Decorative Arts Center of Ohio -- Reese-Peters House - Blog

Executive Director's March Message

3/3/2020

Greetings!

As we shift into slightly warmer weather and slightly more daylight, it’s a great time to visit the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio! Our current exhibition, Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund continues to engage visitors who are spending more and more time in the galleries.

We were pleased to welcome more than 30 participants to Nate Beeler’s Chalk Talk program recently. Mark your calendar for Dr. Judith Yaross Lee’s discussion of the The Humor of the New Yorker Magazine on March 29, and for a visit from Barbara’s Shermund’s niece, Amanda Gormley, as she helps us Discover Barbara Shermund on April 19. You, too, can learn to illustrate at the Creating Comic Books classes or at the One-Panel Cartooning class. Register today while spots still remain.

We’ve got great programming, on-going and new classes and camps set for our next exhibit, 2 + 3 x 18: Diptychs and Triptychs by 18 Contemporary Ohio Artists, running May 16 to August 16.

We’re very grateful for the generosity of the Fox Foundation for sponsoring our current exhibition, and we’re grateful for our members who support our daily operations. Join DACO here, by phone or in-person, and enjoy member benefits immediately.

We’re always welcoming new volunteers to greet, work in the Museum Shop, or to docent. And we’re looking for some community family support to sponsor the Russian Decorative Arts from the Czars to the USSR exhibition in the fall; let us know if you’d like to participate!

Stay up-to-date daily by following us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Artfully yours,
David Hogrefe
Executive Director

Illustrator to Nurture the Talent of Budding Cartoonists at DACO

3/3/2020

Anna Vigorito Picture

Anna Vigorito teaches “Creating Comic Books” at DACO beginning March 15.

Through a watercolor class she took at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio, Anna Vigorito learned many crucial techniques and fundamentals that helped her hone her craft. Vigorito went on to work as an illustrator for LookHUMAN, and for the past three years, has worked on a weekly webcomic inspired by the Legend of Zelda series.

Now, the student has become the teacher, bringing her love for visual storytelling to DACO through a “Creating Comic Books” course for junior-high and high-school students that begins March 15.

We spoke with Vigorito about some of her most memorable work and why she says southeast Ohio is the perfect place to nurture the talent of illustrators.

What drew you to the world of art and design, and specifically as a cartoonist? It was the ability to create on the go and bring your ideas to fruition. I always loved fantasy creatures, so I believed the easiest way to bring them to life was through drawing and storytelling. Comics and animation are the perfect marriage of storytelling and drawing.

What have been some of your most memorable works thus far? I think the artwork you ultimately do for yourself, and that impacts others in the process, is the most important. My self-published zine, “Mental Health and Mythical Beasts,” has inspired neurodivergent fans of creatures and mythology. I also work on a Legend of Zelda-inspired webcomic with my friend. It’s still ongoing with weekly updates and still receives a lot of love online. It’s nice going to conventions and having excited readers come see us.

How did DACO help prepare you for your work as an artist? It helped prepare me for taking more classes once I went to Columbus College of Art and Design. The DACO classes are perfect for getting an idea of what to expect from professional art classes.

Why is it important to you to make the appreciation for illustration and visual storytelling accessible to Lancaster and southeast Ohio? I know it’s easy to say that it’s because it’s my hometown, but Lancaster and southeast Ohio is the perfect place to nurture the talent of illustrators. After all, Richard F. Outcault, one of the original cartoonists, came from Lancaster, and Jeff Smith, the creator of the Bone comics, often cites Hocking Hills as a key inspiration to his series. I know we showcase plenty of fine art in Lancaster, but illustration should be held at the same level of respect.

What can participants expect from your class? What information do you hope to pass on to other artists? Classes are March 15, 22, 29 and April 5 and 19. We’re going to look at our big inspirations for storytelling and illustration, learn the importance of references in drawing and storyboard our ideas. Students will build their own three- to five-page comics from there. While a lot of ideas can come from our heads, I also want to focus on the importance of reference material, careful planning of stories and learning (not copying directly) from our artistic influences. There are many styles to visual storytelling. I look forward to sharing them.

Register for Creating Comic Books here. Classes run from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. March 15, 22, 29, April 5 and 19. Cost is $75 public/$68 member.

Humor, Sophistication & Social Relevance: The Work of Barbara Shermund

3/2/2020

When editor Harold Ross founded The New Yorker in 1925, he sought a new kind of comic art. Ross found the wit and satire he desired in a cartoonist named Barbara Shermund, who created a picture of metropolitan life that spoke to the modern-day woman.

Later this month, Judith Yaross Lee will once again bring Shermund’s work to the forefront as she speaks on “The Humor of The New Yorker Magazine” at DACO. Lee, Ohio University Distinguished Professor Emerita of Communication Studies, will host the lecture at 2 p.m. March 29. Cost is $8 for the public and $5 for members prepaid, or $10 at the door. The event will give participants the opportunity to learn how the covers, spot drawings and cartoons by Shermund and her contemporaries brought Ross’s editorial vision to life.

Lee recently answered our questions about the New Yorker and Shermund’s role in it.

How did Barbara Shermund's work fit into the New Yorker at the time in which they were published? Shermund’s art had three qualities that founding editor Harold Ross and art editor Rea Irvin sought for the new magazine: humor, sophistication and social relevance. The stylish women and men she drew exuded sophistication themselves, partly because her clean, efficient lines matched her subjects’ elegance, and she flattered her readers by playing with their expectations regarding social norms, especially gendered behavior, at a time when educated white women were staking out modern, independent roles in American society.

How was her work received at that time in our history? The best evidence of her success is that the New Yorker not only bought her original comic ideas for cartoons and covers, but also assigned her to illustrate service departments such as film and shopping reviews, and sprinkled her smaller drawings across the magazine’s pages as “spots.” Her work appeared in the magazine more than 300 times in its first five years—an average of more than once per issue.

Why was her work so important at that time, and how has it transcended generations? Her strong feminist sensibility and her ability to capture the gender politics of her generation and time stood out among the many other artists, both male and female, who contributed to the magazine in the 1920s; the questions she raised about sexual relationships, especially male-female power dynamics, remain relevant today.

What drew you to her work and why was her work and story important to share in your book, Defining New Yorker Humor? When I began my research in 1991, I was startled to discover how many women had contributed to the early New Yorker, because no tables of contents existed for the magazine at that point in its history, and the limited research until then was based primarily on memoirs by men, such as James Thurber, who told stories about their colleagues and friends. What studies of the magazine’s literary humor existed so emphasized the misogyny of Thurber’s stories that the whole magazine had developed a reputation as a masculine domain. In this context, the feminism and contemporary sensibility of Shermund’s work stood out all the more, even among the other women artists whose work I recovered and admired, such as Helen Hokinson and Alice Harvey.

Register today to learn more at The Humor of the New Yorker magazine with Judith Yaross Lee at DACO at 2 p.m. on March 29: https://tinyurl.com/humorofthenewyorker

Award-Winning Political Cartoonist to hold 'Chalk Talk' March 1 at DACO

2/19/2020

A special engagement at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio is offering a glimpse into the art of cartooning by an award-winning editorial cartoonist. Nate Beeler, former political cartoonist at The Columbus Dispatch, will hold a “Chalk Talk” class from 2 to 3 p.m. March 1 at DACO, 145 E. Main St., Lancaster.

Beeler, who will explain the process behind cartooning, is an award-winning editorial cartoonist for Counterpoint, a groundbreaking new commentary venture.

Prior to working as the editorial cartoonist at The Dispatch from 2012 to 2019, the Columbus native drew cartoons for more than seven years in the nation’s capital for The Washington Examiner.

His cartoons have appeared in publications, such as USA Today, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, Time and U.S. News & World Report.

He has also been featured on news networks like CNN, MSNBC and Fox News, where viewers of the show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” voted him a “Pinhead.”

Beeler began his career as a sophomore working for the Bexley High School student newspaper in Columbus. He graduated with a journalism degree from American University in 2002, and won several top college cartooning awards including the John Locher Award, the Charles M. Schulz Award and a first-place finish in the Society of Professional Journalists Mark of Excellence Awards.

As one of the most widely syndicated editorial cartoonists, Beeler has had his cartoons distributed internationally to more than 800 publications. He has won numerous professional awards, including the 2008 Clifford K. & James T. Berryman Award from the National Press Foundation, the 2009 Overseas Press Club’s Thomas Nast Award and the 2014 Fischetti Award from Columbia College Chicago.

The Society of Professional Journalists also awarded him the Sigma Delta Chi Award for editorial cartoons in 2017, and he has received multiple top honors from the Virginia, Maryland and D.C. press associations.

In his spare time, Beeler enjoys ice hockey, guitar and spending time with his three children: Max, 11, Ruby, 6, and Vera, 4.

For more information on tickets, click here.

From the Executive Director

2/7/2020

Welcome February – and Barbara Shermund!

Thank you for all your support in helping bringing the art of this amazing woman to life. Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund is the perfect title, and we had record attendance at the member opening party and a terrific turnout at Caitlin McGurk’s Curator's Talk. Next up is political cartoonist Nate Beeler and his “Chalk Talk” artist talk on March 1.

Our volunteers, docents, and staff are working hard to welcome our goal of 1,800 visitors to the exhibition, so please bring your friends, family and groups.

We would also ask you to become a member this month; we’d like to grow to 400 members strong. Call, stop in or join online. We also welcome any and all who would like to volunteer with us. It’s a growing group, and I think they’re having fun. Sign up today!

We’re planning a robust spring and summer of classes and camps, so look for the schedule in coming weeks. And for frequent updates and fascinating art news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

I am always eager to hear your feedback on how we’re doing; call, email, text, or stop by any time – the door’s always open!

Cheers,
David Hogrefe

New Spotlight on 1940s Tea Service

2/4/2020

Q&A with Becky Odom, history curator at the Ohio History Connection and curator of our Spotlight exhibitions

The Spotlight exhibition, with pieces loaned from the Ohio History Connection, will be on display in the double parlors of the Reese-Peters House through July.

What are the highlights of the new Spotlight exhibition at DACO that you have curated? For the next six months, the Spotlight exhibition will feature 1940s tea-service items, coffee pots and tea cups as well--all made by Hall China Company.

What’s so special about Hall China? It is an Ohio company that started in East Liverpool in 1903 and is still in operation today. Its founder developed a single-fire process. Usually with ceramics, you fire every time after you paint or glaze. With this process, it would harden the clay and it saves time and makes the piece much stronger and less porous so it lasts longer.

The company started with 3 brick kilns and 38 potters. Now, the factory covers 6 acres and employs 125 people. It’s huge. Because of the durability of their china, they produce a lot of lines of dinnerware for restaurants.

So what about their teapots, as this is the exhibition’s focus? Their teapots are phenomenal. The designs changed as design trends changed. The teapots from the 1940s really reflect modern design.

The idea for displaying teapots stemmed from our desire to support the Decorative Art Center of Ohio’s initiative to highlight the history of the house. Afternoon tea was very important, not just as a meal, but also as a social event. This is really a way to highlight a tremendously important event during the time the families lived there.

Why was afternoon tea such a big deal? Afternoon tea has a fascinating history. It started in England around the mid-19th century by a member of the royal family who found herself getting dizzy spells around 5 p.m. It was customary to have a light lunch and then a large meal at 8 or 9 p.m., so it started as a way for the ladies to sustain themselves in the afternoon until dinner.

Teas could be informal, but also became a way for women to get together and socialize and gossip. Families like the Reeses and Peters would have wanted to go to teas to see and be seen at this social event.

After World War II, the popularity of teas declined because there were more women in the workplace. With more families working, the dinner hour started earlier and there was no need for that afternoon snack.

What can visitors to DACO expect when they view the Spotlight? There will be 22 items total; 21 of them are teapots, coffee pots, cups and saucers一items that were part of a tea service. We will also include a hostess dress from the 1930s or 40s. The idea is that the woman who would have hosted the tea would have dressed up because it was an event.

The dress we chose belongs to Mary White, daughter of former Ohio Governor George White. Mary acted as the host, because her father was a widower. The dress was from Montaldo's, a high-end ladies apparel shop in big cities, including Columbus.

Talking Vintage Valentines with Curator George Johnson

1/23/2020

George Johnson will give a talk about “200 Years of Valentines” at 2 p.m. on Feb. 9 at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio. The exhibit runs for the month of February. The public is welcome. Admission to DACO is always free.

What can visitors look forward to seeing in this special Valentines exhibition this month? We will start with some valentines from the 1820s and will have some into the 1920s, 40s, 50s and 60s. The exhibition will encompass the main floor, including the Rising Room and Double Parlors. I think the public will be interested in the history and beauty of the very old ones—and the ones they put in Valentine’s Day boxes in the 1950s may help some to bring back their memories.

How will you tie 200 Years of Valentines to the new Barbara Shermund exhibition? We intend to tie in the exhibition in the Main Galleries (Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life & Art of Barbara Shermund) in two ways. First, we will also share information about early valentine entrepreneur Esther Howland. She was a trailblazer in the valentine business in New England from the mid-1850s to the 1880s. This was very unusual for a lady entrepreneur. She is considered “the Mother of the American Valentine.” Pretty much up until that time, all valentines were made in Europe. From the 1850-70s, Esther made over $100k making valentines, which, in that time period, was a fortune. We will also tie in the satirical nature of Shermund’s comics when we feature some of the satirical valentines that started in the 1820s and sold in the 1950s. Many are very cartoon-like with a satirical edge. They were called “vinegar valentines” because they had that sour tone to them. You did not send them to someone you would want to impress. They were often sent anonymously.

What makes the older valentines so unique and interesting? Many of the 1850s-80s valentines did things inside. They opened up, there were hidden messages, puzzles and more. I personally think that the excitement of the valentines of this era is that they did things. They made valentines that open and open and open and open with hidden messages—up to 13 within it. Victorian cards had a lot of symbolism based on the flowers that were used. If there was a gold ring somewhere in the card, it was essentially a marriage proposal. I have a theory that it was for hiding the messages from the parents. The real “I love you” message was buried much deeper. It was fun for the young lady to search through and find all those messages. You can also imagine the young lady and her beau sitting down together and he’s showing her all the messages. Most of the early ones had professional art work on the front, usually in watercolor, and the rest was left blank for the sender to put their own message. A lot of the early ones have long poems. One we have is a proposal for an elopement from the 1820s. The other one I find interesting has 13 stanzas of a very dark and long poem. It basically says if you reject me and don’t love me, I’ll kill myself. It’s always interesting to me as a collector, how these have survived. It may have been stuck in the bottom of a box for decades, so it really preserved them.

Do you have a favorite era of valentines? The ones I really like are from the 1920s. They started being made around WWI and they are manufactured. They are paper engineered and designed to lay flat and go in an envelope, but they will fold open and have wonderfully clever designs. Some have honeycomb tissue paper and chromolithograph designs—really cleverly done paper engineering. This would be about the same time that Barbara Shermund started to do some of her cartoons for The New Yorker.

What is that you enjoy so much about collecting and exhibiting valentines? We have all gotten valentines over the years—the ones we got in elementary school from classmates, and the ones we received in high school from boyfriends and girlfriends. It’s a tradition that everybody is familiar with, but many people may not be familiar with the history.

Q&A with Caitlin McGurk

1/8/2020

McGurk is the curator of “Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life & Art of Barbara Shermund,” opening on January 25th. She is also an associate curator for outreach & assistant professor at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at Ohio State University.

How did you discover the work of Barbara Shermund? I’ve been researching Barbara Shermund for 7 years. I discovered her work in the archives at the cartoon library, but couldn’t find much about her at all. I started digging up information on this woman’s history. I found out she was one of the most famous and well-respected female cartoonists at The New Yorker. Then she went on to become a mainstay at Esquire.

Tell me about the journey this discovery sent you on. A lot of my scholarship is on women in comics and the representation of women in comics, so when I found out about this extremely talented and accomplished cartoonist, I wanted to uncover her history,

The exhibition itself is a retrospective of her work, while, through the labels, telling her life story. The exhibition is broken down into themes, as she covered a wide range of topics. For example, she would poke fun at high society and modern art and she was the first cartoonist at The New Yorker to cover queer topics. I used those themes from the cartoons and uncovered how those themes related to her personal life.

How did you learn about Shermund’s life, when so little is known about her? I was able to find a couple references to her in a few books, and found out that the New York Public Library in New York City has The New Yorker archive, so I went to New York and did a research stay there, trying to learn about her as much as I could. I did a lot of ancestry research and archival research to try to put together her life story. I was able to connect to Amanda Gormely, one of her living relatives. She was amazingly on the same journey as I was; she was on her own trying to figure out how to put the pieces together. When we connected, it was weirdly serendipitous and we became good friends in the process.

What are you planning on doing with all of the research you have done on Shermund?
I am writing a book, working with the research that started with this exhibition, and expanding on that. Hopefully, it will come out in 2021.

Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life & Art of Barbara Shermund opens at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio on January 25 and runs through April 26, 2020. Admission to DACO is always free.

Renowned Interior Decorative Artist to Restore Original Designs to DACO Parlor, Again

1/4/2020

Artist Cheryl Fey

Before the Reese-Peters House became home to the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio, it sat empty for nearly 40 years, says Cheryl Fey, a professional interior decorative artist who recreated the stencils on the parlor walls of the house 20 years ago and this month is re-creating the stencil work again.

One of the pillars of the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio’s mission is “to preserve and showcase the architecture and collection entrusted to our care.” In keeping with our mission, general maintenance is required in the parlors and so we again called on Fey, a renowned interior decorative artist, to help again.
“When I did (the stenciling) 20 years ago, I kind of assumed that it would outlive me, but we have had some cracking with the plaster and so forth, so the room needs repaired and repainted and I have to do all of the stenciling again,” Fey says.

Keeping the home historically accurate is important to the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio, although its décor surely changed over time. “It looks as it would have if you walked into the room in the 1870s, when the Rising family purchased the home,” Fey says. “As anyone would do, they would update the home when they moved in, and what was popular at the time was Eastlake decorating, setting the tone from getting away from the fancy Victorian stuff with a simpler look,” says Fey. Additionally, stenciling saw a revival during the 1870s, she says.

About the Artist
The self-taught artist came to her 20-year stenciling career in an unusual way. As a high school biology and chemistry teacher at Walnut Ridge High School in the 1970s, she joined a craft club with some of the other teachers. “Stenciling and colonial arts were in revival,” she says. “Each of us (in the club) would research a type of art or craft. I researched stenciling, and taught it to the group and I fell in love with it.”

Fey says her passion lies in historical re-creation of stencils. She has never bought a pre-cut stencil; she creates them all herself. Her passion led her on a journey away from the sciences and toward the arts.

She’s traveled all over working as a well-respected interior decorative artist. Then she created Blue Shoe Arts, working with adults with disabilities who have artistic talent and need practice honing their skills and marketing their work. She also taught folk art at Ohio University Lancaster and at the Decorative Arts Center of Ohio and created commissioned interior decorative art in private homes and healthcare facilities. “I was very blessed to take a God-given talent that I had a passion for to give happiness to people with it,” Fey says.

*All DACO volunteers are welcome to watch Cheryl Fey work in the parlors at 11 a.m. on Jan. 15.

In the Media - December 2019

12/31/2019

We are proud of the media attention we have been receiving for our programs, exhibitions and wonderful staff! Check out our recent mentions:

DACO External Relations Manager Judith Oppenheimer was featured in the Lancaster Eagle Gazette.
Our Christmas with the Ohio Presidents exhibition made the Travel section of the Chicago Tribune.
The Columbus Dispatch explored our Christmas exhibition too.
WOUB interviewed Dr. George Johnson, curator of Christmas with the Ohio Presidents.
Good Day Columbus visited us to kick off the 2019 holiday season.
The Lancaster Eagle Gazette covered our Christmas tree display.