How long did you stand in line before you got your diploma?

Now, let’s speed things up a bit.
You’ve worked hard, for many years, to achieve this moment. You and your colleagues are in your robes, and those ill-fitting mortarboard hat things, and you’re all in line. Your family and friends are in the audience, waiting to cheer for you when your name is read and you walk across the stage to receive your diploma. The music starts, and of course, it’s Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1“. Your administrators, teachers, and fellow students begin to march to your seats. And let’s face it: this process Takes. For. Ever. 
The video I linked to is a performance by a full orchestra. These kids are doing a nice job with this piece, even with the little blue lights in the audience. This was a concert, not a graduation ceremony, so the kids could just play the piece. Often, because schools have a lot of people to get to the seats, the music goes back and repeats the main sections as many times as needed to get everyone in their places. It goes on. And on again. And on. And it’s usually not an orchestra, because they’re too expensive. It’s usually an organist.
I know many people like organ music. I confess, I find it tedious. Especially over and over.  I know many people favor tradition over shaking things up. But let’s think about what’s really important here. You, your family and friends, did not come to this event to hear an organ recital, especially a repetitive one. They came to celebrate this major accomplishment. Your graduation. Your transition from a student to a young professional. You, starting a new life.
So, I offer this modest proposal: Do the processional march to a different tune.  Let’s not drag this out.
Envision this: everyone marching into the auditorium to Edvard Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King” from Peer Gynt. This performance is two minutes and 33 seconds. It starts out slow, for the senior members of the faculty and administration to get to their seats, then speeds up as the junior faculty and students start to come in. Everyone could be in their assigned places, ready to be seated, and you only have to play the piece once. The climax is self-explanatory. Everyone clearly knows when it’s over and it’s time to sit down. It would be choreographed beautifully, dramatic, and much more exciting than Elgar.
And NOW, we proceed to the event we came to celebrate: the accomplishment of four (or more!) years of hard work, hard study, and this major transition in your lives: moving from the status of a student to a colleague. Your teachers have acknowledged you as ready to move out into the world. They have spent these years showing you wonderful things. Now it’s your turn to show them wonderful things. Start it off with some flair.

An antelope on what’s left of its environment symbolizes human impact on habitat. What do we do to our own habitat?

Irrigation systems inspired Marable to think about farming and water use. This piece was his first test of the photo-transfer process in many of the works.

What does that mean? Here are some questions people have asked us about this work, and my interpretations.

What’s the meaning of the different dinosaurs and how do they relate to the machines?  The dinosaurs represent the past. 150-65 million years ago, the Midwest was covered by an inland shallow sea. The mosasaur (Juniper’s irrigation machine in front, and Justin’s piece Black Magic from Below) was one of the creatures who lived in that sea. Both artists read Oceans of Kansas as part of their research. The author talks about the different species that are found in Kansas fossils, especially in the salt and limestone deposits in central Kansas and western Kansas. The pterodactyl was a flying lizard that flew over those waters. The plants and animals that lived then became the oil deposits we pump now.  The past is connected to the present. The artists represent the present through the machinery – the oil derrick, water irrigation system, solar panels.

Why are the bison and calf part oil derrick?  In my humble opinion, Juniper is using the bison, which was once nearly extinct, as a metaphor for the dwindling oil supplies we use for energy.  The movement of the derrick is combined with the movement of the bison’s head, up and down, to graze. We consume the oil, the bison consumes grass. Ultimately, both are threatened by things changing. For the bison, it was loss of habitat and overhunting. The oil deposits, because people use it up, and using it (consuming it) is causing carbon buildup, climate change, and pollution. Neither are sustainable without intervention. People had to work to save the bison, after having nearly hunted them to extinction, exhausting a resource. Now, we’re consuming oil for energy, exhausting that resource.

Using recycled corrugated plastics, Tangpuz mixes technologies. An old-style gas pump mixed with a contemporary windmill presents two alternatives to energy.

How does the title “Consumed” relate to the exhibit?  Both Justin and Juniper have talked about conservation, land use, energy use, food production, and the use of space. As we use those resources, we consume them. The definition of “consumed” is to use, to eat, or to use up. The ‘consumed’ title relates to that use, and people and animals HAVE to consume to survive. How do we do that? Do we use it up, or do we change our behavior so that what we consume, we consume in a sustainable way? Justin uses the elk, bison, antelope, and coyote as species whose environments have been changed by people. We consumed their environment, putting them at risk. The dinosaurs obviously weren’t affected by people, as we hadn’t evolved yet. But their environment was radically changed by the processes of nature. Continental drift pushed the plates of North America up, into the Rocky Mountains, which raised the Midwest up above sea level. The sea drained away, those animals and plants that lived in that environment died our or moved to other waters. Eventually, the world changed enough that the dinosaurs went extinct. (Most of them, anyway.) Then, a new environment developed, which ultimately became the prairies of the Midwest. New animals evolved. New species arrived. Then we got here and changed it again.

The combinations of the periods of history take time out of the equation. What if all of those species, and all of those environments, could exist at the same time? What would a pterodactyl do with 21^st century technology? What forms are similar to each other, like the mosasaur skeleton, and the water irrigation machine? As we change the environment, we change the animals that live in it. Hence, the combo bison and oil derrick.  What else will we change? Will we make it better, or worse? What other things can we develop that would be better uses of energy, resources and land? How does government policy affect how we use our resources?

Jim the Orangutan, detail, by Alice Sabatini

The Topeka Zoo has just welcomed a new addition: a baby orangutan!
Congratulations!
Alice C. Sabatini, for whom our gallery is named, used to work closely with Gary K. Clarke of the Topeka Zoo. Alice was an educator, artist and illustrator, and made drawings of the animals and buildings of the zoo for publicity. The library is proud to own several hundred of her sketches, designs, and finished works.

Alice made this portrait when Jim was a baby.

Over many years, Alice went to the zoo and made drawings of the animals. She would use the drawings, and develop them into graphic designs, for publicity for the zoo. They are lovely – true portraits. You can see the personality of the animals in her work.
Jim was the first orangutan at the zoo. Since then, other orangutans, including Rudy and Mawas have joined the zoo, and their baby is the newborn.
We don’t have any drawings by Alice of Rudy, but we do have some sketches of Jim, as a baby, and later as an adult orangutan. Jim became famous for turning a truck tire inside out, breaking a large chunk of the orangutan display the first day he was in it, and becoming an artist. One of his abstract watercolor paintings even won an art competition! We wonder what talents this new little one may have? He is not yet named. The Zoo will have the community help choose a name.

As an adult, Jim had the recognizable face of a male orangutan.

It is exciting to see so many wonderful things happening at our zoo. Thanks to many dedicated employees and volunteers, Topeka has a great resource to learn about animals. The library has an archive of materials from the Topeka Zoo in the Topeka Room.  In the archive is a zoo newsletter from 1987, with pictures of Rudy as a baby, photographed by Nancy Cherry. We have Gary Clarke’s books available for checkout – including the one about his years at the World Famous Topeka Zoo, called “Hey Mister – Your Alligator is Loose!”.

It’s hard to believe Rudy is all grown up, and a mother of two!

She was a cutie!

Clarice Cliff’s “Bizarre Tea Set”, 1928

We have begun something new: to always have our entry gallery open. The Alice C. Sabatini Gallery has three exhibit spaces: an entry gallery, the main gallery, and a smaller space we call the Jewel Box. The entry space will feature works from the library’s permanent art collection. Right now, we’re showing Art Deco art and its influences, pulled from the library’s collection of more than 6,000 objects. Art Deco Style: Elegance, Innovation and Excitement is part of The Big Read celebration, a community-wide reading effort that will get people reading “The Great Gatsby” together.

Topeka artist Frank Peers was known for his woodcuts in the Art Deco style.

Cliff called this a “Bizarre Tea Set” because of the bold colors and design, unusual in tea sets until the Art Deco style.

We realized that people would often come to our doors when we were closed for exhibit change, and say “Aw, they’re closed.” Now, we’re not! Our entry gallery will always provide an arts experience. Entry gallery hours are the same as the library: Monday – Friday 9 am – 9 pm, Saturday 9 am – 6 pm, and Sunday 12 pm – 9 pm.

We will still be closing the larger interior space for larger exhibition changes, and you can take a look into that area to see what’s coming, or see us at work on the installation.

Van Gogh’s paintings of irises have brought millions of dollars at auctions.

Going into an art gallery and seeing the prices on art can be a shocker. Art collectors are willing to pay millions of dollars for a work by Vincent Van Gogh. But a recent art graduate? No. There is a limit for what people are willing to pay for someone who is unknown to them. I have heard people say “Well, they must not want to sell it very badly.” But of course, as an artist, you do want to sell your work. It’s how you make your living.

A young artist often has no idea, and no training, in the business of art. In college, my classes were mainly the exchange of ideas, technical know-how, practice, critique, and how to judge whether the art was “successful.” Putting a price tag on a work that you’ve put your heart and soul into is one of the hardest things to do. Ultimately, the question becomes “how much would it take for you to part with it?” When are you successful? When you’re making a living, using your skill.

As an artist, you spend a surprising amount of money on supplies: paper, canvas, wood, marble, metals, or whatever medium they work with. I’m a photographer, and the price of silver had a direct impact on the cost of my supplies. My mother and I once had a conversation about whether photography or recreational drugs would be a more expensive habit. We decided that photography was probably slightly less expensive, and perhaps slightly less toxic. Now I use digital photography, too, so add the cost for computers and programs. You consider the cost of materials as one factor in pricing art.

Another factor is time. How long does it take to create a piece? “All my life,” my mom once said. “It took me this long to gain the skill to do this.” One painting can take hours, days, weeks. One photograph, once the camera has clicked, will still need time to process, or load onto the computer, or print, and mat and frame. What is the worth of your time? Should you make more than minimum wage? An artist with an established reputation will make more than someone who is just starting out. People pay more for work by known artists. They pay more for known deceased artists, too - hence prices for Van Gogh’s works. 

So far, this is only the cost of making a work of art. We haven’t begun to think about a residence, food, utilities, transportation, health care, costs related to raising a family…. All of these costs must figure into the price of an artwork, too. How many works of art will you make in a year, and how many can you sell in a year? How large are the works? A gallery owner can explain why a large painting costs more than a small painting, but it’s harder to explain why a small painting costs more than a large one.

Then comes commissions: many galleries take a 50% commission -or more- to sell your work. So whatever cost you’ve added up, double it for the commission.

And, consider this: the price so far is only covering your costs. But a successful business needs to make a profit.

SO: how do artists price their artwork? Next time you see art and you’re interested in it, think about these aspects of the object itself, all the aspects that went into creating it. And be proud to wear your “I Buy Art” button when you do make the decision to purchase an original work of art. Your support means more to the artist than you will know. It builds a strong arts community, right here at home. You support a local business. And you invest in something beautiful.

Jason Stamper: “Dinner with Friends”

The Friends of the Library sponsors our competitions. This year, we held The Printed Image 4, a national juried printmaking competition. From 194 entries, our juror, Yuji Hiratsuka, chose 52 prints. Our Hirschberg Gallery has a display about printmaking techniques. Hiratuska will be coming to Topeka on December 9 for an artist’s talk at 7 pm.
From the Friends of the Library’s sponsorship, we are able to purchase art for the library’s collection. Here are this year’s purchase award winners, and why we like them.

Randy Clark, “La Cosa Esta Muy Fregada”

Abner Jonas, “Fence Gap”

These prints are all bold, and all are very well-made. Stamper’s “Dinner with Friends” is a large woodcut, with lots of things going on in the scene. In the distance are a graveyard (upper left) and either a city or grain elevator (upper right.) It takes a minute to figure out the scene: crows, sharing a meal. Crows eat carrion, which is an important job in the ecosystem. Imagine what the world would be like if they didn’t do this job. And the crows almost seem to have a personality.
Jonas’s “Fence Gap” is actually a scene in Finland. Except for the construction of the fence, it could be anywhere in the world. In the center distance, power wires visible above the trees make it unmistakeably 20th – 21st century.

Kathleen Ristinen: “Faded Love Letters”

Ristinen’s “Faded Love Letters” refers to the sheet music on the piano. The print has a lovely sense of nostalgia, a woman just turning from the music to look over her shoulder. Ristinen uses old family photographs for her inspiration.
Clark’s “La Cosa Esta Muy Fregada” has a mysterious scale: it could be huge, like architectural ruins – Stonehenge, or ancient Roman aqueducts. But the source of the image is simple: a torn-out page from a spiral-bound notebook.

The Purchase Awards will join the Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library’s permanent art collection, the oldest public art collection in Topeka. The library has collected art since 1890, and now has more than 6,000 works of art in the collection - a great treasure for our community. We congratulate all of the artists whose work was accepted into The Printed Image 4.The exhibit runs through December 30, 2012. Don’t miss it!

Jim Bass’s bronze sculpture “Forgiven Man”.

Topeka artist Jim Bass is a local treasure. So is the art he has created, for commissions all over town. On October 3, Bass’s sculpture “Forgiven Man” was stolen from the First Congregational Church grounds. On October 11, the Topeka Capital Journal reported that it had been found.

It had likely been stolen for the bronze it was made of. For scrap. Another possibility, suggested by Rich Hayes via Linda, a volunteer in the Topeka Room, is that it had been a prank. Either way, this just makes me sad. A beautiful work of art, expressing the human condition, human spiritual need, and redemption gets stolen. It makes me more than sad, it makes me angry. The thieves didn’t care about the message the art conveyed. Like the thieves who stole the copper from the electrical facility, these people cared only about themselves, and their greed. They didn’t care who they hurt.They did not see that the art, and its message, has value of its own – beyond the cost of the materials, or what they thought would be a joke. How funny is any theft?

This is a perfect example of why we need the arts. It illustrates why we need to understand how art communicates ideas to us. All of us. Did the thieves care about what they were taking? No. Did they care it belonged to a church? No. Did they care about the hope that this piece expresses to people who see it? Obviously not. They cared about the money they could get for selling the metal. Ironically, the piece is too well-made to make that easy for them. Someone found it, reported it, and the piece was recovered with only minor damage.

Every day, we are bombarded with literally thousands of images. On our televisions, in our publications, in ads, billboards, mailers, and all of them are trying to convince us of something: Buy This. Believe This. Vote for This. Support This. Send Money to This. Now, of all times, in election season, we see the ways that images – and art – communicates ideas. Who is a hero? Who a villain? How can you tell? Pay attention to these images. Someone is trying to tell you something with them. Who is telling you what? And Why? We need to understand how art, and images, send messages. This is why we, in the Sabatini Gallery, put education about art as our primary focus. We help people ‘get’ art. Arts in schools has been cut, and cut, and cut. Some teachers are still teaching it, but many of them are doing it out of their own pocket, because they recognize how important visual literacy is. If you understand how images communicate, you know when you are being manipulated. And, you can control your own visual messages.

Jim Bass is an impressive artist. He works in the style of Cubism, the style that Pablo Picasso and George Braques invented in the 1910s. The idea behind Cubism is that everything exists in three dimensions, and also exists in time. The artist represents an image from multiple viewpoints, from real space – moving around the object, and showing the object from different viewpoints. Jim’s themes are often related to more than the formal elements of a figure. They are as much about the psychology of the figure as anything else. Jim is telling us about the human condition. In the case of Forgiven Man, the figure reaches out, offering hope to the rest of us.

A woman, holding a mandolin, is viewed from multiple angles.

We all keep things that bring back memories. What are your most treasured possessions?

We all keep mementos to remind us of a special event, time or person. Our memories make stories. Our stories about these items create meaning and value.

The Alice C. Sabatini Gallery needs your help to create an art exhibit featuring your cherished mementos – from baseball cards to macaroni necklaces – and the stories behind them. We invite you to tell us about your Most Valued Possession. To highlight the relationships in your stories, we ask that your valued item be something given to you by a special person, not something you created.

Contribute your story to this community-centric exhibit. From your submissions, the Alice C. Sabatini Gallery staff will select pieces that reflect our community. Alice C. Sabatini Gallery’s “M.V.P. – Most Valued Possessions” exhibit will be on display from January 18 – March 15, 2013.

• October 15, 2012 – deadline for submissions
• November 9, 2012 – gallery staff review submissions, notify entrants of acceptance
• November 15, 2012 – gallery staff send loan forms for accepted entries
• December 7, 2012 – objects delivered to gallery
• January 18 – March 15, 2013 “M.V.P. – Most Valued Possessions” on display in the Alice C. Sabatini Gallery

FORM

To submit an object for consideration, send a photograph of the object, your story about why you cherish it, and the information below to the Alice C. Sabatini Gallery by October 15, 2012. Send submissions to: MVP/Sabatini Gallery, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, 1515 SW 10^th Ave., Topeka, KS 66604   (785) 580-4515 or email your submission to gallery@tscpl.org ). One object per person. We will notify you of our selections by November 9. Submission of an object does not guarantee that it will be included in the exhibit. We won’t consider living objects or anything that will spoil. The object needs to fit through our security gates, and we need to be able to lift it.

To send your submission by mail, print and mail the information below:

• Your name and Address
• Phone and Email
• What is the object? (brief description)
• Photo of object (about 3 x 5” print, or a .JPG or .TIF file. A picture from a cellphone is fine.)
• What is the story behind it? (Please keep your answer to 100 words)
• Why do you keep it? (1-2 sentences)

Dr. Tony Silvestri hand-made every aspect of this illuminated manuscript page, one of the Psalms.

How were books made before the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press? Completely by hand. Every letter, every picture, every page, every color of paint, every quill pen and every paintbrush. Books were expensive. The finest and most beautiful books, Bibles, prayer books, and Books of Hours, could cost as much as $50,000 – $70,000 in today’s currency. Royalty, wealthy clergy, and churches had books. Few other people could read.

Dr. Tony Silvestri’s hand-made illuminated manuscript shows the steps in making an illuminated page, using the techniques of the medieval artists.

The pictures in books were called illuminations. Washburn University’s Dr. Tony Silvestri gave a fascinating talk on Illuminated Manuscripts, his research specialty. Dr. Silvestri has researched and practiced the art of illumination for years, and his talk at the library covered the steps and materials involved in this centuries-old art.

To cut down on errors, book makers had a process: first, the scribe copied the text. It’s easier for a scribe to make an error – a misspelling, or missing a line – than it is for an artist to make an error in a drawing. The artist has more opportunity to correct a line, or change the drawing to fit. The second step is to place the gold leaf. Then, the artists get the pages to do the drawings in some of the capital letters, or along the borders of the page, or the larger drawings that might start a chapter. Even the artists had specialties: one person did the figures, another the leaves, another the strawberries, another the scrollworks.

The artists couldn’t go out and buy paint – they could buy pigments.

Dried and ground berries produce a yellow pigment.

Dirt, plants, minerals, insects and alchemical formulas, ground into powder, would be mixed with water, alcohol or oils to make paint. Dr. Silvestri shared his translation of Cennino Cennini’s how-to book from the 14th century – a handbook for artists on how to grind and blend paints — or better yet, make your apprentice do it. Il libro dell’arte includes tips on what pigments are easier to find and grind yourself, and which you should just go and buy.

Lapis lazuli, for blue pigment, comes from Afghanistan.

The shells of dried bugs are ground to make a red pigment.

Dr. Silvestri has been making illuminated manuscripts using these traditional and historic techniques for years. He began researching the topic for his PhD dissertation.

Carol Ann Carter's "Multi-Tasking Apron" at the Sabatini Gallery

Carter spoke about her days in undergraduate school making “boy art” to her current experimental work.  Carter’s investigation into textiles, old cloth, and stitching has developed into art that expresses aging, history and personal narratives.

In college, Carter’s art professors had emphasized abstraction, the “high art” forms of painting and sculpture, and had dismissed media like fibers, sewing, and other “craft” media. Carter wanted to do important work, and that was what the men were doing. She worked in painting and printmaking, since those were “important.” Her drawings often used small marks, close together, that Carter thought of as “stitch marks.” It wasn’t until many years later that she began to allow herself to work with cloth, real stitches instead of pencil marks, and turning collage into fully formed three-dimensional pieces.

Carter’s mother made clothes for the family, and embellished the clothes with beads, decoration; she made them beautiful. When Carter started doing that with her work, she felt at home. Including very personal things, things like photographs, letters, postcards, notes and lists, and enclosing them into the art made them even more close to Carter’s feeling of home.

One of Carter’s pieces is called “Multi-Tasking Apron.” It is very long, and would wrap around one’s body several times. Some of the pockets are open, some are sewn shut, some have personal notes or items tucked into the pockets. When we were putting up the display, two young men from Topeka High’s photography class came by to work on their project. They talked to Carter for a while, and she told them about the apron. One of the boys asked “Can you imagine wearing that?” The other responded, “Man, can you imagine going through airport security in that?”

We’re regarding this exhibit as a mini-retrospective, a small version of an exhibit that features an artist’s whole career. Some of Carter’s earliest 3-D works hang from the ceiling, and it is fun to walk through the exhibit and see works in progress, and also works that continue that inquiry into what it means to live with one’s own history. The exhibit is on display through May 18.