Friday SLAM

Having recently seen At Eternity’s Gate at the Frontenac Landmark movie theater in which actor Willem Dafoe plays Vincent van Gogh in Julian Schnabel’s movie, I am stoked to join my docent colleagues and reflect a bit about art in general. I find myself walking the galleries of the Saint Louis Art Museum with fellow docents from Laumeier Sculpture Park guided by Barb Gervais. Barb is a rare entity serving as docent for both regional art institutions. She sets a wonderful tone for our group. On this chilly late November morning our mission is ostensibly to tour sculptural highlights at SLAM. However, today we opt out of strolling the sculpture garden and save this treat for another day when the weather is more accommodating. (It’s okay by me, since I could not resist using my early arrival to visit this remarkable collection of works outside. Aristide Maillol is a personal favorite.)

Our indoor highlights allowed us ample time to reflect on sculpture by Degas, Giacometti, Arman, Judd, Flavin, and many brief sidebar exchanges. We made time to view the Kehinde Wiley exhibition of large-scale contemporary oil paintings of African American subjects. The works here  recall the grand tradition of European and American portraiture. Models are real people from our region (including Yvonne Osei who was recently featured in the Fine Arts Building at Laumeier). Wiley’s art addresses politics of race and power.

Brunch at the Panorama restaurant overlooking Forest Park was hosted by our waiter, Anthony who could not have been more pleasant (even as we requested separate checks). Naturally every serving of themselves were individual works of culinary art. Being the art junky that I am, I could not resist a second helping of the Graphic Revolution exhibition. (Rauchenberg, Warhol, Oldenberg, LeWitt, Lichtenstein are familiar friends of mine.) Graphic Revolution: American Prints 1960 to Now examines the transformational decade of the 1960s through the early 21st century, and the emergence of the creative synergies between the artists, publishers, printers, dealers, and collectors.

Overall a lovely way to spend a Friday in which I played hooky on November 30, 2018. Thanks to Kathy H. for arranging.

UMSL Speed Networking

(2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019...and we're back)

The University of Missouri in Saint Louis (UMSL) has become a sort of home away from home for me. My good friend Perry Drake Ph.D. made a connection with me when he we re-establishing himself in our little big town around 2013. I am proud to note that Drake listens and more. He had taken a few bits of my wisdom and spun them into gold with his action-orientation and enthusiasm. Case in point: The American Marketing Association of Saint Louis periodically ran speed networking events where professionals could connect and practice their best elevator speeches, meet and great. I have been a member of AMA for 20+ years. One such speed networking event took place in the middle of Historic Old Webster at Llywelyn's Pub in 2012.

One of his students, who was majoring in business with an emphasis in marketing and international business was determined to make this kind of event happen at UMSL hosted by the marketing club of which she was a leader. Perry Drake and I met with Breanna at Kaldi’s Coffee on De Mun Avenue. Suffice it to day, we had all the ingredients necessary to start a tradition that is now in its fifth year at UMSL.

15-20 professionals are assembled to test the grit of students willing to subject themselves to the naturally uncomfortable situation of a mock interview situation again November 13, 2018. Students have only 4 minutes to make an impression. It is wonderful practice for what will be real life soon enough.

Give a few extra moments at the mic at the latest UMSL Speed Networking, Mark LaRocca of Casino Queen indicated that he was struck by three Ps essential for success in interview situations (Planning, Practice, Purpose I think). Michael Lamb of native Msg added a few comments too. Not to be outdone, I offered the following TEN nuggets.

• You decide what WINNING is
• Keep your eye on the PRIZE
• Have a little AUDACITY
• Say THANK YOU often
• Love the JOURNEY
• KINDNESS (be a bucket filler not a dipper)
• ASK for help
• Be a FEARLESS biller (do not undervalue what you do)
• Do not DEFINE who you are by what you do
• It's not about you (EVER)

I am proud to have participated in all five of these remarkable events at the J C Penney Center on campus and the more recent location in the new Anheuser-Busch building. Thanks to all the professionals who contributed. Thanks also to the students who have taken the time to exercise being uncomfortable as part of their respective journeys.

Photo above: Speed Networking at UMSL at Anheuser Busch Hall in November 2019 (and I was proud to be a part of it again)

The tradition continues. This year (November 17, 2021) students lead by the marketing club participated in a Speed Networking event. My advice hasn't changed much: I distilled my suggestions to four parts. 1. Think about how you might answer an opening question like: So, what do you want to do? 2. Don't be afraid to ask for a courtesy interview. 3. Consider yourself a marketable product and create your own "board of directors" to guide you. 4. Follow Up. 

1.   

Allison Said

“Ben is Amazing” said she.

It was no surprise to me.

Said Ben “she’s cute, isn’t she?”

Mom and I had to agree.

On the couch, at 2 Glenmaro Lane;

Two smart phones, intuitive and plain

Save the planet, Trick or Tweet

Smiling with comic timing, oh so sweet

Now, the sum is greater than its parts;

City, Street, Love and the arts;

Easy peasy, boom-boom hizzy, wild and free

And still, nothin’ but Blue skies do I see.

Ben and Allison - Happy Iron Anniversary

10-27-18

Parker is Back at the Rock House 2018

I been walkin' the fine line
Between the form and the function
Between the gall and the gumption
Between feelin' and touchin'

Parker on stage at the Rock House on Seventh Avenue September 26, 2018, a Wednesday night with a full moon. From my spot on the balcony, I can see the lights on the Gateway Arch through the window. The Saint Louis Cardinals are winding up their baseball season at Busch Stadium as the night is cool enough to feel like autumn. (It doesn’t look like our home team is going to be in the pennant race this year.)  The stage is lit and Parker and his band seem to be genuinely in agreement with Parker’s crowd pleasing declaration. “It’s great to be back in Saint Louis.” The last time Parker was on this stage it was Springtime a few days prior to baseball opening day in 2014. The band was electric and the show a treat. It is a special thing to see this band showcase their latest but also everything from Truckstop Gospel, to Heaven Sent to Hades Pleads and Other Arrangements. 

I was there for the thrill of it all. I was in the crowd when Parker Millsap played Off Broadway in the Saint Louis Lemp-Cherokee Historic District on a Friday the 13^th in May of 2016 and also when they returned to play the Pageant in the Delmar Loup in November of 2016. The performance is polished.       

I been walkin' the fine line
Between the thought and the action
Slippin' sideways and traction
As a matter of fact, hon'...

Other Arrangements, is Millsap’s latest CD and it is on sale at the door along with his previous albums and some pretty cool T-Shirts promoting Parker Millsap and this evening’s opening act, Gary Owen. Owen served admirably as the opening act for Parker Millsap and his bandmates, violinist Daniel Foulks, bassist Michael Rose and drummer Paddy Ryan.

After the show I was able catch up with Parker long enough to have another fan capture a photo above with my Apple iPhone 4. I kinda knew it was the also fourth time I was lucky enough to see Parker Millsap and his band in Saint Louis since that show in 2014. I have a fealing he'll be back.

     

Bright Lights, Big Dinner

Neon by David Hutson at Laumeier Sculpture Park - September 22, 2018

Lauren Ross is just getting her toe in the water as the new executive director at Laumeier Sculpture Park. Among Ross’ accomplishments: she served as curator of Virginia Commonwealth University’s Institute for Contemporary Art in Richmond, curator/director of arts programs at the High Line in New York City and curator at Tulsa’s Philbrook Museum of Art. Less than two months into her new job, she finds herself host to Laumeier Sculpture Park’s annual fundraiser: A Night of Neon, The Big Dinner. A tent houses tables set for hundreds of supporters of the sculpture park who are accustomed to some sort of annual outdoor fundraising/gala at this time of year. The weather is just starting to act like the beginning of autumn on a clear cool nite.

Thanks to the 2018 Kranzberg Exhibition Series, David Hutson’s exhibition Memory & Desire: A Personal Exploration of Neon Art, Past and Present serves as a focus of electricity in and around the evening. Midway toward the south lawn, a Hutson neon installation featuring a quote from Wendell Berry’s book of poems. WHEN I RISE UP, LET ME RISE UP JOYFUL LIKE A BIRD. WHEN I FALL, LET ME FALL WITHOUT REGRET LIKE A LEAF. This is an apt bit of inspiration for all of us with great ambition for this jewel in Sunset Hills.

Allison & John Ferring, Nancy & Ken Kranzberg and Carol & Michael Staenberg are sponsors along with The Aronson Foundation, Commerce Bank, PNC Arts Alive, Wells Fargo, Washington University Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and Thompson Street Capitol Partners.  Beginning with cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at 6:00 p.m. and a meet & greet with the artist the event rolled smoothly into a lovely evening dinner.  

Honorary Chairs; Alison Ferring, Matt Harvey, Mary Ann Srenco and Susan Werrenmeyer; all stepped up to make everyone (including the new director) feel at home. Mary Ann Srenco is proud of her long standing involvement with this place. Her love of Laumeier dates back to visiting the park as a little girl with her active docent mother (Nancy Kranzberg).

The host committee included a list of names of some many will recognize as long time supporters of Laumeier Sculpture Park. I was happy to see a healthy representation of our docent corps present as well. There were stories of recent tours with groups as diverse as Washington University Architecture Students, inner-city youth groups, visitors from Louisville, Kentucky, high school seniors from a creative writing class and fifth graders. The evening began with scores of high schoolers posing for prom pictures. It ended with valet parking attendants scrambling to retrieve cars for our distinguished guests to exit the event. It was apparent that the future looks bright as neon at Laumeier Sculpture Park. In the days ahead, Lauren will be sorting out strategic initiatives and priorities for this regional gem dedicated to art and nature. I hope she will be joyful like a bird and rise. At the same time, I also hope she will be fearless with no regrets.

 Lauren Ross, Laumeier Sculpture Park Executive Director 

Reunion 45

Official Class song: Seals & Crofts - We May Never Pass This Way Again. Cat Stevens released Oh Very Young in 1974 as well. Both songs remind us to be present and thankful. Oh, Very Young is a kind of challenge to our generation and generations to come to make the world a better place.  

Class of 1974 - 45th reunion

Friday Night July 26 at Around the Corner. Meet and Greet.

Saturday Night July 27, 2019 at The Vosh in Lakewood (Closed to the public that evening).

Around the corner reunion scene;

Rangers in a time machine.

A juke box full of 45s;

Oldies recall moments of our lives.

Looking back on classic times;

Parks, bars, taverns, concert lines.

Lakewood, a city of homes;

Friday nights dialing rotary phones.

Johnny Appleseed gets restoration;

As we all need some validation.

Oh, very young what will you leave us this time?

There’s never a better time to lose your mind!

We’re only dancing on this earth for a short while.

Look around and remember with a smile;

In retrospect, taken as a whole;

There are no small parts – we all play a role.

Early Settler (aka Johnny Appleseed), is undergoing a long-awaited spruce up this summer (2018), according to the Lakewood Rangers Education Foundation. The Viktor Schreckengost sculpture is a landmark that predates the class of 1974. The artist, Viktor Schreckengost died at age 101 (in 2008). The work was commissioned by the Lakewood Board of Education in 1954.

Below is a poem I wrote in anticipation of this LHS Reunion.

Of course I remember you

Nearly a half a century ago;

I made sure to wave and say hello;

In the hallway between art class and math.

We shared ice-time inside the glass;

You were a fan in plain-sight;

Through the glare of Friday night lights
I snuck into the high school dance;
I saw you there, at a glance.
The world revolved around me in those days;
Now you are a part of me, in so many ways. 

Stefene

The sculpture park setting is at its best;

The poet-in-residence is seated at an IKEA desk; 

A manual typewriter in the shade on a sunny afternoon;

The grass grows and the flowers bloom.

Click click clackety click;

The words come but the keys sometimes stick.

A makeshift parasol in a place for poetry posts;

Poems you wish you could memorize most.

You write, re-write, you never quit;

Your process is personal and yours to commit;

Original works with words perfectly fit;

But now it’s time to make your exit.

A composition you imagine is about to begin.

A small crowd gathers for a tour of academy children.

A gentle warm breeze blows through.

What will you write? What will you do?

In Plain Sight at Laumeier

I have lead over 100 tours of Laumeier Sculpture Park as a docent. It is no secret that this place in the Saint Louis suburban setting is a treasure. Today is Sunday and I am scheduled to lead a tour for the general public. It is never entirely clear who will show up for these tours that are offered from May through October on the first Sunday of each month. I have come to think of this showcase of sculpture in the heart of the Midwest as a home. Not just because It was in fact a home since it was built in 1917 and occupied by Henry and Matilda Laumeier from about 1941 to 1968.

In the spirit of visiting someone’s home, I plan to conduct today’s tour as you might welcome guests. Laumeier Sculpture Park is a sprawling 105 acres with plenty of nooks and nuances. My plan today its to use this glorious summer-like day as an opportunity to lead my guests to see some of the extraordinary works IN PLAIN SIGHT.

 

As I reflect on Sunday tours in the past it seems I try to give a broad brushstroke overview of the park. It usually lasts 90 minutes. As a matter of fact, I can never get to everything I want people to see and learn more about. So today, I plan to take a leisurely stroll with emphasis on just ten of those items that are (in my view) too often overlooked. As with a tour of a beautiful home, we sometimes forget to enjoy the curb appeal and first impressions of the foyer and living spaces. So here are my notes for today:

Saint Louis Project by Richard Fleischner (b. 1944) is part of Laumeir’s ten-sites initiative (between 1980-2000) in which artists were challenged to create an installation that is site specific. This piece is 425 feet in length and incorporates trees, shrubs and limestone structures. The Artist earned his BFA and MFA at the Rhode Island School of Design. The site is a sort of grand entrance into the park that reaches across the street and into the neighboring community.

Canto IV 1974 by Ernest Trova (1927-2009) is now appropriately in the Northern Grove and highly visible as one looks toward the estate house and grounds. Trova is a local artist who may be best known for his Falling Man Series. I will point out an example as we get closer to the estate house and you will note the sharp contrast from this work.

Walking Roots by Steve Tobin (b. 1957) is a cast bronze sculpture that has moved to make room for Farid’s Bird #1. Tobin created a similar but grander scale piece that, for a time, was a 9-11 memorial in NYC of an uprooted tree that fell near a church not far from ground zero.

Bird #1 by Farid Rasulov (b. 1985) is an installation that complements the featured exhibition in the fine arts building from April through July. The artist lives and works in Baku, Azerbaijan.

MIX by Alexandre Da Cunha (b 1969) is a example of what Marcel Duchamp would call a readymade. The barrel of a cement mixer is proudly on view. The artist was born in Rio de Janeiro and studied in Sao Paulo and London. He now lives and works in London.

Man with a Briefcase by Johnathan Borofsky (b. 1942 Boston) is Fiberglass with epoxy enamel and features a number the artist was on as he was engaged in a cognitive exercise of a numbering sequence. The artist earned his BFA at Carnegie Mellon and MFA at Yale.

Laumeier Project by Jackie Ferrara (b. 1929 Detroit) is another example of a site-specific installation. This one is a structure that is reminiscent of a puzzle made of red cedar. As with the Saint Louis Project by Fleischner it was part of the ten-sites initiative. Interestingly this is a “second original” since it was rebuilt to the artist specifications (when the original installation began to show signs of weathering).

Tower Hybrid and Linked Forms by Richard Hunt (b. 1935 Chicago) are two pieces that show a range and creativity of the artist.

Untitled 1984 by Donald Judd (b. Excelsior, MO 1928-1994) is a fine example of Judd’s Minimalism (a term he did not much care for) – made of concrete cubes with partitions that alter views from the sides.

Public Goddess and Heartland Garden by Judith Shea (b. 1948 Philadelphia) is a tribute to women who are placed on a pedestal (while simultaneously imprisoned by it). Her work shows her interest in fashion design which was her principal area of study initially at Parsons in New York.

So there you have it. The IN PLAIN SIGHT tour.        

Talent Show Highlights (NEU)

It was the school year 2014-15 when Katie decided she was not returning as Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS) teacher. She owned additional responsibility of coordination of the annual talent show. I was paraeducator and a reliable substitute for Katie that year. So it was only natural for me to accept the responsibility for the Neuwoehner High School talent show when she announced her plans to leave teaching for a while and focus on her growing family.

The TALENT show became mine. I did not expect to own it forever, but something keeps bringing me back. (This is my fourth year as talent coordinator.) The show generally happens as the Spring break approaches. A theme is offered as teachers and staff are encouraged to work with students to prepare appropriate performances. What happens next is a kind of magic. Several weeks of chaos lead to showtime that features more than 25 acts which may be song, dance, magic, reading a poem or playing an instrument. Students elect to perform as solo, duo or groups. Some teachers decide to present their classroom as an act. It all comes together as a show that typically runs 90 minutes.

The remarkable thing is how these students rise to the occasion. All have learning disabilities in one form or another but they face fears and ignore obstacles. The result is an entertaining production that showcases both courage and talent. Three years ago our theme played off of reality TV - Neuwoehner Talent Search. Last year we leveraged literature with Fantastic Talents. Our most recent production took its cue from the school year that began with a Solar Eclipse – A Space in Time.

Some memorable highlights:

A young man with Down Syndrome dons a leather jacket and wig complete with sideburns to sing and enthusiastically dances like the Elvis (thank you very much). A teenage girl performed a rap song she wrote in honor of one of her former teachers. A classroom takes the stage in five wheelchairs with staffers on hand to help roll out a banner that celebrates the Age of Aquarius with peace signs and smiles. A boy with impaired hearing explains (with assistance of an interpreter) as he escapes from a straight-jacket, chains and locks on stage like Harry Houdini. Behind the scenes, students volunteer to serve as ushers, distribute programs, and work the lights. PowerPoint images featuring student art serve as title slides between performances. Music fills the room as the show comes to a close and students and guests in the audience anticipate Spring Break. It is at that moment you cannot help but see this community sharing the joy of all the little things that are so very big.

Stay tuned. The Show must go on. In Spring of 2019 the theme - The World Awaits.

Happy Mother's Day

Mom I miss you, That’s for sure.

I wish you could see what I see, so sweet and so pure.

And maybe you do - It’s just so profound.

Mothers make the world go round.

My wife talks to her mom every single day.

It’s the little things, I always say.

Standing through thick and thin, the mother of our two;

For richer, for poorer, we smile, we do.

She's mom to a girl and a boy...

They bring us so much happiness and joy.

Astounding as it is, our baby girl is a mom now;

She knows exactly what to do, and how.

And he married a girl, a beautiful bride for our son.

As a mom, she is nearly a perfect one.

Incidental as I am.

I am a very happy man.

Mother and Child by Pablo Picasso, 1921
Art Institute of Chicago

Fantastic Wedding Memory

Karen Raidy is poised on the terrace of an historic venue adjacent to Washington University with brush in hand. She has carved a niche for herself as a portrait artist who captures moments. The work in progress is shaping up as a fantastic image that surely the couple will cherish. Norma and Carlos celebrate their wedding dinner on April 21, 2018 while the artist ponders the poetic license of a composition that will most certainly be a treasure.

Visit her website to learn more at www.weddingartlive.com  

UMSL PANEL – The Future of Marketing 2018

Marketing Club president Amber Daniels did an artful job, as moderator, including each of the eight panelists: Alison Boland (Purina), Elizbeth Ledbetter (Creative Group), Angela Marino (United Way), Nick Sylvia (Anheuser Busch), Sarah Dalton (Nolan Investment), Steve Bauer (Fleishman-Hillard), Travis Estes (Saint Louis Symphony) and Wes Morgan (Morgan Studio/East).

Questions included probes of: a good academic breakdown of traditional vs digital content; learning digital/social media skills; staying current; mobile and the next disruptor; breaking down silos between creative, PR, customer relations, development, etc; marketing as service;       leveraging influencers; and how brands earn trust. The panel is rich in diverse backgrounds/experience. They came prepared to share insights and have been well briefed by UMSL organizers from the marketing club.

The Summit Lounge in the J.C. Penney conference center was converted into a lively venue with about 100 people in the room on a Wednesday afternoon from 5:00 to 7:00 pm. (April 17, 2018). A streaming of the panel is posted for students and others to view and review. This event is part of what Professor Perry Drake defines as a mission in the College of Business to help students build personal brands, shape careers, futures, and provide access through networking opportunities, with speakers and companies.  

Farid Rasulov at Laumeier

Coffee, Conversation, 1001 Skewers and Bird #1

Azerbaijani artist Farid Rasulov and Curator Dana Turkovic sat comfortably at one end of the Aronson Fine Arts Center to discuss Farid’s 1,001 Skewers (in the gallery space) and the artist’s Bird #1 abstract installation (outdoors in the Northern Grove) at Laumeier Sculpture Park. Dana has an easy interview style that allows the artist many opportunities to embellish his motivation for creating the composition of 1,001 skewers. Farid draws attention to 75 skewers arranged on one wall and the invitation to add a sort of social media conversation. He notes another wall and a gallery space installation that is reminiscent of a DNA strain. He has taken advantage of the height of the wall to the west to create a tree composed entirely of skewers. The remaining wall, as one guest suggests, may have a calculated mathematical significance.

Farid is soft spoken and not at all boastful or arrogant in spite of a long list of artistic accomplishments. He represented Azerbaijan at the 53rd Venice Biennale. His work includes large scale paintings, installations, 3D graphics, animation and sculpture. Dana invited the artist to comment on his training in medicine. His response in a measured tone is a statement that an artist does not need to go to school to learn art. He adds, matter of factly, that an artist can learn a great deal from the study of medicine as he has. (This notion gets a polite laugh from patrons seated in the gallery.) A local artist employed by Kiku Obata & Company Design Consultancy defends the formal artist training. (This is a comment from an man originally from Baku, Azerbaijan himself).

Farid’s Bird #1 sculpture was inspired by a graphic representation of an abstract and angular bird design he wondered about in a carpet from his native country perhaps while working in Baku. Now he is part of this exhibition and the outdoor installation in Saint Louis which is the continuation of an exploration series of works from emerging national economies around the globe. 

Azerbaijan, the nation and former Soviet republic, is bounded by the Caspian Sea and Caucasus Mountains, which span Asia and Europe. Its capital, Baku, is famed for its medieval walled Inner City. Within the Inner City lies the Palace of the Shirvanshahs, a royal retreat dating to the 15th century, and the centuries-old stone Maiden Tower, which dominates the city skyline.

Morgan Visits Macondo

Macondo is a fictional town described in the Gabriel García Márquez novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude. It is the home town of the Buendía family. I finally made some time to read this book (with the help of 14 hours of discs from Blackstone Audio borrowed from my local library). Here’s a sampling from midway through the story of seven generations of a family spanning one hundred years.  

It was as if God had decided to put to the test every capacity for surprise and was keeping the inhabitants of Macondo in a permanent alternation between excitement and disappointment, doubt and revelation, to such an extreme that no one knew for certain where the limits of reality lay. It was an intricate stew of truths and mirages that convulsed the ghost of José Arcadio Buendía under the chestnut tree with impatience and made him wander all through the house even in broad daylight. Ever since the railroad had been officially inaugurated and had begun to arrive with regularity on Wednesdays at eleven o’clock and the primitive wooden station with a desk, a telephone, and a ticket window had been built, on the streets of Macondo men and women were seen who had adopted everyday and normal customs and manners but who really looked like people out of a circus. In a town that had chafed under the tricks of the gypsies there was no future for those ambulatory acrobats of commerce who with equal effrontery offered a whistling kettle and a daily regime that would assure the salvation of the soul on the seventh day; but from those who let themselves be convinced out of fatigue and the ones who were always unwary, they reaped stupendous benefits.

Gabriel García Márquez (1927-2014) grew up listening to family tales, eventually becoming a journalist. His fiction work introduced readers to magical realism, which combines more conventional storytelling with vivid fantasy. His novels Cien años de soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude) and El amor en los tiempos del cólera (Love in the Time of Cholera) have drawn worldwide audiences, and he won a Nobel Prize in 1982. 

My Black History Month 2018

Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated on April 4, 1968 nearly fifty years ago. The site of that tragic event at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, is now, the location of the National Civil Rights Museum. We took a road trip from Saint Louis to Memphis that allowed us to spend a good part of Saturday afternoon over President’s Day weekend perusing that remarkable place.

The Saint Louis Art Museum marked Black History Month with a variety of programming, including two film screenings The Black Power Mixtape, 1967-1975 on Saturday, February 24th and “I Am Not Your Negro” on Sunday, February 25th. The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 looks at the people, society, culture, and style that fueled an era of convulsive change with contemporary audio interviews from leading African American artists, activists, musicians and scholars. Utilizing an innovative format that riffs on the popular 1970s mixtape format, the film is a cinematic and musical journey into the black communities of America. I Am Not Your Negro envisions the book James Baldwin never finished, a radical narration about race in America, using the writer’s original words, as read by actor Samuel L. Jackson. Alongside a flood of rich archival material, the film draws upon Baldwin’s notes on the lives and assassinations of Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. to explore and bring a fresh perspective to the racial narrative in America.

Meanwhile, the Missouri History Museum’s exhibition #1 in Civil Rights: The African American Freedom Struggle in St. Louis examines the local civil rights movement and the city’s leading role in advancing the cause of racial justice from ground-level activism to groundbreaking supreme court rulings.

This year, perhaps my sensibility has been heightened with Special School District’s engagement with the Cambio Group. SSD is demonstrating this year an effort, among other things, to improve cultural competence. I am a white man in America and cannot help but feel reflective when history, notably the events of the last fifty years, marks the struggle.  

Toulouse-Lautrec - Graphic Designer

Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901) was an aristocrat, dwarf, and party animal who invented a cocktail called the Earthquake (half absinthe, half cognac). He is the artist who designed the Moulin Rouge posters as well as paintings and drawings that capture highs and lows of urban life in nineteenth century Paris (in Belle Epoque). I especially admire Toulouse-Lautrec because he elevated advertising to the status of a fine art. In fact, Jane Avril, one of his closest friends and one of Montmartre's most beloved cabaret dancers, wrote: "It is more than certain that I owe him the fame that I enjoyed dating from his first poster of me." At a time when the only acceptable designation for persons with disabilities was freak, Toulouse-Lautrec used his unique appearance to his advantage. It allowed him to disappear into a crowd or corners of a room, seeing others without being seen. His remarkable observations of society almost certainly stem from his status as an outsider.

Toulouse-Lautrec was born into an aristocratic family in the South of France and raised in an atmosphere of privilege. By age 8, it was clear that he suffered from a congenital illness that weakened his bones. After two serious riding accidents his legs stopped growing. At his full height, Toulouse-Lautrec was 5 feet tall, with the upper body of a man and the legs of a child. He walked with a cane and in considerable pain for the rest of his life but was highly productive artist. Sadly he passed way too young at the age of 36. (On September 9, 1901 he died from complications due to alcoholism and syphilis).