"A single pebble..."

(left click on letter)

'It is said that if you move a single pebble on the beach, you set up a different pattern, and everything in the world is changed. It can also be said that love can change the future, if it is deep enough, true enough, and selfless enough. It can prevent a war, prohibit a plague, keep the whole world... whole.'

The Man Who Was Never Born
by Andrew Lawrence
The Outer Limits, October 28 1963

"Curious incident of the dog..."

 The arts were not limited on the new campus. P.D. and Mr. Adair also added their exceptional talents to the college chapel along with alumnae art contribution. In my day this was not an 'advertised' fact... but I remember visiting the Dedrick lithographs as well as the batik banners and altar pieces. Apparently for more than fifteen years all have gone missing.... the absence unexplained. One hopes an investigation will result in locating these treasures from the past that represent artistic achievement in the celebration of multiple faiths.

Gregory: "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night."
Holmes: "That was the curious incident.

"Silver Blaze/ The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

"Wings are so terribly hard to dry..."

~Travis Dreaming~

Robert John Guttke

I applied to Rockford College and was informed I would have to present my portfolio before being accepted. This I dimly remember: Standing on the green, rolling lawns of the campus, surrounded by trees, these beautiful buildings, and near to the art building with my art work (lots of scratch board drawings; a technique I greatly enjoyed) from a junior college under my arm. I was all alone. It was a sunny spring day yet I felt I had just climbed aboard the Mary Celeste. A single figure came down a side walk; a funny little man with narrow shoulders, grey hair tucked under a barre, dressed in a dark wool suit and clutching books reverently to his chest. But most startling were his spectacles with lenses that appeared to be three inches thick. He smiled at me and said hello.

I thought he was very strange .

Then thought wouldn't it be ironic if this was the man I was here to see? 

He was. 

I nervously presented my art to this kind and gentle man. Was he British? He didn't talk like anyone I had met before. His hands moved elegantly, like butterflies, with his every word. He put me instantly at ease. Then came the forever unforgettable moment. "What do you wish to achieve with your art?" he asked, very seriously. "Absolute perfection," I shot back, very flippantly. He tilted his head a bit, looked over those impossible glasses, and smiled a little dimpling smile. "Remember," he said, "Wings are so terribly hard to dry."

I started classes at Rockford College in the Fall of 1973. Philip Dedrick was my teacher and my mentor for three years and after graduation he remained my friend & family for twenty-six years.

~Fallen Angel~

Odilon Redon

"If you can't make it good, make it big."

 "Phil!" I use to hear him bellow from out of his office above the ceramics lab; a ceramics lab startling pristine in its cleanliness which reflected Arthur Adair's strict discipline from his Navy experience. Chair of the department my first year at Rockford, he picked on me endlessly in his gruff manner and I enjoyed it greatly, sensing "a form of endearment". With sleeves rolled up past his mighty forearms he would demonstrate making a clay pot on the wheel that impressed to no end. Then the last fifteen minutes of class were always devoted to making the lab 'ship shape'. You could have eaten off the floor.

Unable to 'throw a pot' for my life, I was content to explore hand building and always worked the human figure into my work until functunal pieces disappeared entirely. Mr. Adair called them: "Guttke's nudie pots! You you should put 'em in a box with a hole and sell five cent peeps!" The pearls of wisdom just rolled from this man, and I thought the world of him. He said, "Don't fall in love with your pots," refering to the perclivity of things to crack or blow up. He presented a grotesque goblet I had fashioned to the class, saying, "If you can't make it good, make it big." When he retired that year, which saddened me greatly, I stood back feeling I wasn't qualified to add to his farewell book when he suddenly yelled, "Guttke, get over here and sign this!"

'I enjoy teaching very much," he once said. "I'm interested in my own creative work, of course, but I am not often moved to exhibit. Many artists teach from economic necessity and consider it drudgery. This can be detrimental to teaching.'

Clark Arts had the finest and most modern type of kiln developed to date by ceramic engineers. Yet Arthur Adair also designed gallery exhibits and theatrical productions and taught painting. "I don't stress the how of painting. Thus, I give few demonstrations. I feel every student must discover his own technique... this is often a painful experience.. but this is where the learning begins. If they are willing to bring order from this confusion, they begin to learn.'

The facade of Colman Library remains adorned with Mr. Adair's extraordinary ceramic plaques which represent a wide variey of cultures from around the world: Egyptian, Tibetan, Celtic, American Indian, East Indian, Mayan, Hebrew, Mesopotamian and many more.

He left Rockford to open his own studio in Taos, New Mexico. P.D. told me that often Georgia O'Keefe would stop by and visit with him. Letters from Mr. Adair to P.D. mentioned the Clay and Fiber Shop, shared in family activities, encouraged visits, passed greetings on to 'the Rockford College Gang' and ended with love from him and his wife.  This brusque, talented, good natured man with a wife, daughters and grand-children was lost in the early 90's when that great heart unexpectedly stopped.

~My First Nudie Pot~
Robert John Guttke

"Next slide please..."

Philip Dedrick said it was love at first sight when he set eyes on the most famous piece of Egyptian statuary, the 3,300 year old bust of Queen Nefertiti; exalting the beauty of 'maidens' with long, swan like necks and then lowered his voice in sympathy to those cursed with short stubby ones. This was quite an unexpected start of a fusty art history class, but P.D.'s classes were always anything but that. He said he reluctantly took on the task. "It began against my better judgement... too concerned with dates and dull facts... but once started it made me examine and verbalize my convictions."

With knowledge of religion, history and a proclivity for visiting nearly every museum in the world (and restaurants in their vicinity) he enthralled us with stories of art & artists that went beyond just memorizing dates. He would wax poetical over Giotto's Mary on her way to deliver the 'jewel' from her body that would become the Christ. Tell us how many nuns Fra Philipo Lipi was living with at the time he painted (3). How a baroque painting of the "rather corpulent" Sabine women hoisted on top of the horses would have been an easier task if the positions were reversed. How abstract artist Franz Marc's pacifist nature and love of animals ended as he stood still on the battlefield of Verdun and was killed. Refusing comment on Michelangelo's sexuality since he frowned on psychoanalyzing someone dead for over 400 years. Relating the story of unrequitted love that Botticelli felt for the beautiful Simonetta Vespucci who was betrothed to Giuliano De Medici... she eventually succumbing to a fever as the handsome Giuliano was murdered at the bronze doors created by Lorenzo Ghiberti.

I don't recall what brought up the topic, but P.D. reflected to a time in his childhood when he drew and colored mermaids & mermen. Then cut them free of the paper and placed them in a hole filled with water. Innocently watching in horror as these paper creations dissolved. My mouth widened in astonishment because I had done exactly the same thing!

~A Mermaid~
John Walter Waterhouse

Anecdotes for these classes are endless. The noon hour class meant everyone missed out on lunch, and P.D. would go on & on about a Dutch still life with its succulent fruits that glittered with moisture until someone in class screamed, "STOP IT!" How many times did an image appear on the wall that he studied for a few seconds then said, "Next slide please. One must not speak ill of the dead." His formal pronunciation of Van Gogh (does ANYONE really know this man's name?) caused soft grumbles of outrage when it finally dawned who he was talking about- followed by the loud swell of angry erasers. He had planned to skip Bernini but I liked the artist so volunteered to do the lecture. Thus I waxed poetic while he sat in the front. "Take me to a vomitorium," I heard mumbled loudly. When discussing Pluto's fingers pressed into the stone flesh of Persephone there came another loud and snide, "Yes, count each and every finger!"

~Sculptures~

The perfidious Gian Lorenzo Bernini~

Then came the time when he rushed late into class, the lights already out, hurrying down the steps to the front and his head collided with one of the wooden student projects on the wall. As he spoke the blood cascaded down his face. The class was petrified. With no hesitation I jumped from behind the carrel, grabbed his arm, and lead him out and into the mens room where I washed away the blood. "I don't even have a headache," he said indignantly, confirming his strong Christian Scientist faith. "Fine," I shot back, "But you're grossing everyone out!" Class continued.

~Venus & Mars~
(aka: Simonetta & Giuliano)
 Sandro Botticelli

"Ice cream... you scream..."

P.D. was my adviser my first year, a danger in itself since on occasion he'd sign you up for a class that didn't count toward your degree... but as he often said, "Suffering is good for the young." Always loving English History I took a class that unexpectedly turned out dry as dust and fast became tantamount to the dotted line around Anne Boelyn's neck. In a panic about grades and my scholarship I turned for help and ended up at P.D.'s apartment. His solution? Everything would be fine and he gave me a bowl of vanilla ice cream. 


I passed the class (by the skin of my teeth) and my scholarship was only slightly reduced. 


This was the beginning of many visits off campus to his tiny apartment that had a ceiling to floor Langoussis painting, tiny cacti in the messy kitchen (opening the refrigerator was like opening the door of a tomb, some items fermenting since Calvin Coolidge had been in office), silk screen curtains of British grave rubbings, lots of that nasty primitive art work and fabrics that we never saw eye-to-eye on, and one singular aberration that sent chills down the spine and recoils of terror: his little cat Poobah. Named after The Grand High All Everything from Gilbert & Sullivan's Mikado and a gift (!) from Roland Poska... though I often assumed she was the dark emissary of Lucifer.

~The Dream~ (detail)
Henri Rousseau

There was always ice cream, popcorn, tea, and strange food items. I warned everyone I brought over to bring a napkin and beware of the cat. Those who ignored me ended up 'chipmunking away' in their mouths something bizarre for the sake of politeness only to have a spitting fest once outside the door. Others wiggled a finger or cooed sweetly to Poobah only to be rewarded with ferocious paw strikes and a hiss like a water hose. "Oh, look," P.D. smiled as he gently stroked the vile creature in his lap, "Poobah is letting out a little air." One time a fellow art student stood and held out a piece of string to play. I sat back, arms folded, and warned, "No good will come of that!" And Poobah leapt into the air and hooked a claw into his thumb, and dangled merrily like a Christmas tree ornament. The blood made me think of a water sprinkler. And when you are visiting a Christian Scientist you are hard pressed for any typical medical solutions including Band-Aids.

I stayed in Rockford one summer while P.D. went on a trip and in a moment of mental instability offered to baby sit the furry fiend. She sneaked out the apartment and hid in a wood pile where I reached and grabbed: it was like shoving my hand into an oscillating fan. I held her by the scruffy little neck while crimson trailed along my arm and dripped from my elbow. Weeks later I told him I would stop being a vegetarian for five minutes if he would allow me to EAT that animal.

"Fishy Whale Press."

"We were fitting our studio in Clark Arts Center and asked Roland Poska to design our graphic arts studio," Philip Dedrick said. "He created our Lithography facility, helped find our great press, found a great collection of litho stones in Buffalo at no cost... he also found a Washington Press and type as well, so that we are able to do all types of Intaglio, litho and relief processes and to set and print type and make paper." 

Roland originally came to Rockford College as a history major, then switched to art. With an MFA from Cranbrook Academy, he taught at Rockford, became head of Printmaking at Layton School of Art in Milwaukee, co-founded a new school called the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design, and in 1961 began Fishy Whale Press: a studio that attracted artists from around the country with its lithography stones, printmaking equipment and papermill: "Where prehaps some of the finest stone litho printing since Toulouse-Lautrec is coming."

Enigmatically enough, it was at Fishy Whale that I first exhibited my early sculpture when at Rockford College; no doubt having something to do with P.D.'s influence.

Back then I remember meeting this imposing figure that had to be eighteen feet tall, touring his equally imposing facility in Milwaukee, and witness to a variety of artists' works on the wall. Eventually word came that a woman's coat had caught on one of my sculptures and dashed it to the floor- just as she dashed out the door ("Never fall in love with your pots").

~The statue that was~
Robert John Guttke

"Hot Chef's Soup."

“Phil! That’s me!” the woman in the front row of the art history room exclaimed in astonishment. There on the wall was the Palio horse race in Siena and she was part of the crowd scene, photographed by Philip Dedrick some years before.

 It wasn’t the coincidence that surprised P.D. as much as the woman up until that moment had always regarded him as “Mr. Dedrick, this…” or “Mr. Dedrick, that..”

Things happened in that room. Chuck Ludeke at the projector inserted a slide that suddenly illuminated the wall with an image of myself cradling in my arms a peculiar sculpture done by a fellow art student. This evoked a quick and pithy comment by P.D. about my parenting skills.

Naturally we were expected to remember all the dates, the periods, the movements, the dynasties, and take closer scrutiny of Marcel Duchamp’s cubist painting of ‘Nude Descending a Staircase’ when the subject was revealed to be male (!). Everyone lugged along the massive, grey book ‘History of Italian Renaissance' when not using it as a door stop… but few investigated its pages until THE FINAL came up.

We had to write a paper, the topic passing approval first, but anyone who received an ‘A’ did not have to take THE FINAL... which lead to much groveling throughout the land for those with 'A-' or 'B+' papers. Rama even confronted P.D. in his office, decked out in sari and sporting boxing gloves to complain about her 'A-' paper. P.D. recoiled in laughter, “Please, just don’t hit me!” Obviously she did have an earlier success, her favorite professor's praise pure poetry... yet one ponders whether her appreciation for Masaccio had anything to do with his subjects dressing in similar flowing garments? 

~The Tribute Money~
Masaccio aka 'Slovenly Tom'

One ‘B+' paper tried to bribe him with a plate of home baked brownies, I remember, hoping to appeal to his reknown culinary desires. It was a miserable, funny, failure. That year a book called ‘The Art of Walt Disney’ was published and a girl tried to hoodwink him into this being a topic for her paper, and he snapped, “There is no such thing!”For most it meant hours reviewing slides, taking notes and MEMORIZED LIKE WE NEVER MEMORIZED BEFORE. Years and years later, possibly to P.D.’s disappointment, I revealed a word association technique developed by Bill Bruning that got us through the test. Every image was broken down into something easier to store away: the one that I have never forgot was Hatshepsut. She ruled as Pharaoh, her images often sported a male beard, and (for reasons still arcane) after she died her step-son had nearly all carvings and statues obliterated of the queen we knew as Hot Chef’s Soup.

Hatshepsut at Karnak

"What is Art... blah, blah, blah."

~Satan's Council~

Gustave Dore

We were naughty children… and Philip Dedrick seldom chided and mostly chuckled, as if he knew this was part of either growing up or being little creative devils. Chuck Ludeke sent anonymous letters to the Dean claiming P.D. was practicing voodoo (everyone knew who wrote them), he painted the Greek athlete figure orange (then spent countless hours scrapping it off), barricaded P.D.’s office with drawing benches, and masterfully created a ‘ready-made’ piece of art for a class- its story left P.D. rocking back and forth with peels of laughter. A psychology teacher entered the strangely dark lecture hall forcing him to feel about the myriad of switches to turn on the lights. Then he stood at the podium gazing at his fingers mysteriously blackened with charcoal and making whining noises, of which Bo-Bo did a perfect nasal impersonation. A charcoaled sheet of paper with slits had been taped over the light switches, which later Chuck retrieved (now streaked with finger marks) as his ‘ready-made’ art project.

We were required in our senior year to take ‘Aesthetics Class’; imagine a room filled with know it all art majors and a philosophy teacher who hadn’t taught the course before. The man loved to illustrate on the black board.

We stole his chalk.

He would turn from the black board after pathetically using his fingertip dipped in chalk dust just in time to witness a flock of paper airplanes gliding softly down from either side of the room as we gazed forward with innocent, sweet cherubim (we learned the word in art history) faces. We'd create ‘divine-corpses’ (I believe that P.D. said it was a concept of the Da-Da art period)- paper was folded into quarters and someone would first draw a head, then another the body, then thighs, and finally shins & feet. Unfolded the results were rude and hysterically funny which caused bursts of laughter- the teacher thought we were reacting to him and took heated umbrage. Taking off my socks I’d do a puppet show for Rama seated at my side. She’d hiss, “You bad boy!” and hit me. I would pretend sneeze then grab her sari to wipe my nose and get hit again. When asked a question by the teacher I tried to answer while (unbeknownst to him) Ellen on my opposite side had pulled my leg in her lap and was freely running fingers along its length. I had tears in my eyes, grimacing with restrained laughter, and the long suffering teacher grew furious with my sputtering response.

The text book for the class was authored by someone named Cunningham, and we forever took issue with its concept of art VS craft and just what was art. Its basic concept: ART had to be perceived in order to be ART. Then one glorious afternoon Gretchen asked in her southern belle twang of a voice, “But what about Beethoven’s 9th? Wasn’t he deaf when he wrote it?” It is perhaps inappropriate to say, but watching a PHD completely shatter as his philosophical rug is pulled out beneath him is a beautiful thing.

The day of The Final arrived to find every inch of the wall length black board covered with nonsensical and riotously funny diagrams, much like a deranged family tree, which connected Socrates to Plato to Sarte to rutabagas to parsnips, etc. Another Ludeke creation. The majority of us shrugged off our barely passing grade. Mr. Dedrick tisked that we nearly destroyed the philosophy teacher who swore never to teach that class again, the "poor man," he added with a sweet cherubim face.

“Making art now means working in the face of uncertainty; it means living with doubt and contradiction, doing something no one much cares whether you do, and for which there may be neither audience or Reward.”

Art & Fear
Bayles & Orland

"Separate ways..."

~Birthday Card~

Roland Ginzel

'Dear Philip,
Well dear friend- It's been a few years since my visit to Rockford and the great Morning spent with you at the pancake house and then the "Clock Museum"- I often think about that. I guess as we get older our thoughts often take us back in time- mine certainly do. My days- in classes at the Art Institute- were so happy and care free and my meeting with our "group" was so important to me in forming a determination to make ART my life's work. The earliest & best recollections I have are you & Walter Boyer & Vera Berdich & Arthur Ginzel etc & Miss Van & egg tempera.

~Rock River~

Ellen Lanyon

It's too bad in a way that all of us went separate ways... but I do think we all bonded that our friendship survived the distance and remains today. Now Roland will be celebrating his 80th birthday with an exhibit in Chicago. I wish you could be there. (We) spent Christmas in London and visited every museum... and thought of you often- it was a lark. I've become the computer user that I thought impossible. But the hand written message is still the best. I hope it conveys my true affection for you.

-Love, Ellen'
4/4/2001

P.D. at Roland Ginzel & Ellen Lanyon's wedding

"Subi dura a rudibus..."

~ Two pencils & pen and ink: circa 1976~

Robert Guttke

I was called into the office of one of the Deans. During Easter vacation an empty dorm room was found with my photographic studio lights, backdrop and- the most damning -a book on anatomy and two contact sheets of nudes. It was a two part affair, I dimly remember, first being heatedly chastised for a crime then later having my anatomy book and contact sheets returned by a somewhat chagrined Dean.

Mr. Dedrick and the chair of the department had rushed immediately to my aid. “After all, this is what we are here for, to allow a student to explore the arts,” P.D. told me later, rather amused by the whole incident.
 

~Dave~

Robert John Guttke 

The quavering Dean then stated this was much the same as visitors passing through the science building who unexpectedly viewed animals being dissected (a fallacious comparison that caused me atypical, tongue biting).

P.D. said, “Not everyone should study art, though everyone should have contact with it. Not alone because of the irreplaceable pleasures it affords, but because it is the one thing that actually endures, It abolishes time… gives insights into the finest aspirations of men.”

Months later when my senior show of drawings, sculptures and photographs were on exhibit; I was coming down the side walk and saw the Dean approach me from the art building. “You are going to go some place some day, young man,” he said and kept walking. It is a compliment that I value to this day.

“This is why I like teaching at a small college,” P.D. said. “The individual approach is possible, and I have the opportunity to see students grow in their own rights… I attempt to develop the strengths while restraining the habits which hinder progress.”

Possibly this applied to a Dean as well.

~Drawing class~

Circa 1970

"Mr. Lissauer."

~For the great Day of Wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?~

Philip Bilse Dedrick

Over the years P.D. and I shared in many likes and dislikes. We hated Mahler (the man just never knew when to stop). We admired the surrealist French painter Odilon Redon. We laughed over Monty Python. Vehemently disliked Minnesota’s corny Prairie Home Companion. Wept together at the film Powder. And absolutely adored and loved Mrs. Peel from The Avengers.

But the one thing we were never destined to share was his passion for “That ugly primitive art,” as I always called it. Naturally in return I suffered the slings and arrows for my “sad ignorance” with a barrage of merry aspersions to my gentle person.
How many took notice that the two story Clark Arts Building had a three story stairwell which occupied a New Guinea totem (‘an ancestor figure in the form of a house post’)- one of only two that exist in the world, I have been told. “It arrived in the largest box I have ever seen in my life,” P.D. stated, explaining further, “The stairwell was built around it.”




His office and apartment were cluttered (putting it mildly) with much the same: grassy masks, weapons, textiles and carved figures of Oceanic and Pre-Columbian Art. This ‘affliction’ was shared by many friends in Rockford who also collected such artifacts, most provided by a unique dealer from Australia that I had met only once: Mr. Lissauer.

As Andrew Langoussis often said, "That man should have a movie made of his life."
(Hermann) Mark Lissauer and his mother survived the Nazi concentration camp Bergen Belsen, later joining his father in Australia. In 1959 he began collecting artifacts from tribal cultures in New Guinea, then on to Nepal, India, China, and Indonesia.

His first encounter with P.D. was over 35 years ago through the Beloit College Museum. “The first meeting did not divulge his deep humanity and profound erudition,” Mr. Lissauer said, “(but) on my twice yearly meetings in Rockford I learned to enjoy and appreciate his friendship and kindness… he gave me one of his ‘world view’ prints as well as a small painting.” Now going on 87 years of age, Mr. Lissauer is trying to establish a website for his large stock of material… and continues to travel, collect, and sell.

Meanwhile the myriad of work collected by P.D. now resides at the obscure Freeport Art Museum in Illinois… the museum claiming its “tribal holdings are second only to those of the Field Museum in Chicago,” which comes as no surprise due to the largesse of a single art professor whose reach went far round the world.

"Phil... osophy."

Once when P.D. was searching the mayhem of his office ("I could fill a vacuum.") for a book, he came up empty and said rather placidly, "Oh well, it must be one of those that didn't find its way back." Doesn't that bother you, I asked, when you lend someone something? "No," he replied, "I did the right thing. It's a matter of someone else to do the same."

It was an early example in how well contained this man was. He refused to get angry because it was self destructive. "Being shocked," he distained with half lidded eyes, "takes too much energy." A negative thing has no weight, he told me often. Forgiveness is the greatest gift: to yourself. Guilt is a wasted emotion. Worrying about the future is counter productive, "Let the future take care of itself." Living in the moment is the most anyone could do. And in affairs of the heart that were going wildly & tearfully wrong he offered me the best wisdom: "You must enjoy pain more than I do."

Nor was he a passive wimp. I was hysterical with laughter when he related how he took a telemarketing woman to task for having the audacity to call him by his Christian name when they hadn't been properly introduced... and the time he finally allowed door-to-door evangelists into his home and were laid low by a man of extreme Faith, knew the Bible by heart, believed in a Loving God... and, to boot, even taught Sunday school! The door knockers couldn't stagger out fast enough.

P.D. concentrated on the good he saw in people, but he wasn't oblivious. When I complained (as I am wont to do... occasionally) about his fellow faculty he would acknowledge "Yes, he can be a bit of a martinet," or brush aside with his typical cackle, "... and that skunk of a toupee that he wears!"  It was harmony he desired... though I do remember a growl over the phone, "Sometimes YOU make me so mad!" Well to be fair, I could claim the same. He was a notorious Re-Gift-Giver! Chris Apel happily announcing to me, "Phil just gave me this wonderful album of music called 'A Medieval Christmas'." 

A Medieval Christmas

The Boston Camerata

My teeth were grinding when I exploded, "I GAVE THAT TO HIM!" (and remain adamant the Finest recording of its kind). He was forever fobbing off unread novels, partially nibbled foodstuffs, and even clothing that could only possibly fit him. It was so annoying.

Still have a book of his I forgot to return. 

"Courtyard Action."

The core of the Clark Arts Building was the beautiful courtyard. You would circle the various art studios and glance out upon the trees (one of which, legend says, the facility was built around upon the request of a college benefactor... Mr. Dedrick wistfully remarking, "More money has been spent on keeping that tree alive." ), the flowering shrubs, the delicate Dogwood with its paper white blossoms in the Spring, the marvelous ceramic sculpture of Saint George & the Dragon (now in ruin and absent of George), and a large abstract sculpture/fountain. It was only on rare occasions- such as gallery openings or theatre premieres that anyone saw the water jetting out the top since, as P.D. shook his head and lamented, "They failed to engineer it to recycle the water."

Many of my models were from the various sports teams and I had some small influence in guiding them to take their elective requirements in the art department. In fact Jeff Cloninger, captain of the basket ball team, excelled in ceramics to a point that the instructor all but begged him to change majors. It saddens me when talent doesn't have the opportunity to thrive, but paths in life are chosen or destined. Jeff stuck with majoring in business.

Late one night P.D. was part of a conspiracy and unlocked the building and the courtyard. I can say with certainty that Joe Tromiczak, captain of the soccer team, is the only student who can lay claim to being photographed sprawled naked across the failed fountain.

As I set up my lights, I glanced over my shoulder to see our venerable professor chatting matter-of-factly with this unclothed figure of a beautiful young man. The moment remains forever in my mind as innocent and "absolutely delightful", as P.D. would say.

Posing in the courtyard was Rama Vupalapati's opportunity as well. She had just entered the art building when Bo-Bo pounced upon her with a request to model the college collection of Middle Eastern Garments. "You'd be smashing," she remembers him saying, and of course she agreed. It was all for insurance purposes evidently, and Rama slipped into one piece after another and was requested to express herself as if doing an Indian dance. It was the start and, sadly, the end of her modeling career... a pity to think she might have become a star in Bollywood.

My most special recollection of the courtyard was occasionally spotting Ali Hansen.

In winter months her foot prints left behind in the snow... as she went about a self appointed job... collecting and tenderly burying the little birds that had found misfortune against the circle of court windows that reflected the sky above.

~The First Swallows~
Juozas Mikenas
Vilnius, Lithuania

"King Bo-Bo!"

~Litho Artist Proof~
Philip Bilse Dedrick
Courtesy of Ali Hansen

The print studio was never going to be my strong suit. Even P.D. remarked that its indirect process didn't agree with me. Which was his polite way of saying not to take second semester class.

I have one disastrous etching buried deep in my college portfolio. But I did have a mild success with one lithograph. Excited enough to desire P.D.'s approbation I rushed around the art department seeking him out. He was deep in conversation with a group of 'adults' but that didn't stand in my way of making noises, clearing my throat, jumping up & down, gesturing and tugging on his sleeve. I was being a brat. I suddenly yelled, and to this day can not say how the name popped into my head, "Bo-Bo, I need you!"

Immediately, and rather frighteningly, he whirled round on me. I thought: this is it, I have finally broken that gentle Edwardian veneer and peace of mind and was about to get blasted for my rudeness. He widened his arms and yelled back, "That's KING BO-BO, to you!" It was the name I called him for 30 years. Never once 'Phil' or 'Philip'.

Occasionally I would address him as 'The Ancient One' which I had lifted from the Dr. Strange comic books, being the sage mentor of the titular hero it seemed appropriate. Never ever did he question these appellations.

During that class I passed along a dripping etched plate for his inspection when he cried out as it clanged to the floor. He smiled in his cherubic fashion saying, "It hasn't been the first time I was handed a hot plate." Meaning I had forgotten to wash off the acid.

We also indulged in making paper in this ominous machine you had to climb up stairs to throw in old fabrics, like virgins offered unto a vulcano but with more practical results. "Two of my old suits found their way into that machine," he remembered fondly. Fondly I remember tossing Ali Hansen into that machine. The mulching was not activated, thus you could still find her hunched over a litho stone oblivious to the world and doodling away.

~Litho~
Ali Hansen

"Be careful about reckless, rampant doodling," Bo-Bo once observed, it being the first artistic exercise he could recall. "It could lead to becoming an artist or a professor of Art."

~Christmas Weavil, for Ray Yoshida, circa 1949~

Philip Bilse Dedrick

Naturally others excelled in printing making, as this beautiful & remarkably detailed etching by Bill Bruning shows. 

~Artist's Proof, 1974~
Bill Bruning

As well as printing making I took photography that semester.  Between acid washes and photo chemicals I spent Christmas break watching my fingernails yellow and drop off.