Happy birthday!

Today is my father's 108th birthday, although he did not live to blow out the candles.  He died in 2007 but every year on his birthday I like to do a little something to remember him.  Nine years ago I wrote this blog post, which if you even read it to begin with have probably forgotten, so I won't feel guilty reprinting it now. 

Since this blog is mainly about art, I'll take this opportunity to reminisce a bit about how my father taught me about art.  Although he and my mother were both only one generation from pretty damn poor and uneducated, out of the blue they both developed a love of art that was quite unexpected in the dark days of the depression.  Dad began to acquire art as a very young man and was quite proud of his growing collection.  Indeed, buying art was one of the most important activities of his life, a passion he instilled in his children as well.

Among his World War II souvenirs was this lovely watercolor of Weilburg, Germany, which he purchased from an impoverished German artist he ran into on his military rounds.  The purchase price, modest though it was for Dad, allowed the artist and his family to buy food for several weeks.

Shortly after the war, Dad was asked to judge an art contest for his local museum.  His honorarium consisted of the second-place winner, this gorgeous picture of Saginaw, Michigan, with the Saginaw River in the foreground.  The steeple at the right was the church where my parents were married and my sister and I were baptized.

When I was about 10, Dad took me on a Christmas shopping mission -- we went to an art fair and bought a painting that was supposed to be a secret gift for my mother.  It showed up under the tree with an envelope reading "A surprise for Vi!"  But when she opened the card, it said "The surprise is that this painting is for Kathy!"  It was the first piece of art that was mine alone, and the first of dozens, if not hundreds, that Dad gave to me.

All three of these paintings now hang in my home and whenever I see them -- wherever I turn -- I am reminded of how my father opened my eyes and my world to art.  A favorite family activity was to hit an art fair (the Cheap Art Fair was the best of all) and buy a bunch of new stuff.  We shopped at the low end of the food chain but managed to find plenty of lovely things.  The occasional dud didn't cause all that much financial regret, and probably made some artist quite happy.

After my parents died, my sibs and I divvied up the artwork, a process that began long before our parents' demise, has taken years to accomplish and still isn't complete.  I'm now trying to pass some of the art along to succeeding generations, continuing Dad's legacy, passing down both the tangible and the ineffable.

Edmund Arnold and Baby Kathy

So Happy Birthday, Dad!  You're here in every room of the house, living on in the art.

My favorite things 36

During the Great Depression my father, like so many other people, had a hard life.  His dad died of cancer, but not before using up the family's savings on hospital bills; he had to drop out of college after two years; he had a bunch of crappy jobs that he hated, including selling Libby's canned goods on the road in central Michigan.  But as things got better, he had a great opportunity, to work at and subsequently buy half of a weekly newspaper in Frankenmuth, Michigan.

Frankenmuth was a tiny town settled by German immigrants in the 1840s.  Their plan was to save the heathen Indians not by sending a single missionary but by sending entire villages of people who would set a good example by living in Christian harmony in a community centered on the Lutheran church.

Unfortunately for the missionary effort, when they got to Michigan the Indians were long gone, driven out by loggers and settlers, so the immigrants simply went about their business, living in Christian harmony in a community centered on the Lutheran church.  My great-great grandfather was one of those immigrants, arriving in 1853.

Dad and a bunch of other young men came home from World War 2 determined to breathe new life into the staid old town, where people still spoke German as easily as English.  Dad had a great idea: Frankenmuth should capitalize on its German heritage and go for tourist business.  There were already three hotels in town that had become famous for serving chicken dinners, and people were accustomed to stopping for a meal on their way to and from Detroit.  The guys persuaded the local bank, ready for a new building, to use Bavarian architecture, and from then on other businesses did the same.

Pretty soon Frankenmuth had become a kitschy tourist town famous around the world.  Dad's buddy Wally Bronner opened a year-round Christmas store, selling ornaments, artificial trees, inflatable Santas, every kind of holiday stuff.  The hotels, now remodeled in Bavarian style, cranked out chicken dinners by the bazillion.  Main Street was filled with shops selling Germanic souvenirs.  The town was the first place outside of Germany to get an official imprimatur from Munich to hold a sanctioned Oktoberfest.  For years Frankenmuth was either #1 or #2 in the list of tourist attractions in the state.

When our family moved away from Michigan (I was 9 years old) Dad still kept his half of the paper as an absentee owner.  He always said he was waiting till I got out of journalism school and could take it over.  Privately I thought I would sooner move to Siberia and herd yaks, but didn't say this out loud.  Nevertheless, I was kind of hurt when, in my senior year of college, he sold out to his longtime partner without even discussing it with me.  All for the best, of course.

We buzz Frankenmuth whenever we go back to Michigan, which isn't all that frequently.  We always bring a cooler so we can load up on sausages at Kern's, and of course drink a beer and eat a chicken dinner.  And I always walk by the Frankenmuth News building, which is now the local history museum.  As Oscar Hammerstein wrote, "This nearly was mine."

My favorite things 13

My father was only one generation off the farm, and there was no art in his family tree, but some mysterious impulse made him into an art lover.  In his lifetime he must have bought hundreds of paintings, prints and sculptures, and he raised us kids to be both art lovers and art collectors.  I think the first original work of art he ever owned was this very big (48 inches wide plus frame) painting of Saginaw, Michigan, where Dad grew up and my sister and I were born.

It shows a view of the West Side of Saginaw, looking across the Saginaw River from the park on Ojibway Island where we used to go to play.  The tower in the center of the picture is the Saginaw County Court House, three blocks down from the house where my grandmother lived.  The steeple towards the right of the picture is Holy Cross Lutheran Church, where my parents were married and my sister and I were baptized.  The big building whose black roof occupies most of the skyline in the left-hand part of the picture used to be Ippel's department store, upstairs of which my grandmother lived for decades after she had to leave the house on Fayette Street (the Ippel's building burned down many years after she died).

Dad had been involved with a local art organization and when they decided to hold a contest, sometime around 1950, he was the judge.  His payment was the winning painting (although maybe I have that wrong, and he didn't like the winning painting so he got the second place...).  In any case, this picture hung over his desk in six different houses until he downsized both the picture and the desk, both of which came to me, the picture fitting perfectly on top of the desk, shrinkwrapped together in a truck.

I don't have a lot of nostalgia for Saginaw; we moved away when I was 6 and after my grandmother died there wasn't much reason to go back.  But I love the painting, because it was the start of something extremely important in our family: a love of art that has burned bright for decades and continues to illuminate our lives.

The artist is W. C. Brethauer, whom I cannot find any trace of on Google.  I hope that he was proud to get the purchase prize in the local art contest.  I wish that he knew how much we all have loved that painting for almost three-quarters of a century and with any luck will continue to do so for a long time.

P.S.  I wrote earlier this week about encountering my father's name in a book, and realize that I should have included a link for those couple of readers who might be interested in his career in typography.  For Jan Q and others, here's his obit from the New York Times.

A surprise in a book

I've been reading a fascinating book called "The Newspaper in Art," which traces the long history of artists using it either as subject matter or as raw material.  Although artists were incorporating images of "news" publications as early as the 16th century, the Impressionists were the ones who really went to town, painting all kinds of people reading papers in their daily life.

Paul Cezanne, The Artist's Father, 1866 

Mary Cassatt, The Artist's Mother, 1878

The Cubists also loved newspapers, but they cut them up and pasted the pieces into their paintings as a clever way to achieve double meaning.  The paper could represent a shape, and at the same time the newspaper story could reference an idea or event.

Pablo Picasso, Guitar and Wine Glass, 1912

I had a great time reading the book, which consisted of three separate sections, each written by a different commentator.  One of the writers decided to wind up his section with a kind of miscellaneous discussion of how modern newspapers have been affected by art, which I thought was a kind of lame non sequitur that didn't really hold water, but I was getting to the end so I dutifully read it anyway....

... and was surprised to find the guy talking about my father!

I'm not sure that any other reader of this book found much of interest in this paragraph -- it doesn't really have much to do with fine art -- but I liked it.

Happy birthday!

My father would have turned 102 today so I thought it would be appropriate to celebrate by a moment of communion with one of his favorite works of art, which I have fortunately inherited.

If you've ever visited the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz you probably saw this statue in the front yard. When we lived in Germany many years ago my dad, lover of printing and typography, had to visit the museum, of course.

Sometime later my dad got to visit another of his great idols, Hermann Zapf, the great type designer of the 20th century who just died earlier this month (you probably know Zapf Dingbats, as well as Palatino and Optima).  Zapf had a bust of Gutenberg in his home, and Dad admired it.  Yes, it was the same one from the museum, by Wäinö Aaltonen, a contemporary Finnish sculptor.  Zapf said he owned the rights to reproduce another bust, somewhat smaller than the original, and would Dad like to have one?  Is the Pope Catholic?

So Dad had this bust made by the same foundry, and it has always held the place of honor in the household.

Several years before my parents died, they held an infamous "art auction" among us three children, in which we got to divvy up all their pictures, sculptures and other precious items.  (Of course we couldn't take possession until much later.)  I am the oldest and thus got first pick, which of course was Gutenberg.

Here's Gutenberg wearing a festive hat to celebrate Dad's birthday.

Failed series 2 -- layouts

Writing about series that were canceled early -- ideas that got the old college try but for some reason failed to jell.  This series started in my first workshop with Nancy Crow, in 2003.  We were strip-piecing, and this assignment was to make six strip-pieced panels, then cut and rearrange them into a composition.  I loved the finished top; it used some of my all-time favorite colors (that lavender has appeared in many, many pieces) and I thought the composition was successful.

Layout 1: Six-Column Format

I never quilted it, although I can't remember why; I think I got sidetracked into finishing my alphabet series for exhibit.  But after that show, I returned to the series and made two more pieces.

My thought here was to make several strip-pieced panels, then as I cut and rearranged them I made two compositions instead of one.  They were twins, of course, with the same fabrics and strip patterns, but had different characters.  They were the same size and intended to be displayed side-by-side, but as it turned out, one was accepted into a traveling exhibit and went away for a while.  Meanwhile, the other one was shown a few places and even won the top award at an all-mediums show in a museum.

Layout 2 and 3: Two-Page Spread, 2004

By this time I had attached a meaning to the series: newspaper layout.  I trained as a journalist and worked on a newspaper early in my career.  My father was a newspaper typographer and I grew up with thoughts of different layout patterns.

The artist statement I wrote for this series read: "These quilts are about newspapers.  From day to day the same stories keep reappearing – politics, war, weather, sports, scandal.  Today’s newspaper is different from yesterday’s in its details, but not in its recurring themes."

I spent some time with one of the books my father wrote about newspaper design, writing down several ideas that could constitute more quilts in the series.  For instance, "reverse pyramid" is a diagonal composition, describing how ads are placed at the bottom of the page, sloping up toward the top.  But somehow the list of titles and diagrams never got translated into fabric.  I got sidetracked into other series and priorities.

At first I thought I would be called back to the series after my father died, which happened in 2007.  But I wasn't.  In retrospect, I realize that the strip-piecing, a technique that I love and have taught in many workshops, is too closely associated with Nancy Crow, my friend and mentor.  While Nancy has been a huge influence on me, her gravitational pull is so strong that I have struggled to develop my own voice instead of succumbing to the easy temptation of working with strip-pieced panels.  I'm not sure I yet have the self-confidence to venture back into strip-pieced territory.

Bottom line: visually striking, emotionally and intellectually powerful, but too derivative to handle???

Happy birthday, Dad!

During the depression, my father worked at a number of low-end jobs, including one at a department store that went out of business.  Dad's job duties included window-dressing and display, and he particularly enjoyed making signs for sales and special offers.  As the store was liquidated, the loyal employees were given first chance to buy anything on the premises.  Dad bought a paper cutter, one of his favorite job tools from that gig, and it was one of his treasured possessions until he died.

As a kid I remember the paper cutter always at the ready.  Dad was always doing some kind of extracurricular calligraphy, making little paintings for a new baby, a new house, a special birthday celebration or any other auspicious event, and they all needed to be trimmed to fit.  We all made booklets and brochures and fancy covers for our school reports, and they all needed to be cut to size.  We must have cut a million pieces of paper on that equipment.  Mysteriously, the blade never needed sharpening and the pivot never loosened.

Dad's paper cutter and pens


















After he died, I inherited the paper cutter, rich with an 80-year-old patina of loving use, along with his old desk (also bought second-hand in another distress sale, and used for a half-century) and his pens, still stored in his Michigan State mug.  I graciously allow my husband to use the desk every day, but the pens and the paper cutter are for me alone.

Dad's desk, installed in our house

Today would be Dad's 100th birthday.  He was the towering figure  in my life, a great man with a public persona who nevertheless always put his family first, and his first-born (me) first among the first.

Dad and Baby Kathy



















He left a big hole, but it's a hole full of love and memories.  And pens, and a paper cutter.  Happy birthday, Dad!

Happy Birthday!

Had my father lived another six years, he would have turned 99 today.

Since this blog is mainly about art, I'll take this opportunity to reminisce a bit about how my father taught me about art.  Although he and my mother were both only one generation from pretty damn poor and uneducated, out of the blue they both developed a love of art that was quite unexpected in the dark days of the depression.  Dad began to acquire art as a very young man and was quite proud of his growing collection.  Indeed, buying art was one of the most important activities of his life, a passion he instilled in his children as well.

Among his World War II souvenirs was this lovely watercolor of Weilburg, Germany, which he purchased from an impoverished German artist he ran into on his military rounds.  The purchase price, modest though it was for Dad, allowed the artist and his family to buy food for several weeks.

Shortly after the war, Dad was asked to judge an art contest for his local museum.  His honorarium consisted of the second-place winner, this gorgeous picture of Saginaw, Michigan, with the Saginaw River in the foreground.  The steeple at the right was the church where my parents were married and my sister and I were baptized.

When I was about 10, Dad took me on a Christmas shopping mission -- we went to an art fair and bought a painting that was supposed to be a secret gift for my mother.  It showed up under the tree with an envelope reading "A surprise for Vi!"  But when she opened the card, it said "The surprise is that this painting is for Kathy!"  It was the first piece of art that was mine alone, and the first of dozens, if not hundreds, that Dad gave to me.

All three of these paintings now hang in my home and whenever I see them -- wherever I turn -- I am reminded of how my father opened my eyes and my world to art.  A favorite family activity was to hit an art fair (the Cheap Art Fair was the best of all) and buy a bunch of new stuff.  We shopped at the low end of the food chain but managed to find plenty of lovely things.  The occasional dud didn't cause all that much financial regret, and probably made some artist quite happy.

After my parents died, my sibs and I divvied up the artwork, a process that began long before our parents' demise, has taken years to accomplish and still isn't complete.  Just last week some sculptures that belong to our brother in Australia moved from my sister's house to mine; we hope that someday they'll make their way across the ocean to their rightful home.  I'm now trying to pass some of the art along to succeeding generations, continuing Dad's legacy, passing down both the tangible and the ineffable.

So Happy Birthday, Dad!  You're here in every room of the house, living on in the art.

Channeling Dad

My father was quite a guy in his day. He was one of the most important figures in newspaper typography, changing the looks of newspapers throughout the Americas in the 1960s and 70s. He took them from stodgy, gray and ponderous to light, readable and appealing. He was totally self-taught as a visual practitioner and connoisseur; as a very young man he took up lettering and made signs, invitations, certificates and cards by the gazillion for the rest of his life. He loved art, painted occasionally, drew wonderful cartoons and was a prodigious collector, although I don’t think he ever took a course, either in art history or art studio practice. He raised all his children to be art lovers and art owners, equally at home in museums and art shows. (Not galleries – we preferred to acquire our art cheap and direct.)

As a little child, I sat in my high chair while he would simultaneously make art and babysit. As I grew up, I retained my customary position over his left shoulder watching him at his drawing board. I can’t tell how many hundreds of hours I spent in my life watching him at work.

Curiously, for a much-doted-upon Daddy’s girl, I never had my own drawing board or my own pens to work with in parallel to him.  He didn't provide them (although I did get my own typewriter at age 4) and I never thought to ask.  At a certain point in my teenage, Dad suggested I might learn calligraphy, and I obediently got a broad-nib pen and tried to write a fine Italian hand. But my taste in calligraphy was light-years ahead of my ability and I couldn’t stand to look at my own clumsy writing, so that endeavor was quickly abandoned.

I had known from early childhood that I couldn’t draw, and now I knew I couldn’t do beautiful writing (my ordinary handwriting was decent, and totally legible, but it sure wasn’t calligraphy). Decades later when I decided to become an artist I realized that I had a huge mental block regarding pens, pencils, brushes, crayons or any other standard mark-making tools.

I could make marks with confidence and character using a squeeze bottle. This allowed me to make good work using dishwasher gel for bleach discharge. (It also allowed me to make beautiful marks with olive oil in a frying pan, somewhat less applicable for my artistic ambitions.) I could also make great marks with a sewing machine, leading to lots of beautifully quilted work.

But put me in the same room with a piece of paper and I froze. For some reason this was a source of unhappiness. I could easily make art for the rest of my life by sewing – and I still think of sewing as my “real” art – but I want to do something with paper. I did make some tentative progress with collage (not too bad with scissors and glue) but could not do anything with writing implements.

Then something wonderful happened. Last winter I took a series of workshops with Laurie Doctor, a calligrapher and painter whose work I love. She set us to work with an exercise she calls “writing, writing, writing” – you spend 15 or 20 minutes writing continuously, never lifting your pen or pencil from the paper, writing backwards and forwards and on top of stuff you already wrote, sometimes with your eyes closed, sometimes with a white pen so you can’t even see what you’re writing. She told us to write actual words, rather than scribbles, but that we could (should?) make them illegible and thus secret so we didn’t have to feel self-conscious.

A few hours into the class I felt a door open up in my head. In this new place, writing didn’t have to be readable!! You have to understand that my entire life had been spent believing that the sole purpose of writing was to convey information. My dad’s whole professional life, summed up in one word, was readability, and as a family we believed in legibility and readability right up there with God. So this new idea was life-changing.

Next, Laurie had us write with a mussel shell, dipping the pointed end into the ink. It made an irregular and unpredictable line and I was enthralled by how crudely I could make my letters and still be happy. In fact, the cruder the letters, the happier I was! Wobbles and blobs and lopsided ovals only added to the character and strength of the writing.

Another door opened up – writing didn’t have to be beautiful!! That was another life-changing idea. We had always revered beautiful type and beautiful writing and scorned awkward handwriting and clunky typefaces. But maybe I didn’t have to do that any more.

Laurie wanted us to practice at home in between workshops, and about then I came upon a jar of Dad’s pens. He died in 2007, my mother died in 2008 and I still don’t have all their possessions totally organized and in place. So finding the pens right when I could use them was a little omen. I was amazed that my five minutes a day of writing turned into an hour or two – all I wanted to do was turn on the radio, make a cup of tea and write with a pen.

And in that lovely zen state I feel so close to my father, as though now he’s sitting over my left shoulder watching, just as I watched over his shoulder for so many years. I feel that I am channeling his inner calligrapher, the one that has now been liberated from being readable and pretty and nice. I suspect it never crossed his mind to be liberated from all that he held dear. But I also suspect that the same secret rooms existed in his head – maybe exist in all our heads – and he just never had the chance to see those doors open. What a joy now for me to be walking with him down this wonderful and totally unexpected path!

 
 
 
 
top -- writing with a mussel shell -- not beautiful!
 


bottom -- writing with a pen -- not readable!