Abstract
This interview with Sharon Dean, director of the Cleveland Artists Foundation, focuses on WPA art in Cleveland.
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Interviewee
Dean, Sharon (interviewee)
Interviewer
Mitchell, Tim (interviewer)
Project
Cleveland Artist Foundation: WPA Art in Cleveland
Date
6-21-2006
Document Type
Oral History
Duration
44 minutes
Recommended Citation
"Sharon Dean interview, 21 June 2006" (2006). Cleveland Regional Oral History Collection. Interview 900008_901008.
https://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/crohc000/861
Transcript
James Calder [00:00:01] Do you want to tell us what the weather's like today?
Sharon Dean [00:00:04] I believe it's 70 degrees, raining and-
James Calder [00:00:13] Okay.
Tim Mitchell [00:00:18] Sharon, good afternoon. And if you could just identify yourself with name and today's date, the 21st, and your job title, would be appreciated.
Sharon Dean [00:00:28] I'm Sharon Dean. I'm the Executive Director of the Cleveland Artists Foundation, located in Lakewood, Ohio, and it is June 21, 2006.
Tim Mitchell [00:00:38] Sharon, we were curious a little bit if you could tell us a little bit about your background, sort of how you got to the position that you're in now as Executive Director of the Cleveland Artists Foundation.
Sharon Dean [00:00:48] Well, as you know, my degree, my doctoral thesis, was in Anthropology and I did my doctoral thesis in New York at New School University. And the subject of it was Itinerant Photographers of the American West. Specifically, I was looking at the work of Andrew Forbes, who was photographing between 1889 and 1921. And his photographs during that particular period of history were really show us how our perceptions of the American West, the iconography or imagery and how we think of it was shaped. So when I finished my dissertation, I was still at the Museum of Natural History where I worked from 1994 to 2004. So I was there for 10 years and before that I was at the National Museum of the American Indian from 1989 until 1994. So I had a total of about 16 years of museum experience. And when I saw the ad for this position, I thought, well, a regional arts organization. I'm interested in regionalism and let me go talk to them and see what's going on. I also have lots of museum experience. They wanted someone with a lot of museum experience to run the organization, both fiscally and also setting museum policy and procedures. So they needed that level of professionalism added to their staff. Previous directors were very good, but they weren't really very well trained. They were more art gallery directors or solely research oriented curators. And my experience of being a department administrator and also being a curator added another level to what they wanted. But then my interest in regionalism, I was really interested and we had a great discussion about what is the region of Northeast Ohio about? And not just geographically, because. But if you look at it even politically, you can see that while Ohio is considered a red state, Northeast Ohio is almost like Cleveland is like the last east coast city. And it really is very liberal in that sense. I use the term liberal loosely. As Phil Ochs said, a liberal is really someone with both feet planted in midair. But I mean it more with moderate political leanings. And more, in some cases, left leanings. And so we discussed Cleveland and why there was a plethora of local artists here and why artists who were here really felt room to explore more than in other areas. So we talked about region, we talked about cultural geography. And what we really arrived at is that we were both after the same thing, albeit in different subject matter, which is defining what is distinctive and distinguished about the region of Northeast Ohio, which Cleveland, I guess, as you call it, you can call it, is the cultural hub, although that is expanding as well. And we just agreed that with my background being interdisciplinary with art history, that I would be able to add a new perspective and to define regional art in a new way and also methodologically tell the story differently. I think that ethnographic curators tend to use more text, tend to want to tell a story, tend to talk to more individual people about what their work means and try and get at the motivations behind it more than just looking at it aesthetically. So I think anthropology adds a unique perspective to what it is I'm doing for the organization. Just about two years. I started the end of June in 2004.
Tim Mitchell [00:04:44] Can you put the Cleveland Arts Foundation into context for us?
Sharon Dean [00:04:49] The Cleveland Artists Foundation was started in 1984, and the mission is to preserve, educate, collect and display the most significant art and artists of Northeast Ohio. And the original focus when it started in 1984 was a focus on Cleveland School artists. And by Cleveland School artists, I mean it in two ways. Cleveland School artists. Art is a particular way, a particular tradition, a way of learning. But Cleveland School of Art is also the school which later became, in 1948 or '49, officially the Cleveland Institute of Art, which I read recently was a way of professionalizing what it is their organization, their institution did. So I think it was at that time that they increased it from a three to a five year program. And it was a real focus on industrial design, design and painting and drawing and prints. It was really supposed to be a very well rounded arts education. So the focus was particularly on Cleveland School artists between 1900 and 1950. And since, I think about four or five years ago, the focus has really expanded to include artists, let's say before that in 1850, to see what formed the Cleveland School. And then after that, looking at local artists who have continually redefined what is regional art. Because if you only look at 50 [years of]-
[At 00:06:22, sped-up speech that is largely inaudible and repeated from earlier in the interview] Sharon Dean [00:09:31] American prints that were done during the WPA. So we're going to give sort of a comprehensive perspective of public housing. Library of Congress posters are also going to be coming, and we're also going to be looking at probably ceramics that are available in Cleveland public schools, as well as some of the sculptures that some of the area artists had made during that time.
Tim Mitchell [00:09:59] Thanks. Could you- This may be too big a question to answer, but if you were going to describe Federal Art or WPA art, are there sort of particular identifying characteristics that you would notice in that kind of work? Or how would you define and describe WPA art?
Sharon Dean [00:10:19] Okay, well, first of all, Federal Art, as you know, was comprised of many different programs. And so you had the Farm Security Administration that did the famous documentary photographs of the 1930s, the Dust Bowl. So you're familiar with that. There is also the PWAP, which was the Project Works Administration project, there was the Treasury Project, all of these different sub projects were designed to employ artists in different areas, whether they were in ceramics or ceramics or prints or posters or large public murals. There was also a PWP, which was a writers project sponsored by Federal Art Administration. And then there were various incarnations of WPA. So WPA is sort of the catch all term that describes all of the federal projects that made up federal art and that included theater, writing, music, as well as visual. So if I were to describe some of the characteristics, I would say that it was, let's say, German Expressionism and modern European Modernism and Art Deco. When you look at the iconography of Federal Art, there is a very definite, distinctive quality to it that allows it to be very easily recognizable. They're clean lines. Some of the figurines that were made in the ceramics division are very reminiscent of Disney characters. So you see a lot of Alice in Wonderland. Well, that's not Disney. It became Disneyfied. But you see a lot of, let's see the just so stories or Grimm Brothers. A lot of these recreations of children's stories that were very influenced by German abstractionism and German realism as well as Bauhaus. And a lot of these figures became the basis that Walt Disney used for his characters. So Federal art definitely has the qualities, the clean lines, the realism, qualities that were almost a prescription for artists to use a map, if you will, to use this particular kind of iconography. And I think I told you yesterday about the triumvirate of American artists that really, really pushed for social realism. So Thomas Hart Benton, Stuart Curry, as well as Grant Wood, who did American Gothic, had very definite heavy brush lines. And even though they were pushing a particularly American brand, a lot of the influences that they had, they couldn't escape who it was they studied with. So that's the way I would define it right now. And that'll probably evolve a little bit as I start doing more research on it. [00:13:28] [crosstalk; discussion of technical issue] Tim Mitchell [00:13:48] We're curious about the process. I mean, we're familiar with WPA generally. But how were, how were works and particular artists identified? How was it funded? How were locations for, you know, displaying these arts selected? Just, you know, we've seen it. We're just curious about sort of more. More particularly how it happened. How did the Federal Government get involved in making those kinds of decisions?
Sharon Dean [00:14:17] Well, the first thing is just a slight brief two-second background, which is that as you know, most of the Great Depression is blamed on Herbert Hoover he actually came in just after the stock crash happened. So in effect, it wasn't his fault. He just bore the brunt in that responsibility. The thing that he did that was really bad was that he didn't go the extra step to inspire hope and to make more money available. The big thing that happened to him was World War I veterans wanted their pensions early, and it would have helped a great deal had he allowed the bonus money to come out. But because he didn't do that, they basically rioted, and it caused this whole economic bottoming out that was even worse than it was before. So by the time the election came around in 1932, the Republicans had really been dragged through the mud, as it were, and maybe deservedly, maybe not, but it gave a perfect opportunity for the Democrats and Franklin Roosevelt to become elected. So upon his election in 1933, when he took office, he was already facing a country that had bottomed out economically, and he needed to do something fast. So there were already some nascent projects, grassroots projects, that were in the wings. For example, in Cleveland, they had the Print of the Month Club that started in 1933, and it actually predated a lot of the federal projects that had started. But it was a Print a Month Club that was an egalitarian print studio that artists used that they could produce a print a month, and it would be made very economical for people to own. So for $10 a year, you could get 12 prints, and if for an extra $2, you can get the portfolio with it. So this idea of the grassroots movement really started to grow. And then Fiorella LaGuardia in New York started commissioning artists to do posters for the parks and for various pet projects that he had in New York City. So these ideas caught on, and I think Franklin Roosevelt was very adept at listening to the pulse of culture and seeing what was going on, and decided to create the Works Progress Administration in order to start these projects and employ artists. And the idea was that the excuse was used that artists need to eat too. But I think that underneath all that, Roosevelt really believed that art was good propaganda and that if you used art in a certain way, you're not only you're killing two birds with one stone, you're employing artists of all kinds with music and writing and visuals. But you are also inspiring hope for the masses. And that was really important. He needed to right the country by first inspiring hope. The quintessential American ideal of the rugged individual had almost died by 1933. And I think that that was his first order of business was to use his charisma and use his creativity to really jump start the energy of Americans in this country. So the process was really quite simple. He had a number. He had a director and a deputy director. And then they picked from the largest museums and from the best civic leaders around the country. I think eight or nine regional directors of the federal arts for federal arts projects. So William Milliken from Cleveland, who was the director of the Cleveland Museum of Art from 1938 until 1950, was picked as the regional director for Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Kentucky. And he oversaw all the federal projects, including visuals. And then they had subcommittees in each of the states and at the local levels. Now, it was his responsibility to make sure that everybody agreed what kind of artwork was going to be produced. So he tried to encourage local juries to convene to pick artists. He worked along with the. One of the big Works Progress Administration projects was to build post offices around the country. And in building those post offices, of course, you needed them decorated. So one of the big things that he did was to look around the new post offices that were being constructed in the Midwest region and to commission artists and pick them from a committee of, hopefully, local people. But in some cases, as I also explained for Cuyahoga Falls Post Office, he made a mistake by not commissioning local people who actually ran the post office, the Postmaster General, to pick the artist and the theme that would decorate the post office. And the Postmaster General was able to kill the project as a result. So he had to walk a fine line. And in most cases, he was very successful. But it was very clear that locals wanted to be involved with the kind of mural that would be there because they didn't want anything depressing. They wanted everything to be uplifting. They wanted to really espouse the ideals of modernism and progress. And they wanted everybody to look good. You know, the Farm Security Administration produced documentary photographs, but that was a documentary project that wasn't really designed to be public and to be circulated. This was meant to be very public and to encourage people to remember the history of this country and to believe in it and to go forward not to despair. Does that explain the process?
Tim Mitchell [00:20:12] Well, and so, yes, it gives us a framework. But I guess I'm curious about- Okay, so we have William Milliken as a regional director. We have subcommittees at the state and local level. But I guess I'm curious about, like, did artists make applications for this?
Sharon Dean [00:20:31] They had a call. They had a call for entries. So a lot of artists would put in entries with mural Sketches and a budget that would go along with it. Now, at that time, I believe in 1934, Millikan had a total of $156,000 to disperse among over 100 artists. And I believe the salary ranged anywhere from $47 a month to $6,250 doll, depending on your level of skill and what it is you were doing. And artists who, in some cases, the bureaucratic procedures were so onerous that there was an artist by the name of Jack Greitzer who did a mural for. I forget where he did it for, whether it was. I forget which federal building, whether it was a post office or a bank. But in any case, he completed his mural, but because he didn't have the money to take photos, photographs of his mural, they weren't going to pay him. So Millikan stepped in and actually lent him money to get a photographer to go in and take pictures so that he could submit the photographs and get paid. The bureaucratic procedures, and some of these bureaucrats were to the letter that you had to complete all the procedures and, you know, be damned if you missed any one of them. So you not only had to submit sketches, but you also had to submit all expenses. And a lot of artists really weren't used to this. They were used to hand shapes, handshakes and commissions. So Milliken did a good job of being a liaison between the unions and the artists and the government. So that was really his role and the actual process of artists coming into this. I mean, Milliken was also very good at sizing up the skill of an artist. So if an artist, for example, wasn't very good at painting, they could do the sketches, but someone else would execute the fresco and he'd somehow manipulate it so that he could divide up the payment. And another person, like Edris Eckhardt, who was very good at designing, had a vision of ceramics and figurines, but didn't have the time or maybe the organization or the inclination. I think in this case, he gave her the responsibility of doing the overall design of all the figurines. But then she hired local artists, local ladies, to actually execute it. And it gave a lot more people work that way.
Tim Mitchell [00:23:07] When we spoke yesterday, you talked about the sort of the tension between federal control and local control around these WPA projects. And you also spoke about the something of a contradiction, you know, that a lot of this WPA art reflected a more optimistic or a more hopeful view of our, you know, our current state than the Depression. And the reality suggested was that, you know, I find it interesting because we think of the New Deal as sort of this watershed and the move towards expanded federal power. And obviously it's the first step that the federal government ever took into promoting and encouraging the arts. How do you see, I mean, do you see the creative control over the final message to be more a federally driven reality, or was it a local control issue where they did have veto power on the final product?
Sharon Dean [00:24:08] I think there were three things going on. And the first thing was this tension between what, you know, don't forget people didn't trust the government. So there was already this underlying tension about what kind of control they had versus what the federal government was telling them to do. So even though there may have been a lot of agreement in terms of what it is they wanted to see, in some cases, locals needed to explain, for example, that at a rural post office, you didn't need to have an industrial scene, you needed more of a farm scene. So there were those kinds of issues, but there was the other issue, I think, a reaction against the east coast snobbish perception that European modernism was better and that the aesthetic ideal are from artists in Europe. And Grant Wood and Curry and Benton were really reacting against that and consequently were specifically creating very clean, simple images, easy to read images that reacted to this European modernism. And they were really. And they were calling it social realism, and they were really pushing this brand. So they had these three things happening at once. You had the tension of. Against an east coast snobbery about what art is supposed to be and the aesthetic ideal. You had this sort of distrust between the government and local officials and local committees that were trying to get what they wanted there and how they wanted to present their community. You know, the pioneers, for example, when they. When they went west, no matter how bad it was, they never wanted their families or anybody back home to be able to see them in anything other than their Sunday best. And I think it was the same thing with public art. You never wanted to present your community as anything other than doing just fine. And I think that that's. It's an important thing to remember. The other thing, of course, was the own artistic expression and how artists were really being more than subtly pushed to create art that was more in public taste. I think that there was a big backlash to that after the WPA projects were discontinued after 1943, and artists going back to Abstract Expressionism. And I think, as Bill Busta talked about Yesterday, if you remember the art from WPA, you remove those 15 years or 20 years and you go from the late '20s to, the mid '20s to the late '40s, early '50s. You can see a much more logical progression in art. And the WPA almost can be seen as an interruption. It was an aberration of pushing the social realism in order because of extraordinary circumstances. Social circumstances.
Tim Mitchell [00:27:20] Could you talk about some of the landmark pieces that you particularly find up here in the Cleveland area?
Sharon Dean [00:27:28] Well, yes, there's one in particular, a couple in Brett Hall. One is the William Summer mural, which was Cleveland in 1830 or the city in 1830. And very bright colors, very flat perspective. William Summer was sort of a master at painting. I don't know how many murals he actually did, but this mural actually sort of draws together a lot of the cultural elements, historical elements, and actually his own style in showing not only Cleveland at that time, but in constructing a style that was. Would set the standard for other public murals in Cleveland. There's another mural that I used to see all the time done by John Czosh. And that's CSO S Z, I think Czosh, who was a Hungarian artist that did the mural for the 101st Street Post Office in University Circle. And it was basically immigration to America. And the thing I think I liked about it and didn't like about it at the same time, I spent a lot of time in line there. So the thing I liked about it were the heavy brushstrokes and the kinds of figures that he created. But if you really look at the mural, the kind of history that they told were big man, big event type of history that today you don't really argue against, but you try and fill in the holes with some of the interesting stories, personal stories of people during those times. So, for example, you know, the railroad, who really built the railroad, was it these hard working guys with their shirt sleeves rolled up that all looked generic European, or was it the Chinese and was it the Mexicans? So, you know, there's interesting points of discussion that I could see having with students at several of these locations. And one other mural, which actually I just recently found out is not WPA but was done at that time, was commissioned by the City Club. And it's called Transmission and Reception. And basically it's talking about communication in the United States. It's a beautiful, absolutely stunning mural. And what's interesting about that one is that there's a door right in the middle of the mural. For some reason, somebody decided to put a door right there. So those are just some of the favorites that I have, but there are definitely others
Tim Mitchell [00:29:58] Just a little bit to something that you were talking about before. I mean, you're suggesting that Benton and Grant Wood were leaders in this move towards discovering the real heart and soul of America, which wasn't in European Modernism.
Sharon Dean [00:30:15] No, they were actually left leaning. And what they were trying to really espouse was- And there were also extreme rightists too, right-wing people as well, who were pushing the same way they're pushing a political agenda. And so I don't think they were so much looking for the heart and soul of America as telling America what they should be looking for and how they should be thinking about themselves and their environment and social relationships. So I think it was very much the opposite. Not of a discovery process, but more of propagandizing and more of a. A lot of people dismissed Thomas Hart Benton's work because they railed against what they considered as left leaning politics.
Tim Mitchell [00:31:02] But how then did their style and sort of vision become prototypical for WPA? Were there guidelines given to artists as they submitted sketches?
Sharon Dean [00:31:18] There were some guidelines given. There were. They talked about creating clear, concise imagery. You know, artists today, when they paint in a certain style, aren’t necessarily told to use heavy brushstroke or to use abstraction. But there’s an under—there’s an implicit, tacit understanding that if you’re going to do a public artwork or a ceramic figurine at that time, of the style that was in vogue then. If you’re familiar with the three great Mexican artists of Siqueiros, Orozco, and Rivera — Diego Rivera — there’s also that same heavy social realist style that was imported from Mexico and used here. And there’s the famous relationship that Diego Rivera had with Rockefeller — with, was it Nelson Rockefeller? I forget. No, it was John Rockefeller. Anyway, he was commissioned to paint a mural in Rockefeller Plaza. And he had an assistant, Lucienne Bloch, who later became a WPA artist. And they interviewed her about this. He painted a mural that was of the peasantry rising up and basically overtaking—not the government—but coming to power. And Rockefeller said, Take it down. It’s too left-wing. I want this out of here. And Rivera refused. So with Rivera there, he called in basically construction workers and painted right over the mural. And Rivera walked out, and he went down to the New School of Social Research, where I got my degree, my doctoral degree, and he painted the mural he wanted to paint in the New School. And that’s what he did. But he was very committed to his ideals, and he wasn’t going to let any rich—not even a rich corporate bigwig—tell him what to do. So I would say that there was a lot of tension between artists and free expression, but there was also an implicit style that they were using, that it was tacitly agreed upon. I don’t think that there was necessarily a training, but that was the style that people used to create mural art at that time.
Tim Mitchell [00:33:43] I'm curious about the discussion of this art as propaganda. And I mean, is there a contradiction in art or in something that's produced as propaganda and still being labeled art?
Sharon Dean [00:34:00] It depends on how you feel about the piece. There are lots of pieces that I look at that would be considered propaganda, but that are also good pieces of art or bad pieces of art. For example, there is an artist in the early '90s, his name is Hans Haacke, and he did a lot of installation pieces having to do with the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. They were very political pieces, and some of them were very good. And a lot of people just called it propaganda who didn't like it and dismissed it. People who liked it called it art. So I think it's all on your- It's all very subjective.
Tim Mitchell [00:34:43] What's the legacy of WPA art at this point? Influence on artistic trends or particular artists followed in the wake of WPA art?
Sharon Dean [00:34:53] I think there are a few legacies to it. First, broadly, it's a cultural asset for this city that we can use not only to show how Cleveland was a major participant in a national art movement and also how William Milliken really influenced the trajectory of federal art all over the country. But I think that a lot of these pieces can still be used in an educational way to talk about this period of history with students. I think that people should know that Cleveland was the center of the ceramics division of federal art for the country. So anytime you see these WPA figurines that are in the Chicago schools, Los Angeles schools, San Francisco, or New York and Cleveland, chances are they came from Cleveland and were produced by Edris Eckhart or by one of her assistants. And there's lots of documentation to that. And I also believe that the WPA gave a lot of these artists a chance to make a name for themselves. I don't know if you're familiar with the Big Bear that's outside of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History or some of the other big animals that were produced, but they were all made by William McVeigh. William Milliken took a chance on this young artist who had limited sculptural training, and he was given, apparently, a deadline. He had no money to create, but he was given a deadline to create this giant stone bear that weighed, I believe, about 5,000 pounds. And the deadline for the exhibit that they were doing of WPA art at the Museum of Art, I don't know, it was like midnight on certain date in 1934, and this bedraggled artist, you know, was coming in with the delivery guys at, you know, five to midnight. He'd been working on it for five days straight. So it gave artists a chance to focus on something, to make a name for themselves and to be recognized in the community by their peers and by the public.
Tim Mitchell [00:37:00] You mentioned William Milliken having a larger influence than sounds like, than simply being regional director here in Cleveland.
Sharon Dean [00:37:09] Yes.
Tim Mitchell [00:37:09] Can you talk a little bit about that?
Sharon Dean [00:37:10] William Milliken, because of his ability to manage lots of constituents, also was already a well known name in the arts community. He was trained at Princeton and he also did his curatorial training at Metropolitan Museum of Art, actually cataloging the J. P. Morgan collection, which had just been donated in 1914 or 1915 to the Met. So he really made a name for himself there. And when he came here, he already had a sense of what the Cleveland Museum of Art needed in their collection. And he went out and bought spectacular pieces from Greece, from Paris. He bought masterworks the likes of which this town had not seen. So he changed the trajectory of the collection. He had a strong sense of community, responsibility. And he became so well known that nationally he was already lobbying Roosevelt just after he took his election or just after he won his election to create a federal art project that would employ artists of all kinds. So he was already well known in Washington circles as well. His influence was far reaching, probably to Roosevelt, Although I don't have any correspondence to that effect. Most of the correspondences to the director of the Federal Art Projects. But the way in which he managed, he by far employed the most artists of any region in the United States, produced the most amount of art and the most amount of quality art, and had the best relationship with artists of anybody in the country. And there are four or five sources I can cite to that effect that all recognize William Milliken as probably the best regional director of the Federal Art Project.
Tim Mitchell [00:39:07] You mentioned yesterday that you feel like there's been a resurgence and interest in WPA art.
Sharon Dean [00:39:12] Yeah, I think there has been a resurgence of interest in WPA art. And part of that is because, if you ever notice, 30 years later, what you thought looked really dated now looks really good. And you can see that in the concept of fashion, for example. The old espadrilles that we used to wear in the '70s are making a comeback. You know, the frilly '60s blouses that we used to wear—what do you call them? Peasant blouses — I think they’re making a comeback. All of these things start to look good 20, 30 years later. You can also look at art. If you look at art produced in the '60s, things that you thought 10 years ago looked dated and terrible. I bet even if they let this building stand for a while longer, or the Don Hisaka Student Union, maybe that would start to even look good — the Brutalist architecture of the '70s. But I think that WPA art is starting to look good again because we’re far enough away from all of the arguments that happened and the political tensions that we’re starting to look at the art for what it is. We're starting to see now what a cultural asset it can be to this community and how it can be marketed. And we're also starting to see that there probably are some influences on current artists, that they're probably starting to use some of the realist qualities in their working again.
Tim Mitchell [00:40:49] Obviously, being able to hold on to some of these artifacts is going to be important. What are some of the challenges or what are some of the initiatives that we're involved in right now to try to preserve?
Sharon Dean [00:41:00] I'm glad you asked that. We got a call just the other day from Western Reserve Historical Society. They found out that the Cleveland Cavaliers were removing some WPA murals from. From one of the rooms, the Depot Room in the Queue or the Old Gundarina. And these are three or four murals that were done by Earl Neff in 1937 for the WPA. And they're of the history of railroading. So we are coming into possession of them. And right now they are housed at Bonfoey. Cleveland Public Housing, the Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority had two Elmer Brown murals that were in Lakeview Terrace and Valley View Estates. Those are with the Intermuseum Conservation Association, and they are probably going to come into the possession of CSU. So there's a strong possibility that they'll be hanging in the new Student Union Center.
Tim Mitchell [00:42:07] Trying to think of the right question to ask. Is there anything you can add to the interview today? Because I understand our time is short.
Sharon Dean [00:42:13] Okay. Well, I wanted to thank you for the opportunity. I hope that we can forge, continue to forge a partnership and that the WPA public art, as well as prints and drawings and sculptures and ceramics, can be used as a linchpin for educational as well as cultural arts tours. Thank you. Thank you.
Tim Mitchell [00:42:32] Thank you. I have one question just for some clarification. You talked about iconography. [crosstalk] Could you just tell us-
Sharon Dean [00:42:37] Iconography would be the specific images that were created that are really recognizable as WPA. For example, American Gothic done by Grant Wood. The iconography of the farmer and his wife. The real story behind that is I think it was a dentist and his daughter that were used for to pose for that. But it became quintessential. It captured the lines and the despair and the whole stoic Americana that people kind of latched onto. Then there were the iconographic images of housing and safety and milk and swimming, all of which were created at that time for posters that people now look at like a stop sign or the red light, you know, that sort of thing. So that that's what I mean by iconography is simple, clean images that people come to associate with what it is like an Onomatopoeia. The word that sounds like it is. Thank you.
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