Born: September 1, 1931 (Cincinnati, OH)
Died: August 4, 1973 (San Francisco, CA)
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On a recent Field Trip Friday excursion with my First Year Seminar class, one of the students made a discovery.
The Field Trip included five stops to look at some important plaques and markers that often go unnoticed. It included a trip into Haymond Hall of Science (after studying about the beginnings of that building during the week). It included a stop in the Sleeth Gallery in McCuskey Hall.
On the way into McCuskey, I happened to point out a small sculpture which was attached to the side of the building.
When all was said and done, it was this sculpture that inspired one student to action. I explained that it was part of a series which had been installed on campus in 2015 by Ellen Mueller, who at that time was a faculty member in the Art Department. Click here to read more about Ellen.
A couple of days later, I received an email with photos of all of the pieces in the project. The student and a friend (not even in the class) had spent hours examining each building on the campus to try and locate the entire project. Beyond being intrigued by the pieces themselves, they found that they had many questions about the reason for these tiny sculptures and what the artist may have been thinking about.
Ellen’s project was named Synergism. That word translates loosely to “working together” and that there are things that work better when combined together than they do as individual components. You can read more about it on her website.
In this project, there are five office-related objects, 3-D modeled in SketchUp and printed in 3-D in matte bronze steel by Shapeways. Each is designed to fit into a corner-space and are attached to buildings on the campus.
The Synergism project was featured in a journal article by Tiffany Funk in NMC/Media-N (Spring 2015; Vol. 11, No. 02).
Ellen Mueller’s Synergism series (2015) demonstrates how subversive, radical discourse can take the form of small-scale interventions. The series consists of 3D modeled bronze-steel sculptures, ranging from three to eight inches, of office paraphernalia installed in a variety of institutional spaces, including office buildings, city halls, DMVs, post offices, and schools.
Though Synergism takes its inspiration from street art, it disrupts institutional architecture through corporate camouflage; by mimicking the bronze, classical sculptures often gracing entrances and lobbies, while drastically reducing their scale, these absurd interventions signify larger issues of the effects of workplace monetization, namely the objectification of individuals.
When I looked up the word Synergism in the Credo Reference database on the library webpage, there were 668 results returned. They were from many disciplines, including usage of the word in:
It occurred to me that all of these things contribute to what we call a Liberal Arts Education. Each one of the areas is important on its own, but combined together they are even greater. Synergism.
While I gave the best explanation that I could when asked about these pieces of art, I realized that I could do a much better job if I consulted the artist and made a connection with the student in that way. I asked Brenlyn what she would ask the artist if she could. Here are her questions and Ellen’s answers.
Question: Why Office Supplies and furniture? Why not art supplies or artists, or dogs, or panda bears or something?
Answer: I picked office supplies/furniture because I was very interested in bureaucracy and the systems that guide our everyday lives. These objects are completely intertwined with carrying out those systems of order.
Question: Why these particular buildings? How did you decide where to put them?
Answer: I put them on these buildings because I wanted to spread them out over the whole campus, and these buildings felt well-spread out from each other.
Question: How did you come up with this whole project in the first place?
Answer: I came up with the idea because I like bureaucracy from a personal point of view (I like things to be orderly), but I am also driven crazy by bureaucracy sometimes because I like to get things done, and it can slow things down!
New technologies provide opportunities. While some fear them or dismiss them, others embrace them and find ways to harness their potential. Some turn out to be life-changing. At West Virginia Wesleyan College, we have a history of being embracers of new ways to learn and to provide service.
If you had gone into the Administration Building between the years of 1906-08, for example, you might have encountered Harry Francis Brittingham setting up the equipment for his Railroading and Telegraphy class. H.F., as he was known, had worked with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as a clerk and a car distributor in this booming business of railroads. Someone at Wesleyan realized that there was a great need for educating people to work in this field. Maybe it was President John Wier or perhaps George W. Broyles, Principal of the School of Commerce. This was only five years after Marconi’s groundbreaking wireless transmission across the Atlantic.
Although this particular book was not published until 1911, Soule’s Practical Method of Training: Telegraphy, Railroading, Express and Freight published by the University Press, Cambridge, USA may have been very much like the textbook used for these classes. And the machines may have looked and sounded much like these:
After 1908, however, we don’t see this particular course mentioned until 1942 when Dr. Nicholas Hyma and Professor William Hallam were training students for defense purposes and military service in World War II. Again, a specific need being met by the faculty and curriculum.
We have also seen innovations used in the curriculum in the area of Fine Arts. From 1891-1901 courses were taught in Crayoning.
West Virginia Wesleyan College offered courses in Crayoning from 1891-1901, which is very interesting considering that Binney & Smith did not begin making what we now know as crayons until 1902 and did not begin marketing them until 1903. Taught by WVWC Giants named Miss Maude McFarland (1891-94), Miss Persis H. Heermans (1894-96), Miss Alice Divine (1896-99), and Myrtle McElroy (1899-1901), art classes being taught at the college were up on the very latest of materials and methods. The company registered its patent for Carbon Black, it’s first breakthrough, on May 26, 1891.
The word Crayon was coined by Mrs. Edwin Binney by combining the French word for chalk (craie) and the Latin root for the word oily (ola).
In the November 1964 Profile Newsletter, an alumni publication, several stories show that the technology trend was continuing. All of this in only four pages!
In the fall of 2012, the room in the back on the first floor of the Annie Merner Pfeiffer Library, the Upshur Reading Room, was beginning to be used for programs. Both campus and community members gathered to be informed, to be inspired, and to have discussions.
Like the Town Squares in the olden days, it was a place for people to come and find information and to discuss it.
One particularly inspirational evening in the autumn of 2012, Dr. Robert Rupp came to the library to give a lecture about candidates for an upcoming election. And we had quite a crowd.
But, the backdrop was not great – with open walls back to where journals were stored blocked off by a series of filing cabinets.
On the cabinets were stacks of papers, microfilm boxes, and dead plants.
Not exactly the kind of thing we were proud to show off on the evening news reports – and the press did come.
The Library was inspired…..to have a more appropriate and visually appealing place for these programs. Funding from the Friends of the Library made it possible to install a partition between the Reading Room and the periodical storage area. Filing cabinets and dead plants were removed.
In consultation with Professor Ellen Mueller, a professor in the Art Department from 2012-2017, we received submissions for the creation of a mural. She included the project as part of an assignment for the class. Several wonderful designs were submitted, and we chose a design by Spencer Kinnard.
Click here to see a time lapse video of Spencer as he creates his masterpiece.
His design placed the Greek Philosophers in the center, scientists and medical leaders in the upper right corner, philosophers and religious readers in the lower right, artists and musicians on the lower left, and writers on the upper left.
This is generally where books on those topics are located in this library. Genius!
His tag line is:
One thing tomorrow brought was a beautiful and meaningful transformation of the space. Be sure to stop by and take a closer look at it the next time you are in the library. (p.s. there is a cheat sheet mounted on the wall so that you can identify all of the people on the mural).
Be sure to check out the DreamersAndGiants website!
