On my return from my annual summer in Tucson one year, my mother volunteered me to work with Serigraph artist Corita Kent, who was still Sister Corita at the time and had her usual 2-week production run "vacation" from teaching. What an incredible experience, to be in the presence of such a great artist and visionary. I cleaned screens, hung prints, mixed colors, trimmed edges--anything she needed.
Much later that association got me another wonderful position. In the mid '80's a mutual friend asked me to drive her and Corita, who was now resident in Boston, to visit the Office of Charles and Ray Eames. We had lunch with Ray (Charles had died some 7 years prior) and Ray was fretting over not having someone she could trust to go over her papers and files. Forty years of design work and collecting, she was still trying to run the office while its legacy was being acquired by the Library of Congress.
From that introduction I got to spend the next 3 years helping to catalogue their work, updating their publicity files, and making small contributions to the publishing of a book about them. My final task there was funded by a grant from IBM--I actually got a title and found a new niche--archivist! Being at the Eames Office was like taking all my upbringing and setting it out there in front of me on a very grand scale. My father had always admired Eames architecture and furniture design. We were entranced by their films and exhibitions, and I gained so much insight transcribing his lectures from the time he was Harvard's Poet of the Year. As I have said so many times before, I have led such a privileged life!
But I had always wanted to go to "finishing school" to learn how to fit into what I perceived as normal society. The other thing I wanted was to join the military and have a stable, predictable lifestyle with no worries about my care and keeping! I'm pretty horrified at the thought now, especially after spending 3 months as a guinea pig at National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, living in the hospital. Talk about giving up personal control!
Much later that association got me another wonderful position. In the mid '80's a mutual friend asked me to drive her and Corita, who was now resident in Boston, to visit the Office of Charles and Ray Eames. We had lunch with Ray (Charles had died some 7 years prior) and Ray was fretting over not having someone she could trust to go over her papers and files. Forty years of design work and collecting, she was still trying to run the office while its legacy was being acquired by the Library of Congress.
From that introduction I got to spend the next 3 years helping to catalogue their work, updating their publicity files, and making small contributions to the publishing of a book about them. My final task there was funded by a grant from IBM--I actually got a title and found a new niche--archivist! Being at the Eames Office was like taking all my upbringing and setting it out there in front of me on a very grand scale. My father had always admired Eames architecture and furniture design. We were entranced by their films and exhibitions, and I gained so much insight transcribing his lectures from the time he was Harvard's Poet of the Year. As I have said so many times before, I have led such a privileged life!
But I had always wanted to go to "finishing school" to learn how to fit into what I perceived as normal society. The other thing I wanted was to join the military and have a stable, predictable lifestyle with no worries about my care and keeping! I'm pretty horrified at the thought now, especially after spending 3 months as a guinea pig at National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, living in the hospital. Talk about giving up personal control!
posted by Mary Smith at 10:06 AM
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