building inroads

So
there has been lots of scooping and sifting in the "boneyard."  Boxes sorted, useless papers tossed, while (at the same time) eyes wide open for significant documents. Like, the letters that commissioned Reinhold to build the two mosaic murals for the Nebraska State Capitol. These have been found. Thanks to Chris Miller.

The college where Reinhold taught is taking interest in "the repository."

What remains are the building of inroads. That is, pathways between "this" and "that." What Jody Boyce called "web content."  The end product should not be a hard drive full of digital photos. For researchers to be able to navigate and find, one must have highways established. Like cyber elevators, hallways, windows, buttons to push, rooms to enter and exit.

This post is open thinking, my thoughts only.

A backbone, a conjecture with tendrils coming off of it. Something over a span of time that gives others opportunity to build upon.

Here is one such premise to pursue with Reinhold Marxhausen. (I have started a folder, adding photos as I come across them.)

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Reinhold is known for his paintings. He had lots of undergraduate classes in Painting. But nothing in Sculpture. I'm talking about before he began teaching ART at Concordia Teachers College Seward. He didn't get his teaching degree IN ART until he was TEN YEARS into it. So, what did his learning curve into sculpture look like?

There was something about DRIFTWOOD. It was FREE. He was drawn to it. It fit his adage of "use what you find." In June of 1948 he found plenty of it along Lake Michigan near Leland, but the pieces were too large to carry back. In 1953 he had driftwood for a centerpiece on the carpet in the middle of his small bachelor apartment. He made furniture out of it, a tray, candlestick holders and lamp stands.

(Click on photos to see enlarged. Driftwood tray
and  two driftwood lamp stands, below).

I propose driftwood was the first 3D sculpture material he could appreciate.

Reinhold worked with PLASTER. no date yet. perhaps 1952 or 1953 or 1954. It was when his work space was the third floor of Founders Hall at Concordia College in Seward, Nebraska.

 

He carved or shaped this "plaster- stone material" between 1955 and 1958. This was when our family lived on the third floor of 316 North Sixth Street, formerly known as the Concordia Apartments.

He carved the MARBLE face of Christ. No date yet. Work space on third floor of Founders Hall.

He carved a STONE eagle. No date yet.

He used STRING and inflated BALLOONS and liquid STARCH or PLASTER SLIP or CLAY SLIP to create shapes. 1957. This photo of student Wally Sailer was part of an article Marxie had published in Ceramic Monthly.  He dipped and re-dipped a balloon to built up layers of clay slip, and so thicken the walls, and then modified it to make an owl bank, below. This was found at the third floor apartment in my bedroom.

 

 

 

He used PAPER MACHE. In the third floor apartment (1955-1958) he had paper mache forms suspended from the ceiling.

He hammered sheets of COPPER to make relief door panels for Pilgrim Lutheran Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. 1957. He did the shaping in his third floor apt art room.

He made TERRA COTTA figures of Christ for the prayer chapel in the women's dorm Schuelke and the men's dorm Jesse. 1957 The top photo terra cotta figure was probably a prototype for the bottom photo. The prototype was found on a shelf in Reinhold's art room in his third floor apartment.

From a seven inch plaster maquette (top photo) he used CEMENT and rebar (middle photo) to make an outdoor installation. 1959

Reinhold made a fifteen feet totem with CERAMIC, WOOD, BRASS, and STEEL for the California Concordia College in Oakland. 

For his graduate degree in art, Reinhold took sculpture classes under Professors Hayes and Turner at the California College for Arts and Crafts in the summer of 1961. He took Modern Art History under Alfred Neumeyer, Photography and Technique of Sculpture under Robert Dhaemers, and Ceramic Sculpture under Antonio Prieto at Mills College during the Fall semester. The Spring semester of 1962 he took the Technique of Art for Sculpture, Photography, Ceramics Sculpture, and a Graduate Seminar. 

According to sculptor and family friend Arthur Geisert, Reinhold had ceramics under Spanish potter Antonio Prieto. Robert Arneson was also at Mills. 

"Prieto had an influence on Robert Arneson. Your parents both knew Arenson. Your father was influenced by Prieto and Arneson."   Arthur Geisert, Elkader, Iowa

In May of 1962 Reinhold got his Master in Fine Arts degree, that the administration at Concordia in Seward wanted their teaching staff to have.

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The point here is this: the photos for this post came from many bins and folders of digital material. I assembled it by starting my own folder and building on a premise. Right now there is no easy passage. There is no construction for surfing or word searches. NONE. There ARE folders for ceramic work, metal work, mosaic work, drawings, watercolors, oil paintings, banners, stained glass, mixed media, photography, sound sculpture, maquettes,  installations, inventions; periods of time for Reinhold before Concordia, schools Reinhold attended, military service photos from Fort Custer, Fort Snelling, Serbo-Croatia training in Pittsburg, New Guinea, the Phillipines; for Dorris before marriage, for Rein and Dorris and Karl and Paul for each location their family lived; letters for commissions, letters of thanks, letters of rejection, magazine articles Reinhold wrote, published books Reinhold wrote, published poems, unpublished concept books, newspaper clippings on Reinhold, films about  Reinhold art events, transcribed interviews related to Reinhold, his notes, his essays, and his talks.

   WILL researchers be able to look through bins of photos TO FIND and then CREATE A ROOM like this blog post, so that others can FOLLOW THE PREMISE ???

   One must dig, and sort, and identify photos or letters or documents and have a folder to present ==== before    A  BOOK    can be laid out! Having the repository itself will not make books. Ha. The repository will need folks "to-pick-up-their-favorite-rocks-and-sticks-and-bottle-caps-and-string" and put it in their pocket.  To mull over.  To catch a vision.  To make sense of what they got.

    This is what my brother and I want to see. Not a mausoleum crammed with paper. But a living breathing "look what I found" and "hey, did you know that" and "look at his reach, he spoke to this and this and this."   An ongoing discovery. Adding on to what was FOUND, through the eyes of many on their own journey forward in Christ. This One who made Reinhold is making you and me. Chromosomes activated integrated with energized elements, freely expressed into LIFE. Marxie was turned on. We are turned on. By this brilliant personal King eminant Savior and intelligent Healer.

[Geisert quote, phone interview with Karl Marxhausen, Sept.16, 2014. Photos coutesy of Marxhausen Estate LTD, Seward, Nebraska. Text and material is copyrighted 2015 by Karl Marxhausen.]