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Voices from the Stacks

Ul'nigid'

Ul'nigid'is a moveable book by artist Rhiannon Skye Tafoya, created in 2019 at the Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, New York. This is edition six of 44, signed by the artist.

The book can take on multiple forms and shapes, with an accordion pamphlet and movable walls made of woven paper. When fully unfolded and standing up, the book resembles a basket. It features five poems in English with accents in Cherokee syllabary. The poems are those of remembrance, healing, love, home, and heritage. The cover shows an illustration of the artist’s grandmother, and the title is printed in both English and Cherokee.

The piece draws on traditional Cherokee weaving techniques used for river-cane basket making, but with the artists own contemporary weaving design. Instead of white oak and rivercane, she uses handmade paper. In her artist’s statement, Tafoya explains that the weaving design “represents the energy of my indigenous lineage as well as the urge to break out of boxes that a colonized society puts my identity, culture, and art into.”

The book was made in honor of the artists maternal grandmother, Martha Reed-Bark, who was a Cherokee medicine-woman and basket weaver. The title Ul'nigid’, which translates to “strong,” embodies her resilience and spirit.

From the publisher: “Ul’nigid’ is a demonstration of love and remembrance, wherein each technical process portrays strength and delicacy, allowing the artist to communicate a contemporary indigenous voice with deep influences from her traditional grandmother.”

Rhiannon Skye Tafoya is a printmaker, weaver, digital designer, and book artist affiliated with the Eastern Band Cherokee and Santa Clara Pueblo tribes. She earned her Master of Fine Arts in print media from Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland, Oregon, and her Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking and sculpture from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In her work, Tafoya seeks to share and preserve personal and familial stories, cultural knowledge, and the Cherokee language, while still paving her own journey through contemporary art.

Explore more artists’ books on InfoHawk+, the Book Arts Research Database, or visit us in person.  

-Anne M, Olson Graduate Research Assistant

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Voices From the Stacks: Corita Kent

Collage of Corita Kent from the Josephine Pletscher Papers (IWA0913)

Corita Kent was an American artist, educator, activist, and former religious sister. With a rebellious spirit, Corita was a pioneering designer, who produced a body of work for over three decades combining themes of spirituality, hope, peace, and acceptance. Inspired by the popular Pop Art movement taking hold throughout the 1950s–60s in America, Corita’s serigraphs, also known as screenprints, incorporated questions about racism, war, poverty, and religion through found text, images, and vibrant colors. 

Corita, born Frances Kent in Fort Dodge, Iowa, in 1918, grew up in Los Angeles after her family relocated there when she was a young child. At 18, Corita decided to join the order of the nuns at the Immaculate Heart of Mary, providing her the opportunity to pursue art and higher education in a way that would not have been an option for many women in 1936. While here, she took the name Sister Mary Corita though wished to be referred to as Corita. As a member of the teaching order, she taught art education at various institutions while receiving an art education herself. In 1947, Corita was then asked to teach with the Art Department at the Immaculate Heart College where she would remain until 1968.  

Corita Kent with her students at Immaculate Heart College from Sister Corita  

The Art Department at Immaculate Heart College was a space of growth and development for Corita. Here she would develop her art style, which in early stages often incorporated religious imagery, containing medieval-influenced figures, then later evolving to integrate a wider breadth of material like song lyrics, advertisements, abstract shapes, and brighter colors. While Corita was further developing her work, she was having a significant impact on her students, urging them to discover new ways of experiencing the world. Through exercises like exploring a grocery store for inspiration or looking through an empty 35mm slide mount to frame compositions, Corita’s approach to teaching inspired her students and led to a fruitful period of creation and exploration for Immaculate Heart College which drew national recognition. This influential impact can be seen in the work of Corita’s students of this time, found within the student’s pieces, as well as the Irregular Bulletin, a zine-like newsletter created by the art department to announce the activities and accomplishments of students and faculty.  

Pages from the Irregular Bulletin, created by the Art Department under Corita Kent’s direction  

Through rising tensions within the country from the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War, Corita and her fellow sisters became more politically and civically engaged, participating in demonstrations throughout the city, and gaining a reputation as rebellious nuns. By 1968, the strain between the Immaculate Heart of Mary sisters and the Archbishop of Los Angeles was high, leading to the majority of the sisters dispensing with their vows, and Corita leaving LA for the East Coast. It was there Corita would continue to create under a more introspective style until her passing in 1986.  

Left, Immaculate Heart nuns protesting at a Mary’s Day Procession in 1964 (Courtesy of Corita Art Center). Right, A postcard with an image from the same protest included with prints from Damn Everything but the Circus.  

Within the University of Iowa’s collections, Corita’s work can be found through various published books, screenprints found both in the Special Collections and Archives as well as the Stanley Museum of Art, and an intimate manuscript collection from a former student, her mentee and friend, Josephine Pletscher. Pletscher, with a long-lasting connection to the Immaculate Heart College, amassed a thorough collection not only regarding the Immaculate Heart but also Corita and her career. Incorporating correspondence, serigraphs created both by Pletscher and Corita, as well as Corita’s personal rosary beads, the care and connection between the two women is evident.  

With impactful messages that continue to resonate today, Coritas work reminds viewers to reflect upon and explore the world around them. Just as she imparted to her students, great strength comes from opening oneself to new possibilities.  

Published books featuring Corita Kent’s art found in the Sackner Archive of Concrete & Visual Poetry.  

To learn more, visit us in person to view the published Corita Kent printed materials within the collection, or visit the finding aid for the Josephine Pletscher Papers (IWA0913) which can be viewed in person at the Iowa Women’s Archive. Additional information about Corita and her work can be found at Corita.org.  

-Kaylee Swinford, Olson Graduate Research Assistant

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Riot Grrrl and the Jen and Sarah Wolfe Zine Collection

On their 1995 track, “Criminal Boy,” female pop punk band Bunnygrunt begs the question: ‘what is a girl to do?’ The song chronicles a tough sister’s plans to break her all bark and no bite brother out of the slammer, which serves to be a fitting parallel to how the Riot Grrrl feminist movement of the 1990s got its start.

By the ’90s, the male-dominated U.S. punk movement, prominent in cities like Seattle and Portland, had been long ignoring the women participating in and moving forward the empowered anarchist agenda underlying punk music, media, and culture.

The Riot Grrrl Movement, aptly named and noted by its signature growling triple “r”, emerged as an opportunity for women in the punk scene to reclaim and redefine their identities as “girls” through expressions of anger, rage, and frustration. This subculture combined feminism, punk music, and politics by addressing issues of assault, patriarchy, anarchism, and female empowerment. The growth and success of the movement can be attributed to the multiple modalities used to spread their message: music, zines, art, and other DIYs that served as vessels for political activism.

Zines can be simply defined as self-written, often self-published and self-distributed “magazines” of narrow focus, created out of a desire to share. In the case of Riot Grrrl, this included, but was not limited to, punk and feminist literature, social commentary, news, gossip, music reviews, and other topical articles and musings.

The University of Iowa’s Special Collections and Archives’ Sarah and Jen Wolfe Zine Collection provides a dynamic, wide-ranging, and intimate glimpse into the zines created and distributed during the Riot Grrrl era. Donors of the collection, sisters Sarah and Jen Wolfe, were active Riot Grrrls throughout the late ’90s and early 2000s, with Jen playing bass for the band Bunnygrunt in 1995–1998 and later publishing her own zines: Bunnygrunt and Panophobia. The sisters also operated their own mail-order distribution service, out of Iowa City, Septophilia, for zines and records both, leading to their large collection of various independent, underground, and occasionally personalized zines.

With an established interest in the DIY and communal nature of zines, the Wolfe sisters have curated a thorough and impressive collection that will continue to provide insight of a first-person narrative in both collecting and creating at the height of the Riot Grrrl movement. To learn more about the Jen and Sarah Wolfe Zine Collection, the complete finding aid can be found here.

– Kaylee S., Special Collections Olson Graduate Assistant and M Clark, Instruction Graduate Assistant

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Los Bailadores Zapatistas and the Latino Native American Cultural Center

Last week, the Latino-Native American Alumni Alliance (LANA3) gathered on campus to celebrate more than 50 years of the Latino Native American Cultural Center (LNACC) at the University of Iowa.

In 1971, three students—Rusty Barceló, Ruth Pushetonequa, and Tony Zavala—founded the the Chicano Indian American Cultural Center, later renamed the Latino Native American Cultural Center (LNACC). In it’s five-decade history LNACC has hosted events like cookouts, powwows, and dances; published literary magazines and newsletters; held rallies, boycotts, and protests; and sponsored a variety of other educational and social programs.  

The Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives recently acquired new materials from LNACC, including these beautiful dresses handmade by students in Los Bailadores Zapatistas, a baile folklórico troupe on campus. Baile folklórico encompasses many different types of traditional folk dance stemming from various regions of Mexico and cultural traditions, often with Indigenous and Spanish influences.

Los Bailadores Zapatista’s was formed at University of Iowa in the mid-1970s and aimed to “increase the education level and understanding of mestizo dancing and music, and to share our mestizo culture with the university and community population.” Los Bailadores performed on campus and throughout Iowa and the Midwest, often accompanied by the singing group El Conjunto Chicano. They visited other campuses and performed at community events and festivals. In 1978 they attended the National Ballet Folklórico festival in Kansas, and six students traveled to Mexico that summer to learn traditional dances.

Celina Espinoza, the groups instructor, taught the other members how to sew costumes, which are representative of traditional dance attire worn in different regions of Mexico. The group performed dances from the states of Jalisco and Veracruz, as well as from northern regions of Mexico and what is now the Southwestern United States.

Los Bailadores Zapatistas was just one of several student organizations affiliated with LNACC that brought Chicano art, music, and culture to audiences on the University of Iowa campus and beyond. To learn more about Los Bailadores and the Latino Native American Cultural Center, visit us in person or online at the Iowa Digital Library, check out our past blog posts on LNACC, and see the full finding aid to this collection here.

--Anne M, Olson Graduate Research Assistant

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Voices from the Stacks - The Morris Family

For the Morris family, achievement at Iowa is a family tradition. And luckily for all of us, it’s preserved with care in the Libraries Special Collections and Archives and the Iowa Women’s Archives. In today’s blog, we trace three generations of trailblazers in this impressive family tree.

James B. Morris Sr. - Image courtesy of Joan Liffring-Zug Bourget Collection, State Historical Society of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa

James B. Morris Sr. launches a legacy

James Morris Sr., left his descendants with large shoes to fill. James Sr. served as the owner and editor of the Bystander, the oldest Black newspaper west of the Mississippi. He also founded the Negro Bar Association, now known as the National Bar Association, along with the Iowa State Conference of the NAACP in 1939 with his wife Georgine. Today, James Sr.’s legacy lives on through the James B. Morris Scholarship Fund, which “provides financial assistance, motivation and internship opportunities for Iowa’s minority students pursuing post-secondary degrees,” and through the accomplishments of the Morris family members who came after him.

Image: James B. Morris Jr. found on Iowa Digital Library

Journeying on with James B. Morris Jr.

James Sr. and Georgine’s son, James B. Morris Jr., graduated from the University of Iowa in 1949. During his undergraduate years, he documented much of his time in Iowa City in a scrapbook filled with photos and charming captions for the various characters in his life. In this scrapbook we can see early photos of James and his then girlfriend, Arlene, who would later become his wife. Though the scrapbook is mostly centered on staged photos of James, Arlene, and their friends, it also contains a few photos of James throughout his service as a captain in the US Army from 1941–1945.

Images: Cover of James B. Morris Scrapbook and photos of friends

After graduation, James returned to Des Moines, joining his father’s law practice and becoming an active civil rights leader. He worked as legal counsel and served as president for the Des Moines branch of the NAACP as well as an officer in the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Heavily engaged with local concerns, James served as a frequent mediator between the Black Panther Party and the Des Moines Police Department—alongside his role helping his father with the Iowa Bystander newspaper. It was with the Bystander that James wrote a column, “Looking Over the Hawkeyes,” which details the experiences of 65 Black men and 10 Black women who attended the University of Iowa but were not allowed to live in the dorms or eat in the university dining rooms. One of those 10 women was James’ wife, Arlene.  

Images: Left, Arlene and James. Right, Arlene for the cover of Eyes magazine found at Iowa Women's Archives

Arlene was very accomplished herself. While in college, Arlene appeared on the cover of the first issue of Eyes magazine, a publication focused on African American life and culture, as well as serving on the magazine’s staff. After graduating from the University of Iowa, Arlene moved on to Drake University in Des Moines to earn a master's degree in psychology. With this qualification, Arlene established herself as the first African American female psychologist to be licensed by the Iowa State Board of Psychology. Heavily engaged with local organizations, Arlene participated in the Know Your Neighborhood Panel, a group consisting of a diverse group of women who traveled around Iowa and to several other states to speak about tolerance among races and religions. Arlene Morris also served on the Iowa Advisory Committee of the United States Civil Rights Commission for more than three years in the 1980s.  

Image: Robert V. Morris, 1976 from Iowa Digital Library

Robert V. Morris carries the torch

Robert V. Morris, James and Arlene’s son, continued the legacy of his family with a long list of accomplishments in his communities. Following in his grandfather’s footsteps, Robert would take over the Iowa Bystander from 1979 to 1983, a heavy role for someone who was still enrolled as an undergraduate. But Robert was no stranger to taking on challenges from a young age; in 1979, when he was just three years out of high school, he founded the Iowa City branch of the NAACP, leading it while pursuing his education and his position at the newspaper. After graduating, Robert became president of the Iowa-Nebraska chapter of the NAACP and wrote Black Faces of War: A Legacy of Honor from the American Revolution to Today, a book stemming from his previous television documentary project.  

Image: Robert interviewing Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson, 1979 at the Iowa Memorial Union

The legacy of the Morris family has incredible significance within Iowa City and across the Midwest. Many materials related to the Morris family are held in the University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections and Archives and have been digitized. They can be viewed online in the Morris Family Papers Digital Collection. Arlene Morris’ personal papers, IWA 276, can be found in the Iowa Women’s Archives. 

-Kaylee S., Olson Graduate Research Assistant

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Image: Self Portrait with cranes from Hope Project (Photo credit: Clarissa Sligh)   

The Artist Books of Clarissa Sligh

In honor of Black History Month, we are highlighting artist, writer, and lecturer Clarissa Sligh. Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Virginia, Sligh is often inspired by cultural, historical, and political events that intersect with moments in her life. Sligh considers these interactions, or “collisions,” between moments in history and events in one’s life to be significant and transformative. One such example of this is detailed in Sligh’s work “It Wasn’t Little Rock,” which discusses desegregation in public schools during the 1960s, a personal topic for Sligh, who was the lead plaintiff at the age of 15 in a school desegregation case.    

Images: Cover and inside page of "It Wasn't Little Rock" (2005)

A notable example of Sligh’s work and its reference to her personal experiences is her 1988 artist's book titled “What’s Happening with Momma?” Here, the artist engages users to “walk” through rooms of her childhood home, following the steps of accordion-folded strips of paper filled with text detailing memories of her sister’s birth in the home. This is Sligh’s first artist’s book, made through the Women’s Studio Workshop in New York.   

Images: Cover and inside page of "What's Happening with Momma" (1988)

Sligh earned a BS in Mathematics from Hampton Institute in Virginia, a BFA and an MFA in visual arts from Howard University, and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania. Earlier in her career she had worked at NASA in the manned space flight program, eventually leaving to focus on working as an artist. Her works have been featured all over the world, notably at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and more. To learn more about Sligh and her works, visit the artist’s website. 

Images: Cloth enclosure, cover and inside page of "Voyage(r): A Tourist Map to Japan" (2000)

Images: Left: Inside page of "Reading Dick and Jane with Me" (1989). Right: Cover and origami crane for "Transforming Hate" (2016).

– Kaylee S., Special Collections Olson Graduate Assistant

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Marguerite de Angeli

Marguerite de Angeli (March 14, 1889) was an award-winning writer and illustrator of children’s books. Often inspired by her environment, many of Marguerite’s books have centered on stories from her family and childhood, and later from the lives of her children and grandchildren. These realistic scenes of families and children are what resonated most from de Angeli’s stories, with audiences finding her books to be absorbing and filled with eye-catching images.  

Images: Left, Butter at the Old Price (1971) inscribed to the Wallace Family by de Angeli. Invitation to publication celebration laid in book. Right, mock up book cover illustration given to the Wallace family (James Wallace Papers) 

Though born in Michigan, Marguerite’s family moved to Philadelphia when she was 13, which she later used as the setting for many of her stories. Although Marguerite was naturally skilled in writing and illustration, this did not become an active pursuit for her until later in life when her five children were nearly grown. Stemming from the Sunday school paper Marguerite illustrated in the 1920’s, de Angeli began to center her work on a younger audience, penning her first picture book in 1935. This book and the subsequent centered on two children, Ted and Nina, as they went to a grocery store and later played together on a rainy day. Inspired by two of her own children, Marguerite’s knack for recognizing beauty in everyday scenes would stick with her throughout the rest of her stories.  

Images: Left, illustration from Bright April (1946). Right, Title page and inscription to Wallace family for Bright April.

While living in Pennsylvania, Marguerite came to know the Pennsylvania Dutch and Amish communities, incorporating their customs into her stories, as seen in her first Caldecott Honor Book, Yonie Wondernose (1944), the story of a curious Amish boy. She would later write about racial divisions in her story Bright April (1946), centered on racial prejudice in a post-World War II America. In 1950, Marguerite won her first Newbery Medal for the historical novel The Door in the Wall (1949), set in the Middle Ages as the Black Death sweeps across the country. She would later receive another Caldecott Honor and Newbery Honor for her Mother Goose adaptation and the Black Fox of Lorne, respectively. Though often centering on the stories of others, one of Marguerite’s last books, Butter at the Old Price (1971), tells the story of her family and the circumstances leading to her many stories and illustrations.  

Images: Left, title page to The Door in the Wall (1949). Center, illustration from The Door in the Wall. Right, illustration and inscription to Antonia Wallace from The Door in the Wall.

We have most of Marguerite de Angeli’s works in our children's book collection, many of them inscribed to James M. and Christine K. Wallace and their children. James Wallace, relative to Henry A. Wallace, 33rd vice president of the United States, became friends with Marguerite and her family, as the two likely ran into each other at some point during their time in Philadelphia. Not only are many of the novels signed to the Wallace family by Marguerite, but a good few include Christmas cards and invitations to publication celebrations. Within the James M. Wallace papers, Christmas ornaments and illustrations made by Marguerite can be found as well as newspaper clippings and photographs of Marguerite, James and Christine.  

Images: Left, photo of Marguerite de Angeli, Christine and James Wallace. Center, Christmas card and ornaments made by de Angeli for Wallace family. Right, illustration that did not make it into a picture book given to Wallace family.

-- Kaylee S., Special Collections Olson Graduate Assistant

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Image: Oscar Hahn from La Tercera

Oscar Hahn

Oscar Hahn, born in Iquique, Chile in 1938, began writing poetry early in life. The first book of poetry Hahn published, Esta Rosa Negra, in 1961, included poems he had written between the ages of 17 and 19. Once graduated from the University of Chile in 1963, Oscar attended the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa and received his M.A. in 1972. Upon completion of this program, Hahn returned to Chile to teach, but was arrested after the 1973 coup d'état and held in an Arica prison. Within our Oscar Hahn collection, there is a testimonial about these days in jail and their aftermath, dealing in part with how it affected him as a writer. After his release, he returned to the states and obtained a PhD from the University of Maryland, where he studied until 1977, when he returned to the University of Iowa, joining the Spanish-literature faculty.  

Image: Imágenes nucleares y otros poemas by Oscar Hahn

Hahn is a celebrated, leading poet of his generation, sometimes called the Dispersed or Decimated Generation (Generacion Trilce). According to a biographical sketch in the collection, critics praised Hahn’s blend of fantastic, ironic, and realistic elements in his work, leading to the association of postmodernism and surrealism. One highlighted critical response from Kirkus Reviews contributor says Hahn “takes ordinary situations and images and implants within them a kind of surrealist grenade that explodes when least expected – and with striking effect.”  

Image: Caricature drawing of Hahn from the Oscar Hahn Papers

In Special Collections and Archives, we have the Oscar Hahn Papers, containing a fairly complete list of Hahn’s publications and materials about him as well some published works in the monograph collection. A link to the collection finding aid can be found here. 

-Kaylee S., Special Collections, Olson Graduate Assistant.