Clarifying clerestories

Did you ever notice the unusual "clerestory" screens covering the windows in the Weltzheimer-Johnson (W-J) House? We are proud of our Frank Lloyd Wright Usonian home, but this feature has always seemed out-of-place.

Perforated wood clerestory window screen

currently on the W-J House

In fact the current clerestory screens are not specified in the original Frank Lloyd Wright plans; they were designed by the Taliesin apprentice supervising construction, Ted Bower, in consultation with the Weltzheimers. Presumably this alternate design was approved by FLWright, but to even the untrained eye its aesthetic differs noticeably from the rest of the house.

Now visitors can envision the W-J House with the original Usonian screens. Thanks to Michael Holubar (Preparator, Allen Memorial Art Museum and experienced in Frank Lloyd Wright restoration and reproduction), the FLWright's design has come to life. Michael fabricated a full-size replica of the original perforated clerestory screens; the replica is backlit and on display in the House workshop.

Taliesin design now featured as interior light screen

The original screens delineated a geometric and directional motif which would have drawn the eye around the upper circumference and down the length of the house. With Michael's replica in place W-J House we can envision the different effect of the original screens.

Fresh new hassocks
In February three newly constructed hassocks will join the others at
the House. Freshman David Field spent his Winter Term researching
FLWright hassock designs and then building three in the Art Department
woodshop. Special thanks to Ed Fuquay, Art Department Woodshop
Technician, for assisting David.

Come visit!
The W-J House offers "Conversational Tours" the 1st & 3rd Sundays every month, 12:00-5:00 PM

This year we are also open last Saturdays.   The monthly "Focus Saturdays" will feature conversational tours emphasizing a specific topic (such as decorative arts, landscape design, etc.).  Watch for each month's topic in the Oberlin college on-line calendar.

Oberlin College students are admitted free Others are $5/person.

Palli Davis Holubar
W-J House: 775-5999 email-wjhouse@oberlin.edu

Diary of a Victorian Dandy

Candidate Lecture:
"The Twentieth-Century Dandy as Cultural Provocateur: Yinka Shonibare,
MBE and the Diary of a Victorian Dandy."

Courtney Martin, Yale University
Monday January 28th, Noon, Art Building, Classroom II

On Monday January 28th the Art Department is hosting Courtney Martin.
Ms. Martin, an Oberlin graduate (class of '96), is currently a
doctoral candidate at Yale University, where she is writing her
dissertation on the black British arts movement of the 1970s and 80s.
Some of you may have met her already, as she was a guest professor for
Professors Mathews and Cara in last spring's London program. She is
visiting Oberlin as a candidate for a Dissertation Fellowship from the
Consortium for Faculty Diversity in Liberal Arts Colleges; if she
receives it, she will be here next year, writing her dissertation and
teaching one course in the fall. At noon on Monday she will give a
lecture titled "The Twentieth-Century Dandy as Cultural Provocateur:
Yinka Shonibare, MBE and the Diary of a Victorian Dandy." The lecture
will take place in classroom II of the Art Building. To see some of
Shonibare's work, see
http://www.yinka-shonibare.co.uk/
http://www.stephenfriedman.com
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/turnerprize/2004/shonibare.shtm

Students will also have the the chance to speak with her at 2:30 in
the Art Department's Seminar room.

Songs from My Mother's Sky

Check out the YouTube video of Johnny Coleman describing his work and the influence behind his latest piece "Songs from My Mother's Sky" exhibited January 20 – April 1, 2007 at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JLb4Q5YB2I

A masterful storyteller and poet, Johnny Coleman creates site-specific multi-sensory environments. This installation is a part of a personal, ongoing series of works in memory of the artist’s mother, Florence McCoy. Following her passing in 2003, Coleman began constructing physical spaces that sought to simultaneously reflect something of her spirit, and to function as a “prayer.” Within each of the prayers, the presence of birds has been central. Coleman writes, “For my mother, and for myself, birds are evocative of a kind of freedom that is chosen and actively pursued. Birds are music. Flight.”

From the exhibition description, Fort Wayne Museum of Art