RAY NASH AND GRAPHIC ARTS
WHILE RAY NASH'S quiet tweedsy slouch and pipe-fingering may not be familiar to the alumni and most of the College, it is near truism to say that his work during his five years at Dartmouth as typographical adviser and director of the Graphic Arts Workshop is widely known. Ray Nash, directly and indirectly, through the Dartmouth Publications, the College, undergraduate publications and student activity, has made the College design conscious.
His efforts began in 1935, when after teaching graphic arts in a penthouse studio at the New School of Social Research and years as newspaperman on the coast and in Boston, he was invited by the Art Department to use the make-shift workshop in the basement of Baker Library. At first, his connection with the College was not formal, as he lived on a farm near Hanover and still was typographical adviser to firms in New York and Boston, clients even yet part of his activity. He was next asked by the Art Department to organize an informal program for the students interested in printing projects, and then, in 1936, he was appointed Lecturer in Art. In 1937, he became a member of the Publications Committee, and now teaches a course in Graphic Arts.
A simple enough outline, but it does not indicate the impression he has made on the College. Ray Nash works quietly, unobtrusively.
The room first offered him had seen some desultory use by students who made sporadic efforts at wood-cuts, the printing of their own poems, and commercial work for friends. There was loose interest in the workshop and no guidance in the work done. The equipment, squeezed into a corner among piles of boxes shunted off by the library staff, barely included a 7 by 11 Pearl "kicker," a foot-operated press, and a collection of bastard types surreptitiously borrowed from the Dartmouth Press. It was really just a nondescript room in the basement of Baker Library.
Today the workshop is crowded to the walls by a Washington hand press and lithograph press, both contributed by Mr. Nash; rows of bins for the various types that range in style from the original English Caslon to the modern Perpetua designed by Eric Gill; bulletin boards with samples of work done in the shop; woodcut, etching, and lithograph tools; and all the other materials necessary for efficient graphic arts work.
With the addition cf this new equipment through the brief years of organization, student activity has increased, and also the extent of Ray Nash's influence on College printing design: letter-heads, college stationery, Alumni Fund mailing pieces and the Dartmouth Publication's "Lyrics" by Richard Hovey were among the first definite nite assignments he had. Even the Hanover Inn menus were redesigned by him. Since these first pieces, similar work during the years has been under his supervision, and last fall the publication of the 1940General Catalogue perhaps marked his greatest single contribution to College design.
In his direction of the Graphic Arts Workshop, which is comparable to the work done in Paul Sample's art classes, Ray Nash has a particular interest in the student activity. The fifteen men now taking advantage of the equipment are seen by him as the best in his Dartmouth experience. Contrasted to the first days when students considered the shop as a place to pick up extra cash by printing stationery and poems for their friends, today the students are not only more serious about their work but also understand the learning process better; they are patient and willing to redesign their projects.
Mr. Nash feels, moreover, that finished art by his students is of secondary importance, and that the development of an individual's creative expression, discrimination and talent is the important thing. "I encourage swift and relaxed work," he says, "which preserves the spirit of spontaneity and adventure. If a student doesn't happen to possess distinctive talent, it makes no difference, for he develops his critical abilities and comes to realize, through actual working experience, exactly what an artist's limitations and intentions were."
The hurricane of '38 saw the workshop's most unique project. The storm had disabled printing facilities in Hanover, and the editor of The Dartmouth, O'Brien Boldt '39, on the morning after the hurricane had reached its destructive worst, was walking on the street when he saw Ray Nash. The Dartmouth's staff had been casting about all night for means to get out a bulletin to give the community news of the storm.
The meeting had immediate results. Ray Nash simply handed over the key of the workshop to Boldt to use all the equipment. Boldt contacted the staff and Tom Braden, who had done work in the shop, and the entire group, unexperienced but willing, spent the afternoon in Baker, writing the news, setting the type by hand, and composing the dummy.
Ray Nash had given the staff help during the afternoon; they turned to him in these last minutes and asked him one more question. "What'll we do with this blank space on the back sheet?" Mr. Nash is a cool, nonchalant man. He encourages student initiative, but this time he reserved to himself the crowning feature of TheDartmouth's Hurricane Issue.
"Send a heeler," he advised, "to Mr. Gile, the insurance man. Get an ad from him." At eight o'clock the issue set by hand in the workshop appeared, and on the back sheet was Archie Gile's admonition to buy wind insurance.
RAY NASH DEMONSTRATES FINE POINTS OF PRINTING TO A STUDENT
