bush whacked / rhymes with porky, no offense

Above Roy R. Behrens, painting titled Homage to Arshile Gorky. © 1967. As an undergraduate art student, I had become greatly interested in Abstract Expressionism, and had written a paper about Gorky's famous painting, The Liver is the Cock's Comb. At the time, I hadn't yet discovered that Gorky had taught a camouflage course for civilians during WWII at the Grand Central School of Art in NYC.

•••

During the 1984 presidential campaign, when Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were running against Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro, Bush's wife (Barbara Bush) said in response to the question of how she would characterize candidate Ferraro: "I can't say it but it rhymes with 'rich.'" Later, having realized the offensiveness of her quip, Barbara Bush called to apologize, as Ferraro later recalled in her autobiography, Ferraro: My Story. New York: Bantam 1985—

"I just want to apologize to you for what I said," she [Barbara Bush] told me over the phone while I was in the middle of another debate rehearsal. "I certainly didn't mean anything by it."

"Don't worry about it," I said to her. "We all say things at times we don't mean. It's all right."

"Oh," she said breathlessly, "You're such a lady."

All I could think when I hung up was: Thank God for my convent school training.

•••

RELATED LINKS 

Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work? /  Nature, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage /  Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage /  Optical science meets visual art /  Disruption versus dazzle / Chicanery and conspicuousness / 

FALSE COLORS: Art, Design and Modern Camouflage

CAMOUPEDIA: A Compendium of Research

on Art, Architecture and Camouflage

SHIP SHAPE: A Dazzle Camouflage Sourcebook

Typographic Poster | Katherine Jamtgaard

Typographic Poster © Katherine Jamtgaard 2015

Above Poster by Katherine Jamtgaard, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa (2015), in celebration of the typeface Eurostile, designed by Aldo Novarese.

•••

Henry Moore, the eminent British sculptor—

[While studying painting at the Royal College of Art in 1921-24, one of his teachers was Arthur Beresford Pite, Professor of Architecture, who one day] arrived in front of my painting and for several minutes spotlighted his violent dislike of it. "This student, he said, "has been feeding on garbage." 

That Friday afternoon I could not work, but wandered around Hyde Park to work off my hurt feelings. I almost decided I would leave the college and study on my own.