The Poetry of Sight

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Hartman Reserve Nature Center Talks Soon

Poster © Roy R. Behrens 2019

Above Currently nearing completion is a new set of posters in connection with upcoming public presentations at the Hartman Reserve Nature Center in Cedar Falls IA. As noted in an earlier post, during the remaining months of 2019, one hundred posters will be installed at that center's Interpretive Building in four exhibits of twenty-five each.

Posters © Roy R. Behrens 2019

The next two presentations are Saplings, Songbirds and Sonnets: An Exhuberant Celebration of Nature Through Poetry by Laura Sohl-Cryer (2:00 pm, Sunday, July 14) and The Birds of Hartman Reserve: Bird-Friendly Communities by Prairie Rapids Audubon Society (PRAS) (2:00 pm. Sunday, August 11). All presentations are free and open to the public.

Each set of posters promotes a new pair of presentations, one each month. This new set of twenty-five "bird-themed" posters will be on display during the months of July and August, for the presentations known as the Second Sunday Speaker Series.

Poster © Roy R. Behrens 2019

Saturday, June 8, 2019

Henry Miller | As blind drunk as Mister Magoo

Henry Miller, as photographed by Carl Van Vechten (1940)

Dan Davin, Closing Times. London: Oxford University Press, 19175, p. 131—

[Welsh poet Dylan Thomas] told me a burlesque story of meeting [American novelist] Henry Miller in London. After a prolonged session in the pubs they went to a little dairy in Rathbone Place which served sandwiches and which I well remember as being a very simple, clean, unpretentious place. But Miller was drunk and also extremely short-sighted. He was convinced that Dylan had taken him to a brothel and that the plain uniforms and innocent bearing of the waitresses were the last word in lubricious sophistication. Dylan had great difficulty in averting calamity and never succeeded at all in convincing Miller that he was mistaken. We speculated on how many similar misunderstandings might underlie the exploits so boringly recounted in [Miller’s] Tropic of Capricorn and Dylan went on to improvise a new work of Miller’s of which the dairy was the transmuted center and in which Miller played a grotesquely comical role, rather like Mr. Magoo.

Also, see an earlier post about Anthony Burgess’ comparison of himself to Mr. Magoo. I am also reminded of Buckminster Fuller’s account of his impaired vision as a child—

I was born cross-eyed. Not until I was four years old was it discovered that this was caused by my being abnormally farsighted. My vision was thereafter fully corrected with lenses. Until four I could see only large patterns, houses, trees, outlines of people with blurred coloring. While I saw two dark areas on human faces, I did not see a human eye or a teardrop or a human hair until I was four. Despite my new ability to apprehend details, my childhood's spontaneous dependence only upon big pattern clues has persisted.…

Hartman Program on Sources of Natural Dyes

Just a reminder. Tomorrow at 2:00 pm, Sunday, June 9, Angela Waseskuk will speak about Connecting Through Color: An Exploration of Natural Dye Processes at Hartman Reserve Nature Center (Interpretive Building). Waseskuk is an artist and teacher at the University of Northern Iowa. In 1918, as Artist in Residence at Hartman Reserve, she researched the use of indigenous plants as potential sources of natural dyes, then used them in subsequent artworks. All presentations in the Second Sunday Speaker Series are free and open to the public.

Artist Angela Waseskuk

Friday, June 7, 2019

Dylan Thomas | Mistakes Friend's Hat for His

Above Cover of the paperback edition of Dylan Thomas, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog. New York: New Directions, 1968.

•••

Dan Davin, Closing Times. London: Oxford University Press, 1975, pp. 134-135—

In those days I often used the George restaurant upstairs for business lunches and would usually find [Welsh poet] Dylan [Thomas] and his wife and friends installed when I went to meet my own guests in the downstairs bar. On one such occasion after he had stayed the night with us I was surprised to observe that he was wearing a shirt I recognized as mine, a blue one. But I was appeased on returning home that evening to find he had left behind a dirty one of much better quality after my wife had surrendered mine. On another day I was for some reason or other wearing a hat, a rather extraordinary blue felt hat I had picked up in Paris and one to which I was deeply attached; perhaps because it was the only hat I had ever found which my wife thought suited me. I left it in the bar while I went upstairs to lunch. When I called back again after lunch I was surprised to see it stowed away in an open bag Dylan had with him for his visit that afternoon to London. I insisted on reclaiming it, rather to his chagrin. He explained that [his wife] Caitlin though it suited him and it was the only hat he had. I did not risk asking her if it suited me also but replied that my wife thought it did and it was the only hat I had. I might as well have given in at once. For the next time we met in the George the same thing happened, only this time I didn’t notice till he got away. And when I inquired later about the hat’s fate, with even some faint hope of getting it back, he explained that he had left it on the rack of his compartment while he went to the restaurant car and in his absence some unscrupulous bastard had swiped it; no doubt someone who didn’t have a hat and who thought his wife would think it suited him.

Throaty chucklings, indignant hoots & snuffles

Rosamond Lehmann, The Swan in the Evening: Fragments of an Inner Life. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968, p. 31—

The trains are much loved by me; their language is companionable, familiar, pregnant with interest and surprises: triumphant masculine crescendos, gently lamenting diminendos, hoarse throaty chucklings, indignant hoots, unbridled snorts and explosions, exhausted sighs and snuffles. Even the shunting goods trains are dear to me, especially in the dead of night, when their screech and cackle speak to me not of dementia but of hope and comfort…

Above Rosamond Lehmann, her brother John Lehmann, and British writer Lytton Strachey (c1920s). Cropped. Photographer unknown. Public domain.

Monday, April 29, 2019

Hartman Reserve Posters | A Composite 2019

Hartman Reserve Posters © Roy R. Behrens / 2019

These posters will be on exhibit in the Interpretive Building at the Hartman Reserve Nature Center in Cedar Falls IA during May and June 2019. Three other exhibits will follow, in July-August, September-October, and November-December, with twenty-five posters featured each time. more>>> and more>>>

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Hartman Reserve Speaker Series Posters 2019

Hartman Reserve Nature Center

Above We are currently designing a new series of posters in connection with upcoming presentations at the Hartman Reserve Nature Center in Cedar Falls IA. In the remaining months of 2019, one hundred posters will be installed at that center's Interpretive Building in four exhibits of twenty-five each.

Each set of posters will promote a pair of presentations, one each month, on topics related to nature. The first set of twenty-five posters will be on display during the months of May and June, in what is called the Second Sunday Speaker Series. The first exhibit of posters can also be accessed online at this link .

The first two presentations are Photographing Wild Iowa by Randy Maas (2:00 pm, Sunday, May 12) and Connecting Through Color: An Exploration of Natural Dye Processes by Angela Waseskuk (2:00 pm. Sunday, June 9). All presentations are free and open to the public.

Hartman Reserve Second Sunday Speaker Series 2019

Monday, April 15, 2019

I Could Be Bounded in a Nutshell

William Shakespeare, Hamlet—

I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

Sunday, April 14, 2019

2019 Graphic Design Portfolio Night at UNI

Portfolio Night Poster by Madelyn Stillman, 2019

Above Each spring semester, the graphic design students and faculty in the Department of Art at the University of Northern Iowa celebrate the achievements of the graduating seniors. The event is the annual Graphic Design Portfolio Night, as announced by this exquisite poster, designed by one of those graduates, Madelyn Stillman.

On Friday, April 26, from 5:30 until 7:00 pm (drop by anytime, leave whenever you'd like), fifteen current BA Graphic Design Majors will be at tables in the hallway of the ground floor of the south wing of the Kamerick Art Building. Their print and online portfolios will be on display, with the students there to talk to visitors (parents, fellow students, faculty, professional designers, prospective design students, alumni, faculty emeritus, you name it—it's open to everyone, and on-campus parking is easy on Friday evenings) about the work that they've achieved.

The person on the graphic design faculty who tirelessly oversees this always impressive annual event is Professor Phil Fass. The works in these portfolios were produced by the students of Fass and his very capable colleague, Professor Soo Hostetler.

The student exhibitors this year are: Philip Adams, Jessica Allen, Kaitlyn Bown, Riley Green, Ellen Holt, Craig Johnson, Kumari Kincade, Josie Love, Mercedes Mancilla, Libby Schwers, Cameron Sievers, Kristin Stein, Madelyn Stillman and Carly Weber.

Saturday, April 13, 2019

A Sweet Disorder in the Dress / Robert Herrick

Above A parody of a painting by either Angnolo Bronzino (Jacopo Carucci) or (possibly) Pontormo, titled Portrait of a Lady with a Lapdog (c1537), providing current portraits of the charming, smart, beautiful women, Mary and Lola, with whom I delight in life.

•••

Robert Herrick
Delight in Disorder (1648)

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness;
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthralls the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribands to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me, that when art
Is too precise in every part.

Saturday, March 30, 2019

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>>>

Friday, March 29, 2019

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.

Monday, March 25, 2019

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>>>

Thursday, March 21, 2019

National Parks Posters | Roy R. Behrens 2019

National Parks Posters

In late December and early January 2018-19, we designed twenty-three posters to commemorate National Parks and Monuments. These are currently on exhibit in the interpretive building at the Hartman Reserve Nature Center in Cedar Falls IA. They will remain on view throughout March and April 2019. The exhibition is free and open to the public. It can be viewed any time during building hours (it's open every day but Saturdays).

As of today, they have also been posted on our website in an online virtual exhibition.

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Good, Bad—and Philip Evergood (in Iowa)

Philip Evergood in Iowa

Above Back in the late 1950s, the American painter Philip Evergood was a visiting artist for two summers at the Department of Art at the Iowa State Teachers College (now the University of Northern Iowa). Some people still remember it. We wrote an essay about it in 1998, which we've now revised and posted on our website. more>>>

Friday, March 15, 2019

Oh, the farmer and the cowman must be friends

Dude (2019)

Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oklahoma! (1943)—

The farmer and the cowman should be friends,
Oh, the farmer and the cowman should be friends.
The cowman ropes a cow with ease, the farmer steals her
butter and cheese,
But that's no reason why they cain't be friends—
Oh, the farmer and the cowman should be friends.

•••

The American poet Robert Penn Warren (whose voice I love to listen to) came from Southern roots, and some of his ancestors had served on the Confederate side during the American Civil War. In Warren's wonderful memoir (which I have just finished reading), Portrait of a Father (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1988), he recalls a misunderstanding he had when, as a boy, he was visiting his maternal grandfather's home. Here's the story—

There was another remark among the daughters which seemed related to the notion that the old man [his grandfather] was a visionary. They had said, more than once in their protracted and loving diagnosis of their father, that he was a "Confederate reader." Or so it seemed. I would wonder what a "Confederate reader" might be. But as my vocabulary widened, it suddenly dawned on me that the old man was an "inveterate reader." In fact, he was. As long as eyes held out.

Sunday, March 10, 2019

New National Parks Posters | Hartman Reserve

National Parks Poster Exhibition (2019)

Above In recent days a new exhibition has been installed of full-color posters on the theme of National Parks and Monuments. The exhibition will remain on view throughout March and April 2019 in the interpretive building at the Hartman Reserve Nature Center at 657 Reserve Drive in Cedar Falls IA.

Of the twenty-six posters featured, three were designed in 2016 by Allison Rolinger, and can be viewed online here. Rolinger, a graphic designer at 5IVE in Minneapolis, is originally from Cedar Falls, and a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa, where she earned a BA degree in Graphic Design in 2017.

The remaining posters were designed in recent months by Roy R. Behrens, UNI Professor Emeritus and Distinguished Scholar. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, he taught graphic design, illustration and the history of design for forty-six years at American universities and art schools, including UNI. He retired from teaching in December 2018. His National Parks posters can also be viewed online.

The Nature Center's interpretive building is open to the public from 8:00 am to 4:30 pm, Monday through Friday, and from 1:00 to 5:00 pm on Sunday. The building is not open on Saturdays. The exhibition is free and open to the public.

Monday, February 25, 2019

Long Lost Wedding Photograph Found

Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Finney (wedding photograph)

Above How fortunate. After all these years, we have at last recovered our long lost wedding photograph (c1434). At the time I was using the pseudonym of Arnold Finney, a cousin of the famous star Albert Finney (died recently). If I were only more observant, I surely would have noticed then that some of Mary's fingers are the length and proportion of string beans. No wonder those gloves I gave her didn't fit.

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

National Parks Poster Series | Yosemite

Above Yosemite National Park (2019). © Roy R. Behrens. From an on-going series of posters about wildlife habitats, and national parks and monuments.

Sunday, February 17, 2019

National Parks Poster Series | Big Bend

Above Big Bend National Park (2019). © Roy R. Behrens. From an on-going series of posters about wildlife habitats, and national parks and monuments.

National Parks Poster Series | Effigy Mounds

Above Effigy Mounds National Monument (2019). © Roy R. Behrens. From an on-going series of posters about wildlife habitats, and national parks and monuments.