"Loving Frank".. I loved it!

I finished it. I loved it. I could hardly put it down. I am talking about "Loving Frank," by Nancy Horan.

Writing though Mamah Cheney's point of view was an excellent choice. One could see Mr. Wright in a different light as well learn about Mamah's intellectual achievements were and feel what Mamah's inner struggles, her joys and total sacrifices really were.

Mr. Wright seems the type that is certainly captivating and charismatic and had the ability to sweep anyone around him off their feet. One would be willing to do anything at any price if you were in the right mind set. That is what Mamah did. I was captivated as I read about her inner struggle of separation with her children, trying to rationalize, arguing with herself and then finally seeing what did the relationship cost her, her family, sister, friends and of course her children.

Her book let me wanting to know more. What does the monograph look like or the photo book that he worked on for Wasmuth? What did happen to Mamah's sister? What did Anna Wright do when the tragedy occurred? Did she really have a friend named Mattie?

I liked how she used parts of My Father, Frank Lloyd Wright, by John Wright almost word for word. How his father and Ed Cheney were on the same train to Taliesin after the fire. (I caught the mistake that John had written that Mamah had 2 daughters instead of a daughter and a son. I cross read both books.) I liked how Ms. Horan describes a photo being taken of the working men at Taliesin (pg. 233). I saw the photo on the Wisconsin Historical Society website.

Following are photos that I have taken. They kind of go with the book. I regret that I didn't take a picture of the Cheney home. Next time I go to Oak Park I will do just that. I have used the William Storrer numbering system to identify the houses.

S.074 Aurthur & Grace Heurtly Residence (1902) This is the house that the Cheney house was based on.
Name plate on his studio.

S.004 Frank Lloyd Wright Studio (1897)


S.002 Oak Park Residence (1889)
Valley of the Lloyd Joneses
S.218 Taliesin III (1925) It is easy to see why the name Taliesin, "shining brow" was chosen.
Of the hill..is a most descriptive term.
I put this picture in so that one can see the setting of Taliesin I.
S.134 Andrew Porter Residence, Tanyderi (1907) Meaning under the oaks. Build for his sister Jane and her husband Andrew. This isn't too far from Taliesin.
S.037A Romeo & Juliet II (1938) Rebuilt 1992

I only wish that I were the one to run up the hill. Then I would have seen the view of the valley from Taliesin. It really helped that I have been to Oak Park and Taliesin so I could visualize the settings in the book.

Here are a couple sites that I think are very interesting.


Loving Frank, By Nancy Horan published by Random House

Mr. Storrer's site

Background of Frank and Catherine Wright's marriage

Find Frank Lloyd Wright Buildings

I highly recommend this book. I recommend seeing for yourself whatever Wright buildings that you may come across in your travels. I love the personal discovery of seeing new houses with my own eyes. Reading and researching help make everything come together.
-Kim

Lighting

Most of the time I take exterior photos. Here are two examples of dramatic interiors that I thought I would share.

Gallagher Bluedorn Performing Arts Center, University of Northern Iowa campus, Cedar Falls, Iowa.
This is a look of the Prismatic Pyramids. The creator is Ray King of Philadelphia. I think I will go back and take some more pictures of these sculptures. The window wall lets the outside be a part of the inside.



Lighting enhances Unity Temple in Oak Park Ill. I attended Sunday services
rather than just take a tour. The Rev. Taylor was very warm and welcoming as were other members.

Point of view makes the difference here. Had I only looked straight ahead I would have missed this wonderful composition of the squares and circles. The skylights and dark cross beams. I love the warm yellow gold of the lights that really set this off.
The windows are high to keep the outside out and the inside a place of peace and reflection.


Look all around and use different points of view to find your shot.
Get out and take some pictures.
Kim

Merchants' National Bank, Grinnell, Iowa

This is my discovery for the week. I had never been to Grinnell, Iowa. It seemed a large brick building until you turned the corner and this fantastic terra cotta window and entry treated my eyes.
A little research when I got home told me about the wonder of this Jewel Box Bank and its architect, Louis Sullivan, of Adler and Sullivan, Frank Lloyd Wright's teacher creator of the Schlesinger & Mayer department store, now the Carsen Pirie Scott building in Chicago and the Chicago Board of Trade room.
This is an excellent place to start to learn about this building.



The detail in the building is extraordinary and I am very happy with the reach of the lens.


These pictures are taken with my new Kodak Z712IS and I am very satisfied with the reach of the zoom. My faithful old camera, the Kodak DX7440, veteran of 30,000 pictures, probably would have done just as well. More about the cameras another day.

Go out and take some pictures,
Kim

S. 401 Wyoming Valley Grammar School

This pictures were taken on a visit last September.
Little had changed since my first visit two years ago.

The S. 401, Wyoming Valley Grammar School was built in 1956. It is the only public elementary school that is a FLW design. It contains 2 class rooms with a central loggia. It was able to serve 6o students.

It is made of redwood and concrete block. The original playground equipment is still there, including a teeter-toter.

When looking in the windows the class rooms had a roomy look. I love the glass corners that I have found on so many of his buildings.

It is currently used at a studio of very large and extraordinary wood carvings. I believe they are the stumps and roots of redwoods? I believe there was a For Sale sign posted. I hope that the artist could hang on to the building or maybe he sold it to a caring owner. This is located only about 2 miles south of Hillside School on Highway 23. For more information Check out the Country School Association of America. Very interesting and informative.

If you know the current status of this school, please feel free to comment.

Go out and take some pictures,
Kim

What Is Your Comfort Food?

I attended Christmas eve services with my family as millions of people did the other night. The familiar interior of the sanctuary, singing the hymns that you have memorized over the years and seeing the familiar faces (though they are older) felt just like when you eat comfort food.

This beautiful space is where my love for architecture began. I remember sitting with my parents and siblings and trying to look interested but really what I did most of the time was look at the beams, windows, the texture of the oak and cool smoothness of the marble. I remember when they installed the pipes. What excitement. Counting the different sizes of pipes and instead of listening to the sermon was quite entertaining. When I wasn't counting and I was sketching various views of the santuary on the service folders.

They say over and over that a church is not a building. It is the people. I guess that is some what true. For me, though, the building represents the people and all that it holds from all the years past and its future.

P.S. In the old days they had real trees that went all the way to the ceiling.

Archive: Angel Oak, Johns Island, Charleston County, South Carolina

This massive and majestic oak is said to be over 1,500 years old. Named after former owners Martha and Justis Angel it is probably our countries oldest live oak tree. It stands only 68 feet high but the area of shade covers 17,000 square feet! The longest limb is 89 feet long. Just 12 miles from Charleston it is worth the visit.

Located near the intersection of the Maybank Highway and Bohicket Road / Main Road on Johns Island, SC. Latitude 32.71727, Longitude -79.91917

FLW S.000 Unity Chapel, Spring Green, Wisconsin

1886. Is this FLW's first built design? No one is 100% sure. The interior of the chapel is credited to him as is a perspective drawing. It looks like a Silsbee as he worked for Joseph Silsbee when he first arrived in Chicago. The chapel was already in the works when FLW arrived. How fortunate that his Uncle Jenkins was the preacher of the church.

A tour bus from Taliesin arrives for a tour.
Frank is not here. He use to be here but he was moved to
Taliesin West as per his wife no.3 direction.

August 15, 1914. This is the grave of his love Mamah Cheney, the wife of a client (she divorced by then). Frank Lloyd Wright was in Chicago overseeing Midway Gardens when he received word that there was a fire at Taliesin. But it was far, far worse than that. A deranged worker locked all the doors, set fire to the house and killed Mamah, her two children 4 others with an
ax as they tried to escape. Who is reading Loving Frank by Nancy Horan?

This was the second time I visited the Spring Green area. I didn't learn until later that Ann Baxter is buried here as she is the granddaughter of FLW.

Sources: Frank Lloyd Wright by Ada Louise Huxtable, The Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright A Complete Catalog 3rd Edition, William Allin Storrer

Archive: Art Show

Here are a couple pictures that I found leftover from an art show at the Waterloo Center for the Arts. I gathered commissioned drawings which hung for 5 months while a Frank Lloyd Wright furnishings and art from John Christian's Samara (located in Indiana) was in the main gallery downstairs.

The Lowell and Agnes Walter Residence in Quasqueton, Iowa, 1950 (Storrer Number) S.284, and Walter River Pavilion, 1948, S. 285. Located on the Wapsipinicon River, it is the first Frank Lloyd Wright home that I toured. This home has a signature tile which I included in my drawing. This home was given to the state of Iowa in 1981 after Mr. Walter's death and is now called Cedar Rock Park.

This is another wall of drawings all in technical pen and ink. I enjoyed seeing these houses as I hadn't seen them framed. -k

Summer House

Here is a house that I drew this summer for an anniversary present. This is right before I added the last trees, fence and sky. I really like how the windows turned out and the texture of the stucco. If I find a picture of the finished version I will post that one.
-kim

Pictures...and more pictures.

It has been quite awhile since my last post. Can it really be a more than a year already?
In the meantime, I have been taking pictures of all of my favorite subjects: family, kittens, Frank lloyd Wright and other architecture, bike racing, the students at the school I work at and scouting events.

Here is a picture of the outside of the Park Inn Hotel in Mason City, 1909 S.156. The interior picture is of the lobby. I chanced upon a great opportunity to be included in a tour of the hotel last month. Dr. Robert McCoy was my tour guide. I had spoken to him a couple times about the hotel and other matters FLW. It was a real pleasure to meet him. He is the driving spirit behind funding for renovation for this wonderful structure that actually was a model for other buildings to follow.

Now that I have recovered my username, password, and relearned how to post I will put some other pictures up.
Best wishes,
Kim

Adding some color

This is the house that is on the board as of a few minutes ago. This will be drawn two times in Prismacolor markers and pencils. They go fairly fast. But you have to think about them opposite of pen and ink. Meaning that pen and ink you draw from foreground to back and with color it is back to front. I'll have to look at my notes but I think she wants it done in 2 different seasons. and from 2 slightly different angles. That will be for the better.

The last house, as always took longer than I thought. Wow the tiny bricks were fun to draw, though I had to take numerous breaks and look away and get away. Didnt have to resort to running away though.

Back to the drawing board!
kim

Split level
Posted by Hello

Brick Duplex
Posted by Hello

Trees in spring
Posted by Hello

Tree is a tree is a tree

In celebration of mothers everywhere- for better or worse, I took the weekend off from the drawing board.
Instead I dropped in at our Troop campout, went for a walk and looked at trees and houses, and had KFC 2 times in one day. Im not sure if all grandmothers love the Colonel Sanders but my mom and mother-in-law both do. So we had it morning and night. I took pictures of every event, of course. Im always looking for the right light. I hit it lucky and took one very good picture of my brother-in-law.
On the walks in the neighborhood and in the nature reserve it is pictures of trees. One would think a tree is a tree is a tree but if you take the time to look -trees are facinating. Textures of bark and leaves, composition, shape of trunk, their relationship to their neighbors and on and on. I never noticed trees that much untill I had to draw them. Since they are usually infront of a house they have to be drawn first. Sometimes they are very close to the viewer and detail is what make a tree their tree. People really notice and have said that trees really add to the feeling that this is a custom drawn home complete with all the trees they loved or hated all those years. All in all people are proud of their lawns and their trees.

Back to the drawing board,
Kim

Here is what is on the drawing board now. Quite a few homes look "easy" at first glance but after you get into it you realize the layers of line and surface. What is infront of what, where do the lines go, where are the vanishing points, what would best represent texture and tone, what should I leave out or move.
In this case the flag pole was dead center once I had the sketch layed out. It is moved to the right about a 1/4 inch. Not a big deal and it is still in the middle but it isn't in the exact middle anymore. I did take out the birch in the front as I don't think that would add anything to the composition. Another challenge for me, always, is flags. I really give those allot of thought before any ink goes down. For such a small area I want the flow of the fabric without it looking over worked. Most importantly I want it to look natural.

These last couple weeks of spring I have been studying trees. I love observing the baby leaves. The structure of the tree is out in the open but not bare naked. The wide variety of greens makes me wonder why people don't drive around looking at spring foliage instead of fall. I like spring better and think the colors are the same level if not better than fall.

Back to the drawing board,
Kim

Brick duplex
Posted by Hello

Finished this one early yesterday morning. The lightness of the bricks on the left is thanks to a pen that didnt want to work. This house has a ton of trees. Infact, I took aout a major bush that hid most of the patio and door and another oak that was in front of the veritcal windows on the left. I am happy in the result of this one.
Posted by Hello

Architect Studio 3D, from the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust

Here is an interesting website. It works slow though and makes you want to go buy a real house planner program. The information and quotes are kind of neat. Gives alittle insite to what how FLW thought
and what the process is.

I am happy to say that I finished the contempory house. For some reason it took way too long. Problem pens and just trying to do too much is the reason actually.

The next drawing is already on the board. A brick duplex that faces NE. Mostly garage from that view but if you are on the bike trail that runs behind you can see how it opens up.

I get to play single parent for a bit so I'm hoping it doesnt take too much drawing time.

Later,
Kim

Architect Studio 3D, from the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust

Comtempory house, 1962. View is from the south. 

FLW Roadtrip

FLW Roadtrip

As I was looking at FLW buildings in Racine, Wisconsin I remembered that I had this site saved. If any one wanted to research select buildings this site is a good place to start. I am excited with the prospect of seeing the S. C. Johnson building this June. There is a Sea Scout event in Racine and I immediately thought of the couple buildings that are there. The photography on this site is very good. They truly capture both interiors and exteriors. I see he recently added the Museum of the American Indian on the Mall in Washington DC too. I too have pictures but was limited with lenses that day. Something to do on the next trip in DC.

Speaking of Washington DC, on of my favorite cities...... everything I could ask for with its art, architecture, history and government all in walking distance. My eyes were popping and my brain whirling the first visit. Wow!! Everything that I had read about and seen pictures of for years right there in front of me. Details to follow on another day.

For the moment though, I am working on a contempory house that is about 2 miles east of me. Set back from the street and hidden by trees. It faces south but I am drawing it from the west and deleted a huge tree. I got a new .18 tech pen the other day. It seems as thought they only lasted a month. Last year I had a pen that lasted most of the fall. Hopefully I can finish it this week as I need to move on to my next commission.

I am getting my comission calendar firmed up for the rest of the year. If I dont procrastinate too much it should all work out just fine.

Working part time at junior high works well as it leaves some nice chucks of time to draw or run out and take reference pictures or whatever. They are already talking about the fall schedule for next year. It will all work out probably at the last minute. But thats the way it is working for school. Its all about the numbers.

Till next time. -k