Terry Brown's visit to the College for Creative Studies.

We had Terry Brown in from New York to speak with our students today. He gave a great presentation covering the history of illustration, talking over the importance of copyright by putting it into both historical and current perspective, and encouraging students to look and think forward.  In the current climate of having to cut back on visiting artist visits, it is refreshing to get someone in to speak. I hope to continue this and I will be contacting many of you drawgers out there if I haven’t done so already.

It was enjoyable for me to hear and see his presentation being that I have been teaching a history of illustration course this semester.  This course has been a very intensive (and somewhat stressful at times) experience for me, and it was refreshing to see that I am not alone in taking a not so chronological approach. It is almost impossible to cover every aspect of the history of illustration in one semester.  (Side note- thanks again to those drawgers out there who answered my “illustrator family tree” questions some two-three months ago; it has really helped me out.)

Prior to his afternoon presentation, we were able to take our senior students next door to the Detroit Institute of Arts and take in the Norman Rockwell show that is currently showing there.  It was great to get Terry’s perspective on his work, and nice to see many paintings that I had only seen average reproductions before.  They had a good selection of Rockwell’s latter work that dealt with heavier social issues, my favorites of all his work, and it was interesting for me to see the originals for the first time. I am not the world’s biggest Rockwell fan, but like him or not, his painting ability is amazing to say the least.

Again, it was great having Terry visit, and I hope to see him back soon.