This Friday marks the second annual Flash Camp St. Louis at The City Museum. The best freelancers and and agency flashers in the land will come together once again to talk shop and hopefully learn a few things.
This year I will be presenting a demo called, “Tween, the Impossible Tween” at 3pm. And if you haven’t signed up yet, I think there are still a few seats remaining. Go grab your tickets and I’ll meet you at the 6 story slide.
Bruce Burton has joined TOKY as Senior Designer on the print team, coming to us from the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis.
Last week we celebrated the 10 year work anniversary of Jay David, our web team ACD, with a surprise party, too much food, some great gifts and a fantastic video surprise: a 2 minute video from the legendary (or infamous) Fred and Sharon’s Movies! Not only was Jay surprised but also embarrassed beyond belief. Mission accomplished!
Jamie Banks-George, a Senior Designer here at TOKY, has been with us a while. Long enough to have his 10-year anniversary here. Way back in time before that 10-year mark Jamie was an intern at the famed Charles S. Anderson Design studio in Minneapolis. A few of us are on the CSA images mailing list, and were happy to see his legendary internship lives on to this day. Pictured above (and included in the email) is the young Banks-George, who seems to be passed out from the rigorous assignments of a design studio intern.
We’ve added a new teammate this summer!
Logan Alexander joins TOKY as our newest intern. He hails from Harrisburg, Illinois and will be a senior design student at Washington University this fall. Last summer, while participating in Spoke’s “Sprocket” program, he worked on some fantastic projects including some great packaging for the Blessing Basket Project.
Not only is he a great designer, the unofficial TOKY pick-up basketball team is really excited to add on a new 6′3″ team member.
Friday’s New York Times featured an article starring our man John Foster and his efforts to preserve the works of outsider artist Ralph Lanning. Let’ s let the great gray lady tell part of the the story:
“Lanning died in December at 93, and his family scheduled an artwork auction on the lawns. Mr. Foster persuaded the Kohler Foundation in Wisconsin, which finances outsider art preservation, to buy the sculptures as gifts for the university’s campus. He represented Kohler at the sale on April 9, paying more than $1,000 for unwieldy pieces. “I held my card up and never put it down,” he said.”
Read the full article here.
St. Louis now has its own Egotist: thestlouisegotist.com. The Egotist is an online creative hub focused on the local creative community, and St. Louis is one of a handful of cities to have one. We’re not sure who runs or manages this site, and we’re not sure we care — but we do know that we think its yet another great asset for this town.
For the launch, they asked if they could feature TOKY as the first studio profile. Check out the link below for Eric’s responses to the few interview questions. It may help understand how we do things around here:
“TOKY is devoted to the arts. We’ll do everything we can to spread the word about the fantastic scene here. We’ll do whatever we can to build attendance, bring in the best artists and performers, and keep the money coming in to make it all happen. Then we’re not competing with just Des Moines for talent and reputation, but Santa Fe and Austin and New Orleans and Portland and San Francisco and Chicago and New York.”
After many months of coming soon messages, thanks to getting pushed to the back of the line for client work, we’re pleased to finally announce that we’ve relaunched our site. This is the second step in our roll out, since there’s a much larger section to come later this Summer. For the next step, we have this grandiose idea of putting the entire project archives of almost all of the work from the last 13 years of TOKY’s existence… that’s a lot of work to write about, gather and photograph.
For now, we have select projects available from the home circle navigation, with full screen case studies of a few projects and announcements, and our People section has been revamped with new ways to find out random information about the people you may already be working with. Visit TOKY.com for more.
In the time since last week’s belated announcement of our three new hires, we’ve added yet another teammate we want to welcome. Megan Tucker joins TOKY as our newest designer. Megan’s great portfolio (which includes lots of her own great photography) was complimented by a personality that will fit nicely with our assortment of loons. Welcome, Megan!
John bids on a 7-foot tall concrete Centaur for eventual reinstallation at Missouri State University in Springfield, MO.
All employees at TOKY know that our firm puts a high priority on the arts. Not only does our firm assist museums and arts organizations with crucial tasks like attracting new members; raising awareness and excitement; or helping to raise funds in a capital campaign—TOKY employees are encouraged to get involved with the organizations themselves.
So when TOKY teammate John Foster saw a rare and unique folk art environment near Springfield, MO about to be lost due to the death of the owner, he jumped in and plotted an immediate course of action.
With little time to spare, John devised a plan to help save the environment by petitioning the support of the Kohler Foundation in Wisconsin for help. Part of the Kohler Foundation’s mission is to preserve folk architecture and environments and they immediately stepped in to provide the financial support to save the environment from being sold off to the highest bidder. Like any historic building about to be razed, its architectural character sold and carted away piece-by-piece, John knew that unless something was done quickly, the pieces would never be together in one place again.
So John jumped in. He took a vacation day last Friday, drove down to the auction in Springfield, Missouri, and ended up the proud savior of 98% of the major sculptures.
Obviously the sculptures would need to be professionally removed and relocated to a new home. John brokered a solution at the nearby campus of Missouri State University, whose commitment to the arts has always been outstanding.
With an appeal to the office of University President Michael T. Nietzel (through Fine Arts Department Head Wade Thompson) the University came through in a big way. Recognizing the importance of this site to the people of the region, MSU agreed to accept nearly 30 concrete and stone sculptures for conservation and eventual reinstallation on their campus—all gifted to them by Kohler.
The sale was covered in the local media.
Look for John in the above video at about the 2:06 mark.
The Story of the Lanning Garden
When Ralph Doss Lanning was building hydroelectric dams and state parks for the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) during the Great Depression, he didn’t know then that his lifetime calling was 40 years away. Likewise, after receiving his 5th Bronze Star for meritorious service in WWII (including one for The Battle of the Bulge), he didn’t know that his legacy was still to be realized. That legacy was to begin around 1970 when Mr. Lanning set out to create his sculpture garden.
Almost forty years would pass until his death in December 2009, and it is said that Ralph Lanning worked on his sculpture nearly every day, rain or shine. Until last weekend, passersby on Old Highway 60 near Springfield, MO could stop and wander or sit a spell under a shade tree in the Lanning Sculpture Garden, free of charge, open to the public 7 days a week.
His sculpture was scattered across 8 acres of grassy land just outside of Springfield, Missouri, and included dozens of huge concrete statues of two-headed dragons, mermaids and fantasy creatures of all kinds. Children and adults loved to walk his free park—located on his 8 acres of private property facing the busy highway.
Preceded in death just a year earlier by his wife Gretchen, Ralph died in his sleep this past December. Sadly, as it goes for many of the elderly, Ralph did not leave a will. This omission set forth a series of legal events that threatened the future of the Lanning Garden for future generations to enjoy. The house and land was to be sold at public auction, clearly spelling the end of Lanning Sculpture garden in that location.
In a bit of an overdue announcement, we want to welcome a few new additions to the staff.
Annette adds great help and talents to our interactive team. We’ve had the pleasure of working with Annette on a contract basis in the past, and now we’re glad to finally have her an official TOKY employee, and around the office a lot more often. Adam was with us in the past, and is now back after moving to Africa to work as a missionary at a school for the blind at an orphanage. One of Adam’s great gifts is with the camera, in addition to being a great production assistant. Last but not least, Becky officially joins TOKY after spending some time filling in for Maddie, who was on maternity leave. We liked Becky so much (and we needed her badly!) that we decided to keep her around. She’s done a great job managing projects and client relations.
Also, I know we’ve been saying it for a while, but the next phase of our new site is coming up in a matter of weeks. From the new site you’ll get to know way more about everyone here than you wanted to know.
Pecha Kucha Night once again made an appearance in St. Louis last Saturday, February 20th. This time the night was a bit unique, because the theme of the night was to highlight “creativity in light of tragedy” while also showcasing some of the lesser-known creative charitable organizations in the region. The evening was part of a greater global Pecha-Kucha night where over 50 cities participated. All proceeds from the evening went to Architecture for Humanity’s rebuilding efforts in Haiti.
It’s great to see a night where so many people can share ideas and inspire others. There’s a lot of great talent, good ideas, and people doing interesting things in this town to have these events more often than not, and we’re looking forward to the next PK night later this spring.
TOKY Associate Creative Director and Photographer Geoff Story volunteered his time and talent that night to capture the event, below are some highlights from the night. More can be found at Flickr.com
Donate to the PechaKucha for Haiti Fund from the PKSTL.com site. All proceeds go directly to Architecture for Humanity 501(c) and will be used solely to build buildings. Design work has already been paid for by donations.
Mary and I are still buzzed about making ALIVE Magazine’s BUZZ list for Midtown Alley, our not-quite-downtown urban neighborhood. We’ve been lucky to find a part of our city that’s ready for rebirth as that most elusive of alchemies: the residential/creative/dining destination that still manages to be free of pretension, over-investment by love-em-and-leave-em investors, or suburban chains. Mary and I, along with our friend Jassen Johnson and many of our neighbors, were wined and dined Friday night at ALIVE’s Buzz-fete. Join us in the neighborhood that’s been called St. Louis best restaurant district!
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