ISOM SYMBOLIC ART

Friday, January 14, 2022

Artist statement

Digital drawing. I Pad pro/Procreate

My art work is personal iconography. The imagery has been developing for over sixty years. The vocabulary of icons enables me to generate hundreds of images without conscious effort. The ideas flow on the paper much like automatic writing. I generate the images in sets of 10 to 20 and have produced several series of 100 or more. The most distinctive element of my art work and teaching has always been manipulation of materials. During my youth, at the height of the Depression, any castaway item became a toy or art material. The underlying concept of my teaching years was creative problem solving utilizing manipulation of material at hand. I seldom had to worry about budgets for materials. Whatever was available was fodder for my students imagination canned and the images are manipulated with image software. An essential aspect of my work is the connection of my work to the world. The internet has allowed me the opportunity to find very esoteric connections.

Today, I have access to many “modern” materials. The computer has become an essential part of my “post teaching” art. It is difficult to maintain my simplistic philosophy. However, the manipulation concept is still prevalent. Photographing and scanning of my original drawings, searching the web for connections and the manipulation of the images using simple editing software provides many hours of creative problem solving.

On occasion I do get nostalgic for the days when a tin can or scrap of paper was all I needed to satisfy my creative energy.

Vita brevis, ars longa

Benefits of teaching

I cannot even imagine where I would be today were it not for my students who have given me a heart full of joy. Let's face it fellow teachers, students make life a lot more fun and interesting.

One of the benefits of a long life and a teaching career is the joy of seeing students grow up and take their place in society. I was particularly fortunate to teach high school. Seeing a young naive freshman grow into a confident senior is very rewarding. If you live long enough, it does not stop with high school. I am now in my twenty-first year of retirement and have seen many students graduate from college or trade schools and begin raising a family. Many did not choose an art career and are successful in a variety of endeavors. The social website Facebook has made it possible to interact with former students and marvel at their achievements. Some will soon be of retirement age and many have grandchildren.

I am truly blessed to see not only this great drama unfold before my eyes but seeing my own family’s development is a daily reminder of the joy of living and learning.

New sketchbook 2022.

View from my apartment at the Benedictine.

Wednesday, January 12, 2022

A new journey (from the archives)

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. Walt Disney

On December 27, 2014 my wife and I will have resided at The Rockwood for two years. We entered the uncharted waters of independent living without a map to guide us on our journey. We had lived in our own homes for fifty-five years, and now we were part of a retirement community. We have come full circle. Our first residence, as a new couple, was an attic apartment in the North Chicago suburb of Niles Illinois. The four room attic space above a single family home was our residence for three years. It was sparsely decorated with mismatched furniture and a few wedding gifts. We now live in a well appointed, large two bedroom apartment in Webster Groves, a community north of another big city, St. Louis, Missouri.

Leaving the life of home ownership was not an easy transition. The freedom of your own space with a yard was the American dream. Our homes held memories of our children growing up and starting their own lives. The memories fill the senses and keep flooding the mind on a daily basis. However, new memories of the past two years now occupy our mind. The old memories will never be replaced but the new ones provide comfort on our journey. Free from responsibilities of home ownership, we are building new friendships and enjoying a new environment filled with the things we love. Music, art, and stimulating conversation, now fill our days. We have also found a new hunting ground for objet d’art and tchotchkies. My worst fear now is where will I put all of Anita’s unusual treasures.

Camping with the family

We moved to Belleville, Illinois in 1966 and I began my tenure at Belleville East high school. We had two children Victoria age three and Lori age two. Our new home was located in west Belleville behind Abraham Lincoln grade school and West junior high school. It was a very convent location for our children; no streets to cross, just go through the backyard gate and enter the school yard. We lived there for ten years. That was the time period that we started family camping. We had very little camping experience but we did visit my mom and dad a few times on their camping trip. Money was very tight and we considered tent camping but the preparations time, equipment and transportation was problematic. We decided to buy a popup camper which was easy to pull and we had lots of room in or Volkswagen van for kids and equipment. We later found out that the van was no very good on hills and we traded for station wagon. We started or camping experience on weekends and holidays and soon we were camping nearby states. We visited many camp grounds in southern Missouri. For the most part we avoided tourist traps and stay an state and national parks. It was hard to resist all the advertising signs proclaimed to be the eighth wonder of the world. The children soon began to enjoy roaming around in nature and enjoying eating outside and spending cozy nights in the camper. Our daughter Lori did not completely buy into the program but she was a great help with our youngest son Lowell who was still in diapers when we began camping. Our longest trip was our trip to Disneyland in Florida with a stop in Plains Georgia to visit Jimmy Carter’s home town and of course we stopped at Billy Carters gas station where I purchase a souvenir an of Billy Beer. When wen got to Florida we camped at a campground in Kissimmee a few miles from the park. The heat and humidity of July was bearing down on us. The tent canvas dripped water: it was like sleeping in a sauna. The children's spirits were high in anticipation of seeing the magic of Disneyland. We had three day passes and they could hardly wait for the doors to open. Buy the third day we had to drag them back to the camper because of Disney overload.