A Visit to the Brubeck Collection: Pencils Only Please

This week I’ve had the great pleasure of participating in several events hosted by the University of the Pacific’s, Brubeck Institute as part of their annual Summer Jazz Colony.  The Brubeck Institute was established in 2000 in cooperation with Dave and Iola Brubeck, both graduates of the University of the Pacific.  The mission of the Brubeck Institute is to build on Dave Brubeck’s legacy and his lifelong dedication to music, creativity, education, and the advancement of important social issues. 

The Summer Jazz Colony occurring this week is one of core programs of the Institute which brings in 18 of the country’s top high school jazz musicians for further training in music theory and performance with dedicated artists in residence and special guest performers and instructors.  Including Blackwing featured artist, Christian Tamburr.  Here’s a quick clip of Christian at his performance last Sunday at the new Take 5 Jazz Club, nearby the University and the Brubeck Institute.  The Wednesday Jam session I attended featured some very talented young musicians playing Brubeck songs and sit ins with instructors as well as special guest, another vibraphonist Stefon Harris

One of the special gems of the Institute is the Brubeck Collection, an archival collection of Dave and his wife Iola’s life’s work in music, international diplomacy and active leadership in the civil rights movement.  Iola, herself a playwright, collaborated with Dave on a number of projects.  About 20 Brubeck Insitute embassadors had the opportunity for a personal tour of the University’s Holt-Atherton Archives which house not only the Brubeck Collection, but also the John Muir Papers collection which holds about 75% of the extant papers of Muir.  Michael Wurtz, University Archivist, informed us of some fascinating facts on Dave and Iola’s lives and careers, and we got to see first-hand a number of these important letters, contracts, albums, marketing materials, music scores and more. 

One interesting fact is that Dave really couldn’t read and write music on paper himself much.  His creative, improvisational style just wouldn’t conform well to putting something fixed on paper.  When he did compose some of his more extensive orchestral arrangements his brother or another collaborator usually did most of the music notation.  We were shown one of the first pieces of music he wrote for a school assignment which he subsequently was told what he played was very good, but wasn’t what he had written.  Dave tore up the score and threw it away. A fellow student saved the pieces from the trash taped them together and later sent them to Dave as a memento.  Here's a link to one of Dave's scores a lullaby from 1941, though I could not find a digitized image for the torn score we were shown during the presentation.

Another important thing I learned was about Dave and Iola’scommitment to civil rights.  In fact, 1960 Dave once cancelled 23 of tour dates in a Southeastern states tour when the Universities they were playing refused to allow him to play with his racially integrated band or allow a racially integrated audience.  Here is an intersting letter Dave received on the positive impact resulting from one of the two Universities that did allow this integration to occur.  Also Iola’s and Dave’s musical “The Real Ambassadors”, which celebrates it’s 50^th anniversary next month, addressed sensitive social issues as well.

Finally, I was very pleased to see the “Use Pencils Only” sign in front of desk of Special Collections Assistant, Trish Richards, shown in the photo above.  Certainly, they want to protect these one of a kind archival materials from any accidental ink spills; another important benefit of pencils over pens.  I don’t know if Dave and Iola have ever been Blackwing pencil users, but perhaps some time in the Archives exploring may turn up a photo or other evidence as to their preferred pencil brands.  I was able to leave a special gift of several dozen Blackwing pencils for the Summer Jazz Colonists and members of the Brubeck Institute.

Studio 602 Introduces "Blackwing Sessions"

I am very pleased to announce “Blackwing Sessions”, a new adventure in expanding the range of fresh content we are producing to support creativity and the use of pencils. Blackwing Sessions is a new production from Studio 602, our entertainment and educational blog at Pencils.com. The inaugural Blackwing Sessions video features my good friend Christian Tamburr as our first Blackwing Featured musical artist, and will be released on Studio602 in its full length version on Monday December 12^th. Until then here is a short teaser cut from the full length version. More about Christian and the Blackwing Sessions below.

Christian’s musical talents in the jazz world as a top vibraphonist (he plays a mean piano too) are well respected, and include an "Outstanding Jazz Solo Performer" award from Downbeat Magazine. He and a growing number of talented musicians have become big fans of our Blackwing pencils for scoring and other notation purposes. The video was filmed during the recording session for Christian’s new album “Places”. It includes interviews with Christian and his quartet members about their creative process and tools used in composing, performing and recording their music. It also features the process of working out the intro of and then recording of the final cut to “Sailing Serenity”, one of 4 original compositions by Christian included in this album. The remaining 5 songs are some great arrangements of other artists tunes including the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby” with a fun modern groove and Julio Iglesias’ “La Carratera” featuring a nice Latin feel. Coincidentally, Christian served as musical director and piano player for Julio on the road for three years.

We all had a lot of fun putting together for you. We hope to see you on Studio 602 on Monday when we release the full 12 minute video, plus a more complete bio on Christian as our first Blackwing Featured musician. In addition we’ll be launching sales of his new CD “Places” on Pencils.com as well. For now you can listen to the album here on Soundcloud or download via iTunes, but for those who still like the full CD we’ll have it available for sale Monday which would make a great gift for the musician in your family when paired with our limited time offer on a Blackwing 6 Pencil combo pack. We hope you’ll like our inaugural Blackwing Session video. If things go well with this we hope to collaborate with and feature more Blackwing artists, writers and musicians in the future to build upon the Blackwing Experience.

Hearst & Morgan: An Architectural Collaboration with a Pencil Connection

My wife and I recently completed a driving vacation down the California coast which included an overnight stop in San Simeon where we visited Hearst Castle. Each of us had been there separately as children, but clearly our appreciation of this architectural gem and the vision of William Randolph Hearst is much greater with a bit of seasoning over the years. Having designed, built and remodeled a couple very modest houses ourselves, we found it amazing to see what Hearst and his Architect Julia Morgan accomplished over 28 years that they collaborated on this property. There is a very well done movie in the visitor center which covers Hearst’s life and the influences that lead to his personal attachment to and vision for this estate as well as his close working relationship over several decades with Julia Morgan. Full of quite a few old home movies, it’s just a great chance to learn about their creative working process in addition to the history of the property. This often involved tearing down and rebuilding many aspects of the project as well as designing to complement and feature the amazing, historical pieces of art, furniture and architectural treatments imported from throughout Europe.

During our overnight we lodged at The Morgan at San Simeon, decorated throughout with an amazing collection of her original architectural design renderings for many aspects of the Castle. Almost all of these were done in graphite and colored pencil. This collection represents a remarkable exhibition of art and has strengthened my own interest in historical architecture and the use of pencil as a creative medium in this trade. I’ve shared a few of my photos of the Morgan drawings here. Amazing details down to the designs of the stair risers all around the property, and untold design features throughout. The bottom of each print includes a description of the item and the inscription “Mr. W. R. Hearst San Simeon, Julia Morgan, Architect” along with the date of the drawing, all in pencil. The one photo of the property I included below demonstrates how the tile risers become an integrative component of the overall architectural design.

Julia Morgan’s story is a fascinating tale of one of America’s first leading female architects. Graduating in 1894 as Civil Engineering student from University of California, Berkley she was the first woman to be accepted and graduate with a degree in architecture from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Returning to San Francisco and employed by John Galen Howard, who was responsible for the UC Berkeley Campus Master Plan at the time, she worked on designs of several buildings. This included two endowed by Phoebe Apperson Hearst, William Randolph’s mother. This initiated a long relationship between Morgan and the Hearst’s that spanned over 30 years and included multiple projects on both Hearst Estates as well as several newspaper buildings. Beyond her most famous work on Hearst Castle, Morgan was one of several architects contributing to the Bavarian village themed Wyntoon estate on the Hearst’s 67,000 acre forest property along the McCloud River just south of Mt. Shasta. Outside the broad Patronage of the Hearst family, Morgan did extensive work designing buildings for YWCA (including the Asilomar Conference Center) and several other women’s educational institutions such as Mills College. In all something like 700 buildings in California are attributed to her body of work and much has been done by historians documenting her contribution to the field of architecture.

One final interesting connection between pencils and this story is that the Hearst’s McCloud River area timberland holdings include stands of California Incense-cedar which have historically been harvested and sold by the Hearst Corporation for use in pencil manufacturing. From 1979 to 2003 our company owned and operated a saw mill at McCloud, CA, which was originally established as the McCloud River Lumber Company in 1896. Even before that we were producing pencil stock lumber in our Mt. Shasta City mill from the early 1960s until the early 1990s. The nearby Hearst lands historically provided some portion of the cedar used by both saw mills to produce pencil stock that was then sent on to our slat operations in Stockton to make pencil slats sold to our pencil manufacturing customers. Even though our manufacturing supply chain is designed much differently today, producing slats in China, we still receive some pencil stock we are purchase from other suppliers who buy cedar logs from the Hearst lands. Thus the Hearst property has been participating in some small portion of the pencil industry’s sustainable cedar supply for 50 years or so.

Palomino fares well in Pencil Test

Recently I came accross yet another pencil bench test comparing various graphite drawing performed pencils including our California Republic Palomino 2B as well as General's Kimberly and others.

Found this posted to our Palomino Riders group page on FaceBook by Tom Smolinski on his smomotion blog. Check out his animation demo reel here. Always glad to learn the Palomino has gained another fan in the animation and illustration community.

These Collectors Can't See the Art for the Trees

I've always had an interest in understanding how different economic, business and social principles apply to different industries and markets, particularly with respect to historical development of markets over time. Lately I've been reading more about the economics of the Art market leading me to an article by Paco Barragan at ARTPULSE Magazine titled "The New Spirit of Collecting: From Macenas to Prescriptor to Speculator". The article focuses on the historic transition of collecting art from a system of patronage and philanthropic support of the arts through to those who Paco describes as while still maintaining some sense of "the rank of trophy predators" now have set a new trend as "aggressive and benefit-seeking sharks" who's only motivation is to drive up the value of their holdings whatever level of undue influence and market manipulation is required.

He goes on to state that this trend is now pushing it's way into the European collector's psyche:

"Furthermore, the traditional European collector, with an extensive knowledge of art history and a profound respect for artists and art professionals, has given way to a new breed of collector inspired by the "American Model," based upon aggressive price negotiation, quick access to board of trustees of museums n order to conveniently push his artists, and in the end, the attainment of significant economic results for his investment in art."

Barragan appears to be describing a bunch of Wall Street speculators gone wild referring to a the neo-capitalism model of art collecting. Next he'll be calling for government intervention and regulation of the Art Market and as much as implies he would be a supporter of such a concept:

"Obviously there's a "new spirit of collecting," which has come along with the "new spirit of capitalism" ... that, I am afraid, not even Obama will be able to regulate."

As with any free market the excess of a few collectors who perhaps cannot see the Art for the Trees will always push the envelop. In my view the mainstream art collector still acquires based upon personal sense of appreciation for the art and artist on their own merit, not based on some fanatical obsession with profit making. Let's not overreact to the actions of a few and in my view if Barragan thinks the art world has not seen likes of obsessive promoters with good connections to ultimate benefactors and collectors for hundreds of years then he's generally naive.

One of the blessings of all the new social media is it's facilitation of sharing and appreciation of art and interactions among artists, fans and collectors alike. It may not be the most profitable means of getting rich as an artist, bit these media are opening up new windows for artists and becoming more of the mainstream (truly neo-capitalist) means for art distribution over time. Perhaps there will be some commoditization effect that impact valuation, but ultimately a greater number of artists will benefit as a whole vs. those playing in the shark tank who rise and fall as most speculative markets do over time. I think we pencil collectors and other art fans on the web need not worry much about these "aggressive benefit seeking sharks" out there.