From the NPR studios on the Illinois State University campus, I joined Mike McCurdy of WGLT’s Sound Ideas about the “Frederic Goudy: The Titan of Type” Exhibiton display at the McLean County Museum of History. Listen to the full interview here!
My mentor: Artist Bernadine Medley at exhibit opening program for “Frederic Goudy: The Titan of Type”
The opening program for “The Titan of Type” exhibit was full of friends and family. A special joy was seeing my mentor artist Bernadine Medley.
Ms. Medley is, a brilliant oil painter of portraiture and landscapes. Her watercolor’s style is joyful, colorful and fluid. Her architectural watercolor renderings have been used to build hotels across our nation.
She is famous for painting murals including the St. Jude Children’s Hospital, Memphis murals commissioned by entertainer Danny Thomas.
I met Bernie by chance, home from college on a summer break trying to decide what to major in — accounting or art. My mom suggested I go see Bernie’s one woman art exhibit in Decatur, Illinois.
The show was remarkable and I somehow got the courage to call her for advice. From that moment on Bernie has been my mentor, champion and friend.
“Frederic Goudy: The Titan of Type” McLean County Museum of History October 13 - November 24, 2018
Central Illinois native and Park Ridge resident Rex Parker will present an original, illustrated program, “The Titan of Type,” honoring legendary typeface designer Frederic W. Goudy at 10 a.m. on October 13th at the McLean County Museum of History, 200 North Main Street, Bloomington, Illinois.
Thirty of Parker’s original artworks, designed as posters and inspired by Goudy and his Arts & Crafts era, will be on display at the McLean Museum, Oct. 13 through Nov. 24.
Parker also will be interviewed by Mike McCurdy of WGLT, the Bloomington-Normal affiliate of National Public Radio.
Parker’s dynamic career as a Chicago-area graphic designer and his rural origins in Moweaqua, a small town in central Illinois, have both inspired his affinity with Goudy, another native of the area whose design work took him to Chicago, New York and other major cities during the burgeoning early industrial era.
Parker also shares another connection with the famous type designer. Goudy’s time in the once-rural Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, Illinois brought him in touch with other Arts & Crafts-era talents based in Park Ridge, notably Clara Barck Welles and her renowned Kalo Silversmiths.
“It’s fascinating to me that memorable creative work has often been done in small and rural communities, not just in the major cosmopolitan areas,” Parker says. “We need to support the arts in education everywhere, so that tomorrow’s creative people can develop and share their talents with all of us.”
The marvelous UK site “Death and Mr Pickwick” just posted “Legends of the Pickwick Theatre” posters
Check out the brilliant Death and Mr Pickwick site which just posted posters from my “Legends of the Pickwick Theatre” series. The site which features all kinds of “Pickwickiana” is run by Stephen Jarvis author of the novel “Death and Mr Pickwick,” published by Random House in 2015, which tells the story behind the creation of Dickens’s first novel, “The Pickwick Papers”.
The Typographic Treasure Luc Devroye’s “On Snot and Fonts” adds Goudy Posters to site
Luc Devroye’s “On Snot and Fonts” has long been the the best site about typeface and type design in cyberspace. It was gratifying for him to add poster images from my “Goudy Type A to Z” series to his website.
Dr. Luc P. Devroye is a Belgian computer scientist and mathematician and a James McGill Professor in the School of Computer Science of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Since joining the McGill faculty in 1977 he has won numerous awards, including an E.W.R.
