Chinese works in the Campus Art collection

In recent years, Class of 1970 alumnus Mark Sheldon donated eight works of Chinese art that he acquired  over his 40 year career, mostly in the 1980s, while teaching at The Chinese University of Hong Kong and serving as Director of the Yale-China Association. Photographs and detailed descriptions for all eight are now part of the online Campus Art Collection.
[Click on any image in this post to enlarge.]

Mark Sheldon with Bamboo and Orchid

Mark Sheldon ’70 with one of the donated works

Six were originally in scroll format but one (pictured with Mark on the left) had to be removed due to the fragility of the backing. This is a ca.1958 woodblock print that he displayed in his Hong Kong flat. This work can be seen now in the Southwest hallway of the Center for Liberal Arts.

The five images in the gallery below are all paintings mounted on scrolls. Thanks to Physical Plant staff Roy Bailey and Randy Crow, who installed a special protective mounting system purchased by The Ames Library, two of these works are now hanging outside of the Social Justice & Diversity Room and the Ford Instruction Lab on the library’s entry level. The other scrolls will alternate from their storage location and into these mounts every six months in order to lessen the affects of light damage and other environmental impacts that may result from being in a busy campus building.

Huang Shan

Pictured on the right is “Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain).” It was purchased in Changsha, Hunan, which is not far from Yellow Mountain. Mark gave this painting to his father Rev. Dr. Chester E. Sheldon, Class of 1943, and it hung over his desk in his study in Bloomington and then in Minneapolis for many years, until his death in 2015. It is on display outside of the Chaplain’s office in Evelyn Chapel.

The final work is hanging in the Center for Liberal Arts outside of room 300. Mark states that this “brush painting was a gift to me in the early 80s, by the artist, whose name I don’t recall. It was given when he painted it in bambooa master class for the International Asian Studies Program students at CUHK — and then given to me after the class. My given Chinese name is inscribed on it as ‘Tian Mao’ … as my full Chinese name is XIE Tianmao. It was displayed in my parents living room for many years, then donated to IWU.”

Harriet Stratis

Harriet Stratis, conservator, poses with five scrolls in a modified version of the traditional Japanese futomaki that was developed to roll and store the scrolls.

 

The scrolls all underwent conservation treatments (flattening and light cleaning) by Harriet Stratis and Mary Broadway of the Stratis Fine Art Conservation studio in Chicago. They removed the “Bamboo and Orchid” print from its scroll and had a special mat created for it. They also devised a safe storage system for the works when they are rolled to lessen the likelihood of damage when they are not on display.

 

Memorial Gym/Hansen Student Center Time Capsule Revealed!

(click to enlarge all images)

In a previous post I shared images and information on the time capsule that was recovered from the Memorial Gym. This photo shows an exhibit I installed on the main court of Hansen after the opening last night. The exhibit celebrates the 100th anniversary of the Gym and 20 years of its transformation into Hansen.

When the campus photographers’  images and video of the opening are available I will link them here. For now, here is a close up view of the side that shows just the time capsule contents.

The first item removed from the box was a Bible and the second was a packet of paper that turned out to be several sheets of paper that contains different facts about IWU and names of people involved in different parts of campus. The first sheet, though was this description of what was placed in the time capsule.*

Prior to the opening, I invited people to submit guesses about what we would find and two people guessed right!

  • First year student Liam Killian’s submission included newspapers and dust, dirt or rust. I am happy to say there was no moisture so no rust! All the dirt and dust was on the outside, but there were LOTS of newspapers.
  • University Librarian Stephanie Davis-Kahl’s submission included newspapers and photos. The one photo in the box was an 8×10″ of the 1921 football team. Unfortunately it had to be folded into quarters to fit in the box. It is cracked at those folds but the image is sharp!

It is amazing how much was in the small box. As the students kept removing more and more booklets, pamphlets and paper, the image of a circus car with endless clowns exiting popped into my head! When I remove the exhibit on October 11 I will do a more thorough assessment but these few photos can act as a teaser.

*The list of contents is as follows:
Copy of Bloomington Bulletin, November 4, 1921.
Copy of Bloomington Pantagraph, November 5, 1921.
Copy The Christian Advocate, October 27, 1921.
Copy Northwestern Christian Advocate, November 2, 1921.
Copy Epworth Herald, November 5, 1921.
Copy Wesleyan Argus.
Copy Articles of Incorporation of the Wesleyan.
Copy Catalogue Illinois Wesleyan University, 1921.
Copy Alumni Roll Illinois Wesleyan University.
Copy Spaulding’s Football Rules, 1921.
List of Faculty and students, current year.
List of student organizations.
Copy of Discipline Methodist Episcopal church, 1920.
Copy Year Book Methodist Episcopal Church, 1921.
Copy Minutes Illinois Annual Conference Methodist Episcopal Church, 1921.
Photograph of Football Team, 1921.
Copy of Holy Bible.

A virtual walk through IWU history

ca 1940 aerial photo

IWU ca. 1940

Curious about what changes have taken place to IWU’s campus over the years? Interested in exploring locations related to campus lore? The University Archives is pleased to offer a few insights on an interactive map.

Pandemics can’t keep us down! Visit this online walk through IWU history!

 

At the bottom of each entry’s description is a line that starts with “Permalink” and contains a link to that location’s “Pin.” When you open that page there’s a comment box. Leave a memory, post a selfie, or let me know if I got something wrong!

100 year old time capsule

dedication day

(click to enlarge) The man in the light colored jacket who is facing the camera is famed local architect Arthur Pillsbury

This photo shows a large crowd gathered on November 5, 1921 to place the cornerstone in the Memorial Gymnasium. Look to the left of the man standing below the tip of the flag and you will see a small box resting on top of the stone. That time capsule will be opened Sept 30, 7PM on Kemp Commencement Plaza.*

Anyone who came to IWU after 2002 would know the building as the Hansen Student Center. The building was originally dedicated to the memory of IWU personnel who died in World War I, hence the name Memorial Gym.

This post is dedicated to honoring the efforts it took to locate that small box in a stone that’s 48″ wide x 25″ high and 17″ thick. The thickness of the cornerstone was unknown up until this week! There is a program for the event with a line that says E. Mark Evans would be “placing box in cornerstone” (pictured below).

dedication stone

The photo of the crowd (at top of this blog post) and another one from the same vantage point but without people are the only visual clues about the time capsule and stone in the University’s archives.

view with no crowd

Director of Physical Plant Jim Blumberg assigned the work of pinpointing the time capsule’s location to John Zmia, a mason with Western Specialty Contractor. After testing the thickness by removing bricks at the top of the stone on the outside of the building, Zmia determined that extensive brick removal would be needed. In consultation with our Physical Plant personnel, they concluded that the best approach was to work from the back of the stone.Memorial Gym time capsule removal

Blumberg said the effort to find the box’s location in the stone took about 12 hours over two days and then 3 hours of chiseling the cornerstone to get to it. Blumberg took this video of Zmia removing the time capsule from the stone on August 31, 2021.opening the box

This is the third time capsule we’ve recovered since 2011** and it is our tradition to pre-open the box for safety reasons and then hold a public event to remove the contents. This time the work of opening fell to Manager of Maintenance Kenton Frost (on the left) and Supervisor of Building Trades Matt Gentes.

Because the building is now a student-centered space, Student Senate is conducting the opening event. Stay tuned for an event announcement!

*Student Senate is hosting the event and we are hoping Tom Hansen will be on hand since the Gym-to-Hansen renovation is 20 years old. The event will be livestreamed as part of virtual Homecoming activities, so be sure to sign up!

**The other two were removed from Sheean Library and the Mark Evans Observatory, which was named for the person who placed the time capsule in the Memorial Gym!

“HOURS” was a codeword for WOMEN’S Curfew

Editor’s note: This story was published in the June 2021 Class of 1971 newsletter  “Remembering our College Days” and is reprinted here with the permission of the author.

Guest post by Judith Schulz, Class of 1971

In our 1967-68 student handbook they were called CLOSING HOURS. That is when the dorm entrance doors were closed, and Locked. Hours really meant “curfew.”   It was a form of in loco parentis.

I didn’t think anything about these rules when I arrived at IWU as a freshman in Sept 1967 at age 18. Those were the rules, so those were the rules.  Both the 1967 and 1968 IWU student handbooks had the same closing hours listed for Women (but not for men students!) (Men had NO closing hours.)

excerpt from1968-69 IWU student handbook

(click any image in this post to enlarge)

WOMEN STUDENTS HAD TO BE INSIDE BY 10:30 pm
On weeknights we had to be inside our residence hall/dorm by 10:30 pm, Friday & Saturday by 1 am, Sunday night by 11 pm. It didn’t matter to me anyhow during my first semester as I was tired, had homework or was working late hours in the Dug Out as a short order cook/ order taker.   Men did not have any of these rules, just we women. (hmmm.)  Obvious double standard. HOURS were an issue at many colleges around the USA at the time.

DORM BED CHECK?
I lived in Pfeiffer Hall, second floor East wing and right after 10:30 there was a “bed check” where an assigned student living in the dorm came around and checked your name against the list to make sure you were in your room.… we didn’t actually to have to be “in bed.”   Just writing this on paper, I mean on the computer, makes we wonder why we didn’t question this.

AFTER 10:30 pm
Sometimes after the bed check there would be a “house” meeting, party, holiday activity or gathering in the first-floor lounge. (I see they called it a “parlor” in the handbook, but we called it “the Lounge.”)  These after- hours gatherings helped us to make friends and become part of the residence hall “family,” but it also functioned to distract you from the fact that we were under a strict curfew, even though we were of adult age.

IF YOU WERE LATE: LATE MINUTES!
And if you were late coming into your residence hall, after hours, “late minutes” resulted in punishment.

One Saturday night I signed out for a 2 o’clock, but was late just 2 minutes getting back inside Pfeiffer Hall. This was considered very serious. (And whoever was working the desk had to wait up until you came in.)

– Pfeiffer’s House Council voted to restrict me to the dorm for the entire next weekend, only being allowed to go for a short visit to the commons to eat meals. It was called “dorm pro” for probation.  I was also required to contact the house mother regularly, proving I was in the dorm.    I thought this restriction was extreme and absurd, so I called the house mother every hour throughout the weekend and even late into the night to report in, hoping frequent calls would make a point.  (They did.)

IN THE SPRING of 1968, the idea of changing or getting rid of “hours” was a topic of discussion everywhere. Was the university really supposed to be in the role of parenting, and supervising students who were of age?  Student Senate made motions, there were “university studies” and a growing frustration among students.

May 15, 1968 handout, Q&A about hours & a protest

POSTERS were hung up around campus and talk of having an after-hours protest was everywhere.  The protest was to be at 10 pm Thursday, May 17, 1968 and last until 11:30 pm—AFTER HOURS!— We would definitely be breaking the rules!  And think of it: more than 60 LATE MINUTES?

While I agreed 100% with the cause and the protest, it made me nervous.  I knew what late minutes meant, and we would all be more than 60 minutes late if we attended the protest.

Note: I have this original handout (above) and poster (next image) 8.5×11” paper. Copies were made on an old fashion ditto duplicator machine in purple lettering. (not old fashion at the time.)

May 17 flyer

May 17, 1968 Original poster, 8.5×11” ditto

That night I heard many students encouraging others to attend saying “they can’t make the late minutes stick” which matched the posters that were also all over campus.

It was a time to think for yourself, and support what you believed in.  I was still very nervous walking over, even with so many others, to the outdoor stage of McPherson.  I recall Wenona Whitfield encouraging everyone in the group I was with while walking over to the protest.

May 17, 1968 Argus coverage

IWU ARGUS newspaper story May 17, 1968 – note both stories

 

Women's hours protest

May 17, 1968 Hours Protest, after hours- IWU Archives

Women students and men students attended the hours protest, even a few IWU staff.  There was a band, and 4 students spoke: Vicki Wentrcek, Marcelle Wilkins, Brian Spears and Connie Husson.

WERE YOU THERE? Did you stay out 1 hour past “Hours” and get any “late minutes?” Please share your stories and memories about hours in the reply box below.

~ Watch for the stories of what happened next…..
what changed and what didn’t.

~ SEE you at our 50th Class of 1971 reunion in October 2021!

The actual posters shown here, MORE artifacts and photographs from this time will be on display at our 50th IWU Class of 1971 reunion October 2021.

       ~author Judith Schulz, Pfeiffer Hall resident, IWU class of 1971(and in the crowd in the photo above) written June 2021 for the Class of 1971 Alumni newsletter

Research info from Judi Kasper Ballard, Mark Sheldon, IWU archivist Meg Miner, Vicki Wenger Warren, and Judith Schulz

Images from Judith Schulz’s collection and IWU Archives

The Legacy of R. Bedford Watkins

The expansive collection of musical compositions by retired professor R. Bedford Watkins is now catalogued and available for use at IWU’s Archives & Special Collections.

R. Bedford Watkins, an exceptional keyboardist, composer, and educator, was a prominent faculty member of IWU’s School of Music from 1956 to 1988. He earned a bachelor of music degree from Rhodes College, a master of music degree from the University of Michigan, and a doctorate from the University of Iowa. He created an impressive portfolio of compositions throughout his decades as a musician, which he donated to the University in 2019.

Watkins was prolific: his collection contains dozens of compositions, ranging from fantasies for cello to large orchestral works. His modern writing style continually questions traditional harmonic practices by embracing atonal structures. In addition to the vast collection of handwritten and original copies of his compositions, Watkins writing, correspondence, and even poetry is included. Recordings of his works are digitally available from a link to his online archive catalog. Watkins even donated his own harpsichord to the university, which can now be found at the School of Music.

IWU Women’s History via JeopardyLabs

Several years ago I co-presented on IWU women’s history during a Council for IWU Women Summit with Claudia Brogan (’77), Stephanie Davis-Kahl. I gamified my findings on the topic up to that point by using PowerPoint. Recently I updated it and now it can be played three ways, all at a safe distance in these pandemic times, of course 😉 Test your IWU-quotient today!

1) The version pictured here is as it was originally presented: IWU Women’s History (2021 update) in ppt format.  This version has photos and behind-the-scenes details, not just the facts!

3) And here is the same JeopardyLabs edition but in an embedded format.
Note: numbers 2 & 3 due not have photos since I used their free version 😉

 

1970s School of Drama productions

Winnie the Pooh and friends

Winnie the Pooh and friends in “A Pooh Picnic,” Summer 1975

Even though thousands of photos have been taken of theatrical performances, due to issues surrounding intellectual property rights, very few of them have been recorded and saved. In fact, the University’s archives has only six known films of performances. They have recently been digitized and are now available to the IWU community at the links that follow. Each link leads to a file that contains clips from all of the productions that were on that reel of film. All are in color but only the first three have sound. We welcome any information people can provide to expand our knowledge of the time periods, performances and individual performers shown in the clips.

Carnival and Equuis(?), 1978-79 Season

unknown summer productions Summer productions not named but some songs are from Follies so may be 1977-78 season. They include Mrs. Worthington, Let’s Fall in Love, Waiting for the Girls Upstairs, Who’s That Woman. A drama and other musical theater clips follow.

Unlabeled but the first is Midsummer Night’s Dream so may be 1976-77 season

Summer Theatre 1974 The label reads “Prisoner of 2nd Ave. – Drama 1975” but clips include images of production programs. Titles shown are Dames at Sea, Arsenic and Old Lace, The House of Blue Leaves, and The House at Pooh Corner.

1974-75 The label reads “Equus; Drama 1974-75” but clips include images of production programs. Titles shown are The Boys from Syracuse, The Night of the Iguana, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, The Good Woman of Setzuan, She Stoops to Conquer. At the end of the footage there is about a minute of film with images of IWU School of Drama personnel and a sign-off note from Director John Ficca.

Summer 1976 and 1976-77 The label reads “IWU: Summer 1976: Where’s Chelsey; Forty Carats; Good Doctor. 1976/77: Pajama Game; Delicate Balance; Jacques Blvd.”

A timeline of changes in the program name and degree requirements was published in an earlier post.

New special collection

BuscandoMiColor

Buscando Mi Color (2017) by Lucero Sanchez

Bamboo Quay by Kyobashi Bridge (Kyobashi Takegashi) by Utagawa Hiroshige NOW ON EXHIBIT see http://localhost/multi/library/japanese-woodblock-prints/

There’s a new addition to the University’s special collections! It doesn’t all live in The Ames Library but we are going to be administering it in the same way that we handle all materials Tate Archives & Special Collections.

That means that everything in the IWU Campus Art Collection is available for classroom and research use! The online exhibit is the result of a four-year initiative* to locate, catalog, and photograph the variety of art on campus.

The collection contains more than 1,000 pieces of artwork which have been created or donated by Friends of the University, alumni, faculty, and students.

It contains paintings, prints, sculptures, pottery, and more by famed artists including Salvadore Dali, Arrah Lee Gaul, Frederick Hart, Utagawa Hiroshige, Leroy Neiman, and Rembrandt van Rijn. Notable faculty artists are Miles Bair, Fred Brian, and Rupert Kilgore. Items in the collection date from the 12th century to the present day.

We invite you to peruse the collection, and we emphasize that the collection is available for classroom use, individual students’ assignments, and research. To discuss specific needs, please contact the University Archivist, Meg Miner, at mminer@iwu.edu or phone at (309) 556-1538.

*Library Technology & Resources Director Suzanne Wilson led the project over the past four years with the assistance of library staff Tod Eagleton, Julie Wood and Elizabeth Jensen, spouse of former president Eric Jensen, who worked diligently to research and describe each work. The Jensens also supported the project with funds for flat-file storage. Photographers Jason Reblando, Trey Frank III, and Nick Helten ensured that our digital images reflect the beauty of the tangible artworks. Past University Librarians Karen Schmidt and Scott Walter lent their strong support of the project from its inception. Physical Plant crews moved much of the collection to a secured storage location that they also adapted for this purpose.

World War I and II primary sources

What we now know as Veterans Day was first celebrated as Armistice Day, the day that active hostilities during World War I ceased in 1918. President Dwight D. Eisenhower changed the focus of the day in 1954 “In order to insure proper and widespread observance of this anniversary, all veterans, all veterans’ organizations, and the entire citizenry will wish to join hands in the common purpose.” (see this Dept. of Veterans Affairs page for more).

This post offers an opportunity for promoting several unexplored collections in the University’s archives & special collections that contain perspectives on the experiences of veterans and their communities. The images in the gallery below (click to enlarge) highlight just the items currently on display across from the Library Services Desk in The Ames Library. These and other collections are available for exploration throughout the year on the library’s 4th floor.

Fred Brian, January 1945

Examples of these documents include service applications of the WWII-era Nurse’s Cadet Corps, alumni responses to a post-WWI and WWII survey of activities, correspondence from two brothers during WWI to their sister Ester Vissering, correspondence from several WWII soldiers to student Nell Carmichael, correspondence and sketches from alumnus and Professor of Art Fred Brain to his family during WWII,  Nursing Superintendent Maude Essig’s WWI diary, and administrative meeting notes and student reporting on war-related activities on campus and abroad. And, of course, The Argus provided extensive reports on campus involvement in world events.

We have no primary sources related to veterans of the Cold War or the active U.S. wars in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq, but thanks to Pat Rosenbaum, administrative specialist in the Dean of Students Office, we have a list of all known alumni with military affiliations. Contact the archives to find out how you can contribute more to our knowledge of the effects these events had on your lives.