Fighting by Kim Scarfuro
Designer Janine Vangool is the brains behind Old School at UPPERCASE
When Janine Vangool found relics of her elementary school days in her parent’s Saskatoon attic they inspired the beginnings of her new exhibition at UPPERCASE that examines the esthetic of early education in the mid-20th century. Old School features work by more than 80 illustrators and photographers who are similarly obsessed with what she calls “the old school esthetic.”
The local designer and illustrator has become a fixture of Calgary’s art and design scene. She works with clients like Calgary Opera the University of Calgary’s fine arts department and currently with Truck Gallery on its 25th-anniversary book. Since opening UPPERCASE Gallery as an offshoot of her design studio she’s also taken on duties as the gallery’s chief curator and publisher of sharp new art books that feature local national and international designers.
She’s modest about her innovative approach to design practice even though her charming design shop willingness to work with non-profit clients and mentorship of up-and-coming designers are important contributions to Calgary’s cultural scene. “I’d like UPPERCASE to be a centre-point for collaboration and projects” she says of her efforts to build relationships among professional artists and designers in the local and national community. She calls the shop and gallery space a “labour of love that shows possibility.” Vangool particularly loves when people discover the shop and share her excitement for the design books and products she brings in from designers around the world.
Vangool’s recent projects and books for UPPERCASE chart a quirky path between her interests in the worlds of design illustration and pop culture. Working on book design with her many clients such as editors galleries and writers has inspired her to start her own publishing projects. “I am trying to do more of my own self-motivated work and they tend to be these really large publication projects because my main love is to design books” she explains. Her first in-house book was an homage to William Shatner featuring illustrations of sci-fi hero Captain Kirk by artists and designers from around the world. Next she turned her attention towards celebrating and showcasing the work of fellow illustrators designers and photographers in Work Life a directory of Canada’s best that features regular Fast Forward illustrators — Genevieve Simms Julie McLaughlin — as well as photographic duo Wilkosz + Way among others.
Old School is the most recent project born of Vangool’s vertiginous interest in publishing. “A lot of people [she approached to be part of the project] were inspired by their own school experiences” she says. She found many of the personal artifacts for the book in her parent’s attic and on eBay then invited other contributors to share items such as old class photos writing exercises and report cards. “It is arranged chronologically learning your ABCs and 123s and the book progresses as you get higher up in grades and study English science and social studies. There is even romance and then graduation” she explains. Without fail these relics conjure moments of nostalgia and even recall smells of textbooks chalkboard dust and science fair experiments.
“The notebook page is one of the motifs in the design” she says as she points to other hallmarks of the old school esthetic like candy jars the particular green-blue hue of old desks miniature pencil crayons and the pencils and rubbery pink erasers that she had manufactured specifically for the show. “When mundane objects like staplers are shrunk and displayed in a candy jar you have the feeling that they are even more special” she says.
Vangool also often uses a manual typewriter to hand-type text for her design work as she did for many parts of the book. “You cannot just have a typewriter font and expect it to look authentic” she says of the process. She even hosts a typewriter club in Art Central with occasional events to encourage the use of typewriters to make poetry love notes and letters. Despite the design-world’s reliance on digital technologies “Old School is all about things that are made by hand and it’s always nice to get away from the computer.”
“The vast majority of the people [in the show] are interested in the handmade. They’re also craftspeople” she says noting that the upcoming documentary Handmade Nation and recent design magazine spreads have also recognized that designers are returning to the handmade esthetic using hand lettering stitching and showing work in progress. Many of Vangool’s design products such as her “eclecto-journals” and pencil cases use maps old paper stock and silk screening and are fabricated by hand. Her work was recently featured in HOW magazine in a feature on handmade design.
Deidre Martin also waxes enthusiastic about the charms of the sensual old school in her introductory essay for the book. The group of international contributors is “united by a deep sentimental nostalgia for a bygone era” she writes a fact that Vangool underscores as she mentions her nickname for the anonymous little pupil who is pictured in the vintage school photo on the cover of the book. She’s affectionately nicknamed him “Ernest.”
This is second in a series of interviews with Calgary artists designers and politicians about their work and ideas for arts and culture in our city.
Go back to Old School at UPPERCASE
The launch of Old School includes events like “dress up Old School” day on August 23 weekly screenings of the educational TV series Afterschool Special and a day during which pupils can cut out silhouettes make buttons and customize their lunchboxes. Janine Vangool will even dust off her old saxophone and flute to play with others who used to be in school bands for a sloppy “high school band jam.”
The exhibit includes works by Calgary designers including woodcut portraits by Lisa Brawn Tracey Cameron’s bookish little kids a wise old owl crafted out of vintage papers and fabrics and a fantastic poster illustration of children’s “Games of Wonder and Amusement” by Kim Smith and Deidre Martin.
Watch for two etched desks by Calgarians Xerxes Irani and Mark Gervais. Irani’s illustrations feature all the characters that you might meet on an average day at school. His drawings of “fat-ass” Siamese twins banana “douche bag” and “slut” will surely conjure memories of your favourite elementary school buddies (or bullies for that matter). Gervais pays tribute to grade-six bad-asses everywhere with graffiti that only tough kids would dare draw on their desktop. Before you know it you’ll be smoking by the bike racks during recess. The show wouldn’t be complete without a trip to the principal’s office located in a space adjacent to UPPERCASE.
