Constructing an artmaking ritual as social and spiritual practices (part 1)

The latest on this topic here: June 5, 2011


This post is meant to be first of the series on this topic.  I am just putting this out as part of my brainstorming and also to seek some input.

Each year during the first week of June, a Portland area non-profit Operation Nightwatch Portland (not to be confused with the one in Seattle) puts together an invitation-only spiritual retreat for its clients, primarily from among the low-income and street populations.  Held annually at the United Church of Christ's Camp Adams in rural Clackamas County, this retreat offers a rare opportunity for inner-city resident of Portland to get out into the nature while also focusing on spirituality.

Since 2008, I have served as an artist-in-residence for this event, responsible for facilitating and coordinating group art activities.  When I took over, this was originally more of a group craft activity and the participants created a group project that was displayed permanently at ONP's regular hospitality facility.  While this was enjoyable for some, it appeared to me that this was yet one of many activities everyone was forced into.  As I also became part of the retreat committee, I worked toward redesigning the entire retreat event to be more open-ended, less preachy (in the past this was mostly about a series of Bible studies led by an evangelical preacher), affording more free time to explore and enjoy the nature, and at the same time making the newly revamped "exploration" sessions (previously called "teachings") to be more interactive, ecumenical and participant-oriented.

In this spirit, I had also radically transformed the art program offerings at the retreat.  For one, I had created an open art studio space inside the lodge that would be open throughout the event, stocked with a wide variety of art supplies, so that those who have creative urges can work on their art without feeling pressured or feeling like they are in a boring art class and talked down at.  For 2009, I did away with the group project altogether.  Then 2010, I hoped to introduce a social element into art by creating a series of three large canvases (like a kind of tryptach) for a spontaneous and interactive "dialogue" among the participants through a mixed-media creation.  While this was originally a great idea, it failed as the project went to a completely unexpected direction: it was hardly done even on the morning of the last day, and whatever it was done already was defaced overnight by some anonymous participant who painted over the completed portions.

This led the retreat committee to have a long discussion on this year's art project.  Hence I am redesigning this both to improve the quality of the group art project and also to reinject the spiritual themes of the retreat into the social aspect of artmaking.

I am taking some hints from both shamanic practices of artmaking (as discussed by Mircea Eliade and David S. Whitley) as well as Asian traditional arts in religious practices (such as Tibetan Mandala ceremony) in directing this year's project.  At the same time, I am also interested in making this artmaking ceremony a meaningful experience that each participant can relate to, and get something out of.

(Continues.)

Transformation of university branding symbols

During the past decade I have witnessed the trend in Oregon's institutions of higher education.  That is, that universities are reinventing themselves by adopting a new corporate identity strategy that is more in line with those used by businesses.  In the past, those universities had traditional emblems, some with a Latin motto or university name in Latin, some with traditional heraldic devices.  They have used those emblems with pride for decades, attesting to the tradition that a university has built and was founded upon.  At the time, logotypes (i.e., the branding symbol made up primarily with letters) were reserved mostly for community colleges and vocational schools (such as the Portland Community College logo that is clearly a letter P -- and South Seattle Community College where I attended from 1994 to 1997, an image of two books forming a letter S).

Starting in the early 2000s, though, this began to change in Oregon.

First, the University of Oregon jettisoned its original seal with its Latin name, Universitas Oregonensis, and replaced it with the green "O" brand that was designed by the guy who made the Nike swoosh.  Then Portland State University in 2005 ditched the traditional (well, ahem, since the 1950s) and rather artistically pleasing seal with the motto "Doctrina Urbi Serviat" (Let the knowledge serve the city) with the current interlocking "P" and "S" -- the design a certain Vanguard editorialist called "the Girl Scout swastika."  Southeast Portland's Warner Pacific College (whose perhaps most famous alumnus is Mel White), ever undergoing an unending episode of identity crisis, meanwhile changed from the good old "In Christ, Light" seal depicting a biblical oil lamp, to a simple "Warner Pacific" wordmark, then back to a newly designed and short-lived quasi-heraldic seal with a Latin motto loosely translated as "where faith and knowledge lead to service" -- eventually settling with the current green and blue WP logo.  Concordia University Portland also in recent years adopted a simple blue shield with a letter C, after going through a couple of rebranding attempts.

Then this past month, Marylhurst University followed this trend by killing its rather elegant seal (a modernistic adaptation of the university coat-of-arms) and Gill Sans typeface (with which the university motto "Cor Sapientis Quaerit Doctrinam" or "wise heart seeks knowledge" is written) and replaced it with ghastly and visually very discomforting logotype that appears to be a combination of letters M and U.  This one I am quite disturbed by, and hence this article.  Looking closely at the new Marylhurst logo, on one level it is pretty clear that it is a shape of a letter M albeit distorted to a degree; yet on another level mentally it is difficult to make anything out of this.  Is this a curtain hanging sideways from a column?  Is this a desperate attempt at uniting the letters M with U?  It is also too asymmetrical and disproportionate if one is to communicate the letter M, which is by its very nature symmetrical and its aesthetics depend on that symmetry.

This also leads me to a big question -- perhaps related to the changing perception of what a university should be in the 21st century -- of whether such a rebranding effort is necessary for a university, and if so, to what ends.  Universities today, private and public alike, are cash-strapped and students suffer from drastic tuition hikes year after year.  Rebranding costs money for a large corporation and universities are not exceptions.  Some see such rebranding as a good investment to clarify visions for the university and attract students and research grants.  But I tend to see most such branding efforts with invention of a logotype as a cheapening and watering-down of the university's public perception and sense of its purposes.  In recent years more university administrators began seeing their jobs as something along the line of treating their universities as a business -- or a partner with the business sector -- instead of a place for an intellectual inquiry for the truth, and new and deeper knowledge.  Marketing campaigns to attract new students are becoming so banalized and even infantile that it is no longer sure whether universities are becoming a Club Med for young adults or else another glorified vo-tech school.  The bigger victim of this rebranding is also the tradition that the university possesses -- and betrayal of its alumni and long-time professors who built that tradition.

This is not to say rebranding is per se a bad idea for a university.  But it must be done in such a way that is appropriate for an institution of higher learning.  Unfortunately new logotypes do not easily communicate the nature and missions of a university.  Interestingly, too, is that universities and colleges that are rebranding were generally founded during the mid-20th century.  Maybe they are going through a kind of identity crisis like an adolescent.  I cannot imagine older institutions rebranding this way.  It would be a bad day when the Oxford University decided to adopt a big-X-inside-an-O logo!

This also serves as a reminder that not every organization should brand itself with a logo.  There are other symbols that can communicate its missions better.

In fact, one of the better rebranding efforts by Oregon's universities is that of the Pacific University.  Instead of creating another run-of-the-mill logo, Pacific U. came up with a stylized symbol deriving from its heraldry, a lion rampant.  It is at the same time reasonably post-modern, simple to reproduce, visually pleasing, while also communicating the sense of tradition (the lion rampant often recalls the image of the British monarchy or other traditional institutions).  Similar approaches have been taken by the Government of Singapore and also by the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government when they created their "Brand Singapore" and "Brand HK" respectively (as both Singapore and Hong Kong prohibits non-government entities from using their heraldic emblems, the "Brand" allows for an alternative that can be used by private businesses and tourism industry).  Singapore's brand features a stylized portrait of a lion (Singapore, or Singa Pura in Bahasa Malaysia, means "city of lion."), while the Brand HK is a stylized dragon (the dragon is from the pre-1997 coat-of-arms of the Crown Colony of Hong Kong, though the post-1997 government emblem and the flag depicts the Blake Bauhinia flower) with a slogan "Asia's World City, HONG KONG."

New home for Sarah Morrigan's blog on art, designs and graphics

Here is the new location for Sarah Morrigan's blog, Sarah Speaks In Pictures and Words: Sarah Morrigan on Art, Designs and Graphics. I have relocated the site from Wordpress.com, due to the ease of management and better features.

I have also transferred all past posts from Wordpress onto this site. (Here is how.)

This blog primarily deals with fine arts, artistic practices, graphic designs, graphic communications, corporate identity and branding, as well as some occasional tidbits on my life as an artist.

Here are direct links to some of the reader favourites:

• Free Scribus 1.3.9 business card template for Vistaprint and Nitroprint
• Free Scribus 1.2.x business card template for a 10-up Avery 8879 sheet
• USPS standard postcard template for Scribus 1.2.x and later (very popular).

Free Scribus (1.3.9) business card templates for Vistaprint and Nitroprint

These free templates are made specifically for Scribus 1.3.9 or later.  They will not work with the 1.2.x and earlier versions, as Scribus has made a significant changes recently.

Business card template for Vistaprint.com: Download

Business card template for Nitroprint.com: Download

Remember: Actual file you upload when ordering cards must be PDF, fonts embedded, CMYK (process colors) and set for printing (not "screen/web").

Bonus: If you are a U.S. or Canadian user of Scribus, you may be getting tired of having to set the pages to Letter size every time instead of default A4.  Here is a blank U.S. Letter size sheet with measurement in inches.

 

For other popular Scribus templates on this site go to http://iridiacreative.wordpress.com/?s=template&searchbutton=Go!

Meow

Artist's conception: Bicycle racks for "the world's greenest church"

A story of a church bicycle rack

This is a certain large-sized historic church in the Pacific Northwest, with a building that is over a hundred years old.  The church has recently been working on an initiative to make it the "world's greenest" church (as far as its denomination is concerned) and one of the first ideas that came up was to build bike racks, entirely from salvaged, repurposed and recycled materials.  Here I have made a conception design with used bicycle frames that were turned upside down and welded into a visually pleasing piece of public art that also double as durable bike racks.

Graphic made with Inkscape, converted and slightly edited with GIMP.  The name of the church is blurred out by request.

Thanks to ChurchOutreachMinistry.net for the mention.

Sarah Morrigan, IrisCat Designs

Currently on view

Thank you for all who came for the openings!

"Sometimes a great notion" - Siren Nation juried group show, Albina Press Hawthorne, 5012 SE Hawthorne Blvd., until December 1.
* Cascadia Coming Together, 2d mixed media, $105
* Flores aurees, 2d mixed media, $75

"Facing Fear" - open call group show, Launchpad Gallery, 534 SE Oak St, Portland, until November 27.
* Qian li zhi xing, 2d mixed media, $220

The Portland Tarot Show, a juried group show, Splendorporium, 3421 SE 21st Avenue, Portland, until December 31.
* Seven of Pentacles, 3d mixed media, $300