Madison Munro - 2020 January 30

Today I was able to get access to the MOH file where all the Jason books are suppose to live permanently. It took a bit of time for all of the files to transfer from the drobo, but they're there now. I scanned three of the Jason texts today, and found an increase in photography throughout the books. The photographs were often of places around Salem and on Willamette's campus. Other works of art included etchings, prints, and graphite sketches. I noticed a recurring theme of the female body in many of the art pieces. Not many of them had titles or the names of the artist, but I would be interested to see if it were primarily men or women submitting these images. Many of them were bodies without faces, which makes me question the nature of the study. There was one mosaic piece from the 1973 book that looked a lot like Charles Manson. It was a man with shoulder length dark hair and those wild eyes. He would have been in jail by then so I wonder if that could have been the inspiration for the mosaic. There was a poem about Vietnam urging the reader to stop reading because people are dying and don't you care? Needless to say many fascinating finds today.   

Madison Munro - 2020 January 29

I have finished box 5 of the Jason periodicals. I went from earliest to latest when scanning and found that the earlier additions had much more student art contributions than 1968, 1969, and 1970. Could have just been a question of interest but I'll have a better picture once I move onto the next box. The art that was included seemed to primarily be dry point etchings and prints which fascinated me as a studio art major who happens to be taking an etching class. I took it as the fates reminding me I need to work on my own dry point etching assignment that sits idle on my desk. Additionally, earlier works seemed to have integrated the art and poetry in a more cohesive way. And to my delight the earlier images actually had captions! Every art historian's dream!!  Also fascinating were the contributor's names and hometowns at the end of the books. Fascinating to see that even in the 60s and 70s there was a major Californian population at Willamette. No doubt they too were offended by the rain.

Madison Munro - 2020 January 28

This morning I was able to scan three books from the Jason box #5. Jason 1970, 1969, and 1968. Form what I have been able to gather, The Jason served at the student poetry and art work book published among Willamette students. There was a bit of a hold up on where to store these files. For now they are in the drobo file under "Temp". I was most intrigued by the 1968 publication which had a hard cover and tall rectangular bright yellow pages containing mostly poetry and a few illustrated pages. I got lost reading this publication. The first page describes the book as "Willamette's poetry-art magazine has been re-titled this year -- no longer The Jason (worthy  as that symbol may be), but Jason's (Lee) Phantasty." This confirmed my suspicions that these were named after Jason Lee for who Lee house is named after. The title page continues robustly, "We are young; we are at Willamette university; we have out futuristic phantasies. forgive us if we satirize the now successful phantasy that Jason Lee had one hundred twenty six years ago." The boom of an introduction inspires me to further investigate Jason Lee who I know little about.

Madison Munro - 2020 January 27

Hello! Being my first day of work, I think it went well and that I'm really going to enjoy working here. I only had to ask Sara a couple of questions which is a personal triumph. I finished scanning The Mill 2017 which was full of student work particularly poetry with some graphic images, seeming to be mixed media or collage. These were rather fascinating to leaf through as I was scanning, as poetry and art are two of my interests. The system of saving information was a bit challenging but I  got the hang of it after a few tries. After completing The Mill scanning, I got to visit the archives to retrieve the Jason box #5. I was quite curious to see what would be in a box labeled "Jason", my true-crime-obsessed- brain immediately thought of evidence boxes. Rationally, I realized it was unlikely that someone would donate incriminating evidence to their Alma mater, but who knows. Having gone through the first of the Jason books, I see that they are also pages of poetry and artistic rendering. I find it interesting that the Willamette poets of the 1970s utilized the space of the page much more than the 2017 poets. The lines were often broken up and spaced out spanning the whole of the page. I'm excited to dive further into this box and the ones following it.