Ted Ramsay

Intersection
2007

Woodward & Mack/MLK in Detroit and State Street and Liberty Street are icon markers for their respective areas as well as the location of the two WORK GALLERIES. These streets are intersections widely known by contemporary inhabitants, and memory junctures for thousands more. But nothing would exist without people to document the collective past and contribute to the present and future. The genis loci or sense of place exists because people know these locations and reference them. These mnemonic places are important only because the people who live there and have lived there are important, and this is also true of the WORK GALLERY site, which exists because people make it important by wanting to use it to meet, connect, and share their visual ideas.

Therefore I have developed a series of pieces for the exhibition constructed of subjective human images that will connect to form the visual intersections in my work about these two places. At first glance the visual dynamics of vectors intersecting, connecting and crossing will present themselves to the viewer. Only after study and scrutiny of the components will the real figurative images become apparent to the audience. These subtle human forms act as metaphorical reminders that people are the real soul and spirit underlying the intersecting places in Detroit and Ann Arbor as well as the people connecting on this project. Everything is about, for, and held together by people!






Ted Ramsay is Professor of Art at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. From 1961 to 1964 he taught at the University of Iowa, where he and his colleague Frank Wachowiak wrote the book Emphasis: Art. He received his B.A. in studio art and an M.A. and M.F.A. in painting and art history from the University of Iowa. Ramsay also holds an M.F.A. from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

Ramsay has been a visiting artist at: Canberra Institute of Art, A.C.T.; University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania; University of Hawaii, Fiber Department, Manoa Campus, Hawaii; Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam, Holland; Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, Gatlinburg, Tennessee; Penland School, Penland, North Carolina; Cranbrook Academy Art, Fiber Department, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; Southwest Craft Center, San Antonio, Texas; and The University of Toledo, Department of Art at the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio.

Ted Ramsay’s work has been published in The Art and Craft of Papermaking, Sophie Dawson, Quarto Publishing, London, 1992; Sculpture: Technique-Form-Content; Arthur Williams, Davis Publications, 1989; Making It In Paper: An Indianian Mill, Twinrocker: Kathryn Clark, NEA grant publication; Glas & Keramiek, Asperen, Netherlands, 1988; The Art of Papermaking, Bernard Toal, 1983; and Emphasis: Art, Wachowiak and Ramsay, International Textbook Company, Scranton, Pennsylvania 1965.

Since coming to Michigan, Ted Ramsay’s work has been exhibited in invitational exhibitions and one person shows at the Element Gallery in New York; Gruen Gallery in Chicago; Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Duren, Germany; University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Flint Institute of Art, Flint, Michigan; Kidd Gallery in Birmingham, Michigan; Kalamazoo Institute of Art, Kalamazoo, Michigan; Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio; Detroit Institute of Art, Detroit, Michigan; Mendocino Art Center, Mendocino, California; Davenport Municipal Art Gallery, Davenport, Iowa; Gallery WooDuk, Seoul, Korea; Amsterdamseweg 441, Amstelveen, Netherlands; Orszagos Szechenyi Konyvtar Gallery, Budapest, Hungary; and the American Cultural Center, Tel Aviv, Israel.

At the University of Michigan, Ramsay has taken an active role in developing and teaching basic undergraduate and advanced studio courses in the arenas of drawing, papermaking, and painting. He has chaired the Slusser Gallery committee, and directed the operations of the gallery for five years. Ramsay served on executive committees, and has chaired the undergraduate committee, held summer papermaking workshops at the University of Michigan, across the USA, and abroad. He is the recipient of two Rackham research grants, an OVPR grant for travel and research in China. Prof. Ramsay was the first artist in residence at the Humanities Institute. Working with University of Michigan administrators and staff, he created two handmade books used in the ceremony to inaugurate Lee C. Bollinger as the 12th President of the University of Michigan.