A LITTLE OF THIS, A LITTLE OF THAT

Joseph Albers, 1975

Joseph Albers was born in Germany and taught elementary school for more than ten years. Along the way, he also studied art. He left teaching children to lead the famous German Bauhaus faculty in stained glass design. (Isn’t that interesting? Think about stained glass, its blocks of color and defining seams. Now superimpose that on Albers’ famous color block paintings. See? During our lives, we may jump - or crash! - from one branch to another but we take along the memory of the limb we left behind.)

When Nazi Germany shut down the Bauhaus, talented faculty scattered throughout the world. Albers was invited to head a new art school near Asheville, North Carolina - Black Mountain College. He molded the curriculum there from 1933 until he left in 1950 to head the design program at Yale.  Albers died in 1976.

Here are his four basic art exercises - from elementary classes to Yale:

1. Take 3 colors and turn them into 4.
2. Draw your name backwards and upside down.
3. Use your fingers to make newspaper sculptures.
4. Draw the spaces between chair legs.

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Illustration by Maurice Sendak

Not-for-profit fund raising events became the topic of conversation in my car twice this week. Here’s why that seems important: the conversations took place among some high-power talent - smart, competent women who have terrific organization skills and a mother lode of experience. If someone computed a bottom line, the accumulated amount of money raised by these ladies over their lifetimes probably would astound most of us!

But every single one was expressing frustration, questioning the energy expended. The questions boiled down to these:

What is the clear, consistent goal?  Is it to raise money for an organization? Bring prestige? Add to a useful - otherwise, hidden - catalog of assets? Is the event primarily educational? Is it structured primarily to aid or assist either professionally or monetarily another group, i.e. artists, writers,musicians, gardeners, small business owners? What is the true cost? (This is a tricky part. How do you put value on volunteers’ hours? infinite car trips?) What about hidden costs (facility wear and tear, security if not part of the overhead charge)? Do patrons or underwriters take most of the burden of overhead? Would they pledge to the organization without the expenditure of an event? In other words, are we merely shifting money from one hand to the other? Is this event mostly a community building exercise?

Times have changed.  “Just because we’ve always done it this way” is not good enough. Volunteers burn out.  Smart women are looking for places where their skills are both appreciated and used wisely.  Otherwise, we walk!

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I subscribe to “Brain Pickings”, an on line magazine (thank you, Kathleen).  Mostly, it’s literary with a ton of philosophy but one of the things I like most:  the editor uses wonderful illustrations throughout - primarily artists who publish for children’s literature.  Above are two favorites from today.