A Retrospective of an Artist’s Life Joseph O’Connell
My name is Julie Restani O Connell. I'm the youngest child of Joseph O’Connell who was an artist here in Central Minnesota. He spent many years as artist in residence at the College of Saint Benedict. Two years ago the College of Saint Benedict wanted to have a retrospective of his work. This is a small section of some of the work that my father did.
The retrospective I thought would be great to begin with the some my father’s more personal mementos and also just part of his work because his work was his life and we were all intertwined with that life as an example this was our childhood high chair my father couldn't just allow a piece of wood to be a piece of wood he liked to embellish practically everything the photographs you see here are from his studio not only did he do the photography have all his work he also also self sufficient in the fact that his studio had a dark room, forge, all the welding material he did still work there his wood carving their and this is a little bit what it looked like to be in his studio At the very beginning my father's career he built a plastic tent that went over our garage and old chicken coop and he had a wood-burning stove and he was doing commission work for churches, here in this plastic tent in the chicken coop.
It went full circle here he is back at St Ben’s working on a triptych for church in Las Vegas and this was his last piece it was three tons of Indiana limestone in three sections that took him six years to complete
This is a print that he did I am many years ago when my brother Brian was a very small child he looked up at my dad from his crib and said you know dad you look weird and my father took a mirror and look down at the mirror and realize boy you know to a child in a crib your dad does look very odd and this was his view of what my brother was seeing large ears, the big glasses the enormous hands and kind of a Harlequin look because that's because parents look like to their children....
Everyday things could not ever be un-embellish my father he was a artist 24/7 so something as simple as sending a birthday card to one of his grandchildren became an artistic endeavor, a button that he gave to my brother for something he did in grade school and a toy for my niece all made from things found around his workshop
My father married an artist, they met in Chicago in art school my mom was an illustrator she picked up a pen and just began to draw practically everything these are calendars that she is too to draw on consistently, this is a caricature JF Powers who is the writer and is from her his daughter's book it's just been recently published and then her fashion drawings that were done for Marshall Fields in Chicago.
Going to some other the different pieces my father worked in printmaking, in woodworking, painting, drawing and over here are drawings that he did for his life drawing class that he taught at the St. Ben’s. he founded was very important for students to do life drawings where you are in front a model and that you are forced to draw the human figure which is known as most difficult thing to draw.
These are mock-up’s for work that would eventually be done but these are just drawings, for the planning purposes a pieces you'll see this angel repeatedly in his work archangel angel.
My father started painting pretty late in life and I found this piece in the archives I didn't even really know that it was in there, was stuck in between a bunch of drawings but it was something he was working on I don't know what he was planning and do it said that i think is just the practice piece. And in this one it's it again Peter who is killing the cock who has promised with crow three times before he denied Christ my father would I say if you get your hands on that cock what would Peter have done? Peter where killed it. The life of the artist is really difficult because in the sense you're always trying to get work you're always on putting up and putting together mock-ups, these are mock-ups he did for work that was eventually sold he actually did do that statue on the left this was a crucifix for the crucifix it done but he also had to work constantly and doing mock-ups, models, etc. just to get commissions to.
Engravings, I think out of all the woodworking, the metalwork, the stone carving, I think.... I think engraving was probably his favorite thing to do, because he did quite a lot. Doing the engravings was fun for him because he could always go back and change it. So if you didn't like the Madonna as it was, he could change the symmetry he could change lines to get change shadowing and it would be great because he could just do a test or a proof and then go back to the plate and change it. A difficult thing about engraving is all it's all done with the hand so he would hold the engraving tool that he would have to knock it with his hand and there's no mallets involved in anything like that so it was really labor-intensive. And behind these groupings are these engravings that long to the College of Saint Benedict these are located in the library and again and they show the difficulty, the artist's life this print is called “The Artist in Front the Arts Committee� what does an artist have to do to get the Commission to get the work they have to turn themselves into acrobats into showmen in front have the the committee that eventually decides where you are going to get a job or not.
When highway 94 went through our yard, I was about 12 years old and I mention that the bulldozers to me look like monsters and that impressed my father so much that he came up with this engraving this print, and yes indeed the machines themselves are monsters we become monsters but if we are told that it's all OK in the name of progress then we should just go along with it with a big smile on her face and not weep when trees are knocked down and swamps are drained.
And again we see the image in the angel that was over there the imagery here is ... there's a lot going on in this print this gate is seen in quite a bit my father's work because my great grandfather used to adorn the house my father's childhoods house in Chicago with a lot of wrought-iron that was thrown away when Chicago was being rebuilt and and people would just throw away their wrought Iron and my great grand father liked it and adorned his house with it. It was all over their house, my father was always so impressed by that and always keeps coming back in his work and another thing is that my father really understood relationships between men and women and that if it was Eve’s fault that they were kicked out at the Garden of Eden and Adam was gonna point that out but of course God didn't care he just said both you out here like it like an angry parent I think.
My father imagined a what might be going on behind the scenes and some in the biblical stories so here's pilot and Herod meeting in they of course making their plans for Christ and what was that meeting like. And in this print they're drunk and a party there playing footsie drinking too much there whispering in each other's ears just having this great time making their plans.
In this print I my father was not the huge I admire love money, money seems to get in the way I've everything and this is the union this is the business and the military the church are colluding together and in the end who is sacrifice in the trust we have in God in money are the men and women the innocent and if you notice the horse looks to be on a merry-go-round so it can the never-ending cycle of who gets in the way profit and graft
These two pieces belong to St. John’s Abby. They're located in some of the downstairs I guess they're called chapels. Archangel Michael I believe this is wrought iron.
This is a wood can and the Last Supper on very bold very striking this actually belong to me but I decided to donate to the College of Saint Benedict to add to their permanent collection.
Not to think that all my father's work is completely based on biblical stories. This is an angel but this angel is busy. Looking in and what we're doing but also the title others. This piece is called “Leaning in for the Sign” my father's great love a baseball and of course human anatomy most strikingly the female form the rear end.
This is a wrought iron Sun that my dad did in the early seventies for the Petters store when they opened a second store called Petters Two. It belongs to John Petters right as they said wrought iron.
This is probably the the most popular piece because simply nobody has ever really seen this piece it belongs to Doctor Malcolm Blumenthal and his wife Marcia. They lived down in the Cities. It’s a mobile in it it moves and it's done in a few different pieces it's completely balanced on the title on this is “Adam At What He Assumes To Be the Controls”. So we have Adam who really thinks he's got everything under control he’s got the wheel of life here, everything's going along not realizing that he simply attached to everything else that's going on in the world here's Eve there's God and everything is held imbalance by just little little hands.
This piece is a Madonna that my dad did for the Saint Joseph Church in St Joseph Minnesota. Its cherry its one solid piece I believe and I he did this in 1976. The eyes are actually ebony they were added at the different piece of wood obviously. It’s luster is very easily kept to keep the peace of wood like this you need only linseed oil & Johnson's paste wax and that's what you get the result it looks easy to take care of.
This is another painting that I we discovered in archives, done later again this is something that we didn't really know he was to doing just as an artistic exercise
This is probably why my father's most popular prints, it's a four-color print and it's a woodblock print and looking at like this it's really it looks really simple but i t's done with you start off with a blank piece a rice paper and first yellow is applied we put the paper on this and then we use to rub with spoons and peace ivory, peel that off let it dry, apply the green, the red and the black. So this was the last piece and then your final print looks just like this. Very labor intensive this from this took a long time.
When they do something like this, when they die, you're supposed to destroy the plates. The plates are suppose to be slashed and destroyed but a you know this is such a good teaching tool for students that to destroy the plates is pretty tragic but for students this and this if you want to do that, then you have to do this, this, this, and this and then this is a proof and so you know you have to look at this and the decide Is this what I want. yellow is this what I want green so it takes a long time but once you done I mean this is a print that can be done over and over and over again. I mean if you decide you wanna do two hundred and that's great.
But I'll go back to the story. My father did this right when they started the re in reinstatement not the draft but registering um young men. I wish I could remember the date was in there late seventies and my brother Brian had to register for the draft my father got just very upset about that. If you look at this it's very patriotic the Eagle wrapped in the flag on this pedestal that as you slowly go around to this side you really see what my father really thought love blind patriotism was the defecation of the bird a face love OVA somebody who's dead wrapped in the flag in at the subsequent blood coming out of her pedestal and this does belong to my brother who likely never had to go into the military Orinda being drafted on the bird motif my dad was crazy about birds in a lot of his work you'll see kroll Eagle and many many owls Mom just was part of his passion because the studio was located in the woods and above this is a as another would print the night at the rollers this was an honor the fact my mother used to put her hair in rollers that night home
The EGG machine this is was done in the early seventies for Jack Frost which eventually became Golden Plump Inc. Just a really flowing, beautiful piece done with mostly cast away pieces of brass and I know that these everything in years been recycled. Way before it was good to me reuse and recycle my dad recycled everything. He made his own tools, he had a lathe, if he needed a mallet he made a mallet. He was constantly looking at something and how can be reused, refurbished and and put into something like this. Hopefully were getting.. As I said I’m hoping that that maybe the Helegesons would like to donate this piece to the college. Jonah and the Whale two incredibly different a depictions are the story of Jonah and the Whale. This particular piece a St Johns found in their permanent collection a monk I'll gave it to the College with the note attached to it Joe does not want to see this peace anymore. So sometimes my father simply abandon the peace that just wasn't working the way he wanted it to work. Again Jonah and the Whale here a bit more obvious in it whale then in this one I think think
Also this pencil sketch again this was done later in life my dad with going back into a lot I've drawing, sketching. It was a lot to help students when he was teaching. He did a lot of these during is drawing classes. He always said his best students were never art students they're usually management majors.
Alot of people mention the fact that my father was his hands were always kinda first and foremost a lot of his work. Those are my father's hands. I, I can tell that in an instant and again that's the story of poor Peter who is upset that he denied Christ if you could get his hands on that cock and kill it before he was able to deny Christ that's what he would have done and again that wrought iron fencing always seems to pop up again his work.
And I really love these these four pieces represent four different types of work, this is the lithograph, this is a woodcut , this is another by color wood print so is just done in red and black and this is a this is crayon on paper. So you know four extremely different mediums here and you can tell you know you can really tell when my father was working in the fifties and the sixties seventies and eighties this is done eighties. This was done in the in the sixties and I always like this because my father was really cognizant of who was with Christ when he died. He said he used to say to me you know the only people left where the women they were the only ones that stuck around. I always kinda thought in honor of the women who manage this day with Christ as he came off across when everybody else it abandoned him
The the constant loop here is something I asked Saint Benadicts to do in order for them to not only see the small selection of work that they've showing by then practically everything and the colors Saint Benedict is fantastic on their website is a link where you can see all his work categorized in would stone metal and I believe the Prince for everybody to see anywhere in the world they can see it cell very very amazing website that you can see everything a few missed anything here it can be seen on their website.
This was done with 94 came pretty much right through our yard and we remarked on how I the lawn movers in the bulldozers look like monsters in I think my dad captured the monster quality a bulldozer and then the the sad monster like quality of the man driving the bulldozer without giving a second thought as to what he was doing and what he was destroying.
The family this was a model done, in the early sixties for when my dad did a commission for the American Dental Association so the original ones that came from this model are about 12 feet tall. Again in a in Chicago for the American Dental Association right, right downtown in Chicago.
When they refurbished the gathering place at Saint Ben’s they removed most the dark granite the dark baroque marble pieces and my dad picked up a lot love the scrap marble and he did Eve in Baroque as a result from those pieces of scrap marble. And this belonged to my sister but she's letting it stay here at Saint Ben’s for the time being.
And these belong to the permanent collection of Saint Ben’s and again we see the owl but then again you see my father sense humor jumping out at this because you look at this and at the beautiful owl and then you read that title it is not always wise to bend over naked in the night because that’s the rear-end. He couldn't help himself could he.
This is one of his very first at statues that he ever carved when he was a young man. My mom gifted Saint Ben’s this statue. It was an engagement present to my mom it was done right after my father's first visit to Mexico right after WWII he and his friend got in the car drove down to Mexico. And you can can see the I guess the Mexican I guess the influence in the art. That's when he met Diego Rivera he found Diego Rivera working in the church and my father very boldly climbed up the scaffolding to talk to Diego Rivera and when he saw a girl had a very beautiful art assistant who was mixing his paint. He said, that was the moment he decided he wanted to be an artist.
This is who I think a lot of people very favorite piece is Salome from the eighties it was a gift to Garrison Keillor from my dad and Garrison decided to donated to the College of Saint Benedict and if you look at the top you see Salome and her hair and the veils and of course John the Baptist’s head who she was dancing the Dance of the Seven Veils for. But beautiful, beautiful Carrera marble and hard not to I think touch this piece cuz it’s so nice. And you can touch it, touch it everybody touches it. Isn’t it nice? My dad said touch it! He always wants people to his work touch his work. I didn't look at the top now I asked their hair interesting. I can see her face and the hair and the veils swirling around in and the hands on his head holding his head. It’s beautiful, I love this piece.
This is a piece done right when the BAC opened its Saint Benedict in the Raven who saved his life and another wrought iron peace.
This of course is the Petters door, the door to the fabric store. A lot of again my father's favorite things he got to put in there, the love nature love trees he loved owls, love birds. In honor of the fact that it was at one time tailoring shop in fabric store and a furrier. It has the mink, taylor and buttons and thread and fabric shears. The address the store the number of the store just ..... I don’t know, it’s like a love story in nature and and everythings that had to do with the Petters. The Petters, Fred Petters loved plants, he loved the door and this is all wrought iron that was done by my dad. And it was and I get kinda emotional. I was there the whole time is being carved and I was literally there walking on it.
This is the lead piece that hung outside for years on our garage. And then I thought when are were going to take that inside. We donated that a couple years ago to Saint Ben’s. Part of the permanent collection.