Thanks to a remarkable gift of art prints Ferris State received in 2000, the University can now begin to generate money for scholarships and art restoration through the sale of individual works. If you invested in one print a month it would take you until the year 2125 to own a complete set.
Although you’ll probably run out of wall space before then.
Forty thousand prints, representing 1,500 separate works, are carefully stored in gray metal cabinets located in the bottom floor of Ferris’ Library for Information, Technology and Education. Each cabinet’s shallow drawers are labeled with the names of the artists whose prints they hold.
Carrie Weis-Taylor, director of Ferris State’s Rankin Center Gallery, unpacked all the prints when they first arrived, so she’s the person most familiar with the entire collection. “The scary part is, I know what’s in each drawer,” she says. “As soon as I read the name, I have an image.”
Specialized software will help inventory and track those 1,500 different works (some prints are single copies, some have as many as 200) assuring Weis-Taylor won’t have to rely on her memory alone.

A Broad Artistic Landscape
The Canadian Collection is breathtaking in its scope, encompassing work from the abstract to the photo-realistic, from landscapes to political statement. A sample of the collection can be seen on the library’s upper levels.
Fifty-two prints framed in white maple to complement the library’s natural oak woodwork are currently on display. “We wanted to show the breadth of the collection,” says Sharon Hamel, assistant to the Library and Instructional Services dean. “Three of the four themes involve subject matter—landscapes, figurative art and abstracts. We’re also highlighting the types of media with the fourth theme, which is etchings and aquatints.”
A fully equipped framing shop adjoins the storage area. Framing is a service available to buyers, though Weis-Taylor suspects that most prints will be sold unframed due to the difficulties of shipping framed work.
Some of the artists whose work is in the Canadian Collection are among the most important of the post-World War II generation. Leonard Baskin’s bold, mythic figures are among the collection’s most striking images. A series of drawings he did of birds inspired Ted Hughes, the late English poet laureate and former husband of Sylvia Plath, to write perhaps his most famous book, Crow. The Canadian Collection includes a series of Baskin’s prints of Native-American tribal chiefs.
A different aesthetic is embodied by the pop artist and Andy Warhol collaborator Robert Indiana who left his mark on an entire generation. His most famous work, “Love,” was made into a first-class U.S. postage stamp in 1973 and influenced the cover art of Eric Segal’s era-defining novel Love Story.
For Weis-Taylor, though, works by some of the less well-known artists are the most compelling. Donald Saff employs a personal mythology of images that range from animals to geometric figures to famous people (“Chaplin” is one of Weis-Taylor’s favorite prints) juxtaposed to create surreal, dream-like atmospheres. The dreamy quality of another of Weis-Taylor’s favorite artists, Olga Poloukhine, is reminiscent of the bold Impressionist patterns of Gauguin.

The Virtual Collection
Prospective buyers can look through the complete collection online to find work that fits their taste. Part of the proceeds from sale of the works will help finance art acquisitions, framing of work, traveling exhibitions and restoration of damaged work. The other portion goes into a budget that will aid Canadian students at Ferris.
Interested parties can go the Rankin Center Gallery page on the Ferris Web site to view images of prints for sale from the Canadian Collection and to get purchasing information. Type in “Rankin Center Gallery” in the search engine on the Ferris.edu home page, or follow the links in the online edition of Crimson & Gold.