Thanx to Soo Hostetler / Tom Tate / Philip Fass

Elena Diane Curris Graphic Design Exhibit 2024

Curris Exhibition Opening

 

window for first fifty exhibition at hearst center

A few weeks ago, I designed the exhibition mailing card (shown below at end of post) for an upcoming exhibition at the Hearst Center for the Arts (Cedar Falls IA). It is a non-juried public event that provides an opportunity for anyone—amateur and non-practicing artists included—to have their work exhibited at an art center. The theme of the annual event this year is FIRST FIFTY 2023: PATTERNS. The exhibition is on view from June 15 to August 6.

Having designed the card, I was subsequently asked to produce a six-panel window design, to promote the same exhibition. Shown above is a diagram of the window installation scheme, and below is a view of how the front of the building looked earlier this week.

the lash of the tongue of teacher Henry Tonks

Above Roy R. Behrens, exhibition card design, 2023.

•••

Bernard Leach, Beyond East and West: memoirs, portraits, and essays. New York: Watson-Guptill, 1978—

[As an art student at the Slade School of Art, he endured] the lash of the tongue of [his drawing teacher] Henry Tonks—Tonks with his gritty eye and tomahawk nose, tall in shiny blue serge, who had given up his job as house surgeon at Bart's Hospital to use his scalpel on us at the Slade; Tonks who became a second-class artist in the Impressionist manner, but a good draughtsman and perhaps the best teacher in all England. Often we saw some girl cowering in tears behind a plaster cast. He spared none; his bitter tongue was fearless and true. Here is tribute and thanks to him. His surgery changed our skins—saved our lives maybe. Tonks, who enunciated “action, construction, proportion” as the flaming guardians of the paradise of art; who, sitting on one of the student’s “donkeys” [drawing benches], after a glance at his drawing, buried his face in his hands, paused long, and then asked, “Why do you do it?”; and who once said to me grudgingly, “You may be able to draw one day.” I remember on one occasion he flung open the studio door, stood there in deadly silence, then burst out: “I want to know whether a day will come when I shall see a sign of art in this room,” and slammed the door behind him.

Index of American Design / Toy Circus Wagon

Poster / Roy R. Behrens (2023)

 

a retrospective reverie on 46 years of teaching

I was recently a presenter at a nationwide exhibition and symposium (conducted remotely as well as in-person at the University of Wisconsin at Madison), titled Evolving Graphic Design. The majority of the attendees were design professors, graduate students, and professional designers. The subjects discussed were wide-ranging.

Each presentation was limited to fourteen minutes. Having retired at the end of 2018, after having taught graphic design illustration and design history at various art schools and universities for more than 45 years, my presentation consisted of an 8-minute retrospective reverie on my memories of working with students, titled Solving Problems in Design. This was presented as a video, and can now be viewed online.

Coming Soon / Graphic Design Symposium

Reproduced above is a sampling of on-site photographs (courtesy Taekyeom Lee) from an on-going exhibition at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, titled EVOLVING GRAPHIC DESIGN. The exhibition (which includes the work of twenty-three graphic design professionals and design educators from across the nation) continues for the next twelve days, ending on June 24. 

The concluding highlight of the exhibition will be a two-day symposium, to be held on June 23 and 24, in the Art Loft Conference Room, Art Lofts Building, in the Department of Art, University of Wisconsin-Madison at 111 North Frances Street, in Madison. Some participants are attending in-person, while others (worldwide) are registering online for free tickets, and, since it is a hybrid event, they will participate online as speakers, panelists and observers. 

Please note, although participation is free, you must register at this link in advance. 

Iowa Insect Series (stages animated)

Included in the exhibition is a series of ten large-scale digital montages, called the Iowa Insect Series, that were made in 2012-2013 in collaboration with design colleague and friend David M. Versluis. At the time, he was a Professor of Art and Design at Dordt College in Iowa, while I was then on the faculty at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. 



Also on exhibit are thirteen design-related images that are part of my long-term, continuing research (as a design historian) of World War I Allied naval camouflage. The theme uniting these artifacts is high difference or disruptive ship camouflage, which was referred to at the time as dazzle painting or dazzle camouflage. Among the items exhibited are restored government photographs from the time period, full-color reproductions of diagrams of the camouflage patterns, and my own recent hypothetical camouflage schemes, derived from historical works of art.

Iowa Insect Series

Coming Soon / Evolving Graphic Design Exhibit

Reproduced above is the poster for a major gallery exhibition that begins on May 24, 2022 (in the coming week) at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and continues through June 24. Titled EVOLVING GRAPHIC DESIGN, it showcases the work of twenty-three graphic design professionals and design educators from throughout the nation. Represented is the widest variety of graphic media, including themes, research and techniques that extend beyond traditional prints on paper.

The exhibit’s originator, organizer and curator is Yeohyun Ahn, Assistant Professor of Graphic Design and Interactive Media, in the Graphic Design Program, UW-Madison Department of Art. Detailed information about the exhibition is online here. And you learn more about Professor Ahn at this link.

I am pleased that my work is included in two components of the exhibition. In one will be exhibited a series of ten large-scale digital montages, called the Iowa Insect Series, that I made in 2012-2013 in collaboration with design colleague and friend David M. Versluis. Having retired from teaching recently, he now resides in Michigan. But at the time, he was a Professor of Art and Design at Dordt College in Iowa, while I was then on the faculty at the University of Northern Iowa.

These works began with David’s high definition digital scans of various insect specimens from his collection. We worked together by what might be referred to as “blind collaboration.” To begin, he would email me one of the insect image scans. I then did something to alter or augment that image (somewhat like a move in chess), and returned the result by email to him. He then made additional alterations, and sent that second result to me. We continued blindly, back and forth, exchanging subsequent alterations, until we both began to sense that the work was nearing completion. We did this on ten occasions. All ten will be exhibited in the UW-Madison exhibition. No doubt the effect will be stunning.

In another area of the exhibition, I will also be exhibiting thirteen design-related images that are part of my long-term, continuing research (as a design historian) of World War I Allied naval camouflage. The theme uniting these artifacts is high difference or disruptive ship camouflage, which was referred to at the time as dazzle painting or dazzle camouflage. Among the items exhibited are restored government photographs from the time period, full-color reproductions of diagrams of the camouflage patterns, and my own recent hypothetical camouflage schemes, derived from historical works of art.

A highlight of the exhibition will be a symposium, titled Evolving Graphic Design, to be held on June 23 and 24, in the Art Loft Conference Room, Art Lofts Building, in the Department of Art,
University of Wisconsin-Madison at 111 North Frances Street, in Madison. I will participate in that symposium, by online presentation.

National Parks at Jester Park Nature Center

National Park Poster © Roy R. Behrens 2019

Above I am absolutely pleased (ecstatic even) by the opportunity to exhibit at Jester Park Nature Center (in Polk County, near Granger IA) a series of 23 digital montage posters, the theme of which is US National Parks and Monuments. I actually designed these in 2019, with the thought that I would frame them and make the exhibit available to nature centers to exhibit without charge. It was a great pleasure to design them, and an even greater pleasure results when other people can enjoy them also.

The poster exhibit at Jester Park was installed earlier this week, and will remain on view at the Nature Center Galleries there through August 28. It will officially open with an in-person reception (free and open to the public), including wine and refreshments, on Thursday, May 12, from 6 to 8 pm. Sounds wonderful. 

Exhibition at Jester Nature Center

And of course it’s also an opportunity to see other on-going exhibits in the same building, including the work of glass artist Tilda Brown Swanson, as well as permanent features as well. There is additional information at this online link.

For those who live too far away, or who can’t attend in person for other reasons, the posters can easily be accessed online. For example, all the posters are the internet (click on each to enlarge it to view) at this link. But they can also be experienced in video form online at YouTube here.  

There also another online component that quite a few people have found of interest in understanding the significance of how color, shapes, and other pattern attributes contribute to animal camouflage. It’s a succinct 30-minute video talk on Nature, Art and Camouflage, also free on YouTube. A screen grab from the video is reproduced below, as is one of the National Park posters.

For the opportunity to share the posters at the Jester Park Nature Center, I am especially grateful to Missy Smith, Nature Center Coordinator, and Lewis Major, Naturalist.

video on Nature, Art and Camouflage

 

ode to Phyllis / love and golf must not be mixed

Above Advertising poster for Anic cigarettes by Sepó (Severo Pozzati), Italian-born artist and advertising designer, 1938.

•••

Alfred D. Godley, “Love and Golf” in VERSES TO ORDER. London: Methuen and Co, 1892, pp. 51-52—

Hear my swearing, fairest Phyllis!
—Golfers all know how to swear—
Though, of course, your presence still is
Most attractive everywhere,
Links were ne’er designed for lovers:
Do not, Phyllis, deem me rude,
When I hint that man discovers
Charms at time in solitude.

Lips like yours should never utter
Ugly words that golfers speak—
“Dormy,” “stimy,” “mashy,” “putter,”
“Driver,” “brassy,” “bunker,” “cleek”!
Sooner read—though Cultured Woman
Is a thing I hate and shun—
Horace, that distinguished Roman,
Than Horatius Hutchinson.

Though, in hours of deep dejection,
When the disappointing ball
Takes, if hit, the wrong direction,
Sometimes can’t be hit at all,—
Though whate’er the golfer says is
Justified by reason due,
Still I hold his Saxon phrases
Most unsuitable for you.

Tennis be your sole endeavor
If you must aspire to fame!
But at golf—believe me, never
Can you hope to play the game.
There, your “swing” but courts the scoffer,
Boors and clowns your “driving” mock;
Fate, who made the clown a golfer,
Meant you, Phyllis! for a “crock.”

Meet me then by lawn or river,
Meet me then at routs or rinks,
Meet me where the moonbeams quiver,
Anywhere—but on the links!
Thus of you I’ll fondly ponder
O’er the green where’er I roam,
(Absence makes the heart grow fonder),
Only, Phyllis, stay at home!

tabula rasa / the disjunctive effect of pandemics

Above Roy R. Behrens, Bus Boy. Digital montage, ©2021.

•••

S. Howard Bartley, A Bit of Human Transparency. Bryn Mawr PA: Dorrance and Company, 1988, p. 89—

A huge catastrophe such as a war…or a peacetime one such as the Great Depression [or a pandemic, such as COVID-19], serves as a definite disjunctive force in history…

As the new generation after the catastrophe emerges, that generation seems largely and sometimes totally oblivious to what occurred prior to it. It is as though history is a sort of a blank. Although many of the material achievements might survive, they are not properly appreciated and are not seen in a perspective.…

Names that were outstanding or at least worth recognition get lost. Things start anew as if from scratch. This means that if someone were working before the catastrophe…and had produced something worthwhile but became a casualty, what he had done would likely go down to oblivion with him. But if such a person were fortunate enough to survive the catastrophe, he could go on. One of his tasks would be to review for those who would be working in the same general areas that he had been in before the catastrophe. In other words, he would be the connecting link between the past and the present. Otherwise the blankness would be there.

how structured and deliberate designers are

Above Streamlined-era magazine page layout for an Oldsmobile advertisement.

•••
Mirra Merriman in Wendy Deutelbaum and Carol de Saint Victor, “The Art of Teaching: Interviews with Three Masters” in The Iowa Review Vol 28 No I (1998), p. 13—

One of the illusions people have who don't know about the making of art is that it’s an activity that comes out of a creative surge, a genius or passion. What is missed most of the time is how deliberate and how structured the choices that artists [especially designers] make are, and how one can read in the works of art the intellectual process that was taking place in the mind of the artist.

a woman's lone journey around the world / 1890

LIFE magazine cover (August 26, 1909)

Lilian Leland, Traveling Alone: A Woman’s Journey Round the World. New York: American News Company, 1890—

Darjeeling [India] is an exceedingly pretty place, unlike anything I have seen before. It is laid in terraces on the side of the mountain. Looking down from the hotel, the streets form an interlaced and zigzag pattern. I should never know how to get to any given house in the place. It  is like one of those labyrinth puzzles that you try to get to the center of without crossing a line. The safest way is to do as Alice did in the “Looking-Glass House,” turn your back to a place, and presently you find yourself walking in at the front door.

Typecasting | Twain translated from the jug

Digital Montage © Roy R. Behrens (n.d.)

Mark Twain, No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger: Being an Ancient Tale Found in a Jug, and Freely Translated from the Jug. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. This is very odd novel, perhaps one of the strangest books ever written by the American humorist. This passage is a description of a character called Frau Stein, as if written by someone who sets metal type by hand—

…she was a second edition of her mother—just plain galley-proof, neither revised nor corrected, full of turned letters, wrong fonts, outs and doubles, as we say in the printing-shop—in a word, pi, if you want to put it remorselessly strong and yet not strain the facts. Yet if it ever would be fair to strain facts it would be fair in her case, for she was not loath to strain them herself when so minded. Moses Haas said that whenever she took up an en-quad fact, just watch her and you would see her try to cram it in where there wasn't breathing-room for a 4-m space; and she'd do it, too, if she had to take the sheep-foot to it. Isn't it neat? Doesn't it describe it to a dot?

Walter SH Hamady | Perishable Press Limited

Walter Hamady

We have now posted the third and final segment of our restored, revised and somewhat redesigned series of websites about Wisconsin artist Walter SH Hamady. On each of the three sites, there are active links to the other two. This one is mainly a listing of the 131 books that Hamady produced as The Perishable Press Limited, beginning in 1964. more>>>

Walter SH Hamady | His Gabberjabb Books

Walter Hamady / The Gift of Gabberjabbs

No, you are not seeing double (or maybe you are). This is not a duplicate earlier post. Many years ago, we designed and posted a trio of websites having to do with the letterpress books and box assemblages of Wisconsin artist Walter SH Hamady. One about his boxes, a second on his Gabberjabb books, and a third that featured a list of all the books he published as The Perishable Press Limited. A couple of years ago, those sites were disconnected and destroyed in the confusion of adopting better web software. So we are now rebuilding them. You've seen the first in our previous blog post, and now here's a link to the second. The third will follow very soon.

Walter SH Hamady | Books Boxes and Collages

According to someone, there are two types of people in the world: Those who believe that there are two types of people—and those who don’t. Among the former was the Greek poet Archilochus, who believed that people tend to be either foxes or hedgehogs. Foxes are centrifugal, hedgehogs centripetal. “The fox knows many things,” he said, “but the hedgehog knows one big thing.”
     

For years I have admired the work of Walter Hamady (his extraordinary handmade letterpress books, his collages and assemblages), but now and then I’ve asked myself: “Is Walter a fox or a hedgehog?”…more>>>

Dennis Ichiyama | Curris Endowment for Design

Dennis Y. Ichiyama

Above Graphic designer, typographer and teacher Dennis Y. Ichiyama will speak at the University of Northern Iowa at 6:00 pm on Monday, November 12, 2018. The presentation will take place in the auditorium (Room 111) of the Kamerick Art Building. It is made possible by The Elena Diane Curris Endowment for Design and the UNI Gallery of Art in conjunction with the endowment's inaugural biennial exhibition, titled THE REACH AND RICHNESS OF DESIGN, in which the work of Ichiyama and other designers is featured. The event is free and open to the public.

Professor Ichiyama is widely known for his work in publication design, typography, and his active interest in the renewed use of vintage wood type in printmaking. He was featured prominently in the documentary Typeface, which includes an account of his efforts as an artist / designer at the Hamilton Wood Type and Printing Museum in Two Rivers WI.

Ichiyama earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Hawaii-Manoa. He received his MFA degree at Yale University, where he studied with Paul Rand. He also studied with Armin Hofmann at Allegemeine Gewerbeschule in Basal, Switzerland. Before his retirement, he taught Visual Communications Design at Purdue University for many years.

CD-ROM Portfolio Package | Hastings Walsh

Portfolio Package © Hastings Walsh (2016)

Above CD-ROM portfolio package by Hastings Walsh, graphic design student at the University of Northern Iowa (2016).

•••

Juliet M. Soskice (granddaughter of British Pre-Raphaelite painter Ford Madox Brown), Chapters From Childhood: Reminiscences of an Artist's Granddaughter. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1922, p. 14—

I felt sorry for Mary [her seven-year-old cousin, whose father was British writer and critic William Michael Rossetti, brother of  Dante Gabriel Rossetti]… She often used to get anxious about things. She liked digging up remains in the back garden and wondering what they were. Once she dug up some bones and was certain they belonged to a victim who had been buried by a murderer, as you read about in the paper. She was very frightened, but Helen [Mary's older sister] said no, they were some chicken bones abandoned by the cat; and so they were. And she dug up a scrap of paper, and was sure she could see traces of a mysterious message written in it, but we couldn't see anything. We put it under the microscope, and there was nothing written on it at all. But she said she could see it, so she kept it. When she dug up an old piece of glass or tin she used to believe they were Roman remains, because she said she was sure it was the Romans who had begun to build the waterworks at the foot of Primrose Hill. She didn't believe it really, but she wanted to so much that she almost did. She wasn't very brave, and she used to cry a good deal because she was always frightened by the grave things Helen talked about.
 

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.

•••

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