Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California Fiber Arts Series Charles Edmund Rossbach ARTIST, MENTOR, PROFESSOR, WRITER With an Introduction by Jack Lenor Larsen An Interview Conducted by Harriet Nathan in 1983 Copyright 1987 by The Regents of the University of California All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between the University of California and Charles Edmund Rossbach dated February 16, 1984. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the Universtiy of California at Berkeley. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Library, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. The legal agreement with Charles Edmund Rossbach requires that he be notified of the request and allowed thirty days in which to respond. It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Charles Edmund Rossbach, "Artist, Mentor, Professor, Writer," an oral history conducted in 1983 by Harriet Nathan, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1987. Copy No._ CHARLES EDMUND ROSSBACH in his Berkeley Garden, 1983 TABLE OF CONTENTS Charles Edmund Rossbach PREFACE i INTRODUCTION by Jack Lenor Larsen iii INTERVIEW HISTORY iv BRIEF BIOGRAPHY vii I FAMILY, HOMES, AND EARLY INFLUENCES 1 The Older Generation 1 Grandmother's Tatting 3 Sisters' Embroidery 5 Depression Years 7 Patchwork Quilts 9 High School Art Teacher 10 Exploring Chicago 12 Encouragement to Write 12 The Appeal of Weaving 13 Columbia University and Practice-Teaching 15 Making Marionettes 16 II ARMY SERVICE, CRANBROOK, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON 19 Teaching and Students 19 Progressive Education and Teaching in Puyallup 20 The Army and Alaska 21 Cranbrook Academy 24 Teaching Weaving at the University of Washington 27 III UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, AND THE BAY AREA SCENE 31 Invitation to Teach at Berkeley 31 College of Letters and Science, or Department of Architecture 32 Faculty Members and Teaching Styles 35 Writing Style 36 Weaving Department 37 Attitudes Toward Creativity 39 High-Quality Staff and Uncertain Future 42 Teaching Load and Student Response A3 Student Work and Exhibiting 45 Weaving to Recipes vs. Originality 46 Mills College, Weaving 48 Mills College, Music and Art 49 Ceramics 51 The Local Tour: Dorothy Liebes, Pond Farm 52 Trude Guermonprez 55 Influence of Dorothy Liebes 58 Individuals and the Creative Impulse 59 Mary Dumas, and Appreciation of Textiles 63 IV FIBER ART AND A PERSONAL VISION 66 Basketmaking 66 Fabric Designs for Industry 69 Playfulness and Simplicity 71 A Current Viw of Fiber Arts Activity 74 Coptic Textiles, Imagery, and Scale 75 Selling to Museums 77 One Artist in a Flow of Activity 82 Industry vs. Teaching 83 Freedom, Standards, and Reality 85 Trying Techniques and Materials 88 Fantasies on Teaching 89 Trying to Understand 90 The Role of Photography 92 Measuring Productivity 93 Art Out of Trash, or Odds and Ends 95 Time and Basketry 97 Travel and Staying Home 98 Space Museum 100 Foreign Cultures vs. Bay Area Culture 101 Exploring Printed Textiles 103 Evaluating the Bauhaus Influence 104 V THE ARTIST AS WRITER, LECTURER, JUDGE 107 Book on 18th Century French Brocades 107 Book: Baskets as Textile Art 109 Absence of Reviews or Criticism 110 The Audience 110 Fiber Art as an Urban Movement 112 Lecturing 113 Spontaneity and Judgments 115 Bauhaus Painting and Weaving 116 Presence or Absence of Influence 117 "Weavers of the Forties," and Artists' Collections 118 Photos of Weaving: Which Way Is Up? 121 Ideas vs. Ideas 122 Techniques and Influences 124 Jurying Art Exhibits 129 Self-Publishing 131 Fiber Arts, Communication, and the Future 136 APPENDICES A. ED ROSSBACH: MUSINGS ON A GALLERY PROJECT FOR FIBERWORKS 141 B. SIMULATED DIALOGUE: ANNI ALBERS AND MARY ATWATER 148 C. PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY 152 INDEX 154 PREFACE The Regional Oral History Office of the Bancroft Library selects as memoirists persons who have played important roles in the development of the western community. Since the beginning of the oral history program, artists in many fields have taken their place among the memoirists. When the art of handweaving went through an upheaval during the 1950s, fiber artists gained new recognition, and developed novel ways of using fiber as a means of individual expression in works that in Ed Rossbach's observation were new ventures "and not a reconstruction from the past." The creativity of fiber artists has won them a significant place in the complex of artistic activity, particularly in the Bay Area, and has established the importance of their development and history. The emergence of the San Francisco Bay Area as a center for fiber arts was stimulated by a number of influences, including that of the departments of Decorative Art and of Design at the University of California at Berkeley, led for many years by Charles Edmund (Ed) Rossbach, Professor of Design at Berkeley from 1950 until his retirement in 1979. Significant leaders in the Bay Area also included, among many others, such renowned fiber artists as the late Trude Guermonprez, who taught at the California College of Arts and Crafts; Katherine Westphal, Emeritus Professor of Design at U.C. Davis; and the late Dorothy Wright Liebes, whose San Francisco studio generated innovative fiber concepts and designs for industry. Ed Rossbach, Emeritus Professor of Architecture (into which Design was absorbed), and a major innovator and teacher, provides the first oral history memoir in the series on Fiber Arts in the San Francisco Bay Area, a series designed to include artists whose work indicates some of the variety the fiber arts movement has generated. As a scholar, Professor Rossbach's grasp includes a panorama of traditions and techniques; as an artist he deals surely with novel forms and modern materials. As a professor he has stimulated and encouraged many students including a number who have become artists in their own right. Members of the Fiber Arts Advisory Committee have provided valuable advice in the development of the series. The committee includes Hazel V. Bray, Curator of Crafts (ret.), Oakland Museum; Gyb'ngy Laky, Professor of Design, University of California, Davis; Cecile McCann, Publisher and Editor- in-Chief, Artweek; Frank A. Norick, Principal Museum Anthropologist, Lowie Museum, UC Berkeley; Ed Rossbach, Emeritus Professor of Architecture [Design], UC Berkeley; Carol Sinton, Fiber Artist, San Francisco; Katherine Westphal, Emeritus Professor of Design, UC Davis; and James D. Hart, Emeritus Professor of English, and Director of The Bancroft Library. The oral history process at the University of California, Berkeley, consists of tape-recorded interviews with persons who have been important in the development of the west. The purpose of oral history memoirs is to capture and preserve for future research the perceptions, recollections, and ii observations of these individuals. Research and preparation of a topic outline precede the interview sessions. The outline is prepared in conjunction with close associates and other persons in the memoirist's field, as well as with the memoirist, who in turn may use the suggestions as aids to memory, choose among them, or add new topics. The tape-recorded interviews are transcribed, lightly edited by the interviewer, and reviewed and approved by the memoirist. An index and photographs are added. Final processing includes final typing, photo-offset reproduction, binding, and deposit in The Bancroft Library and other selected libraries and collections. The volumes do not constitute publications, but are primary research material made available under specified conditions for the use of researchers. The Fiber Arts series is supported by grants from the Mina Schwabacher Fund and a donation from the Friends of The Bancroft Library. The philanthropies of the late Mina Schwabacher have included support for hospital programs that serve children, as well as scholarship bequests to Whitman College in her birthplace at Walla Walla, Washington. The Mina Schwabacher Fund was a gift to the University of California at Berkeley in honor of her brother Frank, who was a loyal alumnus and supporter of the University. The Regional Oral History Office acknowledges with appreciation the generous and essential support for the project. The Regional Oral History Office is under the administrative supervision of James D. Hart, Director of The Bancroft Library. Willa K. Baum, Division Head Regional Oral History Office Harriet Nathan, Project Director Fiber Arts Series November 1986 Regional Oral History Office Room 486 The Bancroft Library University of California Berkeley, California iii INTRODUCTION In the early part of this century, every American boy knew a rollicking song about the "bear who went over the mountain to see what he could see." Ed Rossbach is that bear, except there are lots of mountains he does NOT go over, but only goes to the top of, to see what he can see. And, if he can understand the valley below, he does not bother to "capture" it. In an age when achievement and success have become as prominent in artists' minds as in all others, Rossbach is an enigma. In the four decades I've known him, Rossbach has not changed in this sense. There's not a commercial bone in his body; he's not a joiner; he does not exhibit beyond the sharing of insight with as small a group as possible. And yet he is responsible and real. Peculiar to Rossbach is an openness to all influences, all materials and processes.