Transcript
Interview
Interview with Clinton Adams
Conducted by Paul Cummings
At the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM
March 29, 1974
Preface
The following oral history transcript is the result of a tape-recorded interview with Clinton Adams on March 29, 1974. The interview took place at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM, and was conducted by Paul Cummings for the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. Funding for the transcription of this interview provided by the Smithsonian Institution's Women's Committee.
The reader should bear in mind that he or she is reading a transcript of spoken, rather than written, prose.
PAUL CUMMINGS: I think what would be really useful for us would be if we could start about how you got involved with Tamarind [Lithography Workshop], you know, because you had met June Wayne by about 1948.
CLINTON ADAMS: Nineteen forty-eight, and June and I have been working Tamarind more or less at the same, I mean at [Lynton R.] Kistler's place -
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: -- in Los Angeles more or less the same time. I started there probably a little before she did and was, when I first met June, giving some instruction to UCLA students, but at Kistler's shop.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Were there many students in those days?
MR. ADAMS: Yes. The UCLA Art Department didn't have a program in lithography, but I offered some credit courses in lithography at UCLA, but meeting in Kistler's shop and working [inaudible] with him.
MR. CUMMINGS: I see. Right. Right.
MR. ADAMS: And, of course, there were a number of other artists working in Kistler's shop at that time.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Man Ray, Jean Charlow, Eugene Berman, [Stanton] McDonald-Wright.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And a number of others who were California artists.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Were there other shops like his around?
MR. ADAMS: No, no.
MR. CUMMINGS: That was the only one.
MR. ADAMS: As a matter of fact, that was, you see, a rather remarkable element of luck, which I think had an awful lot to do with Tamarind ultimately. Kistler's shop was one of the very, very few shops in the United States at that time.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And he was doing printing for artists, both artists who lived in Los Angeles, and artists who came there to work with him.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: So that's where June and I met.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: I was on the UCLA faculty, and I then subsequently organized several exhibitions in UCLA art galleries which I was serving -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- as sort of an acting director in the sense that it was then. And one of the shows I put on very early on was a show of American lithographs. June was one of the artists that I included in that.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And we came to know each other quite well socially.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Then I left California in '54 to go to Kentucky as Chairman of the Art Department there.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And kept in touch with June. I was back in LA the summer of '56, I remember, and did some additional lithographs with Kistler.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And at that time, Kistler, who hadn't been making much money out of art, printing for artists --
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- was finding that he was having, simply as a financial necessity -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- to do more and more work of a commercial nature.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: He was getting into offset equipment and -
MR. CUMMINGS: I see.
MR. ADAMS: And finally, his handpress would sit back in the corner -
MR. CUMMINGS: Sitting there.
MR. ADAMS: -- more or less gathering dust.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: He was only doing printing for a few artists such as June and myself that he had worked with previously.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And it became, I think, evident to her when she wanted to do this John Donne book -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- that she just wasn't going to be able to do it with Lynton Kistler.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And she went to Europe to do that.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: But when I saw June in the summer of '59, we had talked I think earlier, but my memory is not entirely clear about the idea of some new lithographic -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- possibilities in the United States. But in the summer of '59, we talked about it very concretely.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And June already, by then, had the idea pretty firmly of trying to do something.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And then during the year - that was when - in LA in the summer of '59. Then during '59 and '60, she and I corresponded at length about it.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And the idea became firmer and firmer.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And at one point I went up to New York and saw Matt Lowrey to talk with him about the proposal -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- which was then in the works.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And, oh, on another trip to New York, explored, you know, where the materials were still available.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Paper, presses.
MR. ADAMS: All that kind of thing.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right.
MR. ADAMS: And in correspondence with June, we then agreed that I would take a year's leave of absence from Florida and join her in Los Angeles -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- in July of '60.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: We - obviously, then, the next thing was a printer.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And at first, at first our thought -
MR. CUMMINGS: How -
MR. ADAMS: -- was to bring a European printer.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: That was very much June's thought, to bring a master printer from Europe.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: It just didn't work out. And Garo [Antreasian] had written an article around then. I don't know the exact date.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: He may have mentioned that to you.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: In which he was also stating the need for new impetus -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- in lithography in the country.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And I think it was his article that attracted June to talk with him about it-
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And June, I believe, saw Garo in Indianapolis, and made the arrangements for him to come in -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- as technical director.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Certainly as far and away one of the best qualified Americans to do the job, and we convened there, as it were, the summer of '60.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Earlier that year she had hired Joe Funk, who was previously Lynton Kistler's assistant -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- to come in and physically assist her with her setting up of the workshop.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: So at the time Garo and I got there -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- in late June -
MR. CUMMINGS: That was the plan.
MR. ADAMS: -- Joe had done most of the work.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And June had acquired one of Kistler's old presses from him by purchase.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And subsequently we were able to get other equipment, and we started going.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: I think literally we were printing our first edition on the 1st of July 1960-
MR. CUMMINGS: The beginning -
MR. ADAMS: -- for Romas Viesulas, who was the first artist to have the Tamarind [inaudible].
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Well, how - what was, you know, the Ford Foundation, I suppose, is an obvious place to go, but why were they interested in doing this, and what was the point that you make of them -
MR. ADAMS: Well, of course, you would have to ask Matt Lowrey, you know, in a way, why they were interested in it, but June at some point - and again, here she - I'm repeating something third hand that she and Matt can answer more accurately.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: But at some point in relation to her experience going to Europe -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- finding that there she could do what she wanted to do.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Some social situation with Matt.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: She was saying, "My God, it's a crying shame that an American artist has to go to Europe -"
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: -- "to do this work. Why isn't something possible here?"
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And as I understand, again secondhand -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- Matt said, "Well, if you think that's a good idea, why don't you make a proposal?"
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] And June, of course, knew better than to let something slip.
MR. ADAMS: Right.
MR. CUMMINGS: [Laughs] Oh, great.
MR. ADAMS: But obviously then, at that point there were several things that were necessary to do.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: One of them is that most major American artists of the Fifties sadly -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- did not make lithographs.
MR. CUMMINGS: Oh, hated printmaking.
MR. ADAMS: One now thinks of the great prints that could have been made then -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- by Mark Rothko and -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- by [Robert] Motherwell and by [Franz] Kline and by [Willem] de Kooning and all of the -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] [Jackson] Pollack.
MR. ADAMS: Because the medium would have lent itself, and did lend itself beautifully to abstract expression as a message showed by the more recent prints now of de Kooning and Motherwell.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: But it's a shame that that work doesn't exist.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And one also thinks of the great lithograph that John Marin might have made, you know.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: It's too bad because printmaking then was in this, this very special attitude which existed -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- that printmaking is made by printmakers. The prints are made by printmakers.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Right. Right. Right.
MR. ADAMS: And that artists don't make prints.
MR. CUMMINGS: Separate activity.
MR. ADAMS: Which, of course, is a completely different concept in the European concept -
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: -- in which a Picasso takes it for granted, he paints -
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and he makes prints.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And I think June and I shared very, very firmly the belief -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- that as long as the printmaker was down in his shop involved in the cooking -
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: -- you were never going to get great prints. The only way you were going to get great prints was for the artist -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- to be able to turn to the technician as a collaborator -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and get great prints.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And that was the premise, of course, we started on from the beginning.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: That there had to be a collaborative venture.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: That there had to be a separation, and that if one did this, and if one trained the printers and -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- showed artists what could be done in this possibility, painters, sculptors, et cetera -- that it would happen.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And obviously it happened in Europe.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Right.
MR. ADAMS: And, of course, it did.
MR. CUMMINGS: Well, there was also no market for prints.
MR. ADAMS: Well, that's true, too. And I think that's something that needs to go into the history as to why Tamarind was successful at that moment in time. In the Fifties, you could still buy prints from the Suite Vollard at $150.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And you could buy Misserier [phonetic] prints for 45.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: You could buy a good Radone [phonetic] for 100.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And as long as those prices existed, there was no market for a young American artist at $100.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. You could buy a Stuart Davis for $10.
MR. ADAMS: Yeah. So as long as that was the case, there was no real market.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: And I think it was one of the necessary conditions to Tamarind's success that all of the sudden, about the time we were starting, these master prints were going up in price so very sharply -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- that by the time the Suite Vollard was $1,000 per print -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Right.
MR. ADAMS: -- then there was a market there for fine American prints -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- at the 100 to 250 to $500 level.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: Which is where the prints really have to go for.
MR. CUMMINGS: Well, I think Tamarind had a lot to do with that, because at least the artists that I've interviewed who were there, you know, in the early days, would say that, you know, "I never thought of making prints. I mean, you know, why?" But as they did, they talked about it, and Tamarind was very well publicized, and the whole thing grew and grew and grew.
MR. ADAMS: Yes. I think the fact that we were able, and the fact that June had such high skills in this whole area of public relations and communications, the fact that we were able to attract attention to the fine print -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- no doubt did a great deal.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: I think that not only did a great deal for Tamarind, it also probably did a great deal for Tatyana Grosman, who was doing very fine prints at the same time, but it was a combination of the two.
MR. CUMMINGS: That was a different point of view.
MR. ADAMS: Yeah.
MR. CUMMINGS: How - you know, one thing that has always interested me, and that is that I've understood the Tamarind idea is basically a place to train master printers. Was that program evolved before it started? Or did it grow as it happened?
MR. ADAMS: Yes. That was, that was - part of our original, our original proposal was really two central ideas that were peripheral ones, but there were two central ideas. The two things that needed to be done were to create an American workshop in which there were fine collaborative printers -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And inasmuch as those didn't exist in the United States, they obviously had to be trained.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right.
MR. ADAMS: There was never any thought that one workshop in Los Angeles was going to meet the needs of American artists.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: But it was the thought that printers were going to have to be trained to open workshops in a number of places.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: They didn't exist, so they had to be trained. That, as a matter of fact, is the central proposal in the Ford Foundation proposal.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: The other was to interest great American artists in making great American prints.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: So the idea of being completely compatible, the program centered on both of them. As a matter of fact, you couldn't do one without the other.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right.
MR. ADAMS: If you're going to train a printer, he has to work in collaboration with an artist -
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right. Right.
MR. ADAMS: -- and he needs to work in collaboration with artists of significance who will make demands upon him.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Right. So that he improves.
MR. ADAMS: So that he improves. So that he meets the highest standards.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: You're not going to train a fine printer by having him collaborate with Joe Glutz.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right.
MR. ADAMS: But if you get him in there to collaborate with Josef Albers -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and Albers insists on this and -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And Sam Prince insists on that -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And Louise Nevelson insists on something else -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- the printer is going to get a real experience out of it.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: So the two goals were completely compatible.
MR. CUMMINGS: How did you decide on the kind of program of selecting somebody to be trained as a printer and then the steps -
MR. ADAMS: By making a lot of mistakes, I'm told [laughs]. Some of our earlier printer trainees weren't all that successful. We gradually began to evolve a kind of profile of characteristics that would let us predict with some greater success the kind of person that was likely to make a good printer. And I think we're still doing that.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: It's somewhat intuitive. We get a lot of letters and we get an application.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And we get obviously academic transcripts -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and all that kind of thing.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: But it is very clear to me - at this point, at least - that motivation and intention and intelligence -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- all of these things are what we are basically looking for.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: One of the most successful printers we have had has had no academic background in the arts at all. As a matter of fact, two of them. Irwin Hollander, early on, who had come out of the commercial printing business -
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right.
MR. ADAMS: -- more than two. A third name already comes to mind. Ken Tyler, whose background had been in business -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- in the steel industry, et cetera.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And - although Ken is a very able artist, also. And Julie Duristo, who is one of the printers who came through the program here, who is now at the graphic studio in Tampa.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And Julie was an engineer at the Kennedy Space Center, who gravitated into it.
MR. CUMMINGS: Fantastic.
MR. ADAMS: So in all, all three of those cases -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- what one saw was intelligence and motivation -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and desire to be a fine printer and work collaboratively with artists.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And, of course, Irwin and Ken and Julie each in their own way -
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: -- have had spectacular success as printers.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Well, did you give them, you know, at some point, a practical interview? If they had had any printing experience?
MR. ADAMS: We didn't always. I wish we had in some cases, but I think ideally I would like to do that, but sometimes it's not practical.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: But we do look at the work that they've done before -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- in order to get some sense of aesthetic sensibilities.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Most of the printers coming into the program are people who have had a rather conventional education in the art, and then a master's degree, let's say -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- somewhere in printmaking.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and so many factors enter into it that it's very hard to tell, but from the beginning we have concentrated on people who have the desire to be professional printers -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and to collaborate with artists.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: That's been our overall goal.
MR. CUMMINGS: You know, the relationship of the Ford Foundation, which I guess is really June's activity, did you have much to do with them?
MR. ADAMS: No, I didn't have a lot of close contact there. I saw Mack once before we actually started.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And, of course, I've seen him a number of times over the years since we've been working with it. But the negotiations with Ford were, were really June's baby.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And I think that, you know, she did a spectacular job in putting this proposal in a form that was attractive to Ford.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Mack was very important because of his own personal interest and personal support.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: I can't think of anybody in the Foundation who could have had more of a complete perception of what we were doing -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- the importance of it -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- the confidence in it -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- which enabled the program to go on much longer than most of the Foundation's supported programs had gone on.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And Ford never at any time attempted to interfere in the program, or to try to say in specifics how things were to be done.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: It was a very fine relationship.
MR. CUMMINGS: That's terrific. Ten years is a long time.
MR. ADAMS: Sure.
MR. CUMMINGS: You were in Los Angeles for one year about, weren't you?
MR. ADAMS: '60, '61. Both Garo and I were there for the full first year. We worked with all of the artists who came in in the first year.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And really, Garo and I were the staff. Joe Funk stayed on as, as assistant printer to Garo.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And then in the fall of the first year, a European printer by the name of Horak, Bohuslav Horak, who now teaches down in Texas came in.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: We didn't start the printer training program right at the beginning.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: It was a while. We got things underway. We got the program established before we began to bring in new printers for training.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And actually, I was handling the whole territorial function of it pretty much by myself for that first year. When I think back, I try to figure out how it was done and I don't quite know.
MR. CUMMINGS: [Laughs.]
MR. ADAMS: Because we now have a much larger staff and much more space.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: But we turned out a lot of fine lithographs.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Even in the first year.
MR. CUMMINGS: That's true. That's true. How is the selection of the artists made?
MR. ADAMS: There was a national committee with a number of distinguished people on it. Critics, museum people, a very good national committee as a board of selection.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Which would -- which had the function of suggesting names to June.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And then she would circulate the names to the members of the board of selection and say, "How do you feel about this artist as to that?"
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And after getting that kind of advice, would negotiate with artists to come there.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: I also served as a member of that board of selection during the entire 10 years -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- that it existed from '60 to '70 -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- even after I left Tamarind to come over here.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And the whole list of those is available in the Tamarind publications -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: No sense in detailing them now.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right. But was that done generally through the mail? Did you have a annual meeting?
MR. ADAMS: Yes, all through the mail. Well, there were, there were occasional board of directors meetings, and some of the people who were on the board of selection were also on the Tamarind Board of Directors -
MR. CUMMINGS: I see.
MR. ADAMS: -- but there were very few such general meetings -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- because these people were scattered all over the country.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: And it would have been very expensive to bring them together very often.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: It was usually in mail form. The artist's name - several artists' names would come in.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Do you feel strongly affirmative? Do you feel negative?
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Or, here's another place you can check if you simply don't know the artist's work.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And a place for comments. And it seemed to work quite well.
MR. CUMMINGS: That should be some fascinating documentation on, you know, who was known and who wasn't.
MR. ADAMS: Yes. Yes.
MR. CUMMINGS: And what the comments were.
MR. ADAMS: Some of the comments might have to remain under control for a while.
MR. CUMMINGS: [Laughs] Well, that was - you came here when?
MR. ADAMS: In the summer of '61.
MR. CUMMINGS: How did that come about? Because you had been -
MR. ADAMS: I had been at Florida.
MR. CUMMINGS: -- at Florida.
MR. ADAMS: I was on leave of absence from Florida. I will have to say that perhaps my wife and I weren't totally entranced with Florida at that time. We had a small son, and northern Florida was still having a lot of racial problems at that point, and we weren't overjoyed with the idea of going back into that - although I think Florida has certainly put those days behind it.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: It wasn't clear at that point that it would.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: It was shortly after the Supreme Court Decision, '57.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And so we weren't overjoyed going back to Florida.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Somebody, I forget who, put my name in the hopper here, and I was approached, would I be in any way interested in Albuquerque.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: I knew New Mexico. I liked New Mexico. It seemed like a more attractive place to go.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: With just sheer dollars, I couldn't afford to stay on at Tamarind.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: There wasn't enough money in the grant to pay a full salary to June and to me and to Garo. It just wasn't that kind of money.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Right. Right. Do you think the fact that you were from California originally made you gravitate this way?
MR. ADAMS: Do you mean as far as the Western United States?
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Very probably. I've lived in New York, and I've lived in Kentucky, and I've lived in Florida. And I will have to say I do like the West. John Sloan made a lovely remark one time that in the East the hills were all covered with green fungus, but in the West you could see the bones -
MR. CUMMINGS: [Laughs.]
MR. ADAMS: And that a single tree was like a beautiful piece of fresh green lettuce.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And I guess I feel a little bit that way like Sloan did.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] That's wonderful. When you came here this department existed, didn't it?
MR. ADAMS: Oh, yes.
MR. CUMMINGS: But it had no - it didn't have the size that it does have now.
MR. ADAMS: Oh, no. The art department was relatively small then. It's grown a great deal over the creative time. The University of New Mexico had around 8,000 students in 1961.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: It has about 20,000 now. And the art department has grown proportionately much more than the university has.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] How large was it when you came here?
MR. ADAMS: Oh, I think there were 9 or 10 on the faculty, but it was a pretty small department.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And I was able - because it was a period of growth, and because I was able to attract some very good people to come here, certainly among them, Garo -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- to get some programs going I think are quite fine. Certainly lithography and photography, history of photography -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And history of pre-Colombian American Indian art.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: I think we've made very substantial advances.
MR. CUMMINGS: Have you been interested in photography? Or is that a - is that a recent -
MR. ADAMS: Not as a personal interest. I'm not a photographer.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: I had known then Darren Coke before I came here. I first met Coke in Kentucky.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And then I hired him on the faculty in Florida.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Started a photography program there.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: He had done a spectacular job of it. He is a very fine teacher. And he moved on then to Arizona State University in Phoenix for a while.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And when I came here, one of the things I started very soon was an art museum program.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And worked closely with Mitch Wilder on it at the beginning, and when I needed a director, Van was one of the people who came to mind -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- so he came a year later, became chairman of the art department and developed the photography program.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And, of course, also the museum program.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm.
MR. ADAMS: The Tamarind thing, of course, here the next step would be when Garo came -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Which is when we decided we were going to try and start a program in lithography.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And obviously that may have, may have reflected my own interest in lithography.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: And it was perfectly obvious after my experience working with Garo for a year in Los Angeles that if I could hire him, I'd be hiring the best man around.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And so I began talking with Garo about that.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: It also greatly simplified the problem of writing the Tamarind book -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- which he and I had already started then. And that was going to be a very difficult problem with collaboration.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: He was in Indianapolis, and I was here.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: So it made that project much, much easier.
MR. CUMMINGS: Where did the idea for the book come from?
MR. ADAMS: Well, I'd say fairly early, as it began to be obvious that Tamarind was developing a great body of knowledge about lithography that was not public.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: I think June very soon had the feeling that we wanted to document everything we were doing as fully as possible -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- so that the thought of publishing slides, publishing a book, of making films.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: All of these things would record very fully what was being done, and make it as widely available as possible.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Now, lithography was in a pretty damned sorry state.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] They were just little black-and-white prints.
MR. ADAMS: Yes.
[Audio Break]
MR. ADAMS: You know, you could go to schools around the country, and you would find these crummy litho shops -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- or they would be using the litho stone as an ink slab to make etchings -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and there would be a dirty press and a messy place -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and somebody who had read a paltry little textbook on lithography of some sort -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- but didn't really know anything about it, trying to teach students who would get a couple of impressions before the stone went completely black.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: It was a very, very primitive state.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: There were only a few places - oh, probably less than 10 - where lithography was being fairly well taught by somebody who knew something about it. There were almost no professional workshops.
MR. CUMMINGS: Why do you think that intaglio printing was more popular, and lithography was just not active?
MR. ADAMS: I guess you'd probably have to say that was just due to a few people, and to the fact, I suppose, that we did have this distinction of printmaker-versus-artist.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Right.
MR. ADAMS: And people would get heavily involved in the intaglio techniques -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- for their own sake as students of printmaking.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: But an awful lot of the impetus for, for intaglio printmaking came from Hayter and from Lasansky.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right.
MR. ADAMS: And for good or for bad - and there would be some arguments on both sides of that question there -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- they deserve a lot of credit for the character of American printmaking-
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- prior to Tamarind.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Well, that's true. I mean if you take those two people away, there is nobody, really.
MR. ADAMS: Yeah. Yeah.
MR. CUMMINGS: It's astounding, you know.
MR. ADAMS: You know, they deserve all kinds of credit for positive accomplishments.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: But along with that comes - what I believe to be, at least - is the negative factor that that movement tended to separate -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- the artist and the printmaker even more.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Yeah, I think so. I think so. Getting back to what happened here, was there a print program when you arrived here?
MR. ADAMS: Not of any consequence. The university owned a lithograph press and an assortment of small stones.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: There was a very fine gentleman who was a member of the faculty then, a European sculptor, John Tachel [phonetic], who was teaching on the faculty at that time and who from time to time did teach a little printmaking course where he did an introduction to printmaking.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Very modest. He was primarily a sculptor.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Kenneth Adams, who was on the faculty, had made lithographs early on in Taos and elsewhere. There was interest in New Mexico in lithography. New Mexico had been active in lithography.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: There had been presses in Santa Fe and Taos during the early days.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: It wasn't as if one was bringing a completely foreign thing in -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- but the art department here did not, in 1960, really have a print program of any substance.
MR. CUMMINGS: That's incredible when you think how short a time ago it was. But what did you do when you came? How long was it before you set up the print program in some kind of chronology and all?
MR. ADAMS: My memory is not all that good for detail, but I think it was probably about 1964 before we were able to get a really solid program going.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And shortly after that - within a year after Garo came, we also began to do a good bit of the initial training for Tamarind here.
MR. CUMMINGS: Oh, really?
MR. ADAMS: The new printers as they were coming into the Tamarind program came first to UNM for usually three months -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and worked here with Garo -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and then went on to Los Angeles.
MR. CUMMINGS: Was that kind of a -
MR. ADAMS: The reason we developed that is because it was very, very difficult at Los Angeles to know how to take a brand-new printer into the workshop there and have him start working with artists right away.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Right.
MR. ADAMS: What did you do with this brand-new printer?
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: And there wasn't enough space in Los Angeles very adequately to train new printers there and also maintain the artist program.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] I see.
MR. ADAMS: So that this was the solution we worked out in consultation with June.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Garo and I were out in Los Angeles, conferences at Tamarind every three or four months -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- during this whole period of time -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and so starting around '64 and very actively by '65, we were bringing new printers in here.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: For example, John Sommers, who is our present studio manager at Tamarind -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- first came into the program by coming here for a period of time -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- then went out to Los Angeles for the full printer training program there.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And then he happens to be the one who stayed on, you know, as we moved over here again.
MR. CUMMINGS: How did you arrive at the amount of time that someone would put in to become a master printer? Was that -
MR. ADAMS: I guess that's something - something we discovered rather than anything we had in our heads at the beginning. We found out -
MR. CUMMINGS: How long it took?
MR. ADAMS: -- that it takes, for most people, somewhere between 18 months and two years to gain the understandings -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and the experience that we felt were the requisites of a master printer.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] That's not bad, though.
MR. ADAMS: It varies somewhat individual to individual.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And it's varies in terms of their experience.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: But it falls pretty much within that range.
MR. CUMMINGS: That's not a big investment in time when you consider how much you have to learn.
MR. ADAMS: No.
MR. CUMMINGS: You know?
MR. ADAMS: It means, obviously, very hard work. This isn't just a typical classroom situation. This is all day, every day.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right.
MR. ADAMS: Around the calendar. It's not just the academic year.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: So that's the equivalent of quite a bit, if you think of it in terms of the usual amount of course work taken in an academic year.
MR. CUMMINGS: It's two-and-a-half or three years almost academically.
MR. ADAMS: Yeah, at least. At least.
MR. CUMMINGS: But that - I always thought that was a very good idea because, for somebody who was going to go into business and set his own shop up, he knew what he had to do every day to keep it going.
MR. ADAMS: Along with all of this as a part of the training as a printer, we very much get into the business of running a lithographic workshop.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: There is what we call our business course -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- which deals with the economics of a lithographic workshop as well as with the printing of lithographs.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And as Tamarind went along, we began to see that some of our original objectives weren't the whole thing.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: If you're going to interest American artists in making lithographs, you are going to have to do something about the market.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: Because at that time, the dealer structure was just absolutely horrible -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- for the sale of contemporary prints.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: Most dealers weren't interested in them.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Or if they were interested, they didn't know how to handle them.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right.
MR. ADAMS: So that the studies that Tamarind did of the dealer structure and of the economics of the whole print field -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- were not something we really had in mind at the beginning, but simply that we found that this problem led to that one and that one led to another.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right. Right. You know, it interests me - and a little later we will get into how Tamarind came here, which I suppose is obvious, considering you and Antreasian are both here and have been part of it from the beginning and continued all the way through, but I am curious about other things that have happened here since your department has grown so much. Was there a museum when you came?
MR. ADAMS: No.
MR. CUMMINGS: That's a new -
MR. ADAMS: No. I came in and, of course, when you sit there and speak of departments, the art department is only one of the departments that I have responsibility for.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: But I came here in '60 at a time when this building, the Fine Arts Center had been partially designed and when the university had made a commitment to build the building.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And there was planned to put in it an art museum. The plans weren't very complete at that point. Having known Mitch Wilder very well, I brought Mitch in as a consultant on that.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And Mitch and I between us resolved the details of the museum.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: I had some experience in that field myself.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And set up the physical structure of it. There was no collection.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And about a year later then we brought Van Coke in and Van has been director not through all of that time, he was director of the museum and then chairman of the art department. Then he was away for a couple of years. He was director of George Eastman House, the international acclaimed photography in Rochester. And then, he then came back as museum director. But in that period of time, a collection has been pulled together -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- that is a worth a few million dollars.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: It has a pretty large number of items in it.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Some of them are very important works.
MR. CUMMINGS: How did you start that? The collection? You can't go out and just find one -
MR. ADAMS: Slowly with great difficulty. It's a problem in the Western American city that doesn't have great historic routes, or at least doesn't have old families that have collected in the 19th century.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Who can give you things.
MR. ADAMS: When they could give you an Ennis that they bought for $100 from Ennis.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: It's a very great difficulty. I think almost all through the West, because some of the families that are here who may have come here from elsewhere -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- are very likely to send their works back there.
MR. CUMMINGS: Oh, really?
MR. ADAMS: It is sad, for example, that one family that was here that had a few impressionist paintings, Monet, Manet, et cetera, gave them to the Chicago Art Institute.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Well, I'm not sure that the Chicago Art Institute badly needed one more Monet.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: It would have been important in Albuquerque.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: But that family came from Chicago, and that's where the things went.
MR. CUMMINGS: Yeah.
MR. ADAMS: You know, I - we have bought things. We bought against taste, and against the market in the early '60s with such money as we had.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: When it was still possible to buy a very nice print by Delacroix [phonetic] and Jericof [phonetic] for 15 and $20 apiece because nobody was buying Delacroix and Jericof.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: We have had a community organization, the Friends of Art, which has raised money and given it for the purpose of making acquisitions.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Is it difficult to inspire an organization like that in this part of the country?
MR. ADAMS: Yes. Yes. We've had a small core of very interested people who have done a wonderful job, but it is hard to expand it.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: We have had some help from the National Endowment, of course, more recently.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: We have had gifts of works of art from various people.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Andrew Dasburg has given us things.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Georgia O'Keeffe has given us things. Other individuals have helped.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Can you track people outside of this area for gifts? Or is it difficult?
MR. ADAMS: Not much. Not much.
MR. CUMMINGS: They have to have some interest.
MR. ADAMS: That is a very great difficulty, I think.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And, of course, there again that's a function of age. Yale University or Harvard University gets great quantities of gifts from people all over the country who are among their alumni.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right.
MR. ADAMS: Notre Dame has done particularly well in the last little while.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: They have a built-in source of support. There are a lot of Catholics.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: And Brandeis has done spectacularly well.
MR. CUMMINGS: Also Catholic, yeah.
MR. ADAMS: We don't have a large number of art-collecting alumni because we simply don't have that many alumni. It's a relatively young school in terms of size.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Right.
MR. ADAMS: It's an old school.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: 1889 it was founded, but it was a small school until World War II.
MR. CUMMINGS: So, you know, in another two years you should have more -
MR. ADAMS: Hopefully. Hopefully. Now we have managed by concentrating to develop two superb collections in the art museum. Photography, I think, is certainly one of the three or four best collections in the country -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and lithography. It's certainly one of the very good ones.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: We have also a quite good collection of American sculpture -
MR. CUMMINGS: Oh, really?
MR. ADAMS: -- because we've concentrated in that area, and sculpture, oddly enough, has been cheaper to buy than paintings.
MR. CUMMINGS: My goodness.
MR. ADAMS: The other museum on campus, which is not under my control, but which is also excellent, the anthropology museum -
MR. CUMMINGS: Oh, right.
MR. ADAMS: -- has probably been a little bit easier to develop in a way than this one, because there are these great collections of American Indian art in the Southwest -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and a number of them have come to the museum.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: It is a very, it is a very fine collection.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] It all intrigues me. The activity of building collections in terms of how they can either lead or reflect a given area. As I remember, there are not many galleries in Albuquerque, are there?
MR. ADAMS: No. No. And most of them deal essentially with what I guess best is to describe it as Western art in the tradition of Remington and Russell, et cetera.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And that still is where the market is.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: There is a very substantial market for that kind of work, but that is a very specialized kind of tradition -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and not the one really that we have been primarily concerned with.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] There's not even a print gallery here, is there really?
MR. ADAMS: No, not really.
MR. CUMMINGS: There should be.
MR. ADAMS: Santa Fe and Taos are much more the art market, although there as here, most of the galleries deal with, with Western art.
MR. CUMMINGS: Yes.
MR. ADAMS: But there are several good contemporary galleries in Santa Fe, and I suspect maybe that's a better location for them than in Albuquerque because a lot of the sales are to people from other parts of the country, tourists, vacationers -
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: -- and they are much apt to be spending the time in Santa Fe than they are in Albuquerque.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Are there many collectors around here of either older art or contemporary?
MR. ADAMS: Not many. Not many. One of the things we have been trying to do, however, is to develop that. And the University has won a purchase exhibition every year in which we bring things in from dealers in New York and the West Coast. Things that we feel are well priced and are of good value -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and good quality -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and present them as an exhibition and hope that local people will buy.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And, of course, out of that exhibition also, we - we purchase things, and the Friends of Art will frequently then select things for purchase for us.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: That's been very useful not only in building our collection, but it has indeed gotten a number of collectors started. I can think of one family, for example, that first bought some fairly small item out of one of those purchase exhibitions, and how has a collection that includes prints by Rembrandt and Monet and Picasso and so on and so forth.
MR. CUMMINGS: My goodness. It's always that first step, isn't it?
MR. ADAMS: The necessary first step is collectors buy something.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: And when you look at some of the first exhibitions of some of the major collectors, you realize they didn't always start where they wound up.
MR. CUMMINGS: True.
MR. ADAMS: I remember a brilliant lecture one time in which the speaker showed slides of the first things that Henry Clay Frick bought, which were just appalling paintings, none of which are now in the print collection.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: But, say, hey, he had to start somewhere.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right. Well, have you sensed a fairly consistent growth in these activities?
MR. ADAMS: Yes. No question about it. Albuquerque is a very different city in terms of its sophistication and attitudes towards the arts now. I think the university has had a lot to do with that, not only in the art museum but in the many, many students who have passed through its classes.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] How large is the department now as far as the faculty and student body?
MR. ADAMS: It's a faculty of about 30 and about 600 undergraduate majors and probably 100 graduate students, something of that order. Plus, of course, a very, very large number of students who take just one course -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- as a liberal arts elective.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: I imagine that would probably be 3- or 4,000 students of that sort in any given semester.
MR. CUMMINGS: So it's grown enormously, then. Goodness. That's fascinating. I always think the students who take the one course, who are in engineering or science or something else - I know many of those people end up becoming collectors.
MR. ADAMS: Very important. Actually, if you are talking about what's going to happen in the arts in this country - and to the performing arts as well as the visual arts, really - the biggest and most important task probably is to develop a sophisticated, aware, intelligent audience.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And that's mostly going to be done by the kind of instruction that college people get while they are taking degrees in physics or business administration or whatever else they may be doing.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Well, how are your performing arts programs? You have an immense theater, too.
MR. ADAMS: I think they're good, strong programs. And, of course, the physical facility has been a great help there. It is the cultural center for Albuquerque. It's the cultural center in many ways for the state.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Do you have touring, you know, dance groups? Music groups?
MR. ADAMS: Yes. Popejoy Hall seats about 2,000, and that's the place for the major orchestras and dance groups and touring theater companies. And we have had New York Center Ballet, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Philharmonic, Los Angeles Orchestra. Amsterdam Concert [inaudible].
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] They have all been here.
MR. ADAMS: [Inaudible] presents.
MR. CUMMINGS: Yeah, marvelous. What kind of audience do you get for music? Is it good or bad -
MR. ADAMS: Yes, it's a good audience. It's rather remarkable, in a way of - I think Albuquerque is surprising in this respect. You know, in most cities, if you got somewhere between 1 and 3 percent of your total population that's an active arts audience, you're doing pretty well.
MR. CUMMINGS: That's pretty good, yeah.
MR. ADAMS: And in Albuquerque, we have an active arts audience, people who come pretty regularly on subscription series and otherwise here of 30,000 people. That's 10 percent of the population.
MR. CUMMINGS: That's fantastic.
MR. ADAMS: Now, that's probably, to some extent, the university community, but it is not exclusively the university community, obviously, by definition.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right.
MR. ADAMS: And so along with Popejoy Hall, there is also Keller Hall, which is a chamber music hall.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And there's a lot of fine chamber music.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And Rodey Theater which is newly completed which is a 400-seat flexible, thrust stage proscenium theater.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: George Eisenhower of New Haven, who was the theatrical consultant on all of this - and George deserves a great deal of credit for providing a physical facility that I think is just about ideal for a city this size.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] That's phenomenal. I mean that percentage just staggers me, you know.
MR. ADAMS: It's not quite Broadway prices, but it's 9, 10, $11 a pop and that still indicates a serious audience.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Yeah, because it's not 2.50, and the whole is totally subsidized. Do you have much subsidy on the -
MR. ADAMS: Well, I remember a lovely remark that Tom Popejoy, our former president, made when we were talking about building this. And somebody raised the practical question, "Well, Mr. Popejoy, are you really sure we ought to build this concert hall? It's going to take a lot of money to operate it. We're going to have to subsidize it." And he said, "Well, we subsidize the football team, don't we?"
MR. CUMMINGS: [Laughs] what was the response to subsidizing the football?
MR. ADAMS: Well, we went ahead -
[End Track 1]
[Begin Track 2]
MR. ADAMS: -- students at lower prices and things of this sort. But it's not heavily subsidized.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Popejoy Hall and its operations brings in a lot of box office and it pays its way mostly.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Except, of course, you would have to say that it has that great building and it has the physical plant.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: It's not having to pay rent or retire bonds or anything like that.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right.
MR. ADAMS: And the music department and the theater department and their instructional programs make use of these facilities.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: They have a faculty, again, of about 30 in music, a very distinguished faculty, I think.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And a somewhat smaller faculty and theater, which is now, I think, going to grow rather rapidly with the new theater facility.
MR. CUMMINGS: Is that open yet?
MR. ADAMS: Yes.
MR. CUMMINGS: It is?
MR. ADAMS: Yes. It opened with its formal dedication this, this last - last month.
MR. CUMMINGS: Oh, brand new. Who was the chairman of that?
MR. ADAMS: Robert Hartung. He was, for many years, in New York as television producer and director. He has a clump of Emmys lined up along his shelf and Writers' Guild Awards for the best TV screen play of the year on many occasions.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: A number of very distinguished things that you would recognize. Hallmark and CBS Playhouse.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: The old Playhouse 90.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Terrific. So you've got a good broad background which you certainly need in theater. Anyway, we got away from Tamarind a bit to cover some other - I remember the Tamarind idea was a 10-year program wasn't it? Or was it five and five?
MR. ADAMS: Well, we didn't even think of it being that long in the beginning. At the beginning, we were thinking that it would be a relatively short-term thing, but the job wasn't done. There were other things that needed to be done. And we kept turning back for the renewals of the grant and it ultimately wound up to be a full 10 years.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: But it became visible certainly sometime in the latter part of that period. Six, seven, eight year, gradually, and in conversation that if Tamarind were to go on in anyway, if there were to be a permanent center for the training of printers -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- if there were to be a permanent lithographic center, a research center and training center, that it was going to have to be attached to some ongoing permanent institution because Ford couldn't be expected to support it forever.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: And in its form in Los Angeles, it was not revenue producing.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: All the money, all the money was outgo. None of it was income.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Because we weren't charging the artists, and we weren't charging the printers for the training. As a matter of fact, we were subsidizing both.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: So that the thought involved, was it possible to make a permanent institute and, obviously, a university connection was the logical one. And while my alma mater, UCLA, might have been one place for it - and I think perhaps quite a logical place for it, and although there were some members of the UCLA faculty who were members of the Tamarind board, there was nobody really at UCLA who was doing much with lithography.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: So, inasmuch as Garo and I were both here, New Mexico seemed like the other obvious alternative.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: We still have a very close working relationship with the people at UCLA.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And UCLA has a complete collection of the Tamarind prints.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Maurice Block, the director of the Grimwold Graphic Art Foundation at UCLA is a member of the Tamarind board.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: So we have a very pleasant relationship with them.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: But it seemed logical to bring it here. We had initial conferences with the university administration to explore how they would feel about it.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Right.
MR. ADAMS: And then went in to Ford with the idea of a transitional grant to provide money to move the program and get it established here -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- and then gradually taper off.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: With the thought both that the university would help to support the educational end of the program.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And that the artist end of it would gradually become self-supporting.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Through a shift from subsidized artist work to a contract printing shop -
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: -- in which artists would pay for services rendered.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And that is, that is in process. If anything, we are a little bit ahead of the schedule.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: But by the end of next year, there will be, we believe, enough income from the contract printing to pay for all of the non-structural aspects of the Tamarind Program.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And the purely instructional aspects of it will be assumed by the university.
MR. CUMMINGS: Well, does that mean if, say, somebody like John Francis wants to come and do some prints and have them printed here, he could make arrangements?
MR. ADAMS: Right. Any, any artist anywhere in the country who would like to come here to do work, provided we can schedule the time, we're in business.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: We do work for people who come in and want to pay.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And we've done work for a great number of artists from various parts of the country.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Quite a number of local artists.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: For example, we've done quite a lot of work for several American Indian artists who live here in the state.
MR. CUMMINGS: Oh, really?
MR. ADAMS: We have a very good market for their work.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And the contract printing bills are paid for either by the artist or by his dealer or by a print publisher.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right. But you will continue training, training -
MR. ADAMS: Continuing to train printers much the same way as at Los Angeles.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: At the beginning, the printers collaborate with the artists who come here under our, still our subsidized arrangement.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Will that continue?
MR. ADAMS: Yes, to some degree. We simply have to, because you can't ask an artist to come in and pay for the professional services of a master printer and say, now, this apprentice printer is going to do your work. It's the first print he's ever done -
MR. CUMMINGS: [Laugh.]
MR. ADAMS: -- but he's going to start practicing on you.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right [laugh].
MR. ADAMS: You just can't do that. The first - the apprentice printer has to do a first print for somebody.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: But that somebody had better be an artist who is being subsidized with knowledge that he is going to be working with an apprentice for years.
MR. CUMMINGS: How many more years is the Ford affiliation to continue?
MR. ADAMS: Just through next year.
MR. CUMMINGS: Oh, so it's almost -
MR. ADAMS: Yeah. Yeah.
MR. CUMMINGS: -- the total transition.
MR. ADAMS: Yeah.
MR. CUMMINGS: Fantastic. Well, in going through your plant yesterday, you have much more space than California.
MR. ADAMS: Yes. It has a number of advantages. The California premises were smaller. They were a little bit crowded. Also a little - it was very lovely with the garden patio in between the buildings.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right. Right.
MR. ADAMS: There were some practical problems in the separation of the printing area from the curatorial area.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: Everything had to be carried through. And if it was a rainy day, there were problems.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: The space here was an old building that already existed; a grocery warehouse which was ideally located just a block off campus.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And the university bought it and remodeled it. And Tamarind at present leases the building from the university. When in 1975 the Ford grant runs out, the university will simply provide this space.
MR. CUMMINGS: Right.
MR. ADAMS: It works very well for us.
MR. CUMMINGS: Yeah. And it's just, you know, two blocks.
MR. ADAMS: Yeah. And, well, of course, we have put together the entire staff here. Only two of the people who are now at Tamarind were in Los Angeles.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Our two master printers, John Sommers, who is in charge of our printer training program, and Harry Westland, who is in charge of the contract shop, were both in Los Angeles.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: They are the two people who came over here with the program and have stayed on and are providing some continuity.
MR. CUMMINGS: But you have a lot more people working here, too, don't you?
MR. ADAMS: No, about the same. We have usually anywhere from seven to nine printers in training at any one time. We have seven at the moment.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: In the contract shop, we have two printers. And that would be additional to what was in Los Angeles.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And they have student assistants sometimes; university students who are hired to come in and simply do shop chores, is what it amounts to.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: They are not trained printers in any way.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: They just provide manpower.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And I should say, probably, "personpower," because a lot of them are girls. And then we have the juritorial training program, which is about at the same scale it was in Los Angeles, which operates under Judy Booth's direction.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And actually, we have a much smaller office staff. We manage to get by with one, one office person here.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And part of that is because we are able to depend heavily on the university purchasing office -
MR. CUMMINGS: Oh, right. Right.
MR. ADAMS: -- and a great other variety of university services that we don't need to do over there because the university takes care of them for us.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] I've noticed that you have had, in the last few years, a number of women who have become printers.
MR. ADAMS: We haven't had a number of women, but we have, we have certainly been making every effort to, to find women who have the potential for the field and the desire to involve themselves in it. I suspect probably there are a few more women now that think of the possibility of being printers than there were early on.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: And we have - Judith Salotkin [phonetic], who is finishing up her work this spring, will certainly be one of the very fine printers in the country.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.]
MR. ADAMS: Judith is the first woman to complete the full master printer program.
MR. CUMMINGS: Oh, really? I thought that there had been one or two others.
MR. ADAMS: There have been others in the program, but they haven't managed to go on through the finish yet.
MR. CUMMINGS: I see.
MR. ADAMS: And, of course, we have always had a fairly substantial number of women artists.
MR. CUMMINGS: Mm-hmm. [Affirmative.] Right. That's great.
[END TRACK 2]
[END OF INTERVIEW.]
Last updated...March 18, 2008
