Spring Fever Fades to Summer

Memorial Day, as you know, is the unofficial start to summer. But, we still have a few more weeks of Spring. So, stop by the Archives and take a look at our celebration of spring, three student displays focusing on three of our favorite aspects of the season. You've already heard about Fiesta and Graduation. Next up is Kate's ode to the season...

I like doing these displays because they’re a means of showcasing some of the interesting materials we have in Archives. In assembling my collection, I chose to focus on the presence of spring on art and literature so that I could display as many types of material as possible. Our Dicke art collection provided a lot of classic paintings to choose from; the impressionist art was especially bright and cheerful.

Don’t you just wish you were outside?

Claude Monet, Essai de figure en plein air: femme a l’ombrelle tournée vers la gauche (Study of Figure Outdoors: Woman With Parasol Turned to the Left), taken from Paintings in the Musée d’Orsay

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And what would springtime be without flowers? Special Collections holds a surprising number of botanical photography books, and I found some surprisingly exciting photos of vibrant spring flowers.

   Color explosion Christopher Baker, Keizerskroon from Tulipia: A Photographer’s Botanical

Finally, I went to look for some literature. This is dangerous territory for me because I tend to get lost in the first editions of novels or children's books, but I managed without irritating Amy too much. Most of the spring-related materials were books of poetry, and the selection is eclectic. Horizontal Yellow is a collection of poems by Spud Johnson, evoking the spirit of the Near Southwest, and our copy is one of 400 printed as Writer’s Editions and signed by the poet. A lovely copy of Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman is also on display as well as a strange and fascinating collection of irregular haikus, unbound and printed on long strips of paper. This funny little collection is entitled High Kukus and was written by James Broughton, who intended the work as an experiment, reconciling humanity with nature.

I thought these haikus were so unique that I decided to display them despite the fact that only a few of them relate to spring. Many of them focus on mundane items like kitchen utensils and old trucks.

The hardest part about putting together this display was the excitement I experienced in even thinking about being outside and the end of the year and all of the other lovely things that come along with springtime. Looking at the art and setting up the display case made the close of the semester seem even further away. But spring has sprung, and before we know it, it will be the heat of summer. So enjoy spring fever before it’s over!

Kate Cuellar '15