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Alumni Magazine Summer 2003 The Visual Arts: Inspirations, Expectations PETER ROCKWELL IN ROME I CLOISONNÉ CONNOISSEUR I RECLAIMING STOLEN ART All in the Interpretation In May, when we were considering our cover options for this issue, several appealing ideas came to mind. An early front-runner was The Dream Garden, the stunning 1916 mural based on a Maxfield Parrish painting. After a bitter legal battle, the mural remains in its original home, the lobby of the Curtis Building in Center City Philadelphia. The Dream Garden is composed of approximately 100,000 pieces of favrile glass to produce the effect of an oil painting and measures an imposing 15 feet high and 49 feet wide. What our graphic designer, John Maki, had in mind was to wrap the image around the magazine, using both front and back covers to present the mural. Was The Dream Garden the best image available for this magazine? Jill Sherman Maxfield Parrish, arguably the most famous artist ever to attend Vice President for Institutional Advancement Haverford, never received a diploma. Certainly, that was not reason Stephen Heacock enough to keep The Dream Garden from gracing the magazine’s cover. Editor, Executive Director of Or was it? When Maki pored over the dozens of images we collected for Marketing & Communications the magazine, one in particular caught his eye. The Interpretation of Tom Ferguson Production Manager, Color, Vincent Desiderio ’77’s 1997 Class News Editor oil painting, is moody and provocative— Brenna McBride an apt representation of the issue’s Staff Writer contents. Hilary Bajus The arts play a quirky role at Haverford, Office Manager leaving plenty of room for growth, both Acquire, LLC Graphic Designer in program and in general stature with- in the community and region. As Ed Contributing Writers Edgar Allen Beem Beem discovered when he spoke to Steve Manning ’96 alumni, administrators, faculty, and Rashidah Miller ’02 Detail, The Dream Garden (1916) Pam Sheridan students for his story (page 15), there Brendan Wattenberg ’06 are wide-ranging opinions on the role of the arts at Haverford. It might Jacob Weinstein ’01 take a long time for these views to coalesce into a full realization of the Virtual Communications arts. When it happens, people like Bruce Colburn ’86, who found his Committee Norman Pearlstine ’64, Chairman artistic self at Haverford (page 7), will be grateful. Editorial Advisory As for The Dream Garden, that’s another image, and another story, Committee for another day. Violet Brown Emily Davis ’99 J. David Dawson Delsie Phillips Jennifer Punt Willie Williams Stephen Heacock Haverford College Marketing Executive Director of Marketing & Communications and Communications Office 370 Lancaster Avenue Haverford, PA 19041 (610) 896-1333 ©2003 Haverford College The Alumni Magazine of Haverford College Summer 2003 19 FEATURES TheVisual Arts 15 Arts at Haverford Thinking about the future of the arts at Haverford. DEPARTMENTS by Edgar Allen Beem 19 Cloisonné Connoisseur 2 The View from Founders Stephen Fisher ’62 and his superb 3 Main Lines 22 collection of Japanese cloisonné. Notes from the by Brenna McBride 6 Alumni Association Stone Man 22 7 Ford Games A life sculpting in Rome. by Pam Sheridan 10 Reviews 28 Vincent Desiderio’77: 13 Faculty Profile Contemporary Realism, Historical Breadth 41 Class News The “poet-painter” and his latest work. by Brendan Wattenberg ’06 60 Moved to Speak 30 Nature Turned Loose The photography of Tim Loose ’68. 30 34 Carving Out a Life in Ceramics How Sara Baker ’87 has grown her pottery business. 34 35 The Art of Redemption Tracking down lost art with Ori Soltes ’71. by Steve Manning ’96 38 From Banks to Brushes On the Cover Charles Raskob Robinson ’62 left The Interpretation of Color (1997) oil on canvas, 82” x 71” Wall Street for the call of the canvas. Copyright Vincent Desiderio, courtesy of Marlborough Gallery, New York, and the artist. At Home with Their Art 39 Haverford Alumni Magazine is printed four 35 Nancy and Buster Alvord ’49 and times a year: Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall. their world-class collection of art. Please send change of address information to: Haverford College in care of Jeanette Gillespie, by Brenna McBride 370 Lancaster Avenue, Haverford, PA 19041, or via e-mail: [email protected]. C Haverford Alumni Magazine is printed on recycled paper. The View from Founders by Tom Tritton, President On the Arts: Fine,Visual, & Rebellious One humid, showery evening in Li is every bit as prolific a painter as her August, my wife, Louise, and I enjoyed a predecessor. In recent years, she has paint- walking exploration of the art galleries in ed landscapes of Umbria, Italy (where she the Old City section of Philadelphia. On the was a visiting faculty member at the first Friday of every month, 40-plus galleries International School of Painting, Drawing, along 2nd and 3rd Streets (between Race and Sculpture), landscapes of the green and Chestnut) open their doors from 5 to 9 countryside of Ireland, and blue water tion also includes Willie’s own studies of p.m. for browsing, ogling, and immersion. flowing in Vermont, to name just a few. A houses along the Underground Railroad, The display of invention and imagination is gifted teacher, Ying Li is able to find some- the Harriet Beecher Stowe house, and other magnificently impressive—burls of wood thing of value in every student’s drawings Civil War-era sites. Recently, we have been sliced to reveal curly patterns made into and paintings. Her students’ works around joined by Assistant Professor Hee Sook desks and beds; clay and glass sculpted into themes such as self-portraits, flags of Kim, who teaches printmaking, and whose teapots, mugs, and fanciful bowls; walls lined ancestral nationality, and reflections on work, Peace, hangs in my office and every with portraits, paintings, photographs, tap- Sept. 11 have been exhibited in the Magill day causes me to think about its subject estries, and digital prints; jewelry made of Library. Ying’s students are also encour- and what I might do about it. colorful metals, gemstones, wire, and wool— aged to write a brief prose piece about It’s hard to escape the visual arts in the to mention but a few of the genres on dis- their art, again uniting two types of cre- Haverford environs. In addition to the play. Likewise, the human array of clothing, ative expression. And her abstract paint- examples already mentioned, there is a con- hair, body decorations, styles, and personas ing, Sound, inspires me every day from its stantly changing exhibition in the Cantor is just as impressive, and made all the more proud location in my living room at 1 Fitzgerald Gallery, curated by artist Hilarie so in streets packed with people of all ages, College Circle. Johnston. Diana Peterson, librarian of the interests, and ethnicities. (Naturally, I ran Next time you explore the campus, take a Special Collections, chairs the committee into a Haverford alum there!) look at the figure of Saint Joan in the pocket that selects the exhibits in the gallery, and One hundred years ago, Haverford garden behind Magill, and the Angel With has similar artistic influence on the show- College would have reflexively shunned Nails figure hidden inside the small rectangle ings in Magill. Diana also catalogs and any association with the fine arts. Most of trees next to the Observatory. These sculp- maintains the College’s entire collection of 18th- and 19th-century Quakers regarded tures were fashioned by Professor Chris works of art, which includes many valu- the arts as dangerously close to the mak- Cairns, who teaches his craft to Haverford able pieces from Maxfield Parrish to Joan ing of icons forbidden in the Bible or, at and Bryn Mawr students. Watching Chris set Miró to Frank Stella. Even the scientists best, a waste of time that could be better a mold and pack it in sand, heat the bronze have joined the fun by creating a changing spent doing “good works.” Not until the to fiery liquid, and pour it into the mold read- display of student art in the Koshland 1960s were fine arts officially embraced by ily conjures images of Vulcan’s forge. In recent Integrated Natural Sciences Center. the curriculum. But, today, the arts thrive years, sculpture has caught on so readily at Luckily, my own skills in drawing or here, and we thrive, in good measure, Haverford that following the tragedy of Sept. painting are so meager there is no public because of them. Emeritus Professor of 11, students, faculty, and friends created a record of any attempts at such expression. Fine Arts Charles Stegeman, whose color- powerful display of hundreds of small clay Nonetheless, the visual arts animate my ful, intricate, and highly symbolic paint- sculptures titled “The Project for the Lost existence because they vividly show the ings were exhibited in the Cantor and Missing”; the resulting creation showed range of human imagination and creativ- Fitzgerald Gallery a year ago, was one of a huge range of themes and emotions and ity. The arts also demonstrate how won- the first faculty members in this depart- occupied one entire corner in the center stu- derfully diverse our world is, and the myr- ment. Three years ago, Professor of Music dio of the Fine Arts building. iad ways that people express themselves. Curt Cacioppo performed his piece for This tour of the fine arts at Haverford And the arts allow—in fact, encourage— piano, violin, and cello titled The Ancestors would not be complete without mention rebellion from the status quo, conformity, that was inspired by Stegeman’s painting of Professor Willie Williams, and the exten- and orthodoxy.

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