First Television

I have been fascinated by electronics all my life. I never had the computational or science skills to peruse a career in science. I seemed to be more fascinated about science fiction and as a child I would dream of robots and magical machines. Art can be a wonderful blend of science and image making. Many of my works today are metaphors about the intersection of science and art. 

This interest stems from my grandfather Isom and my dad. Grandpa was always tinkering in his workshop. He had stacks of popular Mechanics magazines in his workshop that I read voraciously. His work bench was piled high with early electronic devices scavenged from his job as signal maintainer for the Illinois Southern Railroad.

My dad background was similar. He was an electrician and always wanted to have the latest gadget on the market. I remember how he was constantly trying to get better reception on the radio and television. He had a small collection of electronic tools that fascinated me and  I would dream of how I could make a great scientific breakthroughs if could learn how to use them. He had a tube tester, oscilloscope and signal generator. Unfortunately, he did not let me help him or share his knowledge. He always felt I was not bright enough to do such complicated work. I still watched from afar and continued to dream.

When I was about eight years old, my dad obtained a Hallicrafter television. I don’t remember where he got it, but I assume it was from Sears Roebuck. I do know that is caused many arguments between my mom and dad because its original cost was 200.00.  We were just recovering from the Depression and money was tight. My dad put the television in the front room on a small table. My mom refused to watch it and did not want me to have anything to do with the evil machine. My curiosity got the best of me and I begged for permission. I remember being mesmerized by the grainy black and white pictures and the tiny figures moving inside this mysterious metal cabinet. Stations only broadcast sporadically and my dad was constantly adjustive the antenna and turning the knobs. We were able to watch Crusader Rabbit, Time for Beany and Kukla Fran and Ollie.  Crusader Rabbit was the first animated produced specifically for television. The concept was test marketed in 1948, while the initial episode - Crusader vs. the State of Texas - aired on KNBH in Los Angeles on August 1, 1950. Beany and Cecil first appeared as a hand puppet television show in the late 40's created by Bob Clamped. Burr Tillstrom was the creator and only puppeteer on the Kukla Fran and Ollie show, which premiered as the hour-long Junior Jamboree locally on WBKB in Chicago, Illinois, on October 13, 1947. 

My dad bought a magnifying glass for the set and the illusion was straight out of a science fiction book. We had that set for about two years. As the economy improved we had a series of televisions. My dad also built a DeForest-Sanabria television from a kit in 1950. Each new television was a wonder and sparked my interests and enchanted me.Today at eighty-two it is hard for me to resist new technology.

Hallicrafters Model 505 (T-54) Television (1948) Introduced in 1948, 

Hallicrafters sold this TV in a few different cabinets. The first was model T-54, introduced in 1947. The T-54 came in the same grey metal cabinet as the popular Hallicrafters SX-42 communications radio. Raymond Loewy, the famous Machine Age designer, is credited with designing both of these sets. 

Crusader Rabbit

The concept of an animated series made for television came from animator Alex Anderson, who worked for Terrytoons Studios. Terrytoons turned down Anderson's proposed series, preferrring to remain in theatrical film animation, so Anderson approached Jay Ward to create a partnership, Anderson being in charge of production and Ward arranging financing. Ward became business manager and producer, joining with Anderson to form "Television Arts Productions" in 1947. They tried to sell the series (initially presented as part of a proposed series, The Comic Strips of Television, which featured an early incarnation of Dudley Do-Right) to the NBC television network, with Jerry Fairbanks as the network's "supervising producer".[2] NBC did not telecast Crusader Rabbit on their network, but allowed Fairbanks to sell the series in national syndication, with many NBC affiliates (including New York and Los Angeles) picking it up for local showings. WNBC-TV in New York continued to show the original Crusader Rabbit episodes from 1949 through 1967, and some stations used the program as late as the 1970s.

"Things hidden in my head" Copyright 2013 © Ronald D. Isom, Sr.

Dream Car Contest

In 1953, my freshman year at Belleville Township High School, I spent  many hours drawing cars. The car culture was in full swing and all young boys were dreaming of sleek custom “hot rods”. My ideas were influenced by the futuristic cars illustrated in Popular Mechanics magazine. My Grandpa had a huge collection of the magazines in his workshop. It was the first place I went  when we visited him in Coulterville, Illinois.  I would study the picture intently and dream of building a car.  There was an ad in one of the magazines about the Fisher Body car model contest. I sent for the information and received all the details of the contest. My favorite part was the schematic .  I was able to locate one on the internet and it still gives me the sense of awe I felt as a teenager. I like plans and schematics. I still fill my drawings with symbols, lines and shapes that look like diagrams.

I was really eager to start the build but money was tight and wood and paint for the model would be hard to buy. Also, I did not have the proper model tools or space for working.  I did manage to get some wood but it was not the smooth pine wood that was suggested and I tried carving it with a pen knife.  I would work many frustrating hours on the back stoop of our small Gunnison pre-fabricated house on Wabash Avenue in Belleville, Illinois.  Sitting on the concrete  and carving was problematic  and dangerous. I suffered many cuts and scraped knees.  Well,  to make a long story short, I never finished the model. I still think about that failure.  I had expectations of creating an award winning model and I would have a special assembly at school; all the students would marvel at my achievement.

I have come to realize that the car debacle was a learning experience and I  incorporated it into my life and teaching.  I have had many unfinished projects and many of my students struggled to finish projects. It sounds quaint and old fashion to say that you learn from your failures, but I think it is true.

http://deansgarage.com/2009/fisher-body-craftsmans-guild/

"Things hidden in my head" Copyright 2013 © Ronald D. Isom, Sr.

Mechanical Drawing

I do not know it I have the necessary skills to write a book about art education but I have been compiling small snippets about my career in education and sharing them on Facebook. Tracing the twists and turns of my seventy-five year journey has been a enlightening experience. 

Of course, art teachers, course work, family and the creative process have been my main influences. When you dig deeper, small things reveal a complex network of influences. In high school, I was an average student hoping to go to college. The men in my family were laborers, farmers, railroad workers and mine workers. I was encouraged to obtain a skill.  Most students in my situation enrolled in “shop classes”. During the 1950’s the vocational education department was popular. Auto shop classes and drafting classes were very popular.  One of my favorite classes was Mechanical drawing. Projects were drawing on light green paper with specific borders and precise lettering which were called “plates” Neat rows of helvetica letters indicated the title of each projects. Clean drawings with tracing paper cover sheets were very important. I remember the Thomas E. French textbook illustrations and the wonder of isometric drawing (the word seems prophetic ). I was a good students and learned to be neat  and precise. That element is very evident in my work today and do enjoy detailed work with no erasures. 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mechanical-Drawing-Board-and-CAD-Techniques-by-Thomas-E-French-and-Jay-D-/181756270788?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a518498c4

Mr. Harpstribe was my teacher at Bellevile West High School. 1953-57

"Things hidden in my head" Copyright 2013 © Ronald D. Isom, Sr.

Belleville Township High School East Variety Show

I began teaching at Belleville East in the fall of 1966. The school was still under constructions and many of the classrooms were not ready; it was a new school without traditions. Ever school activity that first year would be the starting point for developing the schools image. Before I was hired, he community voted on the mascot and school name. It was decided that the new school would be called The Belleville East High School Lancers. No one had any idea what the mascot would look like.  After considerable discussion, it was determined that the mascot should be a knight, I guess it was because knights used a lance. I could never quite see the connection. In my mind, the image was a British lancer. I later found out the graphic designer hired to create the  school logo, use a Portuguese Lancer wine bottle label for the type face which really confused everything. The final logo design was a shield with lances.

With the name a logo in place the principal began searching for new activities for the fledgling school. He approach me one day and asked it I would like to organize a school talent show. On my application, I listed my participation in a college review presented by the Blackfriars a theatrical fraternity. I told him  I would give it a try and I quickly enlisted the help of the new music instructor, Jim McHaney.  We decided to call it a Variety Show with a subtitle for each year. Jim and I worked on sixteen shows together and became good friends. The work was divided up and I took charge of the stage, publicity and house. Jim work with staging the acts, sound and lighting. The lines of responsibility  were loosely drawn and many activities overlapped. 

One of the major problems was the lack of performance space. The  school did not have a theatre only a lecture center that was the new trend in school architecture during the nineteen sixties. It did have a small concrete floor stage. However, there was no wing space, dressing rooms, lighting, or sound equipment.  We decided that we would use the gymnasium as a performance center. Trying to work around the gym scheduling was very difficult. We would have to create a stage complete with lighting on a very tight schedule. The Easter holiday was our choice.  The spring break was Thursday to the Monday after Easter and we were able to use the gym for the remainder of the week. The tryouts were held in the music room several weeks  before we started work on the stage. We selected several acts and divided them into two groups. The acts were responsible for their own rehearsals. Early on Thursday morning, the first day of spring break we started converting the gym into a performance area. We set everything up during and rehearsed  half the show on Tuesday and half on Wednesday, On Thursday we had a dress rehearsal and Friday evening we presented the show.  Everything was cleaned up an the gym was ready for classes on Monday. We followed that format for fifteen years. It was ten twelve hour days plus the tryouts and planning. The first show was a success and as the years passed it became an important school activity with large audiences. As it grew we rented a portable stage, lighting and created back stage area complete with curtain.The bleachers on one side of the gym were used for seating. Our trade mark was a group of students wearing candy box costumes and singing “Let’s go out to the lobby” and leading the crowd to the lobby for refreshments. My art classes created acts each year that pushed the envelope of what is talent. One such act is hard to visualize, imagine a student in a Hormel Spam can costume signing “Mr. Spam man” ( to the tune of Mr. Sandman} featuring four back up singers, performing Detroit style, dressed in wedding dresses. At intermission Mr. Spam man served spam samples and signed autographs. I don’t know what it meant but you could not forget it. We also had a panel of judges and trophies were award after the show.  We had local celebrities as judges and in keeping with my off beat humor, I had a pro wrestler as a judge one year. Every one looked forward to the special judge each year. My last year directing the Variety show was 1984. I had a busy schedule doing technical direction for two or three plays a year plus my department head duties and I just did not have enough time. The show hung on for a few more years but eventually died out. Belleville East is  now a large school with a new theatre and a large drama department. I would like to think those early years helped East develop into a fine school. 

The first show in 1968 was called Lancer Laugh-Out a homage to the popular television show Laugh-in. Over the next fifteen years, with a two year break in 1979-80, the names of the show would be taken from pop culture. The name of the shows and years are:

1968 Lancer Laugh-Out
1969 Gotcha
1970 Do your own thing
1971 Hey don’t that look like someone we seen before
1972 All in the family
1973 Tell me what it is and I will tell you what to feed it
1974 Thanks, I needed that
1975 Aaargh!

1976 Hooray.
1977 Gong show
1978 Friday night live
1981 We’re back
1982 B.T.H.S.E. TV
1983 This is your night Charles G. McCoy
1984 Puttin’ on the Ritz
1986 Happy 20 th. Birthday East
1987 That’s the ticket 

"Things hidden in my head" Copyright 2013 © Ronald D. Isom, Sr.