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Oral history interview with Joel Philip Myers, 2007 May 1 Funding for this interview provided by Nanette L. Laitman project for crafts and decorative arts in America. Funding for the digital preservation of this interview was provided by a grant from the Save America's Treasures Program of the National Park Service. Contact Information Reference Department Archives of American Art Smithsonian Institution Washington. D.C. 20560 www.aaa.si.edu/askus Transcript Preface The following oral history transcript is the result of a recorded interview with Joel Philip Myers on May 1, 2007. The interview was conducted by Dan Klein for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. This interview is part of the Nanette L. Laitman Documentation Project for Craft and Decorative Arts in America. Joel Philip Myers has reviewed the transcript. His corrections and emendations appear below in brackets with initials. This transcript has been lightly edited for readability by the Archives of American Art. The reader should bear in mind that they are reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose. Interview DAN KLEIN: Joel, tell me a little bit about your early life, where you grew up, and how you finished up going to Parsons [School of Design, New York, NY]. JOEL MYERS: I was born on January 29, 1934, in Patterson, New Jersey. My family was a - well, it was a nice place to grow up, and my parents were decent people who had good values. And I — my father was a disciplinarian, however, and so I grew up in an atmosphere of being good. I think I would see myself as being a good boy — MR. KLEIN: In New Jersey. MR. MYERS: In New Jersey. Being a good boy but not being very interesting, or interested, unfortunately. Especially after you can look at yourself in such hindsight. Then I could see that I didn’t — you know, you’ll find ways of excusing certain things. And I compare that with my wife’s background, where people read in the family; they were interested in various things. And my parents didn’t seem to have time because they spent their life essentially providing for — for myself and my brother and my sister. So their life was that battle, so to speak. So I grew up in this atmosphere. We lived essentially for the first — I’d say, before I left, I went to school, for about the first 20 years, within a 10 to 15 mile radius of one town or another around Patterson. MR. KLEIN: Did you read or look at art? MR. MYERS: I — yes. At a certain point. As a matter of fact, I think that when I was — I must have been about nine or 10, I think, that I began to draw. And I remember a dog I had drawn, and a charcoal drawing. I don’t know what — I’m sure it wasn’t taken from life, but nevertheless, I remember it as being rather accomplished for — as I remember it, of course, at that time. But I think it was the first time that I really had shown something in the way of interest in art as such. MR. KLEIN: But you didn’t visit museums or art galleries? MR. MYERS: No. No, none at all. MR. KLEIN: So what made you go to Parsons? MR. MYERS: Well, here I was, a young man about to finish high school. And when they would ask — people would ask me, where are you going to college? What are you going to study? I had no answer. So I said, I’m going to be an engineer. Now, I could no more be an engineer than I could be a space astronaut, and so at that point I had no idea in the world what I was going to do. And throughout high school I had — I took an evening class in painting, for example, some private course in oil painting. And I had courses in art. The final high school that I went to, last two years, had no art program at all, so I couldn’t do anything in that regard. So here I faced graduation - where to go, what to do? Now, my only knowledge — apparently somewhere in my family, somewhere in my broader family, someone was a commercial artist. I knew that phrase “commercial art,” and when I — by the way, my parents were encouraging me. That is to say, when I made the drawings and things, they were very positive about it. Not to suggest that I should make a career of it, but in any event, they were encouraging. MR. KLEIN: So did you have a portfolio to present? MR. MYERS: No. I had no portfolio whatsoever. MR. KLEIN: Why did Parsons take you? MR. MYERS: Good question. The fact was that I did some research to find out where I could go to school, and it seemed to be that advertising design was a career. It was a career. I had no concept, no idea, not in the slightest, to be an artist because — I think I was mostly concerned about being able to make a good living, to have a career with something that could provide. And so I did research on the Pratt Institute [Brooklyn, NY], Cooper Union [for the Advancement of Science and Arts] in New York, and came upon Parsons. I suspect I went to Parsons because they had the minimal requirements. I had no portfolio, and I made a few drawings for them for their entrance requirements. It was, as I remember, even at the time, it was reasonable in terms of cost, and I could live at home and commute. So I made a choice, and this was the beginning of what I consider to be [one of the –JPM] fortuitous events in my life that have shaped so much, up even to this point of time, at this point in my life, that it’s extraordinary how, by luck, I made the right choices. So I went to Parsons. Now, I was so totally ill-equipped for Parsons; you could not imagine. But I was like a blank board, a blank blackboard with nothing on it, and you could write everything. I was so prepped to learn, and enthusiastic about it. So when I compared myself to my colleagues and my classmates and the whole student body at Parsons, I realized that, wow, I’m like totally — I should hide in the corner, because these people are so seemingly accomplished and experienced, and extremely sophisticated people. I would show up, when I finally went, I’d show up at lunch with my cream cheese and jelly sandwiches on white bread, because I couldn’t afford to go out to eat. However, so I went through three years of Parsons. The first year, I was totally nondescript student. I would say a very average student, C student. The second year, I began to understand what was happening, and I began to excel. And by the third year, I was probably one of the leading students in the class, and a competition in — in a metropolitan New York competition for the Police Athletic League, I won the poster competition, which gave me the Society of Illustrators, New York Society of Illustrators’ medal, as well as a cash award, which practically paid for a whole semester of schooling at Parsons. MR. KLEIN: Can you remember the winning design? MR. MYERS: Oh, yes. I have a picture of it, as a matter of fact. Yes, it’s someone, a young man, reaching up to catch a baseball, and nothing extraordinary, I felt, but in any event, it was a competition for a whole metropolitan New York, and I won it without ever, ever thinking I had a chance. But as I look back at Parsons, I believe that Parsons — I don’t think I was trained as well as I could have been trained, and I don’t think I was educated as well as I could be educated. But it so shaped my life, the richness of Parsons experience, the contact with their thoughts and the teachers. I had one or two teachers, but no one that really inspired me, people that — students that — teachers that helped me, but not in a way that I consider to be mentors, but I learned. And one thing I learned from my father was to work hard. And so whereas I might have had the raw talent of some of my classmates, who started out much farther ahead than I did, rather flamboyant, I went about my job to learn and to excel. And I did drawings at home that always were put on the board for their excellence, which was another thing to reinforce my own confidence. Remember, I had, I felt, so little confidence in myself, I think, that — and I was very shy, bashful, and a rather happy person in a way, but still quite reserved. But in my second year, I had a teacher in drawing, which was life drawing, and there was something about, connected with her way of drawing. The first instructor I had of drawing was a linear draftsman, and I couldn’t get that. The second teacher showed me drawings of [Jacopo Comin] Tintoretto and [Jean-Antoine] Watteau, and I really caught that. I really began to understand something about drawing that really inspired me. MR. KLEIN: So in a sense Parsons unlocked the latent talent and showed you that you had it. MR.

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