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Alumni Gazette Drawing Readers In Longtime editorial illustrator Jane Marinsky ’73 finds success in children’s literature, in collaboration with her daughter, Leah sharpe. By Karen McCally ’02 (PhD) The Goat-Faced Girl, a retelling of a classic near Buffalo, she decided to take a course Italian fairy tale by Marinsky’s daughter, herself, in children’s book illustration, and Imagine the lively peasant village Leah Sharpe, and published by the Boston asked Leah if she had a story for her to scenes of Renaissance master Pieter master printer, David Godine. illustrate. Brueghel, the whimsical folk scenes of A prominent editorial illustrator—for “She had loved fairy tales from the time modernist Marc Chagall, and the lush jun- years, her pencil drawings graced the edi- she was little,” says Marinsky. “When she gles of post-Impressionist Henri Rousseau. torial pages of the Washington Post, Detroit babysat as a teenager, she would retell the How might an image look that borrowed News, the Chicago Tribune, as well as oth- from all three of these artists? Perhaps like er newspapers and magazines—Marinsky u FAMILY TALE: Marinsky took on the the boldly colorful oil paintings by Jane is a relative newcomer to children’s litera- project of The Goat-Faced Girl (above) after Marinsky ’73 that decorate the pages of ture. While teaching art at Daemen College, asking her daughter for a story to illustrate. Courtesy of Jane Marinsky ’73 May–June 2010 ROCHESTER REVIEW 31 5_RochRev_May_2010_Gazette.indd 31 4/27/10 11:37 PM Alumni GAzette stories, because she didn’t like the way her figures. “It brings a certain emotion to it they ended.” that I’m trying to get, a sort of an intimacy, Resolution: Sharpe, who was busy pursuing a doc- a way of bringing readers in.” torate in conservation biology, had just the Marinsky says her passion for drawing right story in mind: The Goat-Faced Girl, dates back to her adolescence, when she Mission in which a fairy disguised as a lizard takes found inspiration in the pencil drawings of a peasant daughter off the hands of her par- Italian Renaissance masters Michelangelo of Burma is ents and raises her in riches. and Leonardo da Vinci. A Buffalo native, “I was rooting for my mom to do a fairy she followed the path of her older sister, a Rock Legend tale,” says Sharpe, who transformed the Elyse Marinsky Friedman ’67, enrolling classic to give it a distinctly modern twist, at Rochester, where she could major in art Clint Conley ’77 is while getting a broader education. She mar- a cofounder of one of the She strives for “a ried Dan Sharpe ’70 and established her- roundness” to her self first as a graphic designer, then later, as most influential bands of an illustrator. the post-punk era. or so figures. “It brings Illustration is a fast-changing field, in a certain emotion to it which the ability to use a variety of com- says the Boston City Council. puter software programs at times can seem that I’m trying to get, to overtake “old-fashioned” tactile skill By Karen McCally ’02 (PhD) a sort of an intimacy, with a pencil or brush. But Marinsky finds a place for both. Be it resolved: Whereas some bands a way of bringing “If I want to do a quick color sketch, make the charts, Mission of Burma makes readers in.” I scan in my hand drawing and use Pho- waves. toshop to try to get an idea of what colors At Rochester, Clint Conley ’77 could and finds her mother’s “fantastical” style to I want to use and where.” be seen often on River Campus, playing at be well-suited to the fairy tale genre. She teaches her students marketable dances in the funk bands Mocha Shake and “With illustration, you have the responsi- skills, such as how to create animatic the Broad Street Stroke. But after gradu- bility to enhance the word,” says Marinsky. storyboards. ating with his degree in English, the self- “There is a sort of conscious, deliberate way But in the end, she says, “I love having described “music wonk” moved to Boston of drawing, like making the arms smaller the tactile ability to draw these little pat- to try his hand at his greater musical love: than they would be and the hands tiny,” she terns. And I think people still respond to punk rock. says. And she strives for “a roundness” to hand drawn things.”r “As a career move, it was ridiculous to graduate from college and want to join a band and make this kind of music that the world made plain it had no use for,” says Conley. But three decades later, peo- ple are still talking about the music Conley made—and still makes—with the band Mis- sion of Burma. The band’s career began in sweat-filled basement clubs in Boston, and culminated three decades later with the Boston City Council’s formal declaration of October 4, 2009, as “Mission of Burma Day”: a day to recognize the band that has inspired the likes of R.E.M., Nirvana, U2, and the Pix- ies, and has helped bring renown to Bos- ton’s music scene. “We’re referred to as post-punk in that we came in the years after that initial noisy beginning, after the Ramones and the Sex Pistols,” says Conley, referring to two path- breaking punk groups of the mid-1970s. But he finds the label awkward. And so too do some of the band’s admirers, such as John Covach, a professor of music with MIxED MEDIa: Marinsky cites the masters Brueghel, Chagall, and Rousseau as influences, a joint appointment at the Eastman School but she adds her own touches as well, a style that can be seen in the opening illustration and the College of Arts and Sciences. (above) for The Goat-Faced Girl. “Mission of Burma is a lot more like the 32 ROCHESTER REVIEW May–June 2010 Courtesy of Jane Marinsky ’73 5_RochRev_May_2010_Gazette.indd 32 4/27/10 11:37 PM Alumni GAzette Velvet Underground or early Pink Floyd when, for reasons neither Conley nor his so clunky, and so Pony Express. But there’s than like the Sex Pistols or the Ramones,” bandmates can pinpoint, three of the four this undeniable romance about the drive it says Covach, who is also a classically of them reunited. Since then, they’ve pro- took and the personal investment one had trained rock guitarist and author of What’s duced three studio “albums” (“I still call to make to find this rare, obscure music, that Sound?: An Introduction to Rock and them albums,” admits Conley), including and it was really like finding little gold nug- its History (W. W. Norton). “The music has most recently, The Sound, The Speed, The gets in the stream.” plenty of raw punk power, but there’s also Light (Matador Records, 2009). Today Conley is an Emmy Award–win- a level of sophistication to the tracks that But there’s no question the band’s repu- ning field producer for the magazine show, makes them an interesting blend of punk tation is firmly rooted in their initial years. Chronicle, at Boston’s ABC-affiliated sta- and avant-garde music. It’s like they set “It was just a tremendously exciting time tion, WCVB-TV. out to employ the simplest possible musi- in rock music,” Conley says of the late 1970s And he lives in the Boston suburb of cal textures but in the most unconventional and early 1980s. “Most of the world didn’t Concord, along with his wife, Deborah, manner possible.” know it, because it was a very, very small and their daughter, Caroline, 14. Their old- Michael Azerrad, a bestselling author scene at that time. But there were so many er daughter, Brinna, 18, is a freshman at and rock journalist who included a chap- new ideas flying around.” Greensboro College in North Carolina. ter on Mission of Burma in his 2001 book, The band attracted a strong fan base in While the group has been prolific, it’s not Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from Boston, with clusters of followers in Wash- a full-time job, says Conley. “We go out once the American Indie Underground, 1981– ington, D.C., and on the West Coast. But in every couple of months, on average. We’re 1991 (Little Brown & Co.), strikes a similar those days, before home computers were weekend, for the most part.” The band will chord. “Their volume and speed connected widespread (to say nothing of the Inter- perform in Europe twice this spring. them to some bands, their occasional pop net and digital music) the numbers were The crowds are a mixture of young and hooks tied them to others,” he wrote. “But never large. old. That said, Conley notes that at a fes- no one else combined the two.” Conley doesn’t regret that he didn’t have tival in Kentucky last fall, “We crossed The group recorded and played live from access to those tools. Describing the life of a benchmark: our first fan with a walker, 1979 to 1983, then disbanded, until 2001 an underground music connoisseur in those with a gray ponytail. He was rocking away, days, he says: “You’d hear about something and we thought, ‘well, it had to happen u DOublE MajOR: “I majored in English that was cool out in Cleveland, and you’d some day.’ But what a wonderful thing.” and minored in House of Guitars,” says write a letter, and you’d wait a month, For now, Burma plans to stay the course.

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