Grout Museum Annual Report | Rachael Bair

A hearty congratulations to Rachael Bair, current graphic design student, Department of Art at the University of Northern Iowa, for her design of the Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2014-2015 for the Grout Museum District (Waterloo IA). Rachael completed the project while working as an intern with Jacquie Colvin (former UNI student designer), who is now that organization's marketing coordinator and graphic designer. As confirmed by the sample pages above and below on this blog post, it's really an excellent layout, by one of our most extraordinary students. The entire annual report is also available online as a pdf. 

Earlier this year, Rachael earned another distinction when one of her woodcut illustrations, titled Carry a Light with You, received a Best of Category Award at the annual competition by the Art Directors Association of Iowa (ADAI). This was just the latest in the ever-growing list of Rachael's well-deserved graphic design prizes.

Space Suit Design Booklet | Austin Montelius

Space Suit Booklet © Austin Montelius 2015

Above Last semester in the Department of Art at the University of Northern Iowa, students in a course about the history of modern design (graphic, industrial and architectural) were assigned a major end-of-term project. They chose a research subject from the widest range of possibilities, with the aim of producing a formal research paper, an illustrated booklet, an information graphic (such as a chronological chart), and so on. The results were impressive to say the least. Among the finest was an exactly written and designed 32-page booklet on "the evolution of space suits in fiction and reality," produced by senior graphic designer Austin Montelius. The printed cover is above, with one of the opening spreads below. It was both flawless and ambitious, an admirable achievement in every regard.

Space Suit Booklet spread © Austin Montelius 2015

 The history of space exploration is one of Austin's many interests. He is especially knowledgeable of the development of the Russian space program, which he used as the subject for a stunning chronological chart which he designed for an earlier studio class (see below).

Comic Art Exhibit | Jared Rogness

Poster for Jared Rogness exhibit (2015)

Above Beginning tomorrow and continuing for two weeks (August 23 through September 5, 2015) is an exhibition of about twenty large-sized pages of exquisitely drawn and constructed comic art by Jared Rogness, an Iowa-born (and now California-based) illustrator.

We've blogged about him once before in reference to his magazine short story illustrations. For a better sense of the quality of his current work, see the detail posted below. We've known about and admired Jared's work for a long time, and in fact had the pleasure to work with him in the late 1990s and later, when he was a student in the Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa.

In his student days, he was known on campus as e-Chicken, by which pseudonym he published in the student newspaper some of the most biting (and hilarious) captioned cartoons about the ills of American life. Our nation being more sickly now than perhaps ever before (recall the recent Republican Presidential Primary Debate), we wonder what e-Chicken's insights would be.

Drawing detail © Jared Rogness (2015)

Postscript: Below also are photos of some of the students who came to look at Jared's work. One indication of  the popularity of an exhibit is the number of exhibit posters that disappear from the hallways, and end up on students' walls. This one set a record.

Typographic Poster | Stephanie Berry

Typeface Poster © Stephanie Berry 2015

Above Poster by Stephanie Berry, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa, in celebration of the typeface Futura (2015)

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Kate Learson, quoted in Remar Sutton and Mary Abbott Waite, eds., The Common Ground Book: A Circle of Friends. Latham NY: British American Publishing, 1992, p. 181—

So many people who say they are artists are just technicians who are trying to capture the PR wave of something avant-garde; the work may be different, but the intention sometimes looks so shallow. So many people now, not only in painting and sculpture but in music and probably literature, seem to be producing cheap knockoffs and are into just promoting themselves.

Lincoln Infographic | Jordon Deutmeyer

Lincoln Infographic © Jordon Deutmeyer 2015

A large-format interpretative chronology of the assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln, designed by Jordon Deutmeyer, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa, 2015.

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Richard Critchfield, Those Days: An American Album (New York: Dell, 1986), p. 342—

Just after we moved to Fargo [ND], the summer of 1932, Mother took Grandma Critchfield down to Knoxville, Iowa, to visit McLain in the veterans hospital. He'd been there ever since his brain was injured in that plane crash during World War I. Mom took the three boys along with her. We'd moved into a house on the north side of town and the Hopes were visiting… Mr. Hope had fallen asleep at the wheel and woke up when his car hit a passing train at a crossing. He walked for help with a shattered kneecap. Anyway, the whole family of Hopes came to our house in Fargo to recuperate. When Mom got back from Iowa, she hunted all over for the toilet brush and found it in the kitchen. Helen had been using it to scrub vegetables.

In that first house in Fargo, a family named Hilliard lived next door… Mr. Hilliard wore shorts and a goatee. The shorts came below his stomach and one day his little girl stuck a nasturtium in his navel and he left it there all day. Mr. Hilliard was very congenial. He'd call over, "Yoo hoo! Let's all come out! I've got a good dirty story!" Daddy was always joking too. One time, a man had been chasing girls in the park and Daddy said, "I just wish he'd jump out of the bushes at Betty. She'd scare 'im." Another time, when Aunt Helen was visiting from Iowa with her two-year-old and a newborn baby, Daddy said, "You people in Iowa breed just like rabbits." That didn't go down so well.

Lincoln Infographic | Stephanie Berry

Lincoln Infographic © Stephanie Berry 2015

A large-format interpretative chronology of the assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln, designed by Stephanie Berry, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa, 2015.

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Slim Collier (bartender), quoted in Studs Terkel, Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression. NY: Random House, 1970, p. 119—

I was born in Waterloo [IA]. A great deal of Iowa, southern Iowa, particularly, didn't have electricity until the end of World War II. I was eleven years old before I lived in a house with running water.

•••

Kitty McCulloch, quoted by Studs Terkel, ibid., p. 55—

[One day during the Depression] This one man came in—it was right before Christmas. My husband had a very nice suit, tailored. It was a black suit with a fine white pin-stripe in it. He put it to one side. I thought he didn't like the suit. I said to this man, "Your clothes are all ragged. I think I have a nice suit for you." So I gave him the suit.

The following Sunday my husband was to go to a wake. He said, "Where's my good suit?" And I said, "Well, Daddy, you never wore it. I—well, it's gone." He said, "Where is it gone to?" I said, "I gave it to a man who had such shabby clothes. Anyway, you got three other suits and he didn't have any. So I gave it to him." He said, "You're the limit, Mother."

Lincoln Infographic | Gina Hamer

Lincoln Infographic © Gina Hamer 2015

A large-format interpretative chronology of the assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln, designed by Gina Hamer, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa, 2015.

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Robert Graves, Goodbye to All That [his famous autobiography] (Penguin Books, 2000), recalling the eccentricity of Greek scholar Gilbert Murray—

Once, as I sat talking to him in his study about Aristotle's Poetics, while he walked up and down, I suddenly asked: "Exactly what is the principle of that walk of yours? Are you trying to avoid the flowers on the rug, or are you trying to keep to the squares?" My own compulsion-neuroses [OCD] made it easy for me to notice them in others. He wheeled around sharply: "You're the first person who has caught me out," he said. "No, it's not the flowers or the squares; it's a habit that I have got into of doing things in sevens. I take seven steps, you see, then I change direction and go another seven steps, then I turn around. I consulted Browne, the Professor of Psychology, about it the other day, but he assured me it isn't a dangerous habit. He said: "When you find yourself getting into multiples of seven, come to me again."
 

Lincoln Infographic | Bailey Higgins

Lincoln Infographic © Bailey Higgins 2015

A large-format interpretative chronology of the assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln, designed by Bailey Higgins, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa, 2015.

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Eugene V. Debs, American union leader, quoted in E.J. Hughes, The Ordeal of Power: A Political Memoir of the Eisenhower Years. NY: Macmillan, 1975—

I am not a leader. I don't want you to follow me or anything else. If you are looking for a Moses to lead you out of the wilderness, you will stay right where you are. I would not lead you into this promised land if I could, because if I could lead you in, someone else could lead you out.
 

Buffalo Bill Cody in Cedar Falls IA in 1912

Greetings from Buffalo Bill

In an earlier post on William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, we shared the story of his only visit to Cedar Falls IA, in 1912, as recalled by Stella Robinson Wynegar. Below is a different account by her son.

Claud R. Wynegar, The Century and I: Memories of Cedar Falls and Beyond. Pacific Palisades CA: Seamount Publications, 1999, p. 51—

I do not remember the year [it was 1912], but I was a small boy when the Buffalo Bill and Pawnee Bill Circus came to town. They put up their tents out West First Street in Mularkey's pasture [sic, Mullarky's pasture, now called Riverview Park, at Ellen Street and South Park Road]. It was in the summer. I was alone and I got to the grounds early. I had a seat in the open air tent to watch the "battles" between the white men and the Indians, and a lot of fancy riding and roping of horses.

Buffalo Bill was on a horse with a shotgun. Someone ahead of him would throw a glass ball into the air and he would shoot at it and break it into small pieces. There was number of tents. I looked into all of them. It was a show a bit difficult to describe. There were a few wild bison, quite a few cowboys, Indians in native costumes, a few concessions where souvenirs were sold and food stands. It was the first circus I ever saw.

Later in the afternoon my mother drove out in our buggy to get me. While looking for me she met Buffalo Bill and had a nice visit with him. No doubt that was the beginning of my interest in the American West, and it has always stayed with me. I own some Remington bronzes, some western pictures and books about the people who were part of that era.
 

Frank Lloyd Wright Rescues Einstein

Albert Einstein (Public Domain)

Physicist Albert Einstein and architect Frank Lloyd Wright apparently met for the first time in 1931, at the house called La Miniatura, in Pasadena CA, which Wright had designed for Alice Millard, a rare-book dealer. According to an essay by Milton Cameron—

When Albert Einstein first met Frank Lloyd Wright, he mistook the architect for a musician. Leaping from his chair, Einstein announced that he was returning home to fetch his violin and would be back shortly to perform a duet. Only upon his return did he learn that Wright was not a pianist.

Frank Lloyd Wright (Public Domain)

That same year, a news article reported that when Einstein stopped in Chicago on his return from Pasadena, Wright was standing beside him when the famous physicist was mobbed by a crowd of 2000 women, who were Chicago-area peace advocates. The story is told in the following excerpts from FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT SAVES EINSTEIN FROM FRIENDLY MOB, Scientist Greeted by 2000 Chicago Pacifists at Station; Wright Draws Him Up Train Steps in Capital Times (Madison WI), March 4, 1931—

The world-famous physicist, who has been the guest of scientists in Pasadena, was all but mowed down by 2000 women, representing every peace organization in Chicago, as he stepped off the Manhattan Limited in the Pennsylvania station…

Smiling and undaunted, the gentle little man,• himself an ardent peace advocate, stepped down among the milling mob of women, shaking hands and listening wordlessly as each volunteered a hurried greeting.

Finally Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect, and Dr. Carl Beck, both long-time friends,•• fearing for the limb if not the life of the distinguished scientist, drew him up the train steps and back to the observation platform, where he talked briefly in his own language.

•  I'm not sure I understand. Einstein is described here as a "gentle little man," yet a quick online search finds that he was apparently 5 foot 9 inches. Wright, on the other hand, claimed to be 5 foot 8.5 inches, but people often speculate that he may have been even shorter, thereby accounting for the lower ceiling heights in some of his buildings. Yet, in this account, it is the diminutive Wright who hoists the larger Einstein onto the railroad platform.

•• If Einstein and Wright had met for the first time at that same meeting in Pasadena, how could they have been "long-time friends"?

See also: Roy R. Behrens, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (2016).

 

Suite of Posters | Kellie Heath

copyright © Kellie Heath

Above and below A suite of three posters by graphic designer Kellie Heath (2015 graduate), Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa. Designed as promotional posters for the university's College of Humanities, Arts and Sciences (CHAS), c2014. Copyright © Kellie Heath.

•••

James Geary (recalling US Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.) in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists. New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2007, p. 90—

Once, while in his nineties, he passed a beautiful young woman on the street and sighed to his companion, "Oh, to be seventy again!"

copyright © Kellie Heath

copyright © Kellie Heath

Buffalo Bill in Cedar Falls IA | 1917 Double Bill

William F. Cody shaking hands

Above Looped film footage of William F. Cody, aka Buffalo Bill, possibly filmed by the Edison Company, which recorded a series of brief films pertaining to Cody's Wild West performances. We have no explanation for the vigor of his handshake.

•••

My father was born in northeastern Iowa in 1901. Buffalo Bill was still touring the country in those years, appearing with his traveling show. He performed in Cresco and Decorah, one time each, which may account for my father's memory of having actually attended a Wild West performance. Cody died in January 1917, two months before the following news article appeared in an Iowa newspaper—

Anon, BILL CODY'S DOUBLE: Col. Curt L. Alexander, of Nebraska, Startles Cedar Falls Lads in the Marshalltown Times-Republican (Marshalltown IA), March 6, 1917—

"Gee! Buffalo Bill ain't dead! Look, fellers!"

That's the way a small boy directed a bunch of his fellows to Col. Curt L. Alexander, of Hastings, Neb., walking the streets of Cedar Falls (IA) today. And a small army of boys greeted him every time he appeared.

Colonel Alexander is an exact "double" of the late Col. W.F. Cody, from his flowing hair, moustache, goatee and big sombrero to the tips of his cowboy boots. He is here visiting his nephew, Lloyd Alexander,  a prominent clothing merchant, while en route home from Chicago.

Besides looking enough like the famous "Buffalo Bill" to have been his twin brother, Colonel Alexander is an old plainsman and scout and as much like Colonel Cody in his habits. In fact, he was a lifelong intimate friend of "Buffalo Bill," working with him as a freighter across the plains when the west was young and in later years traveling for weeks at a time with Colonel Cody's great wild west show, where his remarkable likeness to his friend caused many amusing situations to arise.

•••

Since first posting the above news excerpt, we have also found an article by David Whitsett, titled A CEDAR FALLS STOP: Four US Presidents, MLK Among Famous Visitors to Town, in the Cedar Falls Times (May 1, 2013), which is online here. It tells the story of the one occasion in which Buffalo Bill performed with the Wild West in Cedar Falls on August 31, 1912. Here is the excerpt pertaining to that—

[Cedar Falls resident] Stella Wynegar recalled that his [Cody's] crew set up their tents in “Mullarkey’s pasture,” which was on the northwest corner of Cedar Falls. She says that she and her son, Claude, did not attend the show but that they “were wandering around the grounds after his show, and Buffalo Bill came up and talked with us. He asked about our family and told us about his life and where he’d been. He was very interesting and very nice.”

Another Cedar Falls resident, Marie Cook, also recalled Buffalo Bill’s visit. She remembered that she and her family were living on West First Street near where his show was set up, “He came walking along and saw the chickens in our yard. He offered my grandma $1.50 to cook a chicken dinner for his troupe and she did it!” 

Both Marie and Stella also remembered that Annie Oakley was one of the stars of the Wild West Show when it was here. She was, perhaps, America’s first female superstar. She was a true sharp shooter who could split a playing card edge-on with her .22 rifle and put several holes in it before it hit the ground.

NOTE: There is a Wynegar Oral History Collection (Manuscript Record Series MsC-18) in the Special Collections and University Archives holdings at the Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa.

Froebel's Kindergarten | Documentary Film

Froebel's Kindergarten Gifts 2-6 (sets of wooden blocks)

Scott Bultman is a Michigan-based scholar and collector whose father manufactured educational toys, including the well-known wooden blocks (shown above) and other "construction toys" that were used in Friedrich Froebel's original kindergarten ("children's garden").

These are of increasing interest because it has been documented that "hands-on" experience of this kind was critical in the formative years of Frank Lloyd Wright (he repeatedly credited Froebel's blocks with enabling him to see gestalts, to look at the forest instead of the trees), as well as Buckminster Fuller, Le Corbusier and others.

Several years ago, the online fundraising initiative called Kickstarter was successfully used to reprint the best book on the subject, Norman Brosterman's Inventing Kindergarten. Now, Scott Bultman is hoping to use the same method to raise the funds to make a documentary film about Froebel, the history of kindergarten, and the manner in which it contributed to early childhood education. It's a great idea, and an effort worth supporting. To find out more, visit the project's Kickstarter link, which includes an informative video clip on the goal of this endeavor.

While exploring some of the pertinent links, we also unexpectedly found information about an exhibit (long since past, regrettably) of kindergarten-related artifacts, from Brosterman's collection. Reproduced below are two wonderful posters that advertised that exhibition, titled Learning by Design, at Northeastern University (Boston) in 2014.

See also: Roy R. Behrens, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (2016).  

Typographic Poster | Samuel Garwood

Typographic Poser | Samuel Garwood

Above Poster by Samuel Garwood, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa (2015), in celebration of the typeface Helvetica.

•••

James Joyce—

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

•••

Alec Guinness, My Name Escapes Me: The Diary of a Retiring Actor. New York: Viking Penguin, 1997, p. 135—

The raising of Lazarus from the dead is the subject of today's Gospel. The current sub-supermarket translation has Christ asking, "Where have you put him?"—as if Lazarus might be a basket, and later, "Lazarus, here! Come out!"—as if calling a terrier digging in a rabbit warren.

•••

Robert Byrne—

Cogito ergo dim sum: Therefore I think these are pork buns.

Typographic Poster | Erin Keiser

Typographic Poster © Erin Keiser 2015

Above Poster by Erin Keiser, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa (2015), in celebration of the typeface Myriad, designed by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly.

•••

Samuel Clemens, The Autobiography of Mark Twain. Charles Neider, arr. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959, p. 3—

For many years I believed that I remembered helping my grandfather drink his whiskey toddy when I was six weeks old but I don't tell about that any more now; I am grown old and my memory is not as active as it used to be. When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not, but my faculties are decaying now and soon I should be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened.

•••

Franklin P. Jones—

Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

Art History Poster | Bailey Higgins

Art History Poster © Bailey Higgins 2015

Above Poster by Bailey Higgins, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa (2015), announcing a Call for Papers for the 5th Annual Art History Symposium at the same school on April 10, 2015.

•••

William Carlos Williams, The Autobiography of William Carlos Williams. New York: Random House, 1951, pp. 120-121—

[American expatriate painter Elihu Vedder in Italy] lived on a bare height somewhere in the fields of central Capri above the sea, and showed us his device for ridding his studio of flies. The screen door at the entrance was arranged in the usual two panels, one above, one below, a crosspiece in the center. But this crosspiece was set an inch back from the wire mesh, above and below, these edges thus remaining free.

"Flies always want to get out," he explained to us, "and will fly to the screen and the light of day. But we prevent them from escaping by barring the exits. [Instead] I leave a space for them. Thus I don't have flies." And he didn't, not many.

•••

Joseph Joubert—

To teach is to learn twice.

Art History Poster | Gina Hamer

Art History Poster © Gina Hamer 2015

Above Poster by Gina Hamer, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa (2015), announcing a Call for Papers for the 5th Annual Art History Symposium at the same school on April 10, 2015.

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Henry Oettinger [80-year-old typesetter, interviewed by Studs Terkel in Coming of Age]—

There is only one more thing I want to do as the time is running out. I want to win the lottery, buy three ships, man them with American Indians, and send them over to discover Italy.

•••

George Ade—

One man's poison ivy is another man's spinach.

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.

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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.

Typographic Poster | Alexandria Toszegi

Typographic poster © Alexandria Toszegi 2015

Above Poster by Alexandria Toszegi, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa (2015), in celebration of type designer Paul Renner and his design of the typeface Futura.

•••

Fran Lebowitz—

If thine enemy offend thee, give his child a drum.

•••

Judith and Neil Morgan, Dr. Seuss and Mr. Geisel. New York: Random House, 1995, p. 73—

One unborn scheme [devised by Dr. Seuss and his friend Hugh Troy] was to launch a private detective agency named Surely, Goodness and Mercy. Its slogan was to be biblical: "[Surely, Goodness and Mercy] Will follow you all the days of your life."

UNI Graphic Designers Win Big at AAF Awards

UNI CHAS Newsletter (March 2015)

Above Page 7 from the March 2015 issue of The Update, published by the College of Humanities, Arts and Sciences, University of Northern Iowa.

Graphic design students and faculty in the UNI Department of Art had ample reason to be pleased. In the wake of one of its students, Aaron Van Fossen, having been chosen by Communication Arts magazine (March-April issue) as one of the top 15 graphic design students in the nation, Aaron and other current students (among them Rachael Bair and Rhiannon Rasmussen) were awarded other prizes at this year's AAF judging, in both student and professional categories.

Typographic Poster | Alex Waters

Typographic poster © Alex Waters (2015)

Above Poster by Alex Waters, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa (2015), in celebration of printer Claude Garamond and the typeface that now bears his name, Garamond.

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Larry Rivers, What Did I Do?: The Unauthorized Autobiography (New York: HarperCollins, 1992), p. 163.

The studio behind these windows [below the engraved building sign at 122 Second Avenue in New York] was the largest and lightest of the three on the fifth floor. Harry Holtzman, an artist, held the lease. He brought Piet Mondrian to the United States and offered him the use of that space. Piet walked up the five flights to look Harry's place over, decided he was not up to the climb. Harry found him a studio a little more down to earth, uptown. If 122 had had an elevator, Mondrian's Broadway Boogie-Woogie would have been called Second Avenue Boogie-Woogie.

UNI Art History Symposium | Erin Keiser 2015

Art History Symposium poster © Erin Keiser (2015)

Above Poster by Erin Keiser, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa (2015), announcing the schedule for the upcoming 5th Annual Art History Symposium at the same school, beginning at 5:00 pm on Friday, April 10, 2015. This was chosen as the winning events poster by the UNI Art History faculty. The top student art history papers (to be formally presented that afternoon at 5:00 pm) were submitted by Kelly Cunningham, Dana Potter and Linda Patrick. Awards will be announced at 6:00 pm, followed by a keynote address by Ohio University art historian Dr. Jennie Klein on "Spiritual Athletes: Performing Endurance." Free and open to the public at the Kamerick Art Building auditorium on the UNI campus.

•••

Robert MacNeil, Wordstruck: A Memoir. New York: Viking, 1989, p. 52—

If scientists could examine my brain, as they do the contents of murder victims' stomachs, they would find that I had gorged myself when young on plum puddings and fruitcakes of this seventeenth-century prose [of Anglican Church liturgy]; each word simple in itself, the combination rich and fruity, loved for the taste on the tongue, though years in the digesting; words for their own sake.

UNI Graphic Design Portfolio Night 2015

Portfolio Night Poster © Aaron Van Fossen (2015)

Above Poster by Aaron Van Fossen, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa (2015), announcing the program's annual Graphic Design Portfolio Night. To be held on the first floor of the Kamerick Art Building South (adjacent to the Gallery of Art) from 5:30-7:00 pm on Friday, April 17, 2015. Open to the public. Drop by any time, for as long as you'd like, to see the senior portfolios of (and to talk with) some of our graduating graphic design majors.

Among those exhibiting are Zach Bird, Kramer Dixon, Chase Murphy, Jeffery Fenton, Claire Jacobmeyer, Stephanie Mathena, Chelsea McNamee, Daniel O'Shea, Hannah Orlandini, Ali Schultz, Joel Steger, Danielle Shearer, Aaron Van Fossen and Maureen Villavicencio. Thanks to all the students, and to the event's tireless organizer, UNI Professor Phil Fass.

Art History Poster | Olivia Jaschen

Art History Poster © Olivia Jaschen (2015)

Above Poster by Olivia Jaschen, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa (2015), announcing a Call for Papers for the 5th Annual Art History Symposium at the same school on April 10, 2015.

•••

Lady Dorothy Nevill—

Guinea pig, there's a tasty dish for you, but it was always a job to make your cook do it. They want bakin' same as the gypsies serve the hedgehogs. I tried eatin' donkey too, but I had to stop that, for it made me stink.

•••

Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers—

Miss Bolo rose from the table considerably agitated, and went straight home, in a flood of tears and a sedan chair.

•••

Anon—

I'm not an actor. I just play one on tv.

Art History Poster | Turner Kopecky

Art History Poster © Turner Kopecky (2015)

Above Poster by Turner Kopecky, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa (2015), announcing a Call for Papers for the 5th Annual Art History Symposium at the same school on April 10, 2015.

•••

Margaret Geller, interviewed in Joan Evelyn Ames, Mastery: Interviews with 30 Remarkable People. Portland OR: Rudra Press, 1997, p. 90—

When students ask me about training to be a scientist, I tell them to read broadly, not just in science. It's important because I believe that creativity really comes from a broad education. You can be technically skilled, but the ability to make connections requires borrowing and reformulating ideas from other places.

Typographic Poster | Erin Keiser

Typographic Poster © Erin Keiser (2015)

Above Poster by Erin Keiser, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa (2015), in celebration of printer Claude Garamond and the typeface that now bears his name, Garamond.

•••

Robert MacNeil, Wordstruck: A Memoir. New York: Viking, 1989, p. 109—

A painter's eye memorizes, as does a musician's ear. The memory-banks they create are fundamental to their training. Memorizing poems gives all of us, amateurs of language, our own memory-banks. Sentimental, lyric, narrative, adventurous, dramatic, bombastic, gothic, facetious, satiric—we heap the phrases up and our amazing brains keep them ready to leap out, bidden or unbidden—all accessible—in milliseconds.

Bald Eagles Galore Right Here in River City

Photo © Mary Snyder Behrens (2015)

Above We live on a small five-acre "farm" in northeast Iowa, with the nearest river about 15 miles away. Yet, we have bald eagles almost daily now, perched in the trees along our back property line, away from the road. One per day is common, but for the past several days, we've had three at a time (mature, with white heads), sitting atop the trees all day, and sometimes throughout the night. Here's one, photographed from the moving car, which was feeding on a rabbit in a ditch beside the road. About 90 minutes northeast of here, in Decorah IA, is a popular online "eagle cam."

Typography Poster | Jordan Deutmeyer

Typography Poster © Jordan Deutmeyer (2015)

Above Poster by Jordan Deutmeyer, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa (2015), in celebration of type designer Aldo Novarese and his design of the typeface Eurostile.

•••

Leslie (Les) Dawson Jr, The Malady Lingers On and Other Great Groaners. Arrow Books, 1982—

The policeman led the accused into the dock and the prisoner bowed his head as the judge thundered to him: "Is this the first time you've been up before me!" The accused shrugged his shoulders and replied: "I don't know…what time do you normally get up?"

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>>>

UNI Graphic Designer | Top 15 in Nation

Student Showcase, March-April 2015 issue of CA Magazine

Above Page 93 of the current issue (March-April 2015) of the California-based graphic design newsstand magazine, Communication Arts (CA) Magazine. It highlights the work of UNI graphic design student Aaron Van Fossen, who has been selected (in the words of the magazine's editors) as one of "the fifteen most promising design, photography and illustration students in visual communications programs from all across the country." Originally from Bettendorf IA, Aaron is pursuing a BA in Graphic Design in the Department of Art at the University of Northern Iowa, and will graduate in May 2015.

As shown by the examples reproduced above, some of the projects undertaken in the Department of Art's graphic design program are pro bono (free of charge), completed for the purpose of enriching the quality of community life. Among the featured works above are a poster for the UNI Department of Art's Annual Juried Student Art Exhibition; a poster promoting an annual event titled "An Afternoon with Frank Lloyd Wright" at Cedar Rock State Park, in Quasqueton IA; and a commemorative poster about Iowa-born Olympic wrestler Dan Gable, for an exhibition at the National Wrestling Museum Hall of Fame Dan Gable Museum, in Waterloo IA.

More of Aaron Van Fossen's recent work is featured online here.

See also: Roy R. Behrens, FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT and Mason City: Architectural Heart of the Prairie (2016).   

CD Portfolio Design | Stephanie Berry

CD Portfolio Package © Stephanie Berry (2014)

Above Design for a CD Portfolio package (inside and out) by Stephanie Berry, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa (2014).

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Nancy Perkins, quoted in Remar Sutton and Mary Abbott Waite, eds., The Common Ground Book: A Circle of Friends. Latham NY: British American Publishing, 1992, p. 367—

Back around 1900, my father's family owned a large, prosperous farm outside Postville, Iowa. They lived modestly on the form but had plenty. Each summer they used to order about $500 worth of fireworks to put on a spectacular display for the county. And my dad's grandfather never went around without at least a couple of thousand dollars in his overalls.

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Buck Johnson, ibid., p. 371—

Mama had a saying she used when I wanted something. She'd say, "Well, honey, you can't get that. Like it says in the Bible, 'Blessed are they that want not, for they shall not be disappointed.'" Of course, it wasn't from the Bible at all; she made it up.

Art History Poster | Jordan Wolter

Art History Poster © Jordan Wolter (2015)

Above Poster by Jordan Wolter, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa (2015), announcing a Call for Papers for the 5th Annual Art History Symposium at the same school on April 10, 2015.

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Jim Swann, quoted in Remar Sutton and Mary Abbott Waite, eds., The Common Ground Book: A Circle of Friends. Latham NY: British American Publishing, 1992, p. 32—

[My children and I] have a great game. It would be fun for grownups to do if they could let their hair down. The kids give me two animals and I make up a story. Of course they try to think of the most outrageous combination, like a cat and a roach, animals that will stump me.

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From the introduction to Archy & Mehitabel (a cockroach and a cat) at the Don Marquis website—

Archy is a cockroach with the soul of a poet, and Mehitabel is an alley cat with a celebrated past — she claims she was Cleopatra in a previous life. Together, cockroach and cat are the foundation of one of the most engaging collections of light poetry to come out of the twentieth century.

“expression is the need of my soul,” declares Archy, who labored as a free-verse poet in an earlier incarnation. At night, alone, he dives furiously on the keys of Don Marquis’ typewriter to describe a cockroach’s view of the world, rich with cynicism and humor. It’s difficult enough to operate the typewriter’s return bar to get a fresh line of paper; all of Archy’s dispatches are written lowercase, and without punctuation, because he is unable to hit both shift and letter keys to produce a capital letter.

Typographic Poster | Justin Allen

Typographic Poster © Justin Allen (2015)

Above Poster by Justin Allen, graphic design student, Department of Art, University of Northern Iowa (2015), in celebration of type designer Paul Renner and his design of the typeface Futura.

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Robert Motherwell—
I sometimes think of pictures as analogues to human relations. There is an interaction between the canvas and oneself, with many levels of feeling. Art is an experience, not an "object." If you look at a work as an object and find yourself noticing the machinery of it all, something is wrong. A picture is finished when you experience it vividly, when it makes you aware of the resonance and mystery of a realized expression.