The Michigan Daily-Wednesday, July 25, 1979-Page 17
The art of persuasion: Non-profit groups
publicize concerns
By PATRICIA HAGEN
While the city is inundated with art lovers this week
one corner of campus is reserved for a group of people
that has little connection with art.
The corner in front of the Engineering Arch at the in-
tersection of South and East University will be a soap-
box of 80 local non-profit organizations during the next
four days. The various groups and individuals annually
distribute information and literature, and sell T-shirts,
bumper stickers and buttons to the thousands of
passersby.
Each year the University's Office of State and Com-
munity Relations coordinates the corner as a "public
service," said Vivian Green, coordinator of Visitor
Relations.
A wide variety of groups take advantage of the space
provided by the University. "They range from the
Libertarian Party to the Student Revolutionary
Brigade ... to church groups ... to Greenpeace,"
Green said.
The University provides each of the groups, who are
chosen on a first-come, first-served basis, with a
measured space on the sidewalk and a table. The cor-
ner gives them a place to spread their message "in an
organized way," Green explained.
"It's like Hyde Park corner in England," she said.
"It's one of the most interesting parts of the fair."
"Many fairgoers make it a point to go to the corner
and check out the groups," she said. "It is one of the
Doary oto more leisurely parts of the fair." The various groups
THE BOOTHS and tables by the Engineering Arch are covered with enjoy socializing with each other and with passersby
leaflets, t-shirts and bumper stickers. Local non-profit organizations gather while enjoying the chance for free advertising, she ad-
annually at the intersection of East University and South University to raise ded.
M"%
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funds and interest in their causes.
Potter creates practical wares
By PATRICIA HAGEN
Rows of gray mixing bowls, cas-
seroles, butterdishes, and one-quart
pitchers in various stages of completion
rested upside down on the ceramist's
clay encrusted workbench.
Working steadily on the still-soft clay,
I. B. Remsen explained, "It's street fair
time."
Clay dust covered every surface in,
the cellar studio and the bumpy stone
walls added to the cave-like appearan-
ce of the rooms.
The dozen butter dishes looked
almost identical. Actually, Remsen
said, threis a "great deal of variation"
between the pieces when you look
closely.
By carefully throwing the same weight
of clay and gauging the height of the
rim along the indicator attached to his
'The best thing about it (Ann Ar-
bor) is as an artist you can't rest on
your laurels. . . You have to keep
working on what you do.'
-I. B. Remsen
Summer Arts
Festival exhibitor
wheel, he is able to keep the dishes
somewhat standard in size and ap-
pearance.
Peering through wire-rimmed
glasses, the clay besmeared Remsen
said he does "production pottery."
Wbiebeenjoyscreating "show pieces'
for the added "technical challenge,"
Remsen spends 50 r So hours a week
producing the series of decorative and
practical kitchenware, step by step,
The pieces produced"'nmutiples"to
ar aye evolved to their
present forms after years of work and
experimentation. "Everything I make
is really me," he explained. "They are
all my favorites now."
The ideas for many of his pieces
result from the cooking he does in his
own old fashioned kitchen, he said. "I
think I'm attuned to the scale and
design needs of most people's kitchens
and tableware."
The Remsons "try out new forms,"
and test for proportion and adapability
and decide on improvements and
changes at home, he said.
The forms and designs an artist
creates, Remsen explained, are the
result of their environment. They "ab-
sorb patterning and design elements"
while they are very young and "the
imagery later comes out in their work,"
he said.
Remsen said he "didn't get serious
about clay" until he met some graduate
students in anthropology, his un-
dergraduate major at Antioch College.
After completing work at the Univer-
sity School for Art in 1971 Remson set
up a studio in Ann Arbor. "I didn't have
any money to go anywhere else," he
said. Since then Remson has worked
full-time as a ceramicist.
See CERAMIST, Page 18
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