The Wednesday Evening Color Salons are a public speaker series presented as part of The New Color, a course taught by Luanne Stovall, artist and color theorist. Each salon will pair a guest speaker with a color-focused topic. On April 3, the salon series welcomes Monica Penick, Jessica Douglas-Home and Leslie Ernst.
How do powerful design ideas change our lives? What can we learn from one of the most transformative design movements of the 19th and early 20th century? What role does color play in the process? Join us at this Color Salon to 'meet' the artists, designers, and activists who understood the importance of making quality household goods that were both useful and aesthetically pleasing. Against the dehumanizing backdrop of the industrial revolution, the Arts & Crafts Movement expanded the concept of Art + Design by adding new value to the "minor arts," celebrating the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk - the Total work of Art. Visit UT's Harry Ransom Center to see The Rise of Everyday Design, the Arts & Crafts Movement in Britain and America, curated by Monica Penick and Christopher Long.
Monica Penick, BA Stanford University, PhD in Architectural History, UT Austin, is an Associate Professor in UT's School of Design and Creative Technologies. She is a design historian, researcher, educator and storyteller interested in helping our next generation of designers change the world through good design. Monica is the author of numerous books including The Rise of Everyday Design, The Arts & Crafts Movement in Britain and America, co-written with Christopher Long and published in 2019. This book offers a fresh look at this influential design movement, from its origins in reformist ideals to its ultimate place in everyday households. It is the companion volume to the current exhibition at the Harry Ransom Center.
Jessica Douglas-Home trained at the Chelsea School of Art and the Slade School of Art as a painter, etcher, and theatre designer. she has had solo exhibitions in London, Washington, and Brussels and designed productions for National Theatre and other West End Theatres. Jessica is the author of The Lives and Loves of Violet Gordon Woodhouse; A Glimpse of Empire; Once Upon Another Time, an account of her travels behind the Iron Curtain; and most recently, the biography William Simmonds, The Silent Heart of the Arts and Crafts Movement.
Leslie Ernst, BA Studio Art, UT Austin, MFA in Photography, California Institute of the Arts, is the Creative Director at the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas in Austin. She was formerly the Executive Director of the Los Angeles Center for Photographic Studies, has worked with graphic arts, art direction, and user interface design as an independent designer, and has been an Art Director, Senior Designer, and Web Designer at UT Austin before her current position at the Ransom Center.