Marian Ferrer - Poet and Potter

Marian Ferrer's pottery shop is lively and welcoming.
Shelves are filled with interesting and useful shapes in appealing earth tones. "That's what I like best for pottery," Marian tells a fellow potter. "I use red clay. I always have. And I like rich greens and browns over that dark clay." The pots are beautiful. I particularly like a huge one with an abstract leaf pattern.

Ferrer's two books are displayed in a corner. Blue Sapphire is poetry. Allow the Possibility is a mixture of memoir, essay on artistic exploration, and philosophy of life. Ferrer appreciates the importance of laughter to the process of creativity.

Marian Ferrer's bright and joyful paintings are on the wall and leaning against one another on the floor. Her creative expression on canvas contrasts with her expressions in clay.

"In painting, I prefer vibrant colors against the white background. Painting feels different than handling clay and my response to it is different too.

"I first started making pottery in my early 20s. I was working at American Field Service and, at the time, just wanted some interesting activity after work. I have been a potter ever since."

Marian teaches classes at her pottery studio. "I always learn from my students. I like seeing them work out projects from their own perspectives. It's fascinating. My students have so much creativity!"

Marian's students, as well as Marian's customers, are friends. A man came in who had worked at Lame Duck Bookstore in Philadelphia. Marian and the man from Lame Duck and I and an enthusiastic young potter who'd come in with me all chatted comfortably in Marian's studio/store.

There are some clay "rocks" in the window. The two potters talk about what a natural it is for potters to make "rocks". "The clay is from the earth," says Marian. "You bring out, shape it with your hands, leave your mark on it, and give it back to the earth. I've been making clay rocks almost as long as I've been working with clay.

"They're worked from the inside out. They're hollow. And that isn't glaze on them. That is oil paint and then they're waxed. I write on them. I made a whole lot of rocks that said 'Peace'. I tuck them into likely places in NYC. I took a whole lot of peace rocks to Israel too. I just lay them down for someone else to pick up. Sometimes I write 'joy' on them.

I feel grounded when I make the peace rocks. I like to leave them around for strangers to pick up and handle and read. All those suggestions of peace."

Marian Ferrer's work is in galleries. She's had many exhibitions. And her peace rocks are lying on the ground all over the world. Look for one.

Dobbs Ferry Pottery - 86 Main Street, Dobbs Ferry, NY 10522 - 914 674 8203

A Conversation With Patricia Lowy - Graphic Designer & Artist

"I started working at William Morrow as a production assistant. Every week I had to type up a production report. And I didn't really know how to type. I was supposed to file all this stuff - manuscripts, cover art, production galleys, bound galleys, individual pages.

"It was totally boring but I had to support myself while I was in school."

Where was she going to school?

"Pratt had a special graduate program in graphic design. All the teachers were professionals in the field, so the courses were conducted in the evenings and weekends. It sounded great but many of these professionals had considerably more talent as artists than as teachers.

"There are professional artists that are also good teachers. They're rare. Milton Glaser is one example. I took a course from him at School of Visual Arts. He's an amazing graphic designer and he's an amazing teacher. A really great teacher. The Pratt program didn't have teachers like that.

"A better opportunity to learn came my way. Cynthia Basil, art director of Morrow Junior Books, took me on. I became her assistant and she taught me everything. She was great.

"Cynthia was quite a character. She chain-smoked Camels. She collected toys - all these old tin toys with moving parts. Her apartment was full of them. She never married. In a way, she never grew up. Maybe you need that Peter Pan characteristic to excel in junior books.

"In publishing, at that time anyway, you had to change publishers to get much of a salary increase. I moved to E.P. Dutton. Riki Levinson was a very talented art director at Dutton. Later I went Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. There I designed for adult as well as children's books."

What does designing books without illustrations entail?

"The designer makes decisions about the title page, the chapter openings, the whole way a book looks. The layouts are designed in pencil on tissue paper. Everything is ruled carefully. There weren't computers at this time. All work was long hand.

"In the 1970s and 80s publishers spent a lot of money getting type set. Now that's done more easily on computers. It's a big change. Then they hired retouchers. Now they use photo shop."

Patricia moved to McGraw Hill where she was the design supervisor. She worked on text books, which required quite a bit of design attention. "I earned more money but the work was dry.

"I left and became a free lance design consultant. Much more fun. My studio was above Shakespeare & Company. It was a convenient location. Dan and I lived nearby. Every publisher I'd worked for gave me work.

"One project was for William Morrow. I was designing a book by Charles Silverstein. My 5th grade teacher was named Charles Silverstein. He was a great teacher - memorable because you have so few really great teachers as you grow up. I wondered if it was the same person. It was! I telephoned. He wasn't phased in the least - he was thrilled to hear from one of his former 5th graders. He'd left teaching. He'd become a psychologist and had written several books, one of which I designed."

Patricia Lowy closed down her studio and her consultancy to devote more time to her sons. She remains a graphic designer and artist. Often her artwork blends unexpected combinations of paper and subject matter, or of emotional impact and technique. Some are drawn from an unusual physical perspective. All, even the ones of inanimate objects, burst off the page with bold vitality.

I especially admire her charcoal drawing that's behind Lowy in the photos. The decorative floral pattern, sort of like wallpaper, is a soothing screen you see at first glance. At second glance you see the body bags.

Patricia Lowy is always interesting to talk with. I might have badgered her too relentlessly for this particular conversation about her work in publishing. I appreciate this conversation though. I appreciate all of them.

NYTimes article by Vivien Raynor - Ms Raynor has a keen sense of self-importance but as an art critic she still has a distance to go. read paragraphs 5 and 6

Burt Britton at Books and Company

photos by Christopher Stephens 1979

Bob Wilson at Phoenix Bookshop

photo by Christopher P. Stephens - September 1979

Bob Wilson in his Phoenix Bookshop

     Bob Wilson was the proprietor of the Phoenix Bookshop in Greenwich Village.  His stock was almost entirely poetry.  Phoenix was probably the best store for poetry ever, anywhere.

Wilson knew the material.  He knew the books and he knew the poets.  He encouraged and supported poets.  He published poetry at the store.

Any walk-in customer was welcome to purchase books from the Phoenix bookshelves, but you had to pass various qualifying tests before you had a chance at the treasures tucked away in drawers and boxes.

     The Phoenix Bookshop was opened in the 1950s.  Bob Wilson took it over in 1962 and developed it into a renowned poetry community.  Poets and poetry enthusiasts frequented the store,  became friends with Wilson, and bought and sold books and manuscripts.

With such a remarkable stock, Bob Wilson issued interesting book catalogues.   He also collected books himself.  His collection of Gertrude Stein material was matchless.

Wilson ran the store and, through the store, pumped vigor and well-being into the poetry community until he had to close down Phoenix in 1988.

If the store itself does not rise again from the ashes, perhaps the spirit of the store will.

Bob Wilson wrote several books.  Seeing Shelley Plain: Memories of NY Legendary Phoenix Bookshop is published by Oak Knoll Press

The University of Delaware has Bob Wilson's James Purdy collection and includes a glowing paragraph of Wilson and Phoenix on their website. 

George Jellinek At Home

George Jellinek gave us all the gift of his "The Vocal Scene" program on WQXR (and others - it was syndicated on radio stations all over). The show was wonderful. He is wonderful.

Jellinek comes into riverrun from time to time to buy books and records. Since he retired from his show in 2004, he hasn't been adding much to his collections. In fact, now Chris visits him from time to time to time to buy books and records.

George Jellinek has a work study filled with books, records, CDs and photographs of opera stars he knows.

This is the computer where he writes. Just to the left of the computer, under the desk's glass top, is a photograph of his family - parents, sister, and self. He is the young man standing on the right.

This afternoon George and Hedy Jellinek welcomed both Chris and me into their home. I took pictures. They were quite gracious and it was fun.

Books by George Jellinek:

My Road to Radio and The Vocal Scene: Memoir of an Opera Commentator

History Through the Opera Glass: From the Rise of Caesar to the Fall of Napoleon

Callas: Portrait of a Prima Donna

an intriguing list of articles by Jellinek for Fanfare magazine, (articles themselves available to members)

New Yorker article on Jellinek