Welcome Comics Art Forum XVI! October 23, 2009
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Poster for Comics Art Forum XVI
The Comics Art Forum is an event hosted every year by SCAD’s Sequential Arts Department. They invite working professionals to come to Savannah to provide specialized workshops, offer portfolio reviews, and participate in a panel discussion for Sequential Arts Students. This year’s guests include Brandon Graham, Paolo Rivera, Derek Kirk Kim, Ben Caldwell, Colleen Coover, Robert Atkins, and Mark Schultz. Events are open to all SCAD students, but you must sign up for Portfolio Reviews.
You can find more information about the Comics Art Forum from the Sequential Arts Department’s Sequalab blog. While you are there, check out their post about how the Jen Library supports the Sequential Arts Department with comics and graphic novels. Events will also be happening on the Atlanta campus. Information is on the Atlanta campus’ Sequential Arts Department blog.
Fall Quarter: Exhibits and Hours September 30, 2009
Posted by Deborah in : Don Bluth Collection of Animation, Exhibits, Useful Information , add a commentFall Quarter sneaked in so fast that before we knew it, we were already in the 3rd week ! If you missed Behind the Cels: Selections from SCAD’s Don Bluth Collection in Atlanta over the summer, you can see an abbreviated version at Poetter Hall, in the second floor gallery. It only has art from Banjo, Secret of NIMH, and Dragon’s Lair, but if you find yourself near Poetter Hall, take a few minutes to go in and see it. We are very pleased to be able to share the collection with the Savannah Campus!
We have resumed evening hours—we are here until 8:00 PM on Monday evenings. So if our daytime hours don’t suit your busy schedule, come and see us on Monday evening. Remember that if you have a very difficult schedule, we can always work out an alternate way for you to use Special Collections materials. Just contact us and let us know!
We have a small display of new books in the Special Collections Reading Room. They cover a wide variety of topics and formats, and include Artists’ Books, facsimiles of Medieval manuscripts, fine press books, books on fashion, architecture, and limited editions sequential titles. Stop in and take a look.
Behind the Cels: Selections from SCAD’s Don Bluth Collection June 17, 2009
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Mrs. Brisby, Color Model, The Secret of NIMH
We are so excited here in Special Collections! 88 items from the Don Bluth Collection of Animation are at the Frame Shop getting matted and framed and then are traveling on to Atlanta to be exhibited in Gallery See at the SCAD Atlanta Campus from July 7-31. We have been working on selection of the materials for the exhibition for months. The exhibition is being held in conjunction with the Society for Animation Studies Annual Conference. Please join us for opening reception from 6-8 PM on July 9th in Gallery See. Part of the exhibit will be in the Artist’s Book Room of the Library. There is even a rumor that Gary Goldman might attend.
This is the first time we have exhibited the Bluth Collection since it arrived at SCAD in 2005. Donated by Gary Goldman and Don Bluth, the collection is huge and will take years to process completely, but what is processed is available to researchers now. The collection was given to the college to be used as a teaching tool for students and faculty. Classes in Animation, Sequential Arts, Cinema Studies, and Illustration have found inspiration in the many drawings, backgrounds, cels, model sheets, and other materials from the collection. This spring, in addition to Professors bringing in classes, a group of students from Weston Hall came with their RA to view selections from the collection. We are happy to have an ever increasing number of people interested in this amazing resource!
The Society for Animation Studies Annual Conference will be from July 10-12. All the information you may need about the conference, including details on registration, is on their very exhaustive conference blog. If you are a SCAD student or faculty member with a current ID, registration is at the door and is free.
We have posted some of our favorites for a little preview of the exhibition, or for those who cannot make it.
Happy Birthday, Jen Library! June 11, 2009
Posted by Deborah in : Jen Library , 1 comment so farThe Jen Library opened its doors to the public on April 26, 1999. One of the largest art and architecture libraries in the United States, it was named for Jim and Lancy Jen, the two major benefactors making the library possible. The library takes up an entire city block on East Broughton Street in downtown Savannah and is made up of three buildings.
Levy's Department Store, circa 1945
The first building, built in 1890, was bought by Benjamin H. Levy to house the Levy’s Department store on the corner of Abercorn and Broughton Streets. Levy expanded the building and unified the two with one façade. Levy’s Department Store opened in 1925. In the 1950’s, the store was expanded again, now encompassing the entire block and giving the building a total of 85,000 square feet. Again a new façade covered the entire building. The newer construction was reinforced concrete, but the oldest structure is wooden and the rafters are still visible on the third floor west if you look up through the grid work. The middle building was steel beam construction. Most of the windows were covered on the second and third floors, except at the corners, where there are large floor to ceiling windows. The building included Savannah’s first escalator.
Maas Department Store, after closing
In 1986, Maas Brothers acquired the building after merging with Levy’s. It opened as Maas Brothers that year, but did not stay in business long. A bankruptcy in1990 closed the chain for good shortly after that.
The Savannah College of Art and Design acquired the building in 1996 through a grant from the Federated Department Stores. Donations for the renovations came from the Jens. Unfortunately, the escalator had to go, but was replaced by the now famous glass stairway. Savannah architect Lee Meyer planned the renovations. He kept the space open and utilized glass walls for classrooms and offices. Low book shelves created a feeling of spaciousness and enhanced accessibility. Furnishings for the building were custom made and the interior design was clean and modern with wood tones, metals, and glass.
Jen Library
Today, ten years later, the library has proved to be the vibrant and comfortable learning environment envisioned by the architects, designers, librarians, and benefactors. One thing we learned when talking to students during recent focus groups during planning for future growth is that they love coming to the library!
Sources cited: Savannah College of Art and Design, Restoration of an Architectural Heritage, by Connie Capozzola Pinkerton et al, Arcadia Publishing: Charleston, SC, 2004
Savannah Morning News, 8/30/1996, “SCAD library moving to Broughton Street,” by James Pilcher
Georgia Guardian, 4/30 through 5/6/1999, “SCAD Library nearing completion,” by Amy Goodpaster Strebe
Artists’ Book Project May 27, 2009
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This year, the Jen Library’s Special Collections, the Visual Resources Center, and the ACA Library of SCAD collaborated on a project to provide more access to artists’ books by providing images and information in SCAD’s Digital Image Database. Our goal was to provide enhanced access to 100 titles contributed by the Savannah Campus and an additional number for the Atlanta campus. The detail oriented work of creating the enhanced descriptive elements took some thought and research, but mostly, the scanning and image uploading went well. Some of the books in our initial selection were not included in the project for a variety of reasons. Even though our definition of artists’ book was broad, on closer examination, some of the initially selected titles fell outside that definition. Several titles proved too large for the scanner and will be photographed at a later date. One may be even too large for our copy stand. For the majority of the books, we included the cover and at least one and usually more of the interior pages. The Visual Resources Center did the scanning for the Savannah campus’s books and they did an outstanding job of creating high quality images. The Atlanta campus worked with scans, photographs, and slides, and their entries are equally as excellent.
To see the collection in its entirety, log into MySCAD. Click on the Resources tab at the top. On the right, you will see a menu for Department Directory. Scroll down the list to find the Visual Resources Center and click on that. It will bring you to an informational page with several links. Click on the on for SCAD’s Digital Image Database. This will bring you to an agreement page. Click on the “I Agree” after reading the paragraph. This will take you to the database’s Image Search. You have to select 2 search terms. Select Book Art under Category and type in Savannah in the box next to Repository. This will get all the entries from the Jen Library of the Savannah College of Art and Design and the ACA Library of the Savannah College of Art and Design. If you would like to see just the entries for the Jen Library, next to Repository, type Jen. If you want just those in Atlanta, type ACA in that box.
See an image you want to know more about? Click on it and it will display descriptive information underneath as well as a link to the book’s catalog record in the Library’s online database. For a few interesting Highlights from the Jen Library’s Artists’ Book Collection, see our mini exhibit.
Visit the Don Bluth Collection of Animation at the Society of Animation Studies Conference this summer! May 7, 2009
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Banjo the Woodpile Cat
It’s been a while! We have a lot going on in Special Collections! In July, we are sending materials from the Don Bluth Collection of Animation to the Atlanta campus for an exhibit to be held in conjunction with the Society for Animation Studies Annual Conference. The exhibit will be up for the month of July; the conference takes place on July 10-12, 2009. The Society for Animation Studies is an international organization dedicated to the study of animation history and theory. It was founded by SCAD’s own Dr. Harvey Deneroff in 1987. The organization holds an annual conference at locations throughout the world, where members meet and present their current research. We are very excited to be a part of this important event. For more information on the conference, see the Conference Blog. There is no charge for SCAD students or faculty, but they must register at the door with a valid ID. We look forward to seeing you there.
Library Acquires Josef Albers’ Formulation: Articulation November 18, 2008
Posted by Deborah in : Exhibits, Useful Information , add a commentJen Library’s Special Collections recently acquired one of the foremost resources in Color Theory of our day. Formulation: Articulation, by Josef Albers, in collaboration with Ives-Sillman, a team of Albers’ ex-students, and publisher Harry N. Abrams in 1972 arrived in two large gray fabric covered slipcases this month. The set of two large folios each contain 33 folders, 127 prints in all, silk screened on white wove Mohawk Superfine paper that demonstrate the tenets of Albers’ theory of color interaction. It took nearly two years to produce the new prints. Albers chose the order of the 127 prints carefully so that their visual interactions could be studied and understood. They appear alone or in groups of two or more together. Works were selected from a forty year exploration of color, form, and interaction. However, the images do not appear in chronological order. Albers wrote Statements of Content for each folder to further explain his studies and observations. The publication is considered to be the culmination of Albers work and ideas on the relationship between color and environment. But, the prints can also be appreciated as beautiful works of art.
We have a few of the scans of the prints available on our Albers exhibit page and there a few more available on the Visual Resources Database. If you want to see more of Albers’ work, Artstor, available from the library’s research databases, recently announced that they now have the collection of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in their database. According to the Artstor blog, over 2,100 images in this collection, including photographs, paintings, prints, objects, and furniture design by Albers and textiles by his wife, Anni Albers.
Josef Albers was born on March 19, 1888 in born Bottrop, Ruhr District, Germany. He trained as a teacher and began his career after completing teaching college in 1908. Around that time, he began to travel to museums in Munich and Berlin and saw the works of Cezanne, Matisse, and others. In 1915, he moved to Berlin to study to become an art teacher. He studied painting and printmaking processes and received his first commissioned work in 1918. He went on to study in Munich at the Royal Bavarian Art Academy, and in 1920, enrolled in the Bauhaus and took the Preliminary Course in materials and design. The course was taught by Johannes Itten, a Swiss Expressionist and an innovator in Color Theory. While at the Bauhaus, Itten formulated his ideas to define and identify strategies and methodologies for coordinating colors for successful color combinations. Albers completed the Preliminary Course and an independent study in stained glass. In 1922, he was appointed a “journeyman” and placed in charge of the Bauhaus glass workshop. It was around this time that he met Anneliese Fleischmann, a student in textile design. In 1925, the couple married.
Johannes Itten left the Bauhaus in 1923 and Albers, together with Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, taught the Preliminary Course in material and design. He designed stained glass, furniture, household objects, and even a typeface. He also began writing articles and presenting papers. He and Anni traveled and photographed their travels. Albers published his work on his educational method and philosophy, “Werklicher Formunterricht,” in the journal Bauhaus. In 1930, when Mies van der Rohe becomes director of the Bauhaus, Albers became assistant director. His works continued in glass and furniture design and he resumed printmaking as well.
After the Bauhaus was closed by the Nazi government in 1933, Albers was invited to teach at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. He was recommended by Philip Johnson, then director of the department of architecture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Though Albers did not speak English and did not know where North Carolina was, he accepted. He became one of America’s most important and original teachers of art. At Black Mountain, his students included Robert Rauschenberg, Ray Johnson, Ruth Asawa, Kenneth Noland, and Susan Weil. Other faculty members included Walter Gropius, John Cage, Willem de Kooning, Robert Motherwell, and Ilya Bolotowsky. It was said of Albers that as a teacher, he was “his own academy.” Albers stayed at Black Mountain until 1949, when internal problems came to a head and several faculty members resigned. He then went on to become the head of the Department of Design at Yale University School of Art, remaining in that position until 1958, when he assumed the position of Visiting Professor until 1960. In 1963, Yale University Press published Josef Albers’ Interactions of Color, the definitive work on color theory and a masterwork in twentieth-century art education. Albers conceived the book as a handbook and teaching aid for artists, instructors, and students. It presented Albers’ unique ideas of color experimentation as a limited silkscreen edition with 150 color plates.
After Albers retired from teaching, he continued to work, designing murals, building facades, and sculptures, painting, and writing. He received several honorary degrees and awards. A number of museums hosted major retrospective exhibits of his work. In 1971, he was the first living artist ever to be the subject of a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 1972, he published Formulation: Articulation in collaboration with Ives-Sillman and publisher Harry N. Abrams. It consisted of two portfolios each with 33 folders of prints. It is considered not an exhibition of his art, but an embodiment of his teaching philosophy and documentation of the visual exercises accompanying his instruction.
Albers’s color studies demonstrated that color is the most relative medium in art. He based his teachings on his own experiences. Albers found it necessary to invent a new vocabulary to present his ideas and to develop experimental problems to challenge his students and to facilitate understanding of the concepts. He utilized laboratory assignments to provide students with the tools to gain an understanding of how colors work together or in opposition. He thought that people usually do not perceive what color is physically. He urged his students to question their vision and to rethink what they saw. He thought that each color had its own properties, ambiguities, and densities, offering uncertainties. Colors could be manipulated by changing their color environments and can appear to be translucent when opaque and vice versa. He referred to the mutual influencing of colors as interaction.
Such color deceptions prove that we see colors almost never unrelated to each other and therefore unchanged; that color is changing continually: with changing light, with changing shape and placement, and with quantity which denotes either amount (a real extension) or number (recurrence). And just as influential are changes in perception depending on changes of mood, and consequently of receptiveness. “Words of a Painter”, 1970.
Albers died in Connecticut at the age of 88 in 1976.
While at the Black Mountain College Summer Institute in 1945, student Margaret Williams Peterson took careful notes and preserved her assignments from her class with Albers. Her notes and assignments can be found at the Black Mountain College Project’s website: Joseph Albers Color and Joseph Albers Design.
Sources:
Albers, Josef. “Words of a Painter.”Art Education, Vol. 23, No. 9 (Dec., 1970), pp. 34-35
Black Mountain Project: http://www.bmcproject.org/BMC%20PROJECT/mission.htm
The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation
http://www.albersfoundation.org/Home.php
Josef Albers Biography
http://www.kunstwissen.de/fach/f-kuns/b_mod/albers.htm
Josef Albers, photograph by Arnold Newman, 1948. Retrieved document.write(mm[new Date().getMonth()][1]); November document.write(new Date().getDate()); 17, document.write(new Date().getFullYear()); 2008, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://0-www.search.eb.com.library.scad.edu:80/eb/art-8245
Yale University Press
http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300115956
Know the Types of Sources Available in the Library August 26, 2008
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In the world of research, you often hear the terms primary source, secondary source, and even tertiary source. But what exactly do these terms mean? And do you have to travel a long way to find them? Depending on the discipline, there are various types of primary sources. Most people assume that primary sources can be found only in Special Collections or in a museum, but many of these can be found in other parts of the library or even on the web, if you know what to look for. Here is a quick overview of a few types of sources you might find at the library.
In scientific circles, primary sources are the original research or writings on a subject. These can include technical reports, conference literature, patents, theses, and journals (the main medium for the dissemination of new knowledge in the sciences). For historical research, primary sources are the records of events described or recorded by someone who either participated in or witnessed the events or who got their information from others who did. Examples include newspaper accounts, letters, diaries, memoirs, notebooks, and interviews. Government records are primary sources, and these include birth, death, and marriage certificates, as well as census, legislative and court records, wills and land records. Maps are primary sources and so are directories such as city directories and those of professional organizations.
In the study of art history and other related disciplines, the art object itself, as well as photographs, artifacts, and posters are considered to be primary sources. In addition, the exhibit, auction, and sales catalogs of an artist’s work may also be considered primary sources.
It may be surprising to consider advertising as a primary source. Any items that documents events, such as broadsides and printed ephemera, tickets, timetables, and announcements are primary sources. The commonality in all types of primary sources is that they provide direct evidence of an event or describe a point in time.
Secondary Sources are materials published about primary sources such as books and articles that report on and interpret primary sources, and tools which point the user to primary sources such as abstracts, bibliographies, indexes, etc. Secondary sources are created by someone who was either not present when an event occurred or removed from it in time.
Tertiary Sources take the information found in primary and secondary sources and reformat it. These can include encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs, chronologies, guidebooks, manuals, and indexes.
An example that might help the art historian would break the sources down as follows. The primary source might be considered the work of art itself, or the artist’s statement. The secondary source might be a critique of the work or a biography of the artist. A tertiary source might be the entry for the work of art in an online art index such as Artstor or an entry in an encyclopedia of art.
Many government records are on microfilm and are accessible in places such as the Georgia Historical Society or the Live Oak Public Library in the Genealogy and local history room. The Georgia Historical Society also has a large collection documents and artifacts that are accessible in their reading room and they will be happy to assist also.
If you are looking for primary sources on the web, the American Library Association has a great guide for what to look for and how to cite web primary sources. Using Primary Sources on the Web offers a wealth of information.
Before They Were SCAD Buildings: An Exhibit of Postcards July 31, 2008
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The Savannah College of Art and Design has been a strong champion for Historic Preservation in the city of Savannah. Their first project, the National Guard Armory, begun in March, 1979, provided classroom, administrative, and studio space for the school when it opened its doors in September, 1979. This begun a tradition that continues into the present of restoring some of the architectural treasures of the city and adapting them for use by the College. More than 60 buildings have been restored and the positive impact on Savannah is apparent everywhere.
Special Collections houses a collection of postcards of Savannah and environs, the Savannah Postcard Collection, MS 016. A number of these postcards depict buildings that were later purchased and refurbished by SCAD into classroom, residence, or other usable space for the College. The exhibit showcases a number of these buildings. We also offer a brief background for each. We are continually looking for postcards of Savannah that depict SCAD buildings in their former life and will gratefully accept donations.
For more information on the history of postcards, go to our Postcard Collection page. Take a look at our exhibit at Before They Were SCAD Buildings: An Exhibit of Postcards.
George Andrews, the Dot Man June 24, 2008
Posted by Deborah in : Digital Projects , add a commentBenny Andrews gave SCAD a very nice small collection of articles and exhibit brochures, which have been processed into the Benny Andrews Collection, MS 011. The collection included several books, including one about his father: The Dot Man: George Andrews of Madison, Georgia by J. Richard Gruber, published by the Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Georgia in 1997. The book has been cataloged and is shelved in Special Collections. It is probably not a well known book, and the older Andrew’s art is worth a closer look, full of life, exuberance, and symbolism, with a touch of humor, also. We requested that the Visual Resource Center scan some of the images from the book and place them in their Image Database for SCAD students, faculty, and staff. You must be logged into MySCAD to access the SCAD Digital Image Database. When you arrive at their Image Search screen, Type in George Andrews under Artist’s Name and type in Benny Andrews under Archive Source. You should receive 10 results.
There is a wonderful article in Art Journal, Volume 53, Number 1, Spring 1994 on page 22, where George Andrews is interviewed by his son, Benny. It can be found in the library’s database, JSTOR. George Andrews, known as “the Dot Man,” was born in 1911 in Plainview, Georgia, of Scottish, Cherokee, and African ancestry. His interest in art began when he was very young. He left school to work in the fields of his father’s plantation, drawing in the evenings when he returned home. He married Viola Perryman and the couple had ten children. Viola was a writer and it seems the family was full of talent. A family art exhibit entitled Art of the Family: Benny Andrews and Nene Humphrey was organized by the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2000, and featured works from several family members including George
George was known for his love of painting images on barns, which led to a short career as a sign painter. After retiring in the 1950’s, he began painting bright dots on rocks around Madison, Georgia, and soon gained the name, “the Dot Man.” He painted every surface he could and soon he became recognized for his trademark bright colors and dot patterns. His son, Benny Andrews, began supplying him with canvas, which he adapted quite well.
Various Objects, 20th Century, Decorated by George Andrews, photograph from page 27 of The Dot Man: George Andrews of Madison, Georgia.
Look on our exhibits page on George Andrews to see a few more of the images. If you need a better quality image, go to the Visual Resources Center SCAD Digital Image Database. Of course, there are lots more images in the book. You can purchase the book on George Andrews from the Morris Museum of Art’s web site. And, of course, you can always come to Special Collection and take a look!