Montana Memoirs Process Book

P R O C E S S B O O K

2 | MONTANA MEMOIRS: PROCESS

CO

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define

research

design + execution

outcome

exhibition

reflection

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the problem

It all started with a request.

My grandmother gave me a book of photos, documents, and personal

handwritten memoirs and asked me to find a way to preserve them.

She and I have always had a special relationship, developed

through both time together and apart in snail-mail letters sent across

the country over the years. I so much value my Grandmother’s words

and wisdom and don’t take my time with her for granted for I know

our days here are limited. An urgency arises from that reality, to soak

up the time together and her words to preserve them for tomorrow

and future generations who may not have the blessing of knowing her

personally.

PROBLEMS

1. These memoirs and family history need to be preserved in a sharable way.

2. They need to be organized and presented in a coherent manner,

integrating photos and stories to clearly connect the dots between

people, places and events included in her memoirs.

3. We’re on the clock. Time is precious, and we are not guarunteed time her with one another.


influences

work by Bella Forte

CRAFT

I have always been fascinated and inspired by quality hand craft, es-

pecially within the realms of book arts. The memoirs held tremendous

potential and unlimited possibilities for their physicality in book form.

In particular, in my research I was inspired by Margot Ecke’s work

at Smokey Road Press as well as another book binding company

called Bella Forte. Each piece of theirs is unique, hand-bound with

beautiful hand-picked ribbon, buttons, thread, linens, etcetra that

create a unique, intimate reading experience.

work by Margot Ecke


objectives

TIME

How will these memoirs address time? They need to have a logical flow, and need to be rearranged chronologicaly according to their content in a way that effectively maximizes their literary flow.

!

PHYSICALITY

The memoirs need to be preserved without losing the sensoriality, tactility, & personal touch the handwritten pieces embody. What will the weight and extent of handwriting’s role in achieving this be? The physicality also needs to address a variety of audiences...it needs to be personal, yet inviting into a distinct experience to be enjoyed by all.

!

+ +

INTEGRATION

Grandma entrusted to me photos, organized catalogues of family mem-bers, family trees, and her personal memoirs. I need to find a way to make these elements work together in visual and contextual arrangement.

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INTEGRITY

As the designer, I must preserve the writer’s integrity and character as I develop this project. I want it to reflect her personality, style, and values as accurately as possible.

!

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previous studies

LETTERS

Since I was about five years old, Grandma and I

have nurtured our relationship from oppositte sides

of the country through letter writing.

Not only did it develop our relationship, but I

would posit that it developed my writing skills and

perhaps sowed the seeds of my affinities for writing,

letters and typography.

Looking back at all the letters I have collected

over the years, I began to wonder about underlying

trends throughout the letters. Are there indicators

of various developments embedded within the

writing? Is there a quantitative way to measure our

change over time? How can that development be

visualized? Can I preserve all these years of corre-

spondence through design?


previous studies

ADVICE

TRAVEL

ENCOURAGEMENT

INFORMATIVE

50%

0%

100%

CUSTOM VISUAL SYSTEM

I ended up creating a flip book, featuring a large

handful of the letters. I took various measurements

including word count, evaluated writing style

(large print all the way to almost illegible cursive)

to determine the age of the audience written to,

and assigned the content into an overall category.

Each of the measurements for each letter was then

assigned a color, size and shape as part of a tool

bar on the right of each spread. As one flips through

the book like a flip book animation, they can get a

feel for the evolution of the letter collection through

the color fluctuation, size growth, and rhythm the

shapes make as they appear in rapid succession.


previous studies

6

pre -20005 X 7”29 words

The cool Montana summer breeze swept through my long blonde hair, the clear blue Big Sky fully outstretched above us. I sip on Grandma’s homemade strawberry Lemonade on the back porch, Papa serenades me on his guitar. The tall river birch trees surround us on the deck, joining in song as their leaves rustle in the light breeze, dancing. Mighty mountains, humble in their giant splendor sit quietly in the background, yielding security like a nest to the river valley that is Red Lodge, Montana.

I still remember the sweet simplicity of those summer days spent with my Grandparents through the summers growing up. The safety and openness that country and company provided everything a young girl needed and more to run carefree, to imagine, to talk, to breathe, to learn. In this letter, to be honest, I have no idea what the “fish bowl” was about. Or the bottles. Regardless, I must have been attached to them if they required my ‘big girl’ panties to part with them. The way Grandma’s encour-aging words made me feel, however, stuck with me and pushed me along to continue working hard as a “big girl,” however that manifested itself. Her words of love and encouragement bring me back to those simple summer days, making way for my creativity to run free with confidence. Her abridged signature “Gama and Papa” (spelled phonetically to identify with my loose 6-year-old pronunciation) really dates this letter, along with what we’ll call the beginning explorations of my hand lettering and abstract drawings, exhibited on the left.

1999

12

20045 X 6.5”67 words

“Loved your pastel! Don’t forget to blend the colors,” Grandma gently reminds me in this letter. Every now and then glimpses of her artistic prowess like this escape from beneath her shroud of humility, covering years of experience and expertise in the field. She taught art classes across the country, opened up several original art stores and owned a commercial one. Apart from her body of experience, her work speaks for itself. Beautifully painted driftwood pieces and canvasses, exotic fibrous weavings entwining handmade woolen threads and pieces of western culture like old leather stirrups and a bridle bit adorn the walls of her home. I admired her work before I was even tall enough to see it hanging at eye-level. Needless to say, I take her artistic advice seriously and count it a huge blessing to share a great passion with her.

2004

This book set the stage and served as a stepping stone to

the Montana Memoir book. The letter book is still live, as

letters keep coming and are added to the collection.

I would like to maintain closeness with this personal

project and continue to explore and develop this concept.

120

110

100

90

80

70

60

50

40

30

20AMOUNT OF

WORDS/LETTER

avg.

LETTER

200

175

150

125

100

75

50AMOUNT OF

WORDS/TOPIC

INFORMATION ENCOURAGEMENT TRAVEL ADVICE

T O P IC


interviews

MARGOT ECKESmokey Road Press, owner

QUESTIONS

What are ways to preserve the physicality of Grandma’s handwritten memoirs?

Is there a way to marry the straight-forward practical direction of this project with a more conceptual, experiemental direction?

interviews

WHAT I TOOK AWAY

Think about creating the entire experience...a space.Allow viewer to enter into a scene, more than just written words on the page. What elements bring Grandma’s persona to life? Artifacts?

Box concept...create an art box with artifacts, cubbies...recreate the act of exploration

Think about how to guide viewer through the experience.

BOX AND SPACE IDEASThe above antique chest has been in my house me entire life, right under my nose, and only recently I discovered its story and significance. The next photo pictures an idea for a personal, hand-crafted book, enclosed in a clam shell box for safe keeping and added personal touch.


photo collection

Photos of her family; distant relatvies, generations past.

MEMOIR BOOK STRUCTURE Along with the memoirs, Grandma enclosed over 75 numbered

photos and other print artifacts that compliment the stories in some

way. With this kind of volume, I had to determine a way to filter the

photos. I accomplished this by selecting memoirs with content related

directly to her family structure: her family, parents, brother, husband,

children and grandchildren. This naturally gave the book a chrologo-

gical order. I then curated photos relating to that branch of family

structure, pulling from the collection she gave me. For a few cases, I

had to call her and ask her to send a few specific photos that were not

originally included to fill a few holes.


photo collection

Photos of her parents; father Ted Archer and mother Thelma Archer

Photos of her brother, Donald Archer


photo collection

Photos of her and her husband, Eldon Jensen

Photos of her children, Marc and Wendy

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color studies


logo | sketches

BRAND FOR A LOGO

Grandma entitled her piece “The Montana Memoirs,” written by

Yvonne Jensen. Inspired by western cattle brand designs, I created a

logo for the work with the title letters “MM,” joining in the middle to

create the ‘Y’ in her first name.

Cattle brands were an emblem of pride for ranch owning families,

and were kept and passed on through the generations, just as Grand-

ma’s memoirs will be.


logo

The process of making cattle brands and

their very physicality guided my design of the

logo. I tried to imagine actually bending the

iron bars, creating more rounded curves in

the letterforms, all connected on one piece.


logo

FINAL LOGOAfter exploring several options for a logo, trying to push myself out of

my comfort zone, I decided to explore a hand-lettered option— back in

my favorite realm of design.

The handlettered options feel more personal, reflecting the nature

of hand written memoirs more accurately. The final logo also set the

precedence for an entire visual system for headings and quotes used

throughout the project in the same style.


logo


LETTERS

For a while, I explored the idea of returning to the Letter Project (see

RESEARCH) and incorporating it into the memoir book. I tried to

find potential in it to use as a conceptual thread and connection to

myself to weave through the memoirs. The letters are one of the most

tangible ties from my Grandma to me, so there was some potential,

however in the end I found the the memoirs and letters still seemed

better as independent projects, perhaps as part of a design suite or

series about aspects of our relationship.

The following pages include my explorations into this idea.

letter project

As I studied a collection of my grandmother’s letters

to me written throughout my life, I discovered a story

greater than any one individual message. Collectively,

they document the development of our

relationship through time.


199927 words

199819 words

2006 76 words

200340 words

200238 words

2004 67 words

2007 79 words

After counting the amount of words writen in each letter, I discovered a steady increase in words over time. I think this increase is a physical testament to the growth of our relationship, having more to talk and relate about, more to tell each other.

letter project

199927 words

199819 words

2006 76 words

200340 words

200238 words

2004 67 words

2007 79 words

After counting the amount of words writen in each letter, I discovered a steady increase in words over time. I think this increase is a physical testament to the growth of our relationship, having more to talk and relate about, more to tell each other.


discovery

SURPRISE

As I investigated and worked to preserve my grandma Yvonne’s memoirs through this project,

I also happened to be planning my own wedding. The two themes ran parallel to each other for

a while, before beautifully intertwining when I discovered that my mother had posession of her

own wedding dress and her mother’s (Yvonne’s), Grandma had her grandmother Carrie Cool-

ey’s, and of course I had mine!

Upon gathering the four dresses together, my family history came to life. The defining styles

of each era— the early 1900’s, 50’s, 80’s, and a contemporary style of the millenium are distinct

when juxtaposed alongside one another. The dresses became a more unique, visual timeline of

our family history. They also serve as a family tree, documenting the evolution of family names

from Hamre, to Archer, to Jensen, to Mooney, to Jones.


discovery

DRESS DETAILS I wanted to take the opportunity to capture the essence of each dress, notice how they reflect the era of their use and the character of each family bride.


poster series

HER WORDS

As an important facet of conveying Grandma’s character and words, I wanted to create

posters of some of her most important quotes. I did this in the same visual system of hand

lettering as in the logo. This idea first manifested itself in the form of quotes pulled directly

from some of her most impactful memoirs. However, as the layout of the actual memoir book

developed with the use of pull quotes, pull quote posters seemed redundant.

I turned back to my research, particularly my first interview with Grandma. I found quotes

she’d spoken about the importance of memoirs, passing through generations, and details of

her experience in writing them. Her words about her experience and memoirs compliment

the memoirs beautifully.


poster series


poster series

— from Red Lodge, Montana, 1997

— from North Texas State, 1953


montana memoirs | 16

LOMPOC, CALIFORNIA & BUREAU OF PRISONS We arrived in California in a red Carmen Geha with a little dog Phobee an all our stuff on a roof sack. Eldon taught classes to the inmates and I did substitute teaching. A year later Marc arrived and three years later Wendy arrived.

California is like a different country especially along the coastline. Lompoc was a small old Spanish town with Burpee flower fields all around. Beach-es were wonderful and we camped out with other couples many weekends. Bridge, Mexican food, ball games and church were some of our activities. We spent ten years here. Several of our friends have visited us here in Red Lodge in recent years. We have also been back many times to visit there.

Marc & Wendy Marc and Wendy were born in Lompoc, CA. in 1962 and 1965, respectively.

BOOK LAYOUT

After sifting through the twenty memoirs, I selected a handful of them to focus

on. Each spread became a part of her family, also representing a range of time in

timeline of her life. This also helped me filter all the photos to use only the ones that

pertained to the included characters and stories.

The book began vertically-oriented, but as I developed a more particular visual

system, it began to feel too cramped. I finally changed the entire layout to a horizon-

tal orientation, and everything flowed infinitely better from there. This also helped it

fulfil its function better as more of a look-book album than an all text novel.

layout


NORTH TEXAS STATEFour years of college, I enjoyed every minute. I loved to dance and skipped a lot of classes on Wednesday because that was the after-noon the Union Building (UB) had sock hops. Linda Gibson McCaully was a fun room-mate. She was always trying to steal the cute boys I found on the dance floor.

Denton was only 30 miles from Dallas so I could go home on weekends often.

My major was art but in those days everyone suggested strongly that you get a teaching degree “just in case.” I tried hard to do department store windows ($25 a month) or stage scenery (free) but in the end it was teaching. I looked down the list of teaching jobs after I graduated and hound a job that paid well and was teaching art. I left for Gale-na Park, Texas without even knowing how to drive a car.

The job was 5 classes of art for 7th and 8th and 9th graders of long shore men families. The first year I shared a garage apartment with the High School home-making teacher. We gave lots of parties and she brought all the teachers at the high school over at one time or anoth-er. Eldon Jensen was a drafting teacher and before I knew it I was talking to him all the time. We married the following summer. Our honeymoon was an entire summer spent mostly in Yellowstone on my Uncle’s boat and trailer. Eldon loved the country around Montana as much as I did.

After a couple of years we decided we needed to change something because we couldn’t live on just one teacher’s salary. Eldon applied with the Bureau of Prisons as an instructor. The salary was three times what public schools paid (even in the Houston oil area). We got a job in Lom-poc, California one year later.


1906

BERTHA & NELS HAMRE

1958

1987YVONNE & ELDON JENSEN

WENDY & VINCE MOONEY


layout | headings


refine

FIN

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final spreads

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By Morgan Jones

I cannot remember a time in my life without her letters. They appear everywhere throughout the full stretch of my memory— from my present life to my distant childhood memories. Between those early recollections and today lie years of life— visits to and from Montana and Atlanta, getting older, maturing, celebrating, mourn-ing, sharing, teaching and learning. These all comprise the development of a special friendship with my Grandma, Yvonne Jensen, that I have been blessed with the opportunity to cherish through the years.

Forward

In the spring of 2014, I looked back at letters I’ve kept from her, spanning a 14 year range. This time I evaluated them through a designer’s lense. What information about people, time and place do they lend? How? I discov-ered that collectively, the letters tell a greater story, visually documenting the timeline of our lives and relationship.

The following summer, my Grandmother entrusted to me a binder of loose-leaf papers— pages and pages of her hand-written mem-oirs on her life and family, along with original documentation of familyhistory and photographs. I saw the same creative potential that I saw in her letters to illustrate the develop-ment of a relationship through time in a personal, tactile, and visual way, while also preserving family history and my Grandmother’s words for generations to come.

This book is the result of a 21 year-old cross-generational friendship, a collaboration of grandmother and granddaughter.

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By Yvonne Jensen

In the 8th grade they moved to Seagoville, Texas 20 miles from Dallas. Worn out cotton land and pecan farms were everywhere. Also lots of gravel pits because the town was on the Trinity River. Seagoville prison was bigger and Ted was always at work. Food preparation took place at odd hours. Early morning baking for example. The prison reservation and housing for employees was three miles from town and all of us kids rode the bus. We were called the reservation kids. One fun thing in those days hap-pened when us kids watched the latest movies with the inmates. I’m sure the inmates enjoyed having all of us there.

High school was awful because no one ever moved into the school and it was especially bad for me since I didn’t have a southern accent. The boys in school all wanted to be gravel truck drivers or run their folks’ pecan ranches. My roommate and I were the only kids in our graduating class that went to college. Several kids married in the eighth grade and one boy had three kids when he graduated. The one bright spot in those years was being Editor of the annual. Basketball was also fun. We were Texas state champions one year!

My brother found all kinds of things to get into. Drinking, cars, and not paying much attention to school.

He was always a great artist since he was 2 or 3 but trouble was always with him. He found every pitfall there was for humans to get in trouble. He had a massive stroke at 40 from drinking and died in a Missoula hospital thirteen years later.

Summer jobs during high school and college were interesting. I worked in Girl Scout camps, private girls camps like Fern in Marshal Texas as a craft counselor. Department stores like Sanger and A. Harris were my next jobs. Then a couple of summers I worked for my uncle in his motel in Billings. I waited tables and helped make beds!

Seagoville, Texas

High school was awful because no one ever moved into the school. It was especially bad for me since I didn’t have a southern accent.

“”

Donald and Yvonne

1 Together riding horses in Seagoville, Texas

2 Yvonne (6) and Donald (2) in Idaho.

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By Yvonne Jensen

I’m going to begin my story years before I was born with my first relative in Montana, John Cooley. He was born in Wisconsin in 1858 and came to Musselshell valley in 1881.

Carrie Cartwright married John in 1882. Carrie was from New York and her father had been a stonemason and farmer.

Carrie arrived at the junction with two trunks and two crocks of butter in the fall of 1882. She was the first white woman in the Musselshell valley. The story goes that she used a shotgun from her front door to shoot an Indian. She missed but scared him away.

Five children were born to Carrie and John. Mina, their first born and my grand-mother arrived in 1885. Kittie 1887, Edna 1890, Earl 1894, and Bent 1898. Bent died at the age of 11 from a snake bite. When Mina was born she was the first white baby born in Musselshell Valley. Earl married Vallie, a mail order bride from Wisconsin. I always thought Vallie was a beautiful name. In my lifetime, Vallie was the lady I knew. She looked wonderful in jeans into her 90’s. She just died a few years ago at 97. John, her son, died a few years later. He was born the same year as I was.

We had a family reunion for Vallie’s 95th birthday. John was recovering from a heart attack at the time. He was dressed in a nice western outfit but had street shoes on. I asked him why he didn’t wear cow-boy boots and he said “Only truck drivers wear those f***** boots!” He died a couple of years ago from his heart trouble. The Cooley ranch is in the hands of his sons today.

Montana Roots

I feel fortunate I have some memories of ranch life. Our generations today don’t have as many opportunities to see grandparents.

“”

I’m getting ahead of the story. The severe winter of 1886-87 was recorded as a very bad time with a new baby Mina. They had to feed their milk cow with the sod roof to keep her alive. Mina, my grandmother, was 20 when she met Theodore Finley Archer, 31. He came to Montana to teach school. He was paid $40 a month with room and board $15 a month. He lasted one year and then began to ranch. “TF” as the family called him married Mina in 1905. Their ranch was next to the Cooley source on the Musselshell River. Ted, my dad, was born in 1907 and Laura followed in 1909. Ted and Laura rode a mule to school and they have many stories of the mule getting loose and going home without them.

Ted drove a tractor from the age of 5. He tells the story of taking eggs to town to have money for the dances. Ted’s picture is hanging in the Musselshell school, graduating class of 1928.

All my cousins and I have never liked TF. He was mean to our grandmother. When they went to town he left her thread and things on the counter of the store and only paid for his tobacco etc. He is the one that “rushed” cattle from his father-in-law John Cooley. I have Carrie’s “parlor” set of oak furniture in my front room. Carrie

The Cooleys

1 Built in 1912, the Cooley house in Mussellshell, Montana had cabin lights

and was furnished with leather furniture and dark wood pieces.

2 One of the only pictures I have of Great Grandma Car rie Cooley. It was a visi t sometime before I was three with Ted’s Grandmother. Car rie was barel y f ive fee t .

had ordered east and it arrived by train in Virginia city and then by wagon in Mus-selshell. My dad found it in a chicken coop and restored it. It had gone out of style because it was filled with horse hair. I had it redone by people that restored furniture for the White House while I was in Virginia. The furniture needs to be in the Roundup, Montana museum one day.

I have a couple of memories of newborn kittens in haystacks and a goat that would pull a wagon if you had a carrot on a stick.

I feel fortunate I have some memories of ranch life. Our generations today don’t have as many opportunities to see grand-parents in that setting. I was only 11 in 1946 when they sold the ranch. Mina and TF retired to running a nursery in Lovell, Wyoming and their graves are there.

Family TreeJohn Cooley, b. 1850 Carrie Cartwright , b. 1858

Mina, b. 1885 Theodore “TF” Archer, b. 1874Kittie, b. 1887Edna, b. 1890Earl, b. 1894Bent, b. 1898

LauraTed, b. 1907 Thelma, b. 1909

Vallie

John

Yvonne, b. 1935Donald, b. 1940

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6 “By Yvonne Jensen

Ted never became the rancher he wanted to be. He was always very good with horses and animals. TF sold the ranch in 1946. Ted resembled the Cooley men that were known for their red hair, slender builds and small feet. He did raise cattle part time later and always wore cowboy boots. 125 was his top weight.

I have a story about boots and Ted in St. John’s just before he died. Ted’s ankles were beginning to swell and he needed softer cowboy boots. He already had about a dozen pairs around. I called a boot store in Billings and asked if they could tell the gentleman I was bringing in that all boots were on sale for $39.99. Ted found a pair he liked and bragged to all his friends in St. Johns that he really got a good deal on his new boots. They were actually $300.

I called a boot store in Billings and asked if they could tell the gentleman I was bringing in that all boots were on sale for $39.99. Ted Archer ” 1

Ted and Thelma

1 Ted and T helma on their 50 year wedding anniversar y

2 Ted and Thelma at their Palace Café in Laurel, MT. right after they were married.

3 Ted and T helma in Roundup, Just before T helma started having heart surgeries.

4 Ted and T helma in St. John’s hospital just before Ted died.

2

3 4

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As I investigated and worked to pre-serve my grandma Yvonne’s memoirs through the fall of 2014, I also happened to be planning my own wedding. The two themes ran parallel to each other for a while, before beau-tifully intertwining when I discovered that my mother had posession of her own wedding dress and her mother’s (Yvonne’s), Grandma had her grand-mother Carrie Cooley’s, and of course I had mine!

Upon gathering the four dresses together, my family history came to

A Timeline of Dresses

life. The defining styles of each era— the early 1900’s, 50’s, 80’s, and a contemporary style of the millenium are distinct when juxtaposed alongside one another.

The dresses became a more unique, visual timeline of our family history. They also serve as a family tree, documenting the evolution of family names from Hamre, to Archer, to Jensen, to Mooney, to Jones.

By Morgan Jones

May 6, 1906 Nels and Bertha HamreYvonne’s Grandma

June 7, 1958 Eldon and Yvonne Jensen

October 3, 1987 Vince and Wendy MooneyYvonne’s Daughter

November 1, 2014 Caleb and Morgan JonesYvonne’s Granddaughter

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We arrived in California in a red Carmen Gehawith a little dog Phobee and all our stuff on a roof sack.”“

1

We arrived in California in a red Carmen Geha with a little dog Phobee and all our stuff on a roof sack. Eldon taught classes to the inmates and I did substitute teaching. A year later Marc arrived and three years later Wendy arrived.

California is like a different country especially along the coastline. Lompoc was a small old Spanish town with Burpee flower fields all around. Beaches were wonderful and we camped out with other couples many weekends. Bridge, Mexican food, ball games and church were some of our activities. We spent ten years here. Several of our friends have visited us here in Red Lodge in recent years. We have also been back many times to visit there.

Marc & Wendy Jensen

1 Marc, Wendy and Yvonne. Both kids were born in Lompoc, CA. in 1962 and 1965, respectively. Here Marc is about 4 and Wendy is 1 year old.

2 Marc in the 2nd grade

3 Wendy in the 4th grade

Lompoc, California

2 3

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”“

of our friends. Everyone is still talking about that trip. Since then, we go into the park several times a year by ourselves and with all our visitors.

Having lived here in Red Lodge full time since 1995, we are pleased to still be in the charming town. After moving all over I felt I never really had a hometown and all the relatives

Yellowstone and Other Adventures

Being a Grandmother is a pretty good job!

Over the years we have had some wonderful adventures with National Parks, especially Yellowstone. The first time I was ever in Yellowstone I was 2 years old in 1938. The pictures from this trip looks like about 3 cars of relatives enjoying the park. Almost every year since then I have spent a short time in Montana and the park, visiting grandparents and relatives, and enjoying the beautiful country.

After I met and married Eldon, we spent our honeymoon in Yellowstone, so Eldon fell in love with this area also.The first thing we did since we finally moved out to Red Lodge was set up a trip to the park in December with 10

I have left in Montana made Red Lodge an ideal choice for retirement.

These days Wendy and Vince live in Atlanta with their three kids Morgan, Kendall and Cole. Marc and Temple live in Crozet, Virginia with their two children Matthew and Sophie. Being a grandmother is a pretty good job!

Vacations

1 Eldon, Yvonne and a friend on the historic Beartooth Pass, highway from Red Lodge to Yellowstone

2 Eldon and Yvonne visiting granddaughter Morgan (2) in Beaufort, South Carolina.

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By Yvonne Jensen

Four years of college, I enjoyed every minute. I loved to dance and skipped a lot of classes on Wednesday because that was the afternoon the Union Building had sock hops. Linda Gibson McCaully was a fun roommate. She was always trying to steal the cute boys I found on the dance floor. Denton was only 30 miles from Dallas so I could go home on weekends often.

My major was art but in those days everyone suggested strongly that you get a teaching degree “just in case.” I tried hard to do department store win-dows ($25 a month) or stage scenery (free) but in the end it was teaching. I looked down the list of teaching jobs

after I graduated and found a job that paid well teaching art. I left for Galena Park, Texas without even knowing how to drive a car.

The job was 5 classes of art for 7th and 8th and 9th graders. The first year I shared a garage apartment with the high school homemaking teacher. We gave lots of parties and she brought all the teachers at the high school over at one time or another. Eldon Jensen was a drafting teacher and before I knew it I was talking to him all the time.

We married the following summer. Our honeymoon was an entire sum-mer spent mostly in Yellowstone on my Uncle’s boat and trailer. Eldon loved the country around Montana as much as I did.

After a couple of years we decided we needed to change some-thing because we couldn’t live on just one teacher’s salary. Eldon applied with the Bureau of Prisons as an instructor. The salary was three times what public schools paid (even in the Houston oil area). We got a job in Lompoc, California one year later.

Eldon Jensen was a drafting teacher and before I knew it I was talking to him all the time.

North Texas State

“”

Eldon and Yvonne Jensen

1 Together on their wedding day

2 Eldon and Yvonne around 2000

3 Donald, Eldon,Thelma and I in Oklahoma City, 1960

1 2

3


vellum

VELLUM INSERTS

To preserve Grandma’s integrity as the writer, and to maintain a

personal, tactile feel among the memoirs, I printed copies of the

original hand-written memoirs on a transparent vellum that

accompanied its respective memoir in the designed book.


book

HANDMADE COVERS

I wanted to futher preserve the handmade tactile qualitites of the

memoirs by compiling them into a beautiful hand-bound book.

Early in my research, I discovered Bella Forte books who special-

izes in creating hand crafted and bound books. Because I needed to

print the book myself and insert the special vellum pages, I decided to

just order handmade front and back covers for the book and print and

bind it myself. To top it all off, Bella Forte made a custom die of my

lettered logo and embossed it onto the front cover.


final iterations


outcome

FINAL ACCENT POSTERS

To accent the displayed book spreads and to further drive the

importance of the memoirs home, I went to the very beginning of my

research and pulled some direct quotes by Grandma that I collected

earlier in an interview.

I chose to print them on vellum and display them framed and raised

from the backdrop poster 3/4” to create a lightbox effect.

EX

HIB

ITIO

N


experience

EXPERIENCE

To make the memoirs come alive even more, I created an environment

to emulate the act of Grandma actually writing that would ultimately

draw the viewer into her world of writing. Through the semester I

curated several different items from her Montana home, including a

few pieces from her pin cushion collection, her high school hat with

various pins, a photo album or original family photos, and of course a

few original memoirs.


exhibition

RE

FLE

CT

ION


reflection

IMPACT

Looking back on the process of completing this project, I see a lot

more potential that I did not capitalize on. I would like to revisit some

of those missed opportunities in the future. I would also explore more

layouts and writing styles for the quote posters, making a stronger

connection between them and the memoir spreads. Finally, I would

like to eventually complete the entirety of the memoirs as a long term

project. I could expand the project’s scope beyond just print, incorpo-

rating audio recordings of her reading the memoirs aloud, or create

an accompanying video or text animation.

Some of the best design I have ever seen is that which makes a

connection with the viewer on a deeper level. It reaches off the page

and touches the human ethos or pathos in some way. Just by looking

at it, you can tell the designer was personally, maybe even emotion-

ally invested in its creation. That is the kind of design that drives me,

and the kind of design I strive to create.

My hope is that everyone walked away impacted by this piece,

but I knew my mission was accompished when I saw tears in my

Grandmother’s eyes when she saw it. It helped me see again the power

design has to capture history, emotions, time, and so much more.


MORGAN JONESFALL 2014

Montana Memoirs Process Book

Documents

Transcript of Montana Memoirs Process Book