Art Portfolio I

"CAM" is "Clara Adamina Matynka," our CMZ.

This is a portfolio she made for her Kensington High course "History of Art II."

She started with a couple of pieces of cardboard, some paint, a big fat brush, some grommets, and string.

She scalloped the edges on the liner paper.

It is a big, thick portfolio, but there is nothing in it except a much smaller portfolio containing a small selection of work.  Where is the rest of her work?

Next up: the contents of the plain portfolio.  But where is the rest of her work?

Also, why did her children only see these things once before her death?  Why did she hide all her artwork away in the attic?  Why did her children never once see her draw something?

Julie

John Napier Statue

This is the statue in Edinburgh of John Napier, discussed in the previous post as the discoverer of logarithms and inventor of slide rule 1.0.

Click to enlarge and see his handheld device and the expression on his face.

"Aegis Fortissima Virtus" prosequitur

The Kensington High School Yearbook of 1942 included a page featuring students who sold wartime "savings stamps," by means of which school-age kids could lend money at interest to the US Treasury for the war effort.

 "The entire student body has co-operated in making the campaign a success.  A real incentive in this work was the visit in January of the lovely Hollywood star, Miss Dorothy Lamour, who inspired the students to buy still more bonds and stamps.  Said Miss Lamour: 'If other schools respond with the same fine spirit of patriotism, I know that our boys are going to have all the material they need to win this war.'  Purchases rose rapidly as a result of the star's visit."

Dorothy Lamour was one of a number of Hollywood stars who supported the war effort in this way.  She also starred in the "Road" movies with Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.

A teacher was called up from Reserves to Actives; students donated to the Red Cross; "seventy-five Seniors willingly gave their services during the days of sugar rationing"; students volunteered to work on farms in the summer; students collected books to send to USO libraries.  Click to enlarge into Preview.  Check out the totals for stamp sales: $8,550; war bonds  $19,575.

The theme of concord among allied nationalities applied pressingly, one can imagine, to the internal management of a Buffalo high school, which had, as a glance at the class list shows, lots of ethnic German students and lots ethnic Polish students. National survival was going to require youth dropping the domestic rivalries of past years.

"Your teachers . . . have spent four years with you in an effort to strengthen your character and to prepare you, as strong Americans, to meet the totalitarian challenge to democracy."

As an elementary school student in the 1960s, I, too, heard about values from my teachers.  One stood in front of the class and finished off a conversation by saying loud and clear, "I wouldn't want to make a value judgment."

What an idiot.  It is impossible not to make a value judgment, as long as one is alive.

"Amid incessant and fiery debates, the members of the International Relations Club periodically endeavored to create a concordant ending of world combats.  Labor-Capital disputes; England's admirable conduct during air raids; American-Chinese policies; and Russian benevolence to the Allies were merely a few of the fascinating discussions which made this club singular."

Check out some demented faculty member's conception of "Cooperation."

Fortunately, this guy skipped Assembly that day, dressed and combed his hair the way he wanted, and produced art from his own particular head - art of the style used, in cooperation with other individuals, in the cooperative war effort.

"If you delight in solving brain-tickling mathematical problems or in measuring landmarks, the stars, moon, and other planets, we sincerely urge you to join the Slide Rule Club . . .

"At first, the members used improvised slide rules made from lined paper and later bought more accurate implements for themselves.  In due course, the problems increased in difficulty, but were met with proportionate ease as the training progressed . . . 

"Next the boys and girls were familiarized with the sextant, a remarkable instrument used in determining angles and ascertaining heights and distances.  Each member had the opportunity of measuring our renowned school chimney and other prominent landmarks in the distance . . .

"Many students have the false impression that this interesting organization is reserved exclusively for that small body of mathematical wizards which attends the school, but it is open to any student who is inclined to use mathematics either for enjoyment or as an occupation.'

John Napier, 8th Laird of Merchistoun (1550-1617) kept his shoulder off the wheel - thank God - and instead followed his own path to discover logarithms and invent the proto-slide rule. 

Trinity College, Cambridge, possesses a surviving set of "Napier's Bones."

This is the "geometry room" in the basement of Collegium Maius of Jagellonian University, in Kraków.

The Museum of Collegium Maius possesses a set "of Napier's bones" (London, late seventeenth century) a calculating instrument publicized in 1617 by Lord John Napier, the author of algorithms.  It was used until the late eighteenth century, and at the Cracow Academy it was exercised by Professor Jan Brozek."
(Podlecki and Waltos, Collegium Maius, p.46)

This and all the other treasures of Jagellonian University were in the hands of the Nazis in 1942.  The faculty had been summoned to the campus by the Gestapo, arrested, and murdered.

American kids were learning to understand slide rules by making their own with lined paper, so that they could progress to real, manufactured ones.

". . . for whatsoever from one place do fall . . . is with the tide unto an other brought . . ."

Julie

"Aegis Fortissima Virtus"

"The strongest shield is virtue" was the school motto at Kensington High School in Buffalo.  Clara Matynka, our CMZ, saved a big carton of memorabilia related to the school from which she graduated in 1947.

In 1942, sister Gertrude was a freshman at Ken; Clara was still in middle school.  The yearbook cover art is startling.

 The back cover has the US flag surrounded by flags of various Latin American countries, over the Kensington arms and motto.  Remember, you can click on the image to enlarge it into Preview.

The endpapers, front and back, are of a theme as alien to snowy Buffalo as is imaginable.  The surface of the Moon is closer to the Buffalo climate than the Sonora Desert.  Furthermore, all cheerful colors are surreal in 1942.

Here is a clue: a map of German-occupied Europe in that year.

Here's a link to another one, with numbers as links to entries in a chronology of devastation. 

Below, a further clue: a map of the Japanese advance through mid-1942, from the Wikipedia article "Pacific War."

The British Commonwealth and the Americas were at bay.  Even with the Soviets battling the Wehrmacht on the second front, not only Europe but most of the Old World and most of the oceans were battlegrounds in 1942, with the attackers still having the advantage.

So the theme for the graduating class that year was solidarity with nearby allies. (For some reason, Canada was not mentioned or pictured.)

"The Compass of 1942 records Kensington's part in the struggle for victory and the furthering of Latin American friendships . . ."

The photo and name list for senior boys was half that of the photo and name list for senior girls.  It looks like half the upperclassman boys had signed up.  Their names are listed on a special page to the front of the volume.  Note the asterisk next to "Raymond Pawlowski."

Next up: the 1942 Compass continues, featuring war bonds, slide rules, and the antithetical forces of anonymous clones versus Dorothy Lamour.

Gene Zdrojewski's Birthday

Eugene John Zdrojewski was born October 7, 1923.

On his 80th birthday he received this card from his brother John Francis.  He kept it.

Pinkie

This is Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), natural genius draftsman, master of depiction of human facial expression, and gogglingly successful portrait artist of the British Regency.

This is his 1794 portrait of Sarah, age 11, born in British Jamaica.  She was Sarah Goodin Barrett Moulton, but all her families called her "Pinkie."

Sarah's father abandoned her and her brothers and mother, whereupon her mother returned to England with her children.  We do not know the fate of the no-good father; we can only hope he contracted some tropical disease, or angered a voodoo priestess.

Sarah's grandmother requested a likeness, because she missed her Pinkie.  Mother arranged with Lawrence for this portrait.  He completed it just before Pinkie died at age twelve, of "the British climate," which means bronchitis or tuberculosis.

This is Edward Stroinski in 1947, with his Genevieve.

 

This is Edward Stroinski's rendition of "Pinkie," which now hangs, in its original, beautifully understated frame, at the Coot Hill Family Historical Preservation Society offices.  This rendition was acquired by Gene and Clara, and hung in their living room in the house in Bowmansville, a suburb of Buffalo, from about 1950.  

When we switch back to Lawrence for a moment, we can enrich our ideas with some of Pinkie's cultural context.  Here is his portrait of Wellington, a man we can all be grateful for.  In 1794, Napoleon was just getting started on his project to conquer Europe.

This is Elizabeth Farren, who later became a Countess, but more importantly, an inspiration for future humanity trying to visualize a Jane Austen novel, either in their heads or in a film.

Mary Hamilton, another pinup girl from two hundred years before our time.

The Stroinski Pinkie moved to Marilla in 1957, and hung over the piano. (Actually, she traded places occasionally with Blue Boy over the bar cabinet; Hogwarts is nothing to't; but that's another story for another time.)

Her cheeks are pink - she is healthy - as her family was enabled by Lawrence to remember her.  Think about that next time you pick up some Pasteurized milk.

With Pinkie right there on the wall, it was so easy to sit there and look at her rather than practice the piano.  I did.  Look at this cobalt blue.  When I later saw cobalt-blue art glass, I recognized it.

This cloud-monkey is a Stroinski improvement;  look for yourself all over the Lawrence;  the monkey will not be there.

Scary shoe!  Sometimes I woke with a start, thinking that she was tapping her foot at me and indicating the piano score I was supposed to be reading.

There's a village missing, I swear. Near where the curving road touches her billowing gown, Lawrence had another bank of trees barely revealing a rectangle of shiny white, which to me indicates buildings.  Go look for yourself and see if you agree.

And the biggest mystery of all, and the reason I can't read music to this day, is this:  what's going on with her forearm there?

Artistic geniuses do things for reasons of their own, we can only conclude; and we just can be grateful.  Thank you, Uncle Eddie.