All right. Hi, everyone. Welcome to another beautiful fall day. I mean, is this not nice? My goodness. October's been just as lovely as September wasn't a couple of very brief reminders. Winter lights that email that I was promising you is going out later today. That's December 15, which is a Thursday at five o'clock. And if you go online to get tickets, it's not difficult really just make sure you pick the right time. If you want to join us, we'd love to have you cell phones, please turn those off. And I just wanted to thank Alice in advance for the tour that she's going to be giving us a week from tomorrow on the very topic that she's going to be speaking on now. This is awesome. So now too many things in my hand. Okay, plus no light. Oh boy. Alice Boone is a curator of education and public programs at the Fleming Museum. She organizes learning opportunities and programming for K through 12 students and teachers, college students and faculty and community visitors of all ages. She's got to be busy right. She engages classes across the disciplines at UVM finding creative ways for more than 60 classes each semester to use the museum's collections and spaces for object study performance creative response and critique. She's a PhD in English and comparative literature from Columbia and taught college English and writing for several years at Harvard College UCLA and the University of Delaware. Before moving into the museum field, where she was most recently the woman's board fellow at the Art Institute of Chicago. She co curated the Fleming 2020 exhibit reckonings and curated the Rockwell Kent exhibit currently on view at the museum the subject of today's talk. Give a warm welcome please to Alice Boone is that this is on. Thank you all. Thank you all for having me and thank you for the many people who helped organize today's talk. I have, I have corresponded with many of you about planning today and then about planning the November 5 tour or tours that will will do with the museum. I hope today will be a kind of taste for that might entice you to come next Saturday because of course, these pieces will be looking at them on PowerPoint, where they're where they're actually quite large, but looking at them in person is is is a really unrivaled experience because they're such extraordinary pieces. I'm going to be talking about the title. Well, the title of this presentation is the iconic woodcuts of Rockwell Kent from the Ralph C nemmick collection at the Fleming right now we have these on display as one of our fall exhibitions. Ralph nemmick has the largest Rockwell Kent collection of prints in the world, and has generously loaned them to us for this exhibition. You'll see in a few minutes that I actually have a little asterisk for today. And it's, it's about that terminology of a woodcut will be diving deeply today into what that term means, and how Rockwell Kent grew to master the form. So some of you may be familiar with Kent's work in his in painting. He's well known for his landscapes, especially those of northern climates. He spent considerable amounts of time in Greenland in Southern Arctic Antarctic and it's in tiered El Fuego in Alaska. And with these paintings there they're really extraordinary oil paintings that are marvels of illumination of snow so that you can really see light glinting off of a glacier off of a snow scene and show you many many different tonalities of blue and gray and yellow is the illumination of the sun. He spent time in Alaska made this piece. And as he is enjoying the kind of solitude of living on a nearly alone on an island in Alaska with his young son and just one other person, where they chopped their own wood and caught their own fish to eat. So he received a package from a friend. Carl's a grocer sent him a package that contained a kind of provocation for him. It was his, his aggressors charged to his friend was, Why don't you try your hand at wood engraving. So he sent him wooden blocks. He sent him engraving tools paper ink and any other tools he might need. This is a provocation for someone who is used to doing things in these amazing shades of blue and gray. And really, and many, many other shades that oil paints afford him. And instead of a woodcut or wood engraving really gives you two values to work with black and white. So, we wonder, you know, why would his friends send him a provocation like that it nearly feels like a kind of creative dare. Well, Kent had actually been studying the wood engraving and woodcut forms. Here's what we have is a list of all of the books that he brought with him to Alaska. And as you're looking at his library. I heard some wows from the audience. I, you know, because I have that background in literature, I always want to know what's in someone's library. But when I look at this list, I, you know, I'm very struck by it. Because what we can see is that he's studying the works of people like Albrecht Durer, the great German woodcut artist, or William Blake, who didn't work in wood engravings but did work in plate engravings for all of his extraordinary contributions to the engraving genre with these nearly apocalyptic apocalyptic images. We see him reading a number of great epics, the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Edda. We see him reading a lot of Nietzsche. The steak there thruster, one of those key books of existential German philosophy. This would come to really combine all together all of these sources in his library and it would give him his iconic style. And this is his very first wood engraving. And if this were my first try at wood engraving, I feel like I'd be really proud of myself. And one of the things that I, you know, I always like to ask people when we're looking at it is, how did he take his talents from being a painter into this very constrained form of having to engrave on the surface of a block. And the other things that would show absence that would reveal themselves as white when it was printed, but then the rest of the block is, is, is present so that you have most mostly black here. So how did he take that painting talent and apply it to a woodcut. Well, I see him striving for those moody skies that he shows so well in the landscapes, but he doesn't have blue or gray anymore. He said he has only black and white and so he makes these finely incised lines that nearly show a kind of moving sky behind the child picture here.  So we're working with the modeling of curves and muscles on the child's body. He gets a strong dark outline around the child's form, but then you can really see the illumination raking across the child's body so that you can see every curve every little every little bone that's illuminated there. We see him playing around with a texture, let's say in the child's hair that curly cue that he repeats again and again. That's him working out a kind of stylistic flourish that actually is quite hard to do if you're thinking about the grain of wood, working in those curly cues is really sort of breaking that grain apart. There are many other elements that I find really fascinating about this first wood, woodblock engraving. But one of them is especially that little steeple at the bottom there, nearly looks like we're in Vermont. And, and Kent himself spent time in Vermont but I have a feeling that it's actually a different kind of reference. I think that it's a reference to Albrecht Durer, who was the great German woodcut artist who Kent studied as he's beginning to make these, these early wood engravings. And you see that Durer, I've copied it here it's a little blurry because it's a low resolution image, but Durer repeats these steeples from the German hillside in so many of his wooden or woodcuts. And this is obviously a much more technically ambitious and subject. It's a very ambitious subject itself. But I see Kent really learning from his, the person that he modeled his work after, and including these little stylistic flourishes to show his debt to to Durer. One of the nice things about having a PowerPoint presentation is that I can show you these references that aren't actually in the show itself, but they get you, they get to help you make sort of deeper connections to things. All right, well, here's where the asterisk appears in today's presentation. There's a there's a terminology difference between a wood cut, which is cut with the grain of a block of wood if you think of carving into a plank of wood, you can see the way that the grain sort of makes these nearly strong horizontal lines so that you're pulling out splinters of wood versus carving into the grain itself of the end grain. That is the short grains is so you flipped that plank of wood over. That allows you to get a much finer engraving and finer line moved into the wood. Use these terms interchangeably he actually wrote a book called how I make a wood cut while working almost predominantly in the wood engraving genre. And so sometimes even in the Fleming's collection, those terms get used interchangeably and they actually are quite different in not only their technique, but also in what you notice about them. There's just one example that is in this Fleming show. Here we have a great example of a wood cut by the artist Ron Slayton was a Vermont artist who is work really flourished during the works progress administration. And you can see that that Slayton style looks nothing like Al Richter. He's going for these sort of rough hewn gouges in wood. He is cutting with the grain of wood so that he can pull out large splinters of it. We spend a little bit of time on Slayton's work in the Fleming show and I'm excited for you all to see that in person if you if you come next Saturday. In order to not only show you the stylistic difference, but also to think about how this idea of what a wood cut could be became so popular for artists like Kent and Slayton, even as they work in different aesthetics, as they're thinking about how to get art made accessible to a wide group of people starting really in the 1920s and 30s. There's an idea of how to have you make art accessible to everyone, which I feel like is a great topic for this group, right, education and enrichment for everyone. This is a key idea for Kent himself. He's thinking about how only one person say sees a painting, or only one person possesses a painting. If you make prints, then many people can have access to owning and appreciating art, so he can make additions of say 75 or 100 and distribute them.  He and many artists are experimenting with these means of reproduction and they don't see it as copying. Everyone gets an original because every pole of a print is actually slightly different from another based on the way that the ink is applied based on the print that's made. So he sees this as everyone having access to originals and the engraving process for him as a way of redistributing access. This is another one of Kent's kind of iconic images, and you'll see how different it is from that, that bluebird print that we began with. One of the obvious differences is that this is a black outline on a mostly white print, whereas the other that we saw was mostly white lines on a black background. One of the real difference here is that in this, in this print, most of the surface of the wood has been removed, so that only the outline is left as a relief, so that it's printing only that black outline. Whereas in the others, right, we have that black background and the, the incised designs were actually done in white. That's in the other kind that white on black, but this one is notable I think for him again once again trying that star illumination. This will become again a kind of icon for him. So here he has these white stars illuminated by this dark outline and then this hints of the illumination around them. Here I think that he's really referencing the great English poet, radical and engraver William Blake. So if you remember the songs of innocence and experience and William Blake loved this figure of the lamb as a kind of poetic icon of childhood innocence and Kent was drawn to that as well. William Blake is an engraver who really finds ways of experimenting with all kinds of graphic design on his pages made at the end of the 18th century. So he writes his poems and then he has these illuminations around it. But he also has much more apocalyptic scenes. This is from an engraved edition of the book of Job. And I won't spend too much on it I really only want to draw your attention to the stars at the top. Those stars look familiar don't they. This is a kind of visual reference that Kent is pulling from and then remaking in his own work. Here you see another this is another William Blake engraving from that book of Job, and the illumination behind that top figure's head. Well, an artist like Kent who's drawn so much to illumination on snow is now drawn to how you do that in a wood engraving. Here is Kent working from paint form. The ways that the rays radiate out in these concentric circles and making these shapes across the water. And here is Kent adopting that in this wood engraving style. So again, he only has two values, black and white. It's kind of creative challenge for him as to how to make this illumination look like this. So I believe he really turns to William Blake to think about those things, but a piece like this, this is called Twilight of Man. It is a, it's an illustration that he made wood cut wood would engraving illustration for a poem by Thomas Hardy that imagines kind of the end of humanity. And what I find really striking about this is that for Hardy, the poet, the end of humanity is this moment of sort of grief, maybe somewhat somewhat of nostalgia, but Kent has turned it into a scene of real beauty I think here. And I see that really in those rays that are illuminating from the moon. And nearly you can't really tell whether this is day or night at first you can see the stars on the dark part of the background, but this dark sun or dark dark moon that's radiating black rays just feels like such a revelation as a as a as a kind of artistic experiment to make illumination with black on white. The moonlight is raking across this figure who slumbering for Thomas Hardy the poet this slumbering was a kind of a reproach of humanity, but I see something more hopeful and Kent's image. And this is illuminating him and turning him into one with the landscape so that you can nearly not tell who's a hill and who's a person here. This is again that modeling that we noticed in the first wood engraving that he did here he's really adopted it and it's something that's even more abstract. Here is the lovers from 1928. And once again we have that illumination, breaking across these bodies so that they once again looked abstract and artists like Kent is used to painting landscapes and so he always wants to find where his light is, but he's actually bringing many other professional experiences into this work he was a set designer, and this to me looks like a stage set, or even something like it's anticipating noir film. 20 years later, so he's thinking about how how bodies are lit. This is a woodcut that is mostly that black background. These slivers of the illuminated faces and bodies pop out from that very, very dark inky inky rectangle around them. All right, well, here's the pop quiz. Since we're now experts in what is a woodcut and what is a wood engraving. I want to ask you, what medium is this. This is a wood engraving because I told you that Kent makes very, very few woodcuts. All right. This is a this I like to call this a Fleming mystery. Oh yes. Don't they, because they're how he makes that that sky right this is something that would cut artists have done for centuries is made that that gray sky out of those finally in sized white lines but they're irregular here that seemed to suggest that it's the splinters that have been gouged out. This is a Fleming mystery. Because in our collections database that has all the information about these pieces. This is listed as a woodcut. But knowing what I had researched about Rockwell Kent I was I thought to myself, well, is it really a woodcut because that would be rare. I did not know how deep this mystery was going to get. Because I went to Rockwell Kent own book of his works, where he talks about his process there are a number of essays that he's written about the about his technique but also his wider social work. And he describes this piece. It's actually a little it's a little tiny thumbnail of it in the book as a pen and ink drawing, and I was flummoxed. And so I started inviting people to the museum to hear their thoughts on it and feel like figure out what their hypotheses were. I guess I'm saying this on television. I touched it, which you're not really supposed to do I did it with gloves on. I just wanted to see where the ink sat on the page. Because if it were, you know I felt like I could maybe see the, or feel the way that the ink was sitting there was it had been pressed on had it was it sitting on top of the page. Could I feel the maybe the strokes of the pen. I smelled it to see if the if the scent of woodblock ink was still there. It's about 100 years old so no. And then I went to, you know I went to Google, and I did a reverse image search of it. And it turned up actually as a poster image that Kent had designed in 1921. For the junior arts league. But that didn't quite help me, because it didn't tell me what the original was. This was given to the Fleming Museum by a man named Henry Schnackenberg, who was a Vermont artist spent quite a bit of time in New York was friends with Rockwell Kent, and who gave the Fleming many, many objects in the collection. And so we thought well okay Henry Schnackenberg is his friend so maybe this is the original and we're we have a number of original drawings that Schnackenberg gave us maybe this is it. Then I found at the Minnesota Institute of Art that they have the original pen and ink drawing. So that that then led to the question what is this. This is a photo mechanical reproduction of a pen and ink drawing meant to look like a woodcut. And that might seem very esoteric, but the deeper question for me is, why, why would he make a photo mechanical reproduction of a pen and ink drawing meant to look like a woodcut. You know as I looked more into his work, I found that he did this all the time. So, in his book Wilderness, which is his account of living in Alaska. You see him making these kinds of illustrations this too looks like a woodcut, but this is also a pen and ink drawing. So he's mimicking the form of a woodcut in order to work out this aesthetic. It's very important to him. That aesthetic confers authenticity. That is, it confers the kind of labor that goes into engraving into a block of wood. It confers the authenticity of calling back to Albrecht Durr or to the, the, the radical printmaker William Morris in the 19th century who really tied woodcut aesthetics to the labor of of tilling in the fields. So just as this little harvester figure here has a scythe, Kent is pretending that he himself has a gouge that is gouging into a block of wood. He does this work over and over again in his career. And it becomes a kind of aesthetic that confers that that sense of solidarity with laborers with the toughness of making all of these wood engravings. But he uses that aesthetic to make all of the illustrations for Moby Dick. He makes 280 of them, all of them mimicking that woodcut style. This piece, this drawing of the Ubermensch from Friedrich Nietzsche's The Spake Thera Thrustra. This is a kind of meditation he was making again in Alaska as he's doing all of this deep reading and transforming his own aesthetics. And this figure will recur over and over again in Kent's work such that it nearly becomes a kind of calling card for him. And the editors of Vanity Fair called an indelibly Rockwell Kent figure. This, this illustration is a lithograph which is a different kind of print. The Fleming show has many of those and I will be excited to show you all those there. And they included him here because you recognize him as he recurs across Kent's work. He is the strong massive silhouette, the dogmatic line, the note of mysticism, the tactical hardness, almost a woodenness. So here's that would again, all employed in the presentation of a lonely dramatic and mysterious figure of man thrust up against the desolate inimical sky. This figure will recur in Kent's work. Here he is on a ship. I, these two figures have really captivated people as they have come to visit the Fleming, and they captivated Kent's, Kent's admirers at the time, as he adapted both of these figures into multiple book plates for private commissions. I love this figure because he, he's not quite the same as that tactical hardness of the man that we saw on the cliff in pinnacle just now. This figure seems to be poised between grasping aspiration, right that hand that's reaching into the hand into the sky or hands, and then repose of lying probably on the deck of a ship. One knee raised ready to spring into action but also one knee down in order to rest. These two figures really like they're illuminated by that starry sky behind him. Notice he's not making those symbol symbolic stars with the five points anymore. He's grown more confident in his ability to create different kinds of illumination such that we see something like the Milky Way behind him in one seat, or this undulating flame and the other. When you look up close at these in person, you'll see that he's carved these very, very, very fine white lines that suggest the rays coming off of the flame here. It's not too hard to see in a kind of blown up PowerPoint. That's how fine they are. That's the craft that we're really thinking about.  Well, he calls this his, his style, and other other curators who've worked with with Kent Kent's work have called it a kind of dark sublime, a trembling in awe before the inky darkness. And the illumination is just there to show you a bright way to go, but it's, it's small in comparison to the large sea that's around you. I think that he's really drawing from the kind of dares that Japanese woodblock print makers would give each other to create different kinds of illumination in their own woodblock engravings. So the Japanese woodblock engravers like Hiroshi, or Suzuki Cassone here. They, they're notable this is in color of course, but they're always trying to find different ways of showing illumination of fire on water, or of fireworks, or other kinds of illumination. It's nearly a kind of creative constraint, like the one that Kent was working with. And here he's really working in just black and white. So this is Bow Sprint from 1930. More of that milky way illuminating the figure here. The light source is showing off every kind of every kind of muscle in his calf. But for those realists in the audience, we're wondering, what is he doing. He's been on the, on the, on the bow, on the bastard home with, with only lit by the Sun, or only lit by the stars around him. What is he up to. What is he up to here clinging to the mast with the other rays of some kind of illumination around him. What are these figures. Well, I'm sure that no one here is going to guess that these were originally yacht advertisements. So Rockwell Kent is not showing you the product in this advertisement. He's showing you the aspiration, the sense of freedom of liberation.  So these are made as advertisements for American car and foundry they ran actually without text. So you're just seeing the image just seeing the getting the feeling of what he wants to present to you. And this was such a popular initially confounding ad campaign that it actually was celebrated in an advertising annual as advertising that breaks the rules. So it's not going to present. This is what the luxury yacht is here all the gleaming, you know, the gleaming mechanisms of it. No, it's showing you the sense of what you might aspire to or imagine if you were on it. His advertising career really paid his bills, and it made his work iconic. That is it appeared in in magazines like Vanity Fair both as advertisements but also as his work in house illustrator. It appeared in Christmas cards. Rockwell Kent loved Christmas. And, you know, he loved Christmas for I think sentimental family reasons, but I think also because it was a perfect place for him to try out as many forms of this illumination is possible. So here's a child reaching to put the star on top of a Christmas tree. This mystery has been rendered nearly abstract is just a black triangle with these little candles illuminating it. And really the focus is on again that sense of aspiration of reaching for something. And there is another form of that black on white on black, where, instead of being illumination of stars were actually seeing underwater. So this is bubbles from a whale in an inky sea. And in my initial asterisk. This looks like a woodblock print in the way that he's made these finely in size lines like we saw in that initial bluebird, but is in fact a pen and ink drawing. Kent made those 280 illustrations for Moby Dick over four year period. That's a lot of illustrations for a very big book. The creativity to be showed in creating 280 different illustrations to show that the real encyclopedic nature of Melville's book, just really inspiring. It became a kind of icon of the story itself, arguably that lakeside press edition, which is published in three editions in 1930, really helped make Moby Dick into a canonical American novel, where it had initially been thought of as a failure when it was first published in the 19th century. So, these images, these icons of it helped bring it into the American consciousness as a quintessentially American story. I love these pen and ink drawings that again look like woodcuts, just for the kind of variety of the action here. Melville's name doesn't even appear on the on the on the cover. It's so much a Kent production. Kent continues making these kinds of commercial endeavors. Here is a Christmas gift that he he produced as a it's essentially it's a gift for the employees of the The Wirehouser Timber Company. Everyone got a PR escrow wood engraving as a gift that would appreciate in value later on. The Wirehouser escrow is another it's a it's essentially it's an adaptation of the wood engraving form where you're printing with two colors that that ochre, and then the black in order to produce different kinds of illumination and shadow. And it's a it's a technique that many, many different kinds of many different artists have experimented in. But I love how here he takes that again that inimical sky, the hard wooden man, and here he is actually chopping wood. And the way that the color washes across him only enhances that stylistic iconicity that Kent's work has. Again, not a wood engraving but I thought I would share it with you all as Vermonters, because in 1936 Kent, who had attained some fame as an artist, but also as a labor supporter and leftist artist. Kent was called to West Rutland by the strike aid committee for the workers who were on strike against the proctor marble company. They had been on strike for months they weren't receiving wages and so the strike aid committee asked Kent to come in and raise awareness, and also money by selling editions of his artwork. To promote the workers cause Kent was more than happy to do so he had actually supported the lakeside press workers, that is the people who had produced Moby Dick. In their own strike earlier in that in that decade. So here this 1936 illustration focuses on the workers families and the and the and the hardship that it created for them. This is the design itself, but it says 1775 and one corner and then the date of the strike 1936 and the other 1775 is a key kind of date for Kent to refer to, especially for Vermonters because it links the work the strikers with Ethan Allen. So he quotes Allen below in the name of Jehovah and the continental crop Congress. So he's linking Ethan Allen that sort of into marker of independence in Vermont with these strikers, which is a very canny move on his part because the strike had divided the town. And so he provides a kind of figure that they can all aspire to that unites them. And then he, he and others preside over this public hearing where workers shared their stories. He also produced illustrations that were similar to this one. This is the cover of new masses from 1937. This is workers of the world unite. And, you know, to compare this to Kent's first woodblock illustration from the from from 1918 is really to see him recurring many of those stylistic flourishes. Clouds of smoke in the inimical sky that's behind him, but he's still showing off that technique of all the different ways that he can illuminate something that is immaterial. Then we have this figure who's lit such that you can see every single muscle modeled. He's carrying a shovel, he's poised and ready for action he has that that landscape behind him. But I always wonder, where are the other workers here. Right. This is about solidarity. It's about like promoting unions. Then where are the other ones. But remember that initial description from Vanity Fair of the single man thrust up against the sky. Because though Kent really can't. He can't do groups of people in the same way that he can do these single single figures. And maybe that's actually the constraint of working in a woodblock which is a relatively small format. So he decides to focus on one to give you that sense of people unified. I love my presentation because that is that that's sort of where we get to with Kent's woodcuts, but I would engravings as we as we now know. But I am eager to show you more of his lithographs which extend his political art making as, as you're able to come to the Fleming. I'm happy to take any questions now. Yes. Do you want to hold off one second so we can get this so we can all hear. What do you think the 1775 to 1936 meant right there on that picture. So I believe he's linking this date of another question. I he's linking the date of the strike with Ethan Allen's own. Last of defiance in Vermont. So he's linking the Continental Congress and the move to remove themselves from the yoke of the British with removing themselves with from the yoke of the boss here in Rutland. So this is his, this is his tie to Vermont's favorite son, Ethan Allen here. Okay, and on the pre preceding picture. I've never seen that word before the failure. The failure, or was it follow follow. Oh, that's an L. Okay, then I get it. Yep, he's he's a he's working on the tree as a, as a timber man there. I'll comment on the last picture that you showed us the solitary man has so much more impact than any group could ever have had. I agree with you I think that's why Kent bras from it, iconically, even as he is a part of many, many unions or many unions, and is always supporting solidarity of groups of people, his icon really can only be a single solitary person here. I'm wondering if I'm going way back here now, if, but if a copy of one of his woodcuts or wood blocks was shown in the written candied. Oh, I'm so glad that you asked because candied is my favorite book. His Kent indeed produce the illustrations for candied. They are fine. Pan and ink drawings that don't do many of the same kind of dramatic skies here. Instead they're very simple. These are some of my favorite, it's my favorite edition of Candied and I've seen nearly every edition of Candied I curated the Candied at 250 years show at the New York Public Library several years ago. So I got to see every edition and every way that those unusual vignettes from that globetrotting story are illustrated Kent produced 95 color hand colored illustrations for that for the first edition of Candied in 1928. And there's, you know, there's 95 of them. So there's not that many UVM library the special collections has a first edition of the non color edition, which itself very special and very beautiful to look at, but it's not the hand colored one. My favorite thing about the candy that Kent produced is that, and you'll have to see this if you come to the exhibit is that he produced these little tiny and they're smaller than, they're smaller than my fingernail little figures that are in every next to every sentence. They just seem to be that everyone is in a different pose. He calls them dingbats, so that it appears that there's little tiny figures floating among the text. And if you recall the story of Candied is about what humanity looks like in 1759 after the earthquake to see all of these writhing figures is to be reminded of humanity, literally in every line. He really speaks to what a special, what a special illustrator he was that he worked so intimately on book design with with printers who who who were creating the book. His woodblock printer Elmer Adler, who kind of every printer has to have every time an artist makes a print they really often work with master printers in order to make sure that the, you know, the press is working correctly. His collaboration with Elmer Adler who did all of his would would block engravings was a friendship that would last him for for his life, and would create many professional opportunities for him, including working on these deluxe editions so Elmer Adler was not only a master printer he was really more of like an impresario who created these opportunities professional opportunities for Kent to try his hand at different kinds of printing. In the slide, the destiny of destiny of man. On the left of the structure, the woodcut.  I'm wondering if this is making reference to skyscrapers, or to maybe stone heads type of things or did he meant to read it as a question mark. That's a great question I guess I have always seen them as stonehenge like, but I love this possibility that they also could be more contemporary and that we're actually the ambiguity of the image, just something that artists kind of love to play around with the ambiguity is whether it is something that is calling back to an elemental part of man, or to something that man has produced. And it's a great. It's, I feel like I'll, I'll, I'll use that line and the rest of my tours. Because I think that's a great ambiguity to question there most people have tended to see it as stonehenge as messalists, or is something monolithic, but it is indeed more than that. And in how it is reaching both to the past and to the, to the possibility of no future. Speaking of ambiguity, what I see in that picture is to the left our left of the moon or the light is praying hands at just you can see fingers. That's wonderful. That's really wonderful is that again that the way that the light illuminates and then suggests figures really does give you the opportunity to see, to see more in a rock face. Speaking of this picture since you have it up. I'm also seeing what sort of like a claw like hand underneath the skyscrapers or the stonehenge. Moving back toward the body. What I really wanted to ask about though was the, the one with the mast. Just really strikes one as a cross. I wondered if that was reading too much into it. No, I don't think it's reading too much into it at all. You know, cross is never just across right. And if this one, this one I find very interesting because he actually makes a painting form of it, 10 years earlier, more than 10 years earlier, which really it doesn't have this same kind of virtuosity of the the rays illuminating and the waves beneath him. It really does focus only on the figure and the mass the cross above him. And I, I, you know, this does have all of that Christian symbolism, but my I actually always goes downward to the virtuosity of the waves behind him and the rays. I nearly feel a kind of competition between Kent and that Christian image imagery, where it's there, but he really wants to show off how he can do waves. One more, if I may, the, the fall or again, it's sort of unclear to me what he's standing on. It appears to be like a plank set into the middle of the height of the tree. That's what it is. That's the, that's the technology that they were using. Why so many timber company workers went on strike for, for their for added safety precautions. And I actually I never looked into it to see whether the wire house or timber company workers ever went on strike like so many of the other actual Americans and companies that he produced imagery for, like they did like Lakeside Press, or like us steel. We don't have any of the us steel would would engravings in the Fleming show, but he produced these again these like very muscular people working at the steel yard. Very same year us steel goes on strike, which for and for someone who is working for them who's getting a paycheck for them but who also supports labor rights is actually kind of a it's a it's a productive generative contradiction that he has to work through as an artist. And then goes to the technique of how did he do this, and artists often make sketches beforehand of how they do. And so, do you know whether they did, they'd work with white paint on dark on dark paper, black paper or. Next question. I don't know the answer to that. I, you know I've seen the painting versions of some of these when he he's essentially adapting his own work, but I have not seen the sketches of any of the wood engravings. I've seen the sketches that he made for Moby Dick and for Candide which were, you know, pencil drawings that then turned into pen and ink drawings, but his tech, like his process for sketching out what a wood engraving looks like. I, that's a great thing to look more into. You have to think in reverse. Exactly. In the Fleming exhibition, we have a whole room of Vermont artists who are responding to Kent's work, or taking up that same question as to how you produce originals in print form for more people to show social messages. So Ron Slayton, this woodcut artist is one of those artists, but Francis Colburn, whose name might be familiar to some of you as a Vermont artist, we actually have this wonderful, wonderful demonstration kit that he produced for the works progress administration. That is how you make a wood engraving, and he shows the white paint on a black background in taking you through the steps of how you make a wood engraving he does a very tiny little block to show you the process, but this demonstration box would have been used as a teaching aid for people to realize that anybody can make a woodcut. That turns out not to be true. As I have tried to make a woodcut and ran the gouge through my thumb. But many people can make a woodcut. Anyway, these these demonstration boxes we found in the Fleming's collection we also have a how to make a lithograph and how to make a lino cut, which is a linoleum print, and they are wonderful artifacts of the works progress administration. This sense of sending artists out to teach others to make art to democratize the art making process. And just, you know, they they they've they've seen where, because they were used in and traveled around, but they're incredible artifacts of this belief of this experiment really to put art and art making tools in the hands of many people. And to see them as just a real delight. Great, we have a zoom question. In what ways, if any work hence artworks influenced by the wartime experiences of Americans. Oh, that's a great question. And it's one that I think is especially illustrated in his lithographs which I didn't include in this presentation. And as a leftist artist, he raised the alarm, let's say, of the rise of fascism during the Spanish Civil War in the in the 1930s, as the Nazis came to power. He has a really remarkable painting that was then turned into a lithograph a print. It's called heavy heavy hangs over thy head of a sleeping baby with a gun, a rifle suspended over its head, and then a rat, gnawing at the strap that's holding the rifle. This is in 1945, as an illustration of just the kind of the, the, the, the dread that is setting upon people. He warns against the rise of fascism in the United States, as he's called to testify for the House of Un-American Activities Committee. And then he, he refuses to answer their questions and says he's not a communist, but he pays the price professionally for that has his passport revoked and ends up actually sending much of his work over to the Soviet Union. So that wartime experience. It doesn't radicalize him because he was already radical but it gives him the opportunity to use the printmaking medium to spread a message in as many different forms of media as possible that baby, the heavy heavy hangs over is over thy head. It sounds like a grim idea but it was actually a Christmas card. It was his Christmas card in 1945. And that's that's what the wartime experience had done to him. Anyone else. This has been terrific. Really, really interesting. Thank you so much, Alice. Thank you. Thank you all. And I really do encourage you to come to the Fleming if you can, or his works are available so widely that it's wonderful to just sort of search out and see how many different pieces he made. And how ubiquitous his style could become as he worked in advertising book illustrates book illustrations and political illustrations. Next Saturday. Yes, yes. And I said to Betty that I would be happy to do one at 130 if there were too many people because we want to have a nice intimate conversation like this one has been. Um, so I'm happy to do it twice if there if there's a lot of people who are interested. And we checked out the parking. And there's a good sized lot that seems to not be that busy between the island chapel and the Fleming. So there's a there's a. What if you were going towards the lake on cochester Avenue past the hospital there is a town there it's not marked for the name that leads you into really I think there'll be plenty of parking. I, if you use that lot between the Fleming and that it's it is west of the Fleming between Ira Allen Chapel and the museum that lot is is large. There's a smaller lot that is between the hospital and the museum. That one could fill up. So you have ample parking in the other spaces. Yeah, well there's a there's a dedicated museum parking lot that fills up quickly. It's small. That's one if you're going up to the hospital it's on the right. But there's also on the weekends the ability to park in the big lot which I recommend. Yes. We will see you next week. Thank you so much.


Good morning class, this is Will Kemp from Will Kemp Art School. I'm just going to show you a quick demo on some really basic pallet knife techniques for mixing your colours. This is with some oil colour, this is titanium white which often when it comes out of the tube straight from the paint manufacturer, see how hard I have to squeeze it, it comes out quite a stiff consistency. So you see how when I'm pushing that around, it's harder to push around. I'll just show you with a bit of acrylic paint, just so you can see the difference in the consistency between the two. So here is some artist quality acrylic, this is golden acrylic, this is their heavy body range. You can see the difference how that moves a lot easier than the oil titanium white, this is harder to push around. But also notice it's probably quite hard because it's white on white, but how the titanium white with the oil paint isn't quite as bright white as the titanium white in the acrylics. This is the acrylic here and this is the oil paint here. So when I'm working I prefer to use a pallet knife that's got a hard edge on it like an angle to it. This is a number of 45 and it's by a company called RGM. I think they're quite a standard pallet knife, I've found them very very good, they've never snapped on me or broken on me, they've got what's called a nice flexibility in them and you can mix with them very well. I like when you've got a flat edge because it means that what you can do is you can scrape off the bottom of your pallet, of your surface and really get a lot of the pigment out. So when you're mixing essentially all you're doing is kind of just keep on moving the paint around and around just so that it mixes into, in together. And what I always do is kind of with the edge of the pallet is like I push it into the middle and push it around. If anyone's ever made cement it's a very very similar process really is you just keep on pushing it in together and mixing it all through. As you begin to push on the bottom part of the pallet you'll find that you'll start to get bits of residue that come on the top of the pallet so you'll see as I work I often then turn it upside down just to scrape that off and then you know push it back in. So with artist quality titanium white when you're first using that in your painting it can sometimes be too stiff for the first under layers of your painting. So what I'll often do is just add a bit of medium to them just to make it a bit more liquid. This is just odourless mineral spirits here that I'm just adding in to start with and I just use a pipette just to drop a few bits on. If you're using acrylics again pipette can be very handy because you can just drop a small amount of water onto your paint and just mix that in at a small bit at a time. See how I start to push it all in together I'm still just you know kind of working in from the sides and I'll start to scrape it and you might fold it over on itself it's almost like mixing anything you know mixing cement mixing cake mixture you know it's all exactly the same and if I wanted to dilute it a bit more I might add a touch of my medium in. This is the very simple linseed oil and odourless mineral spirits medium a very basic one and that's looking a nicer consistency you know for putting on at the stage of painting that I'm at. See again how I push it in and then kind of fold it over you push it down you can be quite hard with the palette line so I can put quite a lot of pressure on here and it will still withstand it then if I'm transferring it onto the painting or onto the palette I just kind of you know scoop some up so if I'm working on to the painting and I'm you know painting with the palette knife I'll often grab it so you see how it kind of creates this this bead you know along the bottom of it and that's what you're that's what you're looking for so then once you've got that so it's on you know one side of your palette it's easier than to twist that around and you push it onto your painting. Okay that's it this is Will Kemp from Will Kemp Art School.


Welcome back from that report we're staying on the banking sector for today The last time the CBA increased capital base for banks was in 2005 when the current a number of state capital Charles Saludo was the apex bank chief the capital base was raised from 2 billion to 25 billion to enable banks meets the new Minimum capital requirement the CBA and there's the edge banks to consider to inject fresh equity capital through private placements rights issues and or offers for subscription Merges and acquisitions and or upgrade or downgrade of licensed authorization The apex also apex bank rather also said the new minimum capital shall comprise paid-up capital and share premium only It stressed that the new capital requirements are not be based on the shareholders funds My guests Ambrose O'Modion is the chief research officer at the invest data consultant limited Ambrose is a well-respected investment and company analyst with over 20 years of experience He is known for his work as an equities analyst his training sessions for Investors and his weekly webinars. He is also a prominent expert on the Nigerian capital market Providing analysis and insights to investors the government and the market regulators Ambrose O'Modion joins me now to discuss the recent development and earnings of banks. Good morning to you Ambrose Good morning. Thanks for having me. It is our pleasure first things first Ambrose What were your initial reactions to this begging when Denise broke yesterday? Yeah, it's longer. No, I wouldn't be expecting it for more than 30 to six months now from September to date Oh, it's good that the CBA came out yesterday to make it clear that this is their direction I'm put to believe that they've done the right thing anywhere in the world No CPN has a interest of the economy because they may be sure that drive economy at any time any day with this They are thinking now want to survive a bank at any time drive the economy to work to one $3,000 that way and not to take it to be for me It's a good one for if you know this I think that there's no party or needs to put up if you want to be shorting You got to be look at the you know the announcement We're confined for anywhere in the world. We are looking at the bank's No capital is we thought as to do know they are in any which I was saying in this one but to go back to the fight on and see say doing a Capacity of it is a little all this goes with a part of it was so in food made from almost a note 82 banks bringing up to life with two bands after which is who want that direction also for now that we are saying that They think any it's not that any brandy world No, we think any is part of what they would ask for a couple of any bank base that capital That means if you know your Your the liability man of your capital asset you get to work for your net asset it's also your But it is a split it also the bounce also struggle to kind of a meet up debate But I believe that they are across the world. I've seen different company different nation You don't explain your it a ns for bands are different categories. It's also what I've done here No, they want you to get it a with different formula It is not done on the way to go about what you have capital not if I mention a no ratio or the question These are the things that the question Oh Because we'll come about for this one are coming out. Yes. No, it's doing everything and it's you already So they didn't do the shareholders of this company that deny themselves for many years not collecting all the profits from work on the bank So we invest in it to the bank. It's part of what they have their way now Also, we are coming back to the public work with them for another round of work public This is the one to invest again. That means next time and we don't make money also at the end of the day Yeah, it's a ns for the past. It's not considered for me I think this area that will be looking at yes, if you and I would say they are they are wrong They are they are great or they understand the rainbow ideally across the world It is not done for you. This was seen for the first time. I'm trying to see where you don't know remove Your you'll take any away from your capital, but I believe that is part of it Oh, no, we're supposed to see more No Okay, let's try and green and gain more traction as let's try and get Now you will agree with me that the back-end sector is comparatively doing well So the speaker the NGX with an impressive closing Figo as at the last day of closing Yesterday, I don't know if my director can just blast some of the NGS figures that we have, you know Two banks really come to mind them access bank is at the top right now It's the new management and all of that but right now. I also see another bank, too With a female, you know CEO there that's fidelity bank Also standing out per se, you know, how do you see them playing out in the wake of all of this? Do you see a Cup recapitalization in the offering or what exactly do you think about the earnings and all of that? For them to have more capital to do more business that's a very capitalized drive They want to learn a no expectation of an economy for now Our banks are heavy and strong for what we're going to do now We tell our directors to make them stronger and better. Well, if you look at the bank, I don't mention our assets and fidelity I say yes, they are moving Opposite direction, you know that is fidelity for me It is a second tier for now with their performance was given coming out And then now that we're still in many second tier but they are the leader in that second tier Why access for his police also ready if they step on for looking at the new capital, you know The base we are looking at I believe that they're already on the on the right direction They've done private placement before now. Also, they are planning to drive each one All this will also help them to achieve the the capital requirement for them to do more But I believe that also like I mentioned earlier that the system about you know that these bands are going back to the public to ask for No, I don't like issue or no If you think any of this bank that the children about food are not considered I think for me, it's then they cannot be taken out to tell that And that also might not pay the bank or isn't going for a less Everything between now and the two years time was now have almost a few years There's no window to the capital life in the process. I think Also Direction fine Well, I believe that they should be banked. You cannot well know who the environment to work with the capital that you get Who support your bank? All right, you mentioned access bank being a tier one being at the top of on the pyramid in terms of You know the capitalization at some the ngx, but let's talk about fidelity talked about them He then been a tier two bank, you know, I'm looking at him the survival of banks and them, you know Interest in terms of on people, you know Subscribing to their public offers and you know trying to invest that what can really Sustain and then in terms of them what they have done or are doing over time to ensure that they meet up with their expansion plans I hear they are trying to expand and all of that No, for pity, I think they are on the right track for now We have seen a recent performance for almost the past 10 years. I know recently the last four years I've seen a dramatic improvement in their performance Pressing the if you make a way the MD came on board that really made a different In terms of the ownership of that knowledge that because you cannot go down with that performance We're sure that the bank is doing well so that the bank also edit But they are also taking steps to know that they expand their work They are tentacle by trying to move outside the shop Nigeria acquiring a No, no, you know, you know about you can also move to go to Africa country Which is good for I believe that it is all for them to put their work your bottom line Oh, you put your foot online need to show more than you want to capitalize for me They are already in the right track the performance will speak for them. I know so your business model is a band That's what I call them a no a trader and Export their food cause why because they are going to try to Set up the economy that oil if it's not really Really, there's no tree that is not a product that our economy is to be taking but if that's one of that angle They think of freedom that are bringing in our important media in Nigeria. Also, it's a protest I also have an advantage of what they are funding for me is a good one And if you guys plan to do that, that was also for them One thing is that it's been personal, you know, we're a nice big money And that is why for banks that are like Deleted banks, they are taking culture that is great to start picking up because one they have already You know giving us a signal or a point out where they are going and I believe that to get that world the management team As part of the owners of this bank to go to their know the book of this bank So that most of them are part of that and where your partner You take it at your own business All the big companies today in Nigeria look at the personality behind them If you say kind of personality has been actually going to work going places All right, let's do talk about the general and field right now because I remember back in You know about 19 years ago when this for the first talk of them capitalization Was done lots of banks were panicky and I just was saying that that's how would know who the main players And the active players and who is strong and who is not strong, you know But right now we're going to see another round of maybe mergers and acquisition. You also talked about renewed capital market activity by banks, but you talked about Acquisition of Union Bank UK. Can you tell me more about that? Is it like a big? Dream or what do you really think? Anybody and high quality good dollar know or spam or pounds or something that for me is a good one I'm also sure that the bank has a particular for kind bigger business And I was why I love the move of central bank So for the bank will solidify by reason more capital that it can do bigger business only that the manner and the way For the first time I'm saying that you are moving To any point the bank person will know that most people I mean because most of the banks already as to speak now As you might have the most part, we don't have the sense of, you know, share that one. So how about, you know, above trillion, if that is being taken away, I hope to put advance onwards on the price, you know, on the pre-game. But don't forget that I can't take it as really pretty now, that most of the shareholders are going back to them, and they are the ones that also have proof to be taken, because out of their earnings, they pay the little or some precious work, going to investors, and the things that I want to expand the business to impact, you know, for me, if they're taking it away, that's why I said between now and the next few years that they're going to recover from this much to this much, I think there's more proof and we'll know better. So I believe that for people who are expanding outside Africa, outside the Nigeria, South Africa, Kansai, or UK, it's a good move for them also to increase their work, their personal life, and also strengthen what the banks are pushing. All right, Amonio, let's still look at other facts as it is right now, because I don't know in your opinion, do you see some banks going on that, those that cannot really meet up with this requirement, because for the NGX and banking indices, AXS Co is there, you know, at the top of the pyramid, but we'll talk of other good banks, GT Bank is there. For Fidelity, they can boast of strong financial performance, efficient management, commitment to sustainability, market presence, and you talked about them focusing on the market, and some people, I wouldn't say it's like an evil bank as it were, we tell lots of people, bank business and traders, banking there, but what would banks really need to do for those that may not be able to get this mergers or acquisition, like Fidelity is doing with the Union Bank, and AXS Co, you know, broadening its management team? No, for me, if you look at the pyramid, I would say that AXS Co is leading, followed by the Zinnish Bank for AXS Co. For me, we are already seeing that they are categorized. If a bank leader here is who can't go on with it, we can also apply for lower AXS, for you to stay business, for AXS Co. for major and acquisition, for bigger ones, if you see that here, if you are going to people, if you are going to march, you have to acquire easy time to do it. As I mentioned earlier, during this little time, we were about 82 banks in Nigeria, then after the government was changed to about 22, today, we were about 18 or 22, or around the same time, for me, it's a good one. This time, I don't know what to choose for, because we are seeing another bank in Nigeria, we are seeing a few interest free banks in Nigeria, or you see three interest free banks in Nigeria already, we see those that are also regional banks, some are also national banks, for me, it's a time for them to see where they can come together to become better and stronger. Also, don't forget that the government is also going to change the structure of the ownership of the banks. I think I'm going to dilute the shareholding structure of the banks, and at the same time, the earnings of the banks, because if you are going to raise more capital, then you need to double your work, your performance, because if you are raising more capital, you are increasing your share in each issue. Now that we are saying that we are recognizing share capital and premium forward for capital agreements, we need more. And it's all going to go for a public offer, like each next time we are spending your work, we are sharing each issue. You should also go to dilute your earnings by the end of the board. The banks, this time, I'm not afraid because to look at the policy of the CBN, and in another way, it's indirectly after calling the work, the banks and other financial institutions. I believe that the bank is set for this, for the way you go is what I know that most of the banks think that whether we go for margin, or we go for to take a lower license, or we also will get more money from the public. The banks will decide where they are going. All right. Just before we let you go on Ambrose Omodion, let's talk about management structure, because they actually play a whole lot of role in terms of investors' interest. And of course, the people who would actually want to participate in public offers and maybe write issues and all of that. For some banks now, they have taken the bull by the horns of people who say women are better economic managers. Banks like Axis Bank, Banker like Mzennet, and of course, even the Fidelity Bank, they have female CEOs at the hems of a feather. So how do you really see that coming to play in all of this? Management for me is like, we'll say that the players are an instrument for any company. So it is management. We talk about effective management and that are looking at the business to get a lot of issues. But putting women at the head of a feather and for me, you know that women are more the kind of meticulous kind of managing a feather. I believe that in Nigeria, banking, no matter how hard it is, we are seeing a new face that the female are taking over, which is good. Also, the one that I have been there before now, the recent one was from Zennet Bank, we have seen the performance of the lady in the Fidelity of Tongue, we have seen the one at Tambik IBC, you know, looking at their numbers, but we see more of them. That means also, investors are going to work, people that are so known, they are going to put in women, they are seeing more. And I believe that also, because that's what they have strategy, not just because they are women, they understand the environment where they are putting, and that's why they are making impact. For me, it's a new kind of development for the bank that we are seeing women heading their feathers for the past, and I believe that that will do more for the banking sector that they still understand the business. Women are meant to be for business, apart from men are the one leading both. As women, they understand business perfectly. Not they are leading the bank, that's what it was for all the banks. All right, thank you so much, I'm Ambrose Amodion for your time, and of course all the wonderful insight that you have given concerning the new peg by the central bank for the commercial banks, and of course what banks are doing in terms of capitalization and building investors' interest. Thank you so much for your time, we do appreciate it. That's what I believe. All right, that's the size of the show for today. I am Justin Apadouni. Many thanks for being there.


What's your room in jz over jazzy of Rajasby's case breaks calm? We just sold out 1920 of Konini, Mosaic, cello one pack for your ground and teams number 33 We're giving away five mixture spots in the basketball mixer to chase spots in the luke a la you basketball mixer And again This is for this mixture. I know we used a random team number thirty three for yesterday's mixer I'm just showing you guys item page. Just so you guys can see remember. This is break number 33 and And of course just showing you guys at a pace 34 still not sold out it'll be coming up soon But just the way it goes guys randomize customer names and teams distribute the hits out of the pack Then of course at the end of the break or randomized customer names again in a separate dice for the randomizer And then one through five on the randomizer with each win a spot in the luke alley basketball mixer So actually copy this list of names and put them in a separate dice for a randomizer here on the side There you go So you remember this is breaking with 33 guys, so let's do the break first. Here's a dice roller Two into two four times. Good luck. Here it is from Zach down to Ryan one two Three you go four times Stephen down a Ryan four times There you go one Two three Four mavericks on the heat Steve got the mavericks round the Hornets Rockets teach a learner with the spurs Robert Weigler with the Wizards birdie with the Pacers Jason with the magic Zach with the T-wills Ryania the Kings Christian the Grizzlies chemo the pelicans Andrew with the wars Brian with the jazz Chris with the Suns Barry with the Thunder Colton with the Bulls Jason with the calves Chris with the pistons Phil the 76ers round with the Clippers Blazers Anthony with the Nuggets Ryan with the Knicks Michael with the Bucks Mario the Celtics con with the Raptors James with the Nets Ryan with the Hawks Steve With the Lakers and Ryan with the Miami heat. I remember no trades guys. We'll just stick with what you got and We'll run a nice customer names and T to see who gets pots in the mixtures right now Patricia, I'm sorry. I don't really do that, but Maybe it went to like spam. Can you email that again? And I'll see if I can get my wife to look take a look at it I want you to done sorting Sorry about that Sometimes a lot of these emails go to spam if you haven't got an like no response at all from nobody Since you sent it and you gave it a day or two Then it's most likely you haven't seen it just because it goes to spam or it goes to a different folder But if you send it out, and if I see it, I'll start it. I'm sorry. I don't I don't really do all that and Doing some breaks today. Sorry So we're one of our junior Kendrick. No, let's like this you guys there you go Here's a dice roller Let's roll it full 12 top five get a spot each in the mixer one two three four five six seven eight nine 10 12 to final time if it's a new release dark you better believe it Jason Chris James Barry and Steve after 12 times There you go you five are now in the mixer. Appreciate you guys number 34 is on the website jaskiescasebricks.com