what is red and black and clear?

    In her CES art room, my wife has plenty of real artwork for the students to view, question, and think about. Over the summer the room received a fresh coat of paint. She had me come in Monday, two days before the first day of classes at the Carrollton Elementary School. With a tall ladder I installed three hung works and placed works on top of shelves where she wanted them.

ABOVE, a few years ago we bought this metal blossom from the Primary Colors Gallery in Independence, MO. A heavy nylon line tethers it to the ceiling with two pencils. This was my engineering solution. See following photos.

Simply push up the ceiling panel and let the pencil do all the work. It works well.

 

Next, this yellow and green soft sculpture was created by a former student of my father at Concordia University and it is made out of sewn fabric.

In 2013 I used school supply packing paper to create a large weaving, BELOW. It measured 5 feet by 10 feet. This year I moved it to the opposite wall. My wife likes it very much. Tissue paper, yarns, and other bits of color have been added to it. Double click on images to enlarge.

It is tethered across the top in four places, BELOW.

As large as it is, pencils and string loops suspend it nicely.

On the top of cabinets, from the ladder on which I perched, items were set where she directed. The ceramic glazed tile sun was made by Jan Marxhausen. It measured 24 by 24 inches.

Above one closet a horizontal textured angel was lifted. The painting was signed "Art by Faye 2006." It measured 24 by 52 inches on composite board. The artist lived in Seward, Nebraska.

On a shelf top were put two paper mache frogs by the Overland Park, Kansas sculptor Maryellen Munger.  We bought these two at Linda Lighton's studio a year ago.

 

Spring Chick by Jan Marxhausen, welded metal. A happy face made of rusted heavy metal parts.

Next, when I was finished accomplishing her list, she showed me what I could build with. A sink full of this year's packing materials. Clear inflated units. In storage was the remains from the previous year. I could use any of it that I wanted.

Marvelous 

bright 

slick 

patches 

of color 

with stickiness. 

Yeah !!!

Adhesives   
to join the plastic units  
into a vertical column.

 First two minute video of nine foot creation.

there are trails

going up the back side 

you can see thru the front side         

there are suspended patches     

jutting off the edges  

held in place by  strategic stickiness  

And the whole column hovers away from the wall, so you can see behind it.
A lone pencil at the top secures it in places. How cool is that. I spent a chunk of time creating, peeling, manuvering, flipping joined sections over. A great time seeing this form unfold in front of my eyes. Oldenburg on a small-scale. Pzamm!!!

Second two minute video.

Classes start again on Wednesday in Carrollton, Missouri.
Have a good year Miss Jan!!!!!!


(Munger link courtesy of http://www.msubillings.edu/library/ABC/ArtistPages/Munger.html# accessed Aug 17, 2015)

a class with one

BEFORE Concordia University of Seward was known for its variety of art certification at the college level.
BEFORE there were classes in painting and ceramic and graphic design and sculpture,
THERE was one art class offered, just one. Double click on images to enlarge.

In 1949 students met in Becker Hall, the science building, and had DRAWING with Carl Brandhorst on the second floor in the science lab.

"He did an art class because it was required. But it was just a drawing class. It was all scientific stuff. I remember we had to make a drawing of words. All I did was a plant that was dying out of science words. I think I got an “A.”

"That was the sum total of the art program. Back in those days, it didn’t exist. I remember talking with Dr. Bickel, who was my counselor. I was a student in 1944. He asked me what I wanted to do. I said I wanted to be an art instructor. He said to me, “You don’t want to do THAT!!!”    Gerry Brommer (class of 1948) 

 

"He had stuffed animals to draw from. And it reminded many of us our own work we had done."   Jack Duensing (class of 1953)

 

"He had us tear a silhouette of a face from paper. He said to us, “What do you see?” We did it as we were looking. There was no sketch to work from. You were looking at the profile of a face of another student and tearing paper. I think mine turned out pretty good."    Glendora (Sorenson) Duensing

 Carl Brandhorst taught his drawing students perspective.

Drawings by Glendora (Sorenson) Duensing

"From the time I was young I drew. I remember drawing a Christmas card for my parents during grade school. There was a deer on the front. When I got to high school there was no art to take. No art was offered. When I was a senior in high school, me and another girl tried to take a correspondence through the University of Nebraska Lincoln. But that didn’t work out."

  "I remember drawing Brandy's face in class. He was so small and spry. I remember him jumping from the floor to the top of the desk. I liked him as a science teacher."   Glendora (Sorenson) Duensing

     In 1951 a new teacher came to teach natural science and art while Professor Brandhorst was on sabbatical leave from the college. Though the Valparaiso graduate had taken advanced classes in oil painting, composition and color, and several art history classes through the school of the art institute of Chicago, he had no teacher's degree in Art.
Not yet.

His name was Reinhold Pieper Marxhausen.
With a keen imagination and a blank slate before him, his ideas MADE it possible for more art classes to be offered at Concordia.

"The blessing that came into his life was Concordia. This setting helped him become the person he BECAME. And by setting I mean the college and the city of Seward. No question about it. It was the perfect spot for him."  Jack Duensing

SO, NOW LOOK WHAT THRIVES

IN 2015 !!!!

Art faculty show in the Marxhausen Gallery, Jesse Hall, Concordia University, Seward, Nebraska. Seven minutes. March of 2015.
Current art offerings http://m.cune.edu/academics/undergraduate-studies/art/program-options/  accessed April, 4, 2015
More on James Bockelman
More on Seth Boggs
More on Don Robson
More on Lynn Soloway

[courtesy of CUNE, http://m.cune.edu/academics/undergraduate-studies/art/view-faculty-work/ and http://m.cune.edu/academics/undergraduate-studies/art/program-options/,  accessed April 4 , 2015. Interviews with Glendora and Jack Duensing on March 23, 2015 and Gerry Brommer on Nov 19, 2014 ]