The People We Learn From

When I was at NLM in the mid-eighties, I worked with a graphic artist named Joe Fitzgerald.  He taught me how to do the layout and pasteup for the NLM Technical Bulletin, and the couple of hours that I spent with him every month (these were the days when we were still laying out boards with adhesive wax!) were ones I always looked forward to.

I met him first when he was one of the instructors for the Associates when we were learning presentation skills.  I remember sitting across the table from him, looking into his leprechaun eyes as he told me, "Don't ever apologize -- just keep going."  It's advice that has served me just as well as a musician as it ever did as a speaker. 

He loved small oil paintings (and did his own and showed frequently in DC galleries).  In those days I was learning about the great big abstract artists and little oil landscapes held no interest for me.  We'd talk about art (and I still remember -- and quote -- some of the lines that he gave me), but he was way, way ahead of me.

When I was at the Freer the other day, looking at those little Whistler oils that I've come to love so much that I get teary standing in front of them, I thought about Joe and realized that I'd finally come to understand what he was so passionate about.  I thought it'd be great to stop in and see him and tell him that I finally got it!  But I didn't even know if he was still at NLM.

So today, at one point, I googled him and found this

What a marvelous achievement.  He had such a quirky, irreverent, inconoclastic sense of humor, I can only imagine how tickled he must have been to have designed the new nickel.  It would have greatly appealed to his sense of the absurd, as well as to his sentimental love for his country.  And that he speaks of the nickels themselves as "little sculptures" is just perfect.

The article also points out that he retired nine months ago, so my fantasy about popping into his office remained unfulfilled.  But the remembering was a great pleasure, and I will never look at a nickel the same way again.

Comments

[MarkD]

I love this storey. The design of the new nickel is inspirational, and timely too. In a age of warrantless wiretaps and imprisonment without trial how wonderful that American’s will be reminded daily on the simple nickel - ‘liberty.’ In the hand of Jefferson himself no less. I wonder if the subtle daily reminder was in fact the intent of his design.

When you can Lynn come to Australia, I insist, you will have to bring a nickel.

[Marcus]

Helen and I stopped collecting coins a few years ago. We must collect the new nickel!

Joe was also a favorite of the NLM Associates, 2002-2003.