legacy

I’ve always known that my family has a trace history of art and artistic talent rooting rather far back.  But as it seems, I am the culmination of many things, including being part of a lineage of hard working, creative minded people, with talents in communication arts, illustration, photography and architecture.  My 91 year old grandmother and I recently had a visit reviewing my portfolio and also looking at a large gathering of photographs by my grandfather from his time in boot camp during World War 2, as well as her portfolio from Notre Dame College.

Looking through at the simlarities of her studies in color theory, and logo designs to what I have been doing was impressive.  She was with no doubt, a very talented and creative individual who was being appropriately trained to become a communication artist (a profession which has morphed into graphic design in recent time).  To think that in a different time, my own grand mother was being taught the skill sets that could have made her exceptional as a designer much like Paul Rand and Lester Beal blows my mind.

As we went through her very Art Deco inspired logo designs for a school year book, we also came across her illustrations using a japanese watercolor, that to this day still hold a impressive amount of impact. Though both my grandmother and grandfather didn’t make a living with these skills. My Aunt Kate (daughter to my grandparents mentioned) took her skills in the arts and made some amazing watercolor, oil and multimedia art pieces.  I have been lucky enough to collect some of them in recent time. 

Hopefully I’ll be able to make scans of some of my grandmothers work, as well as collections of photographs that my grandfather took and maybe photos of my aunt’s work and get them online here.  Seeing all of their work, and knowing that my family from Germany and Ireland seem to have come together to make for a interesting union of abilities that I am carrying on today, really inspires me to keep doing what I am doing.  So this little bit of family history serves as a mental note and public notice that I will be posting some unique and exclusive stuff here pretty soon hopefully.  So check back.

Till then