Everyone loves beauty. Everyone feels bad somehow when they see something ugly. But my “Mona Lisa” might be your Loada Crappa, and so there’s all kinds of art.
Some of it gets stuck to my walls. And you only have so much wall space! Here’s the cool thing happening, in terms of the Volker Family Art Gallery – it’s Abraham Lincoln art!
I love American history. Great stuff. So I’m from Ottawa ... and there’s this Lincoln thing with Ottawa. And I went to Knox College ... and there’s this Lincoln thing over there. In 2008 I organized the Lincoln Bicentennial Bike Tour – bicyclists riding from Lincoln’s Kentucky birthplace babyhood cabin, to Springfield, Illinois and the Tomb – and heck, it’s another Lincoln thing.
But artistically, here’s the new cool Lincoln thing. I’ve got a large black and white woodcut of young Abraham Lincoln reading by the fire at the Indiana Lincoln boyhood homestead. Now here are the Components of Cool going on here in just this one picture:
Fact 1: The woodcut was made by artist Charles Turzak back in the 1930s. Turzak was raised in Streator, won a prize to go to art school and attended the Art Institute’s art school. He became a full-time artist in Chicago, specializing in wood cuts. Just like it sounds, this is taking a block of wood and carving the design in it, then running off deep black ink prints from the block on clean white sheets of paper.
Fact 2: My brother once lived about a half mile from Turzak’s Chicago home. The Turzak house and studio is now a local landmark. Just a walk away, and he didn’t know it.
Fact 3: My family visited the Abraham Lincoln Boyhood Home in Indiana. It’s southern southern Indiana. Think rolling green hills. Long time back, Lincoln’s dad’s farm was created by chopping down and clearing away a cussed lot of trees! At the National Historic Site, there is a bronze outline of the Lincoln cabin and a bronze reconstruction of the cabin fireplace at the place they think it’s all at. The Cabin Site. I don’t know if it was technically legal at the time, but I fetched my son, at age three, into the thing and took his picture posing with a book by the fireplace ... oh so cute! Touches the heart! What a great dad!
And then I find this Turzak piece! Same place, same pose.
Fact 4: Lincoln as a young man chopped down a forest of trees, split them up into rails, and then took the rails and made fencing. Kept the farm animals from grazing in the corn! In southern Indiana I was given a couple of logs from the park site – Lincoln logs – and John Meyers of Ottawa took on the job of turning this wood into a picture frame ... to hold the Turzak print. He’s got a planer, some nifty woodworking gear, and he knows his stuff.
So my Charles Turzak woodcut of Abraham Lincoln reading by the fire is now framed by wood that grew on that very same Indiana Lincoln farm in the picture!
John Meyers and his wife Barbara did a fantastic job making the Lincolnwood frame and framing the print. It’s now hanging above the piano. Place of honor in the household! It’s just a great-looking piece to begin with – and the frame makes it even cooler.
Is it good art? Is it bad art? Hey, it’s MY art. This has some great history and emotional resonances. Spin around anyone’s house, and there’s all kinds of interesting tchotchkes, pictures, art – in many ways, each person’s home is a little personal museum. Everyone’s place has a story to tell.
Todd Volker lives in Ottawa with his wife and son, and they enjoy reading, kayaking, hiking, tennis and camping. He’s a lifelong learner with books in his hands.