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| Book Cover |
Artists David & Barbara Day to Lead
Discussion About Their Life Works
Vanishing Cincinnati Book Launch at Main Library Sunday,
December 2 – 2:00 p.m.
A
book launch debuting, Vanishing
Cincinnati, a compilation of the life works of local artists David and
Barbara Day, will take place at the Main Library of the Public Library of Cincinnati
and Hamilton County on Sunday, December 2.
As
part of the launch, a panel discussion featuring the Days (as well as local
historian and former Cincinnati Enquirer
columnist Owen Findsen, who wrote the forward for the book), will begin at 2:00
p.m. The discussion, to be moderated by reference librarian Chris Smith, will
be held in the third floor study area across from the Genealogy & Local
History Department.
David and Barbara Day’s book, Vanishing Cincinnati, will be
available for purchase and to be signed by the artists after the discussion
courtesy of the Friends of the Public Library.
David and Barbara Day, the
husband and wife partners of David Day, Designer & Associates, have been
professional designers in Cincinnati for nearly 50 years during which they have
directed restoration of some of Cincinnati’s landmark buildings, including the
former Cincinnati Enquirer Building
at 617 Vine Street. Today, their practice and studio is in the Pendleton Art
Center in Over-the-Rhine.
The
Days’ freehand working drawings done for clients and contractors over decades
have become collectors’ items in their own right. Now many of these renderings,
along with some of their original drawings which were completed independently
of commissioned projects, have been collected in Vanishing Cincinnati.
Imbued
with history and intricate background, the Days’ finely detailed pen and ink
illustrations bring life and color to Cincinnati’s sepia past. Among
illustrations found in the book are depictions of Sawyer Point and Mt. Adams as
they were seen in the late 1800s, trolley cars rattling through Eden Park, and the
Cincinnati Reds battling the Tigers at Crosley Field for the 1940 World Series
title. It is through the vision of these artists that elements of the past long
since removed from everyday life can once again be preserved through
illustrations, such as a locomotive moving down Eggleston Street 80 years ago. The
book doesn’t leave out the city’s most iconic landmarks. Drawings of Fountain
Square, Music Hall, and Union Terminal provide glimpses of previous glory as
well as one of the “Old” Main Library, which once stood on Vine Street, just a
block and a half away from the current location (where much of the research for
Vanishing Cincinnati was conducted).
While Vanishing Cincinnati illustrates some
of what has been lost to the city, its spirit is in the preservation and the continuity
of the city’s architectural past. Within its pages, the authors hope to convey the
idea that care for these venerable neighborhoods and structures brings
longevity and cultural richness to the community and the understanding that the
old and the new can function, even thrive together.
MORE
ABOUT THE ARTISTS: David is a fifth-generation
Cincinnatian, born in Over-the-Rhine and Barbara, whose family goes back four
generations, was born in Clifton. Both attended the University of Cincinnati
and earned Bachelor of Science degrees in industrial design and interior design.
Upon graduation the two classmates, worked for and
learned from R. Buckminster Fuller in a graduate program at Southern Illinois
University. Fuller was a visionary architect, designer, philosopher, and author
who devoted his life to learning and teaching ways good design could improve
the human condition. The Days started their design practice in the 1960s within
earshot of the splashing waters of the Tyler Davidson Fountain, and continue to
this day on the edge of “the Northern Liberties” (just south of Liberty Street
Hill) where they can hear the bells ringing in the Over-the-Rhine bell tower,
which they designed.
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| Image from the book |
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| David and Barbara Day |
This looks REALLY cool!
