How it all began for me...

The title of this blog says it all -- sharing my observations about art in all in manifestations in libraries, mostly public ones, but there will be exceptions.

 

 It's hard to know which came first for me, my love of art or my love of books. I saw before I read and I read before I wrote, but I started drawing and painting before I could read. I remember the feel and smell of playing with finger paints. I loved transferring Sunday comics onto Play-Doh. I built things out of Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs.

I can't remember the first time I was in a library but I do remember seeing the lions outside the New York Public Library. I swear I sat on one of them. But I don't know if that is even possible. "Patience" and "Fortitude" are they names. I probably sat on Fortitude because I have always been short of the former.

My family taught me to read and write before I entered first grade. My mother stayed home and took care of us.  Everyone in the family felt it was important for me to spell my name, and since it was a long, complicated one, reading and writing came along fast.

 In addition to newspapers and popular magazines like Saturday Evening Post and Life, we subscribed to National Geographic magazine. I discovered the world through it and the many books that they published. My older brother was interested in art so he shared his books with me, too.

 Art with a capital "A"  started when we moved to Germany for two years. I got dragged to so many museums and cathedrals and old castles. Mostly, it was fun, except when I got hungry and tired and cranky. What's with those old chairs scattered about the galleries with strings tied over their seats so you can't sit down? And I don't think they had museum cafes like they do now.

Fortitude

An important memory was visiting the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The quiet hush of the people and feeling of anticipation everyone as we approached. My family had been talking about something called the "Night Watch". I don't know what impressed me the most--the size and splendor of the painting--or viewers' reactions. The painting seemed huge to me. I confess to being a bit bored with it. I understood landscapes but images of people didn't do much for me. I preferred seeing sculptures of animals and visits to castles. And visiting the Franfurt Zoo.

However when I showed my childish scribbles to my parent's friends, they gushed over "the artist" and I felt proud. In Europe art matters, and I felt it was a respectable life choice. I use to love watching artists copying masterpieces in the museum galleries and wanting to be like the chalk artist who painted in the plazas.

All this time, I was reading. In Germany we subscribed to Der Spiegel and Stern. My father's hobby was photography and I loved helping him in his makeshift darkroom in the kitchen, the magic of the image slowly appearing in the developer, the sharp smell of the stop bath. He had a copy of The Family of Man. My interest in photography stems from this early exposure.(Pun intended)

At first, I used school libraries. I was so excited when my parents bought a copy of Smokey the Cowhorse at a sale at my new middle school in Texas. It turned out it was for the library--not for me--but I got to read it first. The bookplate inside had my name as the donor!

Maybe this wasn't a good thing because I spent the next eight years reading "horse books". Walter Farley and Marguerite Henry were my choices in fiction; and in nonfiction,  reading anything about animals. All I drew were horses.

 Then we moved withing walking distance o fa public library. I could spend hours browsing the shelves and then spend more hours reading them. They took me far away. Just like making or seeing art does.

Studio Art and Book Arts

Years later I found myself working part-time in a library to help pay my way through Mills College. This public library had a separate Art & Music Department. Jazz or classical music was always playing in that section and there were amazing art books. There was a Campbell's Tomato Soup can sitting on a shelf as homage to Andy Warhol. Since I was majoring in Studio Arts I spent a lot of time there finding books on technique and history. I loved the folios--what I call "picture books for adults."

I enjoyed it when I got extra hours working in that department, except for having to schlep and shelved all the big books. Kept me in great physical shape and I boasted that I had the most impressive bibliographies for the papers I wrote.

While attending Mills, the Olin Library was being built, an elegant modern structure to replace to cozy, if cramped (and a little bit haunted) Julia Morgan-constructed one. Mills also had a slide library in the Art History Department. I loved my art history classes, especially Asian Art, because of all the images of art that were flashed on the screen in the darkened auditorium. I never fell asleep but kept an eye out on a friend who did. I would sit behind her and kick her seat to wake her up.

I had wanted to design my own major, a combination of arts and writing and natural history, but didn't get much encouragement. Also I was trying to graduate as quickly as possible  Since I transferred in with many art history and photography credit earned at various California community colleges, I ended up taking the easy way out ( if anything at Mills was "easy",) and getting a BA in studio art and minoring in art history.

Two things had drawn me to Mills: the fine arts photographer, Catherine Wagner and the Book Arts program run by Kathy Walkup at Eucalyptus Press. I had seen Wagner's classroom series in a photography magazine and a customer at Adolph Gasser, Inc. in San Francisco told me about Mills Book Arts program. I had to go.

The fact is was a woman-only college was not an issue for me. Serendipitously, it turned out to be a great experience I recommend to other women thinking of going back to school. Mills did accepted male graduate students but there were not many. I'm sure my education was doubled by the presences of grad students, in some of my classes. And the amazing TAs.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_assistant My best friend at Mills was a graduate student. Our ages and experiences were closer together.

As an older, commuter "resumer" student, I felt a bit alienated from the younger campus residents.  The student strike brought us all together as well as demonstrations against "Desert Storm", the first Gulf war. Attending Mills gave me the confident to carefully consider my belief and then to stand up for them.

It also taught me that I didn't want an MFA in studio arts.