Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Obituary

Donovan R. Walling, born January 9, 1948, in Kansas City, Missouri, died May 5, 2017. He was the son of Donovan Ernest and Dorothy (nee Goyette) Walling. A lifelong educator, Walling taught school in Wisconsin and Germany, was a curriculum administrator in Wisconsin and Indiana, and served as director of publications for the education association Phi Delta Kappa, retiring in 2006. He continued to work as a writer and editorial consultant in retirement, and was a senior consultant for the Center for Civic Education. Walling was the author or editor of numerous books in education and also wrote fiction and poetry. He was preceded in death by his wife Diana (nee Eveland) in 1991. He is survived by his husband Sam Troxal; his children, Katherine, Donovan David, and Alexander; and several grandchildren.


In light of Donovan’s lifelong commitment to education, his family requests memorial contributions be made to the Walling-Troxal Endowed Scholarship Fund at First United Church. A celebration of his life will be held Saturday, June 16 at 7pm at First United Church, 2420 E Third Street in Bloomington, Indiana.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Scholder's Expressionist Americans


The American Indian
Oil on linen, 1970
A quote that I noticed on Martin Luther King Jr. Day this week, juxtaposed with Inauguration Day coming at the end of the week, set me thinking about our nation’s first true citizens. King said, “Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race.” My train of thought barreled on, eventually arriving at a Native American artist whom I have long admired: Fritz Scholder.

Scholder (October 6, 1937 – February 10, 2005), who was one-quarter LuiseƱo, a California Mission tribe, was an Abstract Expressionist. The imagery in his paintings invariably drew on Native American themes and individuals. Several paintings, like the one shown above, were of native figures draped in the American flag.

King, to expand the quote, went on to say, “Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shore, the scar of racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. Our children are still taught to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier culture into a few fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations.” King was speaking half a century ago, but his remarks are still pertinent.

Scholder tapped all of this history, weaving it into his extravagantly colorful paintings. I discovered Scholder’s work when I was attending college as an undergraduate art major in the late 1960s. Since that time, whenever I have visited a museum, I’ve always kept an eye peeled for a Scholder painting. Occasionally, though far too seldom, I have been rewarded. Sometime in the late 1970s, on a winter trip to Phoenix, Arizona, I wandered into a gallery that handled Scholder’s work. It was a spellbinding moment, to be surrounded, literally, by his paintings. The images ranged from fierce to whimsical. It was difficult to drag myself away.

Fritz Scholder is represented in numerous museums and galleries. Perhaps nearest my own location in southern Indiana, visitors to the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis can enjoy one of his works. Scholder’s paintings are worth contemplating, both from the standpoint of artistic expression and as a reflection of the interwoven themes of Native American history and the evolving place of Native Americans, minority individuals, and immigrants—all “othered” too often, instead of accepted as the true warp and woof of our national fabric.


With a fraught Inauguration Day approaching this week, such contemplation is timely. If you can’t find a Scholder painting in a nearby museum, google his name and explore the images online. I guarantee a rich visual experience.