mountain" in Mervin Lane, ed., Black Mountain College: Sprouted Seeds: An Anthology of Personal Accounts. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990, p. 66—

[Bauhaus artist Josef] Albers was amongst those who came [to a Black Mountain College picnic in 1935]. When it came to toasting the hot dogs over the open fire, most speared their dogs with unbent coat hangers, but Albers preferred to bend his coat hanger into a letter S—laying his hot dog on top of it, which he then held over the fire. We pointed out to him the advantage of spearing it with the prong. But he said, "I like very much the S-form." His dog fell off into the fire.

Mad Dog Poster | Emily Thompson

Wrestling poster © Emily Thompson (2014)

Above One of sixty "Mad Dog" Vachon posters designed In the spring of 2014 by graphic design students in the Department of Art at the University of Northern Iowa, to promote the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum in Waterloo IA. Produced as a community project in a beginning graphic design course (as taught by Roy R. Behrens), this is one of three posters designed by undergraduate student Emily Thompson (©2014).

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Edward Marsh, A Number of People: A Book of Reminiscences. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1939, p. 138—

The only drawback to her [Lady Wenlock's] companionship was her extreme deafness, which caused her to carry about a peculiar silver ear-trumpet [a horn-like hearing aid], looking like an entrée dish, or anything rather than what it was…At a luncheon in Florence she suddenly presented it to her neighbor, an Italian Duke, who gallantly filled it with green peas from a dish which a footman was handing to him at the same moment; and at one of her balls in London she left it on the piano, where it was mistaken for an ashtray, so that when the Prince of Wales took her in to supper and addressed an opening remark to her, she immediately covered him all over with cigarette ends.

Mad Dog Poster | Ekaterina Korzh

Wrestling poster © Katie Korzh (2014)

Above One of sixty "Mad Dog" Vachon posters designed In the spring of 2014 by graphic design students in the Department of Art at the University of Northern Iowa, to promote the National Wrestling Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum in Waterloo IA. Produced as a community project in a beginning graphic design course (as taught by Roy R. Behrens), this is one of two posters designed by design student Ekaterina (Katie) Korzh (©2014).

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Joyce Cary, The Horse's Mouth. New York: Harper and Row, 1965—

"B-but, Mr. Jimson, I w-want to be an artist."

"Of course you do," I said, "everybody does once. But they get over it, thank God, like the measles and the chickenpox. Go home and go to bed and take some hot lemonade and put on three blankets and sweat it out."

"But Mr. Jimson, there must be artists."

"Yes, and lunatics and lepers, but why go and live in an asylum before you're sent for? If you find life a bit dull at home," I said, "and want to amuse yourself, put a stick of dynamite in the kitchen fire, or shoot a policeman. Volunteer for a test pilot, or dive off Tower Bridge with five bob's worth of roman candles in each pocket. You'd get twice the fun at about one-tenth the risk."

Collections & Recollections | Mackenzie Pape

Collections Poster © Mackenzie Pape (2014)

Above Design for a poster for a hypothetical exhibition called Collections and Recollections: Arrangements of Related Forms: Thoughts on the odd things that people collect as well as the visual patterns that come from arranging things, designed by Mackenzie Pape (2014), undergraduate graphic design student at the University of Northern Iowa, in a course called Graphic Design 2, as taught by Roy R. Behrens.

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Julian Bigelow, quoted by Ed Regis, Who Got Einstein's Office? New York: Basic Books, 1988—

[John] von Neumann [Hungarian-born American mathematician] lived in this elegant house in Princeton [NJ]. As I parked my car and walked in [for a job interview] there was this very large Great Dane bouncing around on the front lawn. I knocked on the door and von Neumann, who was a small, quiet, modest kind of a man, came to the door and bowed to me and said, "Bigelow, won't you come in," and so forth, and this dog brushed between our legs and went into the living room. He proceeded to lie down on the rug in front of everybody, and we had the entire interview—and this lasted maybe forty minutes, with the dog wandering all around the house. Towards the end of it, von Neumann asked me if I always traveled with the dog. But of course it wasn't my dog, and it wasn't his either, but von Neumann, being a diplomatic, middle-European type of person—he kindly avoided mentioning it until the end.

Collections & Recollections | Andy Snitker

Collections Poster © Andy Snitker (2014)

Above Design for a poster for a hypothetical exhibition called Collections and Recollections: Arrangements of Related Forms: Thoughts on the odd things that people collect as well as the visual patterns that come from arranging things, designed by Andy Snitker (2014), undergraduate graphic design student at the University of Northern Iowa, in a course called Graphic Design 2, as taught by Roy R. Behrens.

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Edward Marsh, Ambrosia and Small Beer. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1965—

A soldier up for medical exam proved to have been wearing a truss for the past six years, and was classified as P.E. or Permanently Exempt. On his way out he gave this news to his pal, who immediately asked for the loan of the truss, which was granted. The examiner asked how long he had been wearing it, and he said, "Six years," whereupon he was classified as M.E. "What's that?" he asked. "Middle East." "How can I go to the Middle East when I've been wearing a truss for six years?" "If you can wear a truss for six years upside-down, you can jolly well ride a camel for six months."

Collections & Recollections | Kathryn Ryherd

Collections Poster © Kathryn Ryherd

Above Design for a poster for a hypothetical exhibition called Collections and Recollections: Arrangements of Related Forms: Thoughts on the odd things that people collect as well as the visual patterns that come from arranging things, designed by Kathryn Ryherd (2014), undergraduate graphic design student at the University of Northern Iowa, in a course called Graphic Design 2, as taught by Roy R. Behrens. Below CD-ROM label for her final portfolio package.

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Christopher Morley [seeing two hair pieces of the same small size in a store window]—

They're alike as toupées.

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James Joyce—

Come forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth, and lost the job.

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Stephen Leacock—

Writing? Writing's easy. All you have to do is to put down whatever occurs to you. But the occurring, now that's hard.

© Kathryn Ryherd (2014)

Collections Posters | Rhiannon Rasmussen

Collections Posters © Rhiannon Rasmussen (2014)

Above Designs for a set of three posters for a hypothetical exhibition called Collections and Recollections: Arrangements of Related Forms: Thoughts on the odd things that people collect as well as the visual patterns that come from arranging things, designed by Rhiannon Rasmussen (2014), undergraduate graphic design student at the University of Northern Iowa, in a course called Graphic Design 2, as taught by Roy R. Behrens.

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Eric Morecambe—

Would you like to hear how I asked for his daughter's hand in marriage?…I said, "I would like your daughter for my wife." And he said, "But I've never met your wife. Bring her round and we'll talk about it." 

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Edward Marsh—

[Ned Lutyens] thought as a little boy that the Lord's Prayer began with "Our Father Charles in heaven, Harold be thy name."

Collections & Recollections | Kate Green

Collections Poster © Kate Green (2014)

Above Design for a poster for a hypothetical exhibition called Collections and Recollections: Arrangements of Related Forms: Thoughts on the odd things that people collect as well as the visual patterns that come from arranging things, designed by Kate Green (2014), undergraduate graphic design student at the University of Northern Iowa, in a course called Graphic Design 2, as taught by Roy R. Behrens.

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Cedric Hardwicke, The Irreverent Memoirs of Sir Cedric Hardwicke. Garden City NY: Doubleday, 1961—

He [his father, a physician] could seldom get anyone's name right, including those of people he treated, and in later years, when I was enlarging my circle of friends, he was not above telling me, "you had a telephone call from a Mr. Vaseline"—and I could interpret that as meaning Mr. Basil Dean, the producer. And my father had a most distinctive rechristening for Tallulah Bankhead; she was known to him as Tarara Buncombe in later years.

Collections & Recollections 3 | Riley Place

Collections Poster © Riley Place (2014)

Above Design for a poster for a hypothetical exhibition called Collections and Recollections: Arrangements of Related Forms: Thoughts on the odd things that people collect as well as the visual patterns that come from arranging things, designed by Riley Place (2014), undergraduate graphic design student at the University of Northern Iowa, in a course called Graphic Design 2, as taught by Roy R. Behrens.

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Anthony Burgess, Little Wilson and Big God. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1987, p. 69—

Mr. Magoo bids the normally sighted, or the smug spectacle-wearers, laugh at uncorrected myopia. He shakes hands with a bear he takes to be Dr. Milmoss, thinks a skyscraper scaffolding a restaurant, believes the seabed to be a motorway, but he always comes through unscathed and disabused. My adventures have been less sensational. I once entered a bank in Stratford-on-Avon and ordered a drink. I have waved back at people waving at someone else. There was an electric sky sign in All Saints, Manchester, which read UPHOLSTERED FURNITURE and I read as UPROARIOUSLY FUNNY. In the army I failed to salute officers and, fiercely rebuked, then saluted privates. I have spoken to women in the streets I thought I knew and thus got to know them…The myopic eye is not lazy; it is too busy creating meanings out of vague données. Compensation for lifelong myopia comes in old age; presbyopia supervenes on the condition and cancels it. I am forced now into perfect sight and I am not sure like it.

Collections & Recollections 2 | Riley Place

Collections Poster © Riley Place (2014)

Above Design for a poster for a hypothetical exhibition called Collections and Recollections: Arrangements of Related Forms: Thoughts on the odd things that people collect as well as the visual patterns that come from arranging things, designed by Riley Place (2014), undergraduate graphic design student at the University of Northern Iowa, in a course called Graphic Design 2, as taught by Roy R. Behrens.

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Colin M. Turbayne, in The Myth of Metaphor. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1971—

Naming, numbering, or sorting things is not just noticing what is out there fixed and settled. Nevertheless, there are arguments about sorting. These are mainly verbal. There are few about tigers and lions. There may be some about "tigers" and "lions." We do not remain in disagreement for long about the marks of the tiger, and that lion-like animal. Is it a sort of tiger or a sort of lion? Or is it a new sort? The convenient way chosen for the tigron was the last. We can make new sorts as we please. But those that we have grown accustomed to, we tend to think are determined and set out by nature. These also were grouped and named in an arbitrary manner. They might have been sorted in a different way.