remembrance and a tribute by Jim Manngard

commemorative digital art by Jim Manngard

the role of Larry Kagan in our lives

Larry Kagan Sculpture with Cast Shadow

(please note, if you are new to this blog, Robert F. Winne is my father and I am his daughter writing this post).

Today I went to a Larry Kagan exhibit at a prestigious museum in my area. If any of you saw the first post on this blog, Larry Kagan was my father's colleague at RPI (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute). Larry was also my first drawing teacher. My father sat in on some workshops Larry taught as well.

As I looked through Larry's pieces in the show, I wished my father was with me to see the direction Larry went with his art (and sometimes I could just about hear my father say, "Oh, my goodness! So interesting ... and so well done!"). Indeed, it is a unique direction! 

Larry makes art that makes shadows. They are abstract sculptures that are screwed to the wall to make another image (in shadow) that is realistic, recognizable and common. There is usually one light coming in a certain direction to make the image.

Here is a video I saw on You Tube that describes his process:

As for art lessons with Larry? My father loved lessons about "free-ing up the hand" to make spontaneous liberating drawings, usually of figures (as an architect he was expected to make very tight precise drawings all day, so you can imagine this was a breath of fresh air). 

As for me? I remember drawing in the boiler room with a lot of pipes in tangles. That would have appealed to my sense of intricacy.  

Mary, a drawing

Mary

drawing by Robert F. Winne 

(note: this is an old drawing, possibly from the 1960s ... the paper is getting fragile, very yellowed and faded and it is on letter paper, not on acid free drawing paper)

RPI faculty meeting sketch doodles

RPI faculty meeting sketch doodles I and II

by Robert F. Winne

Professor Winne has a lot of little doodles he made during faculty meetings at R.P.I. These are just two of them out of around 150 of them.  

Was he bored at these meetings? If he was like me (which I suspect he was, since I am his daughter and I am an artist too), doodling actually enhances concentration on what is being said at the meetings. It is like knitting, creating fun little patterns.

I like how his pen moves around or inbetween the RPI emblem and words on the page.

Description of Richard Hooke, artist and woodworker, written by Robert F. Winne

© a sketch from the sketchbook of Richard Hooke, artist, woodworker, teacher

A transcript of Bob’s handwritten description of his friend Richard Hooke (an artist friend who Bob deeply admired and loved) was recently found by Bob's wife, Patricia:

In the morning as he dresses for work and prepares for the day, his eye cannot help but fall on several of the many pieces of art/craft scattered about the household—pieces that are products of his own hand and have become loyal daily companions. Perhaps he will give one or two of them a quick, gentle stroke in passing, signal both of recognition in its presence and a note of appreciation for the continuing delight it offers in its silky surface, rich color and spirited form. He calls the many kinds of human investment that went into each piece; the explorative wanderings before a breakthrough, the many tentative trials, the disasters as well as the triumphs. His mind touched on instances of realization: of coming to know the personality of the material and its resistances, of where one must proceed with great care, and where one can charge along with great abandon, of recognizing when enough is enough, knowing that a piece is never really “finished”. Those of us who are friends of this man could venture to say that his craft is as much art as craft, and perhaps even beyond art as a way of life.