newly revised site map for ballast / camoupedia

At long last. We have finally succeeded in cleaning house on our website—or at least on the site directory. Essays, design and art portfolio, blog links, online video talks: all in one location.

newly published book on Blanche Ames Ames

Above I’ve been writing about the Ames family for more than 50 years. I myself don’t know of a family that is more colorful or complex. I refer to those descended from the marriage of Union General Adelbert Ames (Reconstruction governor of Mississippi) and Blanche Butler, who was the daughter of the notorious General Benjamin F. Butler.

One of their sons was Adelbert (Del) Ames, Jr., an artist and optical scientist who devised the well-known Ames Demonstrations in psychology (such as his Distorted Room). One of their daughters was an artist and equal rights proponent named Blanche Ames Ames. She has that double name because she married Harvard orchid expert Oakes Ames, whose ancestors had made their fortune providing shovels to those who went west to pan for gold or who worked on the Transcontinental Railroad.

Ames, Iowa, is named for a prominent family member. George Plimpton’s mother was an Ames, and it appears there is also a link to Aldrich Ames, the famous spy. My main interest has usually been the artist and scientist Del Ames, about whom I have published various essays over the years and, more recently, have produced a series of three short online videos.

But I’ve also always been intrigued by Del’s sister, Blanche, in part because he and she worked in tandem on art and science research in the years before the outbreak of World War I. In recent years, there have been various efforts to unearth and celebrate the achievements of Blanche Ames Ames, whose magnificent self-designed mansion is now Borderland State Park in Massachusetts, just south of Boston, a site that is well-worth the visit.

Last year, a 55-minute film was produced, titled Borderland: The Life and Times of Blanche Ames Ames. And now, most recently, a new book has just been published about the shared lives of Blanche Ames and her husband. Titled Blanche Ames Ames (1878-1969) and Oakes Ames (1874-1950): Cultivating That Mutual Ground (Eugene OR: Resource Publications), it was written by Elizabeth F. Fideler, a Harvard scholar who has published earlier books about aging, retirement and related concerns. Especially for those who are interested in the Ames family, women’s studies, and the chemistry of married life, it is a praiseworthy overview of the accomplishments of an amazing American woman. 

when reading his poems he performed them

book cover

In 1976, I was fortunate to be asked to design a paperbound edition of Joseph Langland’s The Sacrifice Poems for the North American Review, at the University of Northern Iowa. I was a young designer / teacher, and I am no longer happy with how I handled the page layout. But I remain very pleased with the cover, which is shown above.

Soon after I designed that book, I moved to a teaching position at another university, and moved elsewhere after that. But I rejoined the UNI faculty in 1990, where I taught graphic design and illustration, including book design. More than a decade later, Joseph Langland retired from teaching and he too moved back to Iowa. In 2004, near the end of his life, Langland talked to a class of my students at the UNI about the role of rhythmic sound and the music of the voice in the recitation of verse.

I think it would be fair to say that my students were astonished by Joe Langland’s presentation that day. One could say they were taken aback, because whenever Langland read his poems, it was more that he “performed” them—and in fact he often ”sang” the lines. The session was filmed, and having recently been edited, it can be accessed free online, and freely shared with others..

He also talked about his past, not knowing that his life would end a few years later. He recalled how he was drawn to literature at a very young age, and thereafter used poetry as a way to try to understand his life, such as growing up on a family farm, his rich Norwegian heritage, the death of his younger brother, and his lingering memories of having been an officer in the US Army infantry in Europe during World War II.

His talk took place on Veterans Day, on November 11, 2004. He died in 2007.

the process by which creativity works / video

Just posted: HOW TO WIN KINGS AND INFLUENCE CABBAGES: The Process By Which Creativity Works

Joseph Langland / life, literature, ethnic origins

Newly edited Joseph Langland video

Independence, Iowa and William Edwards Cook

John Klotzbach, Behrens Releases Cook Film, in Independence Bulletin-Journal (Independence IA), April 20, 2022, p. 1—

Roy R. Behrens, Emeritus Professor of Art at the University of Northern Iowa and Independence native, has released a new 60-minute online documentary film about Iowa expatriate artist William Edwards Cook, and his close long-term friendship with American writer Gertrude Stein…The film is available free online at <https://youtu.be/oph7fCHHHNI>.  Other films by Behrens are also online at his YouTube channel at <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzYrUfsAvkZur5cBv6xlhSg>.

Iowa Source / beware gertrude drives herself

Above By fortunate timing, this essay on Gertrude Stein’s Iowa friendships (Carl Van Vechten from Cedar Rapids, and William Edwards Cook from Independence) was published in The Iowa Source at the beginning of this month, coinciding with the release—online here—of our new 60-minute video on the same subject, COOK: The Man Who Taught Gertrude Stein to Drive. We are grateful for the unusually strong interest in both.

hearst exhibition / pandemic montages / video

Roy R. Behrens / Montage Exhibition

 

exhibition video