Chicago’s Other Museum of Natural History

At the Chicago Academy of Sciences, Roy Robinson designed this reception desk for the new Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum in 1999. Shown above is the original concept "napkin sketch." The piece was fabricated by Pinkus Woodworks in Addison, Illinois.

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First some background … Not a history lover? Then feel free to skip over this paragraph.  Otherwise, here’s a brief saga of Chicago’s other natural history museum.  Founded before the Civil War, the Chicago Academy of Sciences was also the city’s original natural history museum.  By 1871 it had amassed an unrivaled collection that was tragically destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of that year.  In the following decades, as the institution struggled to rebuild itself amidst financial difficulties and relocations, it sadly missed out on the one opportunity that might have catapulted it onto the world stage, the Columbian Exposition of 1893.  Instead, the department store tycoon Marshall Field funded a collection displayed at the world’s fair that would become the core of today’s Field Museum.  But the Academy of Sciences lived on, quietly, becoming a force for science education and environmentalism.  It opened its new facility, the sleek and contemporary Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, in 1999 in Chicago’s Lincoln Park.

For many years I was involved with design for the Chicago Academy of Sciences, from exhibitions to interiors and landscape elements.   This visitor reception desk was influenced by cubist paintings, the architecture of Reima Pietilä, butterfly wings, and vertebrae.

Crossing the Line (or Reinvention, Part II)

"Crossing the Line" Pen & Ink with watercolor. © 2012 by Roy Robinson

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Reinvention may be the last best hope for the middle-aged.  Here we have a chance to strike out at life with all the passion, sincerity and recklessness of youth.  And to put to use our years of experience in order to reshape ourselves into something better.

Or not.

As every designer who has ever had to work with existing conditions or givens knows, change comes in two forms: structural (alterations to the underlying system that supports and operates the thing) and cosmetic (alterations to the “look and feel” – the image – of the thing).  Change your looks, change your job, change your spouse, get in shape, get into yoga, bungee jump or skydive, start a new hobby, end an old habit, forget your troubles, get happy, get ready for the judgement day.  Changes come in all varieties. How hard is it to change yourself?  It depends on the depth of the change.  The real question is:  When we set out to change ourselves, how often do we really make ourselves better, not just different?  Where is the line between reinvention and redecoration?

Breaking News

"Four of a Kind." Pen & Ink with watercolor. © 2012 by Roy Robinson

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Just in: Unconfirmed reports suggest that Style has nearly conquered Substance.

Rookwood

Interior design for the new offices and production facilities of the Rookwood Pottery Company included the display furniture for the showroom, 2008-2010. The serpentine display table is comprised of five modular segments that can be reconfigured in multiple ways. It was crafted by cabinetmaker Mike Graf.

The legendary Rookwood Pottery made noteworthy art pottery and tilework in Cincinnati from the late nineteenth century until it fell on hard times in the mid-twentieth century.  As a young design student in the early 1980′s, the mystique of old Rookwood captivated me.  So it came as an unexpected thrill 25 years later when I had the opportunity to begin a collaboration with Rookwood’s creative team during the company’s renaissance.  The talented team of artists, potters, sculptors, and glazers is bringing the re-emerging company into the twenty-first century with great appreciation for its century-old heritage.  For the work I’ve contributed – architectural concepts, interiors & furniture, designs for tiles and sculptural objects – I’ve tried to maintain respect for the company’s past while instilling a new and contemporary relevance.  It’s my hope to challenge preconceived ideas about what the company is today and what it can become in the future.

Impossible Balance?

"The Siren's Demise" Pen & Ink with watercolor. © 2012 by Roy Robinson

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I’m always looking for the perfect (impossible?) balance between respectability and subversiveness.  One way or the other, I usually fail.

With a Twist

One of six ceramic mosaics for the bistro Local 127 in Cincinnati (2009). I worked closely with the team of artists at Rookwood Pottery - including Allan Nairn, Terri Kern, and Gary Simon - to execute these designs, with their multitude of glaze colors, heavy grout, and hand-pressed custom shapes.

As a professional, I’d always thought of myself as a designer first – and an artist, writer or whatever else outside of that.  But I started questioning the purpose such distinctions really serve.  I thought how much more interesting is the resulting ambiguity when you start blurring boundaries.  Some of the best solutions come when you step outside a preconceived set of expectations or definitions.  Maybe I’m hinting at a kind of anarchy here.

Like Jujitsu…

"Self-Interest" pen & ink. Purchased by private collector. © 2012 by Roy Robinson

…Drawing is a form of Self-Defense.

Winners and Losers

Roger Federer holds the trophy after winning the Western & Southern Open Tennis Tournament in 2010. Roy Robinson designed and Gary Simon sculpted the permanent trophy for the event, which was produced by the talented team at Rookwood Pottery.

It’s awards season again (funny how it corresponds with flu season). Superbowl Sunday is a week away.  The Summer Olympics in London loom just over the horizon.  And then, of course, there’s Presidential politics: the endless stream of debates, primaries and conventions that will culminate in the much anticipated/dreaded November election. The sweet smell of success and the rotten stench of defeat already linger everywhere, ironically in the same whiff.  Lest we begin to feel like losers ourselves, we mere mortals must weigh our accomplishments on a more delicately calibrated scale.  After all, when was the last time one of us got to hold a trophy over his head or worried what she should wear on the red carpet?  Most of our modern victories go unnoticed. Why? Because they aren’t really considered victories by anyone else.  One such victory for me was the moment pictured above. Sure, it was really Federer’s moment, but there was also a piece of me there in that trophy.  Luckily, there were photographers present to capture my good side.

The New Religion

12 Principles of the New Religion. pen & ink/brush. 22.25"H x 22.25"W. 2011. © 2012 by Roy Robinson

I don’t hear people talking much about making things any more – or the time it takes to make things.  It’s as if discussing something as an idea is the same as having a finished product.  Maybe it’s living in a time when so much production has been outsourced, and we are so removed from the personal processes of how things are made.  But there is a pleasure that comes from the time and patience of realizing an idea – and the trust in the process of creating.  Making is a form of meditation.

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∞ If Less is More, it might be shown that Much Less is Much More.

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∞ Paradoxical corollary:  The whole is often less than the sum of its parts.

Subtlety…

"We All Suffer from Lack of Subtlety" pen & ink/brush. 30"H x 22.25"W. 2011 © 2012 by Roy Robinson

I do love beautiful things. But I’m seldom interested in drawing beautiful things. I want to make drawings of the banal, or the provocative, or the perplexing – but beautifully.