{"@context":"http://iiif.io/api/presentation/3/context.json","id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/iiif/5q4rj49k80/manifest","type":"Manifest","label":{"en":["Robert Birmelin Oral History"]},"logo":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/010/original/Aviary_QPLlogo_192x192.png?1578574261","metadata":[{"label":{"en":["Description"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSummary of Full Interview\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eRobert Birmelin is a painter and printmaker who taught in the Queens College studio art department from 1964 until his retirement in 1999. He was educated at Cooper Union and the Yale School of Art, and spent three years at the American Academy in Rome.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eIn this interview, Birmelin recalls how he was recruited to the Queens art faculty by then-chairman Elias Friedensohn, and discusses the growth of the department into a major program led by prominent artists of the 1960s and ‘70s. He also describes the New York art scene of that time and how trends have changed over the decades.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eBirmelin, like most of the studio art faculty, maintained his own studio practice while teaching, and has held many solo and group exhibitions over the years. Since his retirement from Queens he has continued to work, focusing especially on drawings. His most recent show was a joint exhibit titled “Good and Bad Government” at The Clemente Center in New York (April-May 2021).\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Source"]},"value":{"en":["Interview conducted as part of the Queens College Faculty and Staff Oral History Project."]}},{"label":{"en":["Language"]},"value":{"en":["English"]}},{"label":{"en":["Coverage"]},"value":{"en":["1950s-2020 (temporal)","New Haven, CT, Rome, Italy, Manhattan and Flushing, Queens, NY (spatial)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Date"]},"value":{"en":["2020-10-27 (created)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Agent"]},"value":{"en":["Robert Birmelin (Interviewee)","Rebecca Rushfield (Interviewer)"]}},{"label":{"en":["Rights Statement"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCC BY-NC-SA Contact digitalarchives@queenslibrary.org for research and reproduction requests.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},{"label":{"en":["Type"]},"value":{"en":["Video"]}}],"summary":{"en":["\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSummary of Full Interview\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eRobert Birmelin is a painter and printmaker who taught in the Queens College studio art department from 1964 until his retirement in 1999. He was educated at Cooper Union and the Yale School of Art, and spent three years at the American Academy in Rome.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eIn this interview, Birmelin recalls how he was recruited to the Queens art faculty by then-chairman Elias Friedensohn, and discusses the growth of the department into a major program led by prominent artists of the 1960s and \u0026lsquo;70s. He also describes the New York art scene of that time and how trends have changed over the decades.\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/p\u003e\r\n\u003cp\u003eBirmelin, like most of the studio art faculty, maintained his own studio practice while teaching, and has held many solo and group exhibitions over the years. Since his retirement from Queens he has continued to work, focusing especially on drawings. His most recent show was a joint exhibit titled \u0026ldquo;Good and Bad Government\u0026rdquo; at The Clemente Center in New York (April-May 2021).\u003c/p\u003e"]},"requiredStatement":{"label":{"en":["Attribution"]},"value":{"en":["\u003cp\u003eCC BY-NC-SA Contact digitalarchives@queenslibrary.org for research and reproduction requests.\u003c/p\u003e"]}},"provider":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/aboutus","type":"Agent","label":{"en":["Queens Public Library"]},"homepage":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/","type":"Text","label":{"en":["Queens Public Library"]},"format":"text/html"}],"logo":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/organizations/logo_images/000/000/010/original/Aviary_QPLlogo_192x192.png?1578574261","type":"Image"}]}],"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/161/486/small/Robert_Birmelin_Portrait_Crop1.png?1657026714","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486","type":"Canvas","label":{"en":["Media File 1 of 1 - Bermelin-Robert_Edited.mp4"]},"duration":4213.26933,"width":640,"height":360,"thumbnail":[{"id":"https://d9jk7wjtjpu5g.cloudfront.net/collection_resource_files/thumbnails/000/161/486/small/Robert_Birmelin_Portrait_Crop1.png?1657026714","type":"Image","format":"image/png"}],"items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/content/1","type":"AnnotationPage","items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/content/1/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"painting","body":{"id":"https://aviary-p-queenslibrary.s3.wasabisys.com/collection_resource_files/resource_files/000/161/486/original/Bermelin-Robert_Edited.mp4?1657026253","type":"Video","format":"video/mp4","duration":4213.26933,"width":640,"height":360},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486","metadata":[]}]}],"annotations":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797","type":"AnnotationPage","label":{"en":["Full Transcript [Transcript]"]},"items":[{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/1","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: OK. All right, hi.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=0.0,2.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/2","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Hi Rebecca. Have you a general idea? A kind of, a way to guide, a way you want to guide this?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2.0,14.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/3","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Well, because this is for the Queens Memory Project and the Queens College oral history of retired faculty project, we'll probably focus at least on the beginning, on your teaching at Queens College. How you came, I guess, to come, came to teaching, how you came to Queens College, your years there. And we can branch out from there after we cover that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=14.0,40.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/4","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: OK. How I came to Queens College.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=40.0,47.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/5","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Right, right. And was that the first school where you taught art?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=47.0,53.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/6","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I was in the art department, yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=53.0,55.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/7","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: But was Queens College the first institution where you taught art?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=55.0,64.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/8","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Basically, yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=64.0,67.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/9","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Right. So how did you come to get the job there?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=67.0,71.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/10","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Well, my wife and I had been living in Europe on a Fulbright and later, for several years, at the American Academy in Rome. This was between 1960 and 1964. It was a time when many of the, I think, schools and art departments, particularly, around the country were either being set up or expanded. And as a Fellow of the American Academy, while I was in Rome I was getting offers to teach at a number of universities, but either in California or Boston, Indiana, etc. But my wife and I wanted to come back to the New York area and we also sent in a letter - oh no, that's not true. We did not. I had had an exhibition in New York, in a major gallery in 1960. Elias Friedensohn, who was then the chairman of the studio art section [at Queens College], had seen the show, and while I was traveling in Europe, I received a letter from him asking me if I were interested in joining the faculty. And it just was the right letter at the right time. I was delighted, and I accepted and we returned in-we returned in the summer of '64. I started teaching at Queens in the studio art area at that time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=71.0,203.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/11","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: How large was the studio art department at that time? Who were your co-?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=203.0,211.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/12","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Well, the chair, Elias Friedensohn had left the chairmanship and Louis, Louis Finkelstein had come down from Yale. And had become the chairman of the, of the department. And he was intent on reshaping it into a major kind of art department. And began, he began to hire various people as well. I was 29, and Louis was a rather imposing intellectual - intellectually imposing figure, and very forceful.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=211.0,262.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/13","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Now, if I can ask a side question, you had gone and studied at Yale, correct?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=262.0,269.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/14","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I had gone to the Cooper Union in New York City. And from there I had got an undergraduate degree from Yale in- [ed. note: Birmelin received his BFA from Yale in 1956]. And then I left school and was doing freelance work.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=269.0,296.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/15","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Was Louis Finkelstein at Yale when you were there?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=296.0,300.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/16","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Yeah. Oh, well, I'll get back to this.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=300.0,302.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/17","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: OK. All right. Sorry.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=302.0,305.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/18","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I was drafted in the Army and came back to Yale and got my master's degree in 1960 and got married too. That was important.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=305.0,316.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/19","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Yes.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=316.0,316.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/20","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: And then, then I went, then we went to Europe for four years. When I came to Yale [ed. note: Queens College] Louis Finkelstein had just begun as chairman. And he had certain ideas about how to shape the department and the kind of artists - mainly he, mainly he was recruiting people from the New York, downtown New York world, art world. Which was quite vibrant at the time. And, I think he was not altogether comfortable with me at first. And I wasn't comfortable with him, and I was rather nervous about teaching. I didn't, I hadn't been teaching before. And I was a little bit uncertain about - not so much about how to go about it, because obviously I'd been extensively a student before. But a little bit uneasy about my position, vis-a-vis what Louis wanted for the department.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=316.0,386.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/21","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Can you talk more about what he wanted besides making it a world-class art department?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=386.0,399.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/22","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Well, Louis was an artist who had, what should we say? He had a wonderful art historical background, and he was an interesting writer too. And the people he was choosing to come to the department were mostly from the New York area. And many of them, he knew. Gabriel Laderman, who was a fine, but very contentious man. Rosemarie Beck came later. Harold Bruder. The abstract painter, Clinton Hill. I'm spinning it off the top of my head here.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=399.0,469.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/23","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: It was a largish department.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=469.0,472.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/24","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: The department was moderate, modest size, but in the following years, going through the '60s into the '70s, it grew. It attracted good people, good students. And, I think it was an excellent faculty focused largely on the tradition out of Cézanne, French painting - Cézanne, Matisse, and to some degree Abstract Expressionism.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=472.0,511.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/25","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: So, can I ask? Because I just happened to have been reading an oral history interview that dealt with the Brooklyn College art department in the '50s and '60s. Now that seemed to have been formed more by Bauhaus-tradition people. Was there a, in your mind, a great difference? Would you have gone to teach-?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=511.0,533.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/26","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I think some of the people who had been, who had taught one way or another at Brooklyn, eventually did come to Queens. I think Gabe Laderman did. The ceramicist Jolyon Hofsted did. And there was a kind of downtown, pre-fancy-Soho downtown, art world that Louis was very well acquainted with, very connected with and that, and drew good people from it. And fairly varied. Charles Cajori came, a very, who was a very influential teacher. He and Louis were very close. Elias Friedensohn and I were a little bit outliers at this, on the Cézanne and Matisse line, because we both have somewhat more interest in more subjective imagery than the others. OK. Where shall I go from here?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=533.0,625.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/27","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: When you were hired, what classes did you teach?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=625.0,628.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/28","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: OK. I taught design [unclear], which I wasn't that comfortable with. I taught drawing and really, what I was, what my feature was, was at that point was printmaking. I ran the printmaking area, which was down in the basement of one of those Neo Spanish buildings.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=628.0,657.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/29","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: One of the old reformatory buildings.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=657.0,660.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/30","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Yeah. And I can't, I can't remember what it was called. E Building or whatever. Yeah. And I ran the printmaking operation. And as time went on - well, maybe to back up. When we were moving toward that point, where, where tenure decisions were made, I was very uncertain. Though I'd been having exhibitions in the city, which were very well reviewed, I still felt a certain gap between what Louis wanted for the department and what I was, you know. Though I had probably more of an exhibition record than almost anybody there. But I was, I received tenure and I began to teach painting more often then. Painting, drawing. And, of course we had the graduate program, had begun. And that was housed in two World War II barracks that were on the edge of the campus, wooden barracks. They were real fire traps. But we had a grand graduate program in that ramshackle joint. And I also did graduate seminars and things like that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=660.0,773.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/31","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Can I ask? In terms of the students who came to Queens to be art majors, um, was, were there many studio art majors and-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=773.0,785.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/32","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Well, it, as I said, that program grew and at its highest point, which I guess would have been some point in the '70s, probably there were between 200 and 300 art majors.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=785.0,798.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/33","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Quite a lot.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=798.0,800.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/34","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: That was a lot. And, yeah. It was a very attractive major and it was a serious major.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=800.0,813.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/35","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Right. So students would choose Queens over, let's say, Yale or Cooper Union, or-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=813.0,821.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/36","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I wouldn't say that. I would say they, Yale is Yale and the California school [the California Institute of the Arts] are the preeminent art schools in the country. And because so much in the art world depends on connections, they, these few - Rhode Island School of Design is another one - these elite institutions have an appeal that's undeniable, right? I lectured up at Yale a few times and I had connections there too, which helped to get some Queens College students, really good students, into the Yale graduate program. And we were very proud of that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=821.0,880.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/37","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: At that time, most of the students who were art majors, were they hoping to also teach? Or they were hoping to make their mark and not teach?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=880.0,890.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/38","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I would tend to think that-well, many were in education. Others, a few I'd say, might have professional aspirations of one kind or another. Some became interesting designers, book illustrators. Several painters. But I think with an art program in a college the nature of Queens, a great many of the kids have an interest in art but, and may pursue it, if not professionally in a- for their own pleasure in the future. And I think that's, that's true too. I think only a tiny proportion of any, any population of an art school, finally go into, let's say, painting sculpture, whatever, something like that. Because the field is too small. But even for those students who went into other areas, I think they went away with an appreciation for the, an appreciation and insight into the making of art and into the larger world of the culture. I know that I, and the other instructors at that time, were very emphatic about introducing the students to the art of the Renaissance, the 19th century, etc., etc.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=890.0,1012.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/39","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: So you had close ties in the studio art department with the art history department?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1012.0,1018.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/40","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I wouldn't say that. Art history and studio art are related, but there are not always easy relationships between the two. And I really can't talk a lot about the art history department, but we had a friendly relationship. And in some cases, there were a few art historians who made an effort to involve themselves to some degree in the studio art. But it wasn't, that wasn't a common thing.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1018.0,1066.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/41","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: So when you say you introduced your students to the art of the Renaissance, etc., you as a teacher-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1066.0,1072.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/42","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I did. I showed them all kinds of material. I invited them to come to a museum. I took them on museum visits when it was practical. And yeah, very much so. I'm - that's my background and interests, you see.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1072.0,1096.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/43","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Right, right. So, in terms of your students, I'm sure there were some who were extraordinary, who stand out in your mind and I'd love to hear about that, but I guess this is a strange question. I'm not so sure how to phrase it nicely, but I'm sure there were also students who were fairly mediocre.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1096.0,1119.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/44","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Oh, sure.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1119.0,1120.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/45","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: And how do you work with a class where you have some incredibly gifted students and some students who are mediocre?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1120.0,1134.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/46","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I think you have to work more with the students who are having more, have more difficulty with it than with the very talented students. Obviously, if you see somebody who has great interest, you want to respond to them, you know. If you see that there's really potential there, you want to give them attention to develop it, to help them see better, to teach them whatever you can. But for, obviously there are some students that really don't, that are rather unfocused - college students are like that! A good percentage of them are, right? And, you try to provoke their interest one way or the other. Or if they just, they don't really have a feel, say, for drawing, you try to lay out very specific parameters that they can work in. Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1134.0,1219.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/47","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: OK. Would you like to talk about some of your most gifted or memorable students?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1219.0,1225.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/48","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Well, we sent a few, a couple people to Yale which was, which was - on scholarships - which was good. Early on, I think of a painter named Joe, Joseph Angeletti. Another, later young man named Robert Evangelista, who I think worked long hours in his family restaurant, but managed to do a prodigious amount of work for us. Pat Lasch is a sculptor who exhibits quite regularly. [Ed. note: Recording edited from 21:20 to 21:32 to delete an inaccurately remembered student name. Birmelin wishes to mention several other former students who became serious, functioning professionals: Glenn Goldberg, painter; Arthur Cohen, who later was on the Queens College faculty and recently retired, painter; Ellen Wiener, painter and printmaker; Rona Pondick, sculptor; Jim Osman, sculptor; and Brenda Garand, sculptor.]","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1225.0,1300.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/49","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: It's OK. No, all right. I was just wondering-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1300.0,1304.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/50","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: There are a couple that have been very good, very interesting book illustrators whose names I should be able to pull immediately out of my mind, but I find it difficult. Glenn - I'm thinking of another painter who is rather well known, but I, all of a sudden, I got a-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1304.0,1332.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/51","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: OK, that's fine. Um, in terms of your colleagues, was it a very congenial department?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1332.0,1340.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/52","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: It was lively. These were a group of people, many of whom were enthusiastic talkers, passionately attached to certain kinds of ideas. And our sessions of, when we were doing critiques of, say graduate students, particularly, there were often real interesting clashes of opinion about the work and about how one should go about things. And it, there was a - it was not a limp group. These were, and I would say most of them, Gabriel Laderman and Louis particularly, were ferocious New York talkers and several others as well. Cajori was a very important figure. I initially, I would have to say, felt a little- They were all, they're all rather older than I was by 10, 15 years, and had had a long history of teaching. And at first in these, when we would do group critique, I would, I held back because I was not quite sure how to inject myself into it. And it, I have to admit, it took me a while to really be ready to enunciate my positions that, when they were very contrary to those that were being expressed.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1340.0,1468.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/53","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Did all of you get together or hang out outside of work? Did you go to galleries together? Did any of you-?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1468.0,1480.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/54","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Not much, no. I would encounter my, some of my colleagues on the Saturday rounds of the galleries, which were initially first up on around 57th Street, and then later extended to Chelsea at that time. And you'd see the people and we'd talk a little bit, but except for eventually Elias Friedensohn, who became a very good friend. Who in fact found our house for us in Jersey. I was friendly with a couple, you know. Larry Fane was a sculptor who had been at the American Academy in Rome at the same time, so I knew him. Clinton Hill, who was a very charming man and a very lovely host. With, you know, I think there was generally good mutual respect among people and, but not a lot of hanging out. I think everybody, most of the people were going back to Manhattan. A lot of them lived in the, you know, downtown. And some of them, I think, had more of exchange than I did.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1480.0,1583.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/55","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Right. Now, you were living in New Jersey when you-?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1583.0,1585.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/56","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I, when we moved back, we moved to, up on Riverside Drive, near 125th Street, which seems kind of far from the art scene, you know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1585.0,1599.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/57","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: But I guess it was affordable.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1599.0,1601.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/58","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Kids and, you know, and all that kind of stuff that occupies your mind.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1601.0,1608.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/59","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Now, did you have a studio in your apartment or you had a studio?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1608.0,1612.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/60","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Initially, I had a studio in my apartment. And then in a couple of years later, I took a studio with friends down on Christopher Street. And I was there for about 10 or 11 years. And then Charlie Cajori who had an, who had a studio on 14th Street, near Seventh Avenue, had moved up to Connecticut and he wanted to keep the studio as a place to stay when he came into town. But I took over the, I took over the space otherwise, and I was there, I don't know, for 30 years.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1612.0,1663.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/61","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: So how did it work for you personally, between teaching and doing your own art work? Did you only teach like one or two days a week, or were you at Queens a lot? How did you manage-?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1663.0,1678.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/62","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Louis was very good at this. He felt that the people who he hired, serious professional artists, and that they served the purpose of the college best if they were being active as artists. And at certain points I taught for three days, at other points for two and would come in for meetings and things like that. And, I was very assiduous in my studio time. I was having exhibitions pretty regularly through those years. And they were very productive years. I would invite students sometimes to my studio, just so they could see what an artist's studio was. And I enjoyed those exchanges very much.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1678.0,1752.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/63","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Do you think that other people were less conscientious about making time for their own art, or-?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1752.0,1767.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/64","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I feel that pretty much everybody who taught at Queens was pretty serious about what they were doing. The - and pretty serious about what they were doing at the college, too.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1767.0,1789.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/65","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: You were having - I'm curious. You were having exhibits regularly. Would it have been possible to support yourself on the sale of your artwork? Or that still would not have been possible without teaching or some other job?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1789.0,1807.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/66","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: The career. The whole career thing is very interesting. Times, say that the preferences of time, it changes over time. I had a stretch from the late seven-, from the late '70s through the mid '90s where I was, I could have supported myself on my painting. Otherwise, no. And sometimes it, it was very, I could [have] very little happen. You know, very little happening in terms of sales of artwork. And for a few years, it - my work - and I'd say my work and the times came together, if I can say that thing. I'm still active now. I haven't had a show. The last show I had was three years ago. But many of my contacts are no longer around. It's hard when you get older to make the pitch all over again to 30-year-olds.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1807.0,1911.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/67","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Is your art still in tune with what people want to buy? I guess that's the problem.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1911.0,1921.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/68","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Not really. I have eye problems and I only have one eye functioning. And I, in the last few years I realized I was not seeing color well. And I, rather than painting with a full palette on a big scale, on a large scale, I really went and returned to my original passion, which was working, which is graphic. And I'm doing drawing and I'd say paintings in black and very limited color, mostly on paper.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1921.0,1972.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/69","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Do you have like a setup for printmaking anymore, or you-?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1972.0,1976.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/70","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I haven't been doing printmaking in a while. No. Actually that's not true. Actually, this hasn't got a hell of a lot to do with Queens. You know, I'm a person who loves the Metropolitan Museum and visit very often. And was, have been very impressed for a long time with Chinese art and Japanese art. And the long [inaudible], long, horizontal storytelling scrolls. I'm interested in issues having to do with time, duration, change, narrative. And I decided, I want to do that! And I have done several of these long scrolls and on a couple of occasions have them printed as giclee prints, and presented, to be presented either as scrolls or as folding books. And that's been one of the things I've been doing lately.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=1976.0,2054.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/71","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Hmm. That's interesting. So if I can ask you about printmaking at Queens College, for how long did you teach printmaking?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2054.0,2066.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/72","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I taught printmaking probably about 10 years or so. My emphasis, my interest was in intaglio printing. Etching, engraving, and secondarily in woodcut relief. Our setup in the basement - the building was very primitive, was not elaborate. And the classes, because of the space was small, had to be relatively small. But we got pretty good results. And I, I had been - this is before OSHA - printmakers, you're handling nitric acid, right? And I had been practicing, had been doing, been indulging in practices, which I had learned from my teachers who were old world people, that were not good for health. My hands, because I would be, I'd splash acid on them or put them in the acid to work on a plate, I got a problem with skin that took me a long time to take care of. And also I was aware I was breathing nitric fumes. And it was affecting me, which is one of the reasons why I would [be] backing away from printmaking.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2066.0,2183.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/73","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Now, in terms of the students there, I guess at some point they moved the printmaking shop out of the basement to a healthier place?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2183.0,2194.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/74","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Not for a long time. They eventually did. And we hired a very nice young man to do printmaking for awhile. He left after a while and later on Liliana Porter was, came into the, onto the faculty. She was from Argentina initially, and a very highly regarded artist to printmaker and now more conceptually oriented. She taught there.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2194.0,2238.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/75","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: When you're teaching printmaking with students - so, I know that many people don't make, don't pull their own prints. They have printers who do it, but when you're teaching it, you're teaching them-?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2238.0,2251.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/76","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Printing was hands-on. There was no printer. I printed, they printed. We all got our hands very dirty. [Laughs] But in printmaking, there're really two aspects of it. One is the technical one, obviously. But the other is the aesthetic and historical one. Etching and engraving goes back to the end of the 15th, beginning of the 16th century. And that also, I made a point. I wanted to show them Schongauer and Dürer and Rembrandt, and many, many other people. And so that they felt that they were part of a long tradition of making these objects. You know, we looked at woodcuts, old woodcuts. We looked at the Expressionist woodcuts, which are early 20th century and later things. And used them sometimes as models for ways to go about cutting wood or using your [unclear] patterns. The Queens College library was very important to me. Initially when I came there, a woman named Gerd Muehsam was the librarian, art librarian. And she was a very learned, I think, German emigre, who had been the librarian at Cooper Union when I was there before.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2251.0,2389.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/77","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Oh, you knew her.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2389.0,2389.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/78","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: And she was very, very helpful in building up files of reproductions and getting interesting books and so forth. And we talked about that a lot. And I sent the kids over to the library as much as I could because I realized, you know, obviously our students, many of our students who are working, they don't have time to hang around the campus. But we try to get them there, you know. And I would have them looking at books and also bringing, going to the picture file and bringing them back to the class so we could discuss them.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2389.0,2441.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/79","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: At that point, was there much of an art collection? I know that whatever art collection there was, was part of the art library then.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2441.0,2455.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/80","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: This is, this is before-?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2455.0,2461.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/81","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: No, before the museum.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2461.0,2463.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/82","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Before the museum.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2463.0,2465.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/83","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: I know that, I think she was, or there was some art collection, right?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2465.0,2470.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/84","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: There were some things, but not that extensive. There were prints- not that extensive.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2470.0,2484.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/85","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: So it wasn't really much of the non reproductions or non to use.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2484.0,2492.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/86","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Yeah. Well, she would have little shows. It was a small space to show work. A small little room. And I put up a couple of shows of things and other people did too. But I was very, I was very interested that they feel at home with the art of the past, as it touched the art of the present. I'll tell you - partially, you know, I had been living in Europe for awhile and for three years in Rome - which was a marvelous privilege, at the American Academy - and traveled, I traveled Europe extensively and looking at art. And I cared about that. And I was interested in, I am interested in that, and I wanted to communicate that.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2492.0,2560.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/87","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Right. In terms of your students and in terms of the department and being an art major, studio art major, was there any teaching students how, I guess for lack of a better word, the business side of being an artist? No?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2560.0,2580.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/88","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Not much. There hadn't been - not much at Yale. There'd been some at Cooper Union. That's a later development, art school development. That came with the big boom. That came with the big boom and the big money. That was something that came later in the game.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2580.0,2615.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/89","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: But maybe we can go back-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2615.0,2617.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/90","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: It was an omission. People who were interested in design, in book illustration and other of the more specific kind of professional areas were helped at times by faculty who had connections. Certainly.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2617.0,2645.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/91","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Right. Did you have any - I'm wondering, I know there's, there's a theater department at Queens or a theater-communications. Did theater design students have anything to do with the art department or-?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2645.0,2661.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/92","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Not a lot. No. It may have been some-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2661.0,2669.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/93","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Right, but it was a separate-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2669.0,2672.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/94","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Nothing substantial.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2672.0,2674.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/95","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Maybe now we can go back - since you mentioned Cooper Union and your student days - you know, talk about your life as an art student and how it either influenced what you did as a professor or how you went totally-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2674.0,2692.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/96","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: OK. No, just, I'll try to make it fairly brief. I was a working-class kid from New Jersey. Whose - had no, had really not any idea about what I would do when I got out of high school. And my parents had not been educated to give me any advice. But I was working very much, very passionately and very intensely as a, as an artist in high school. And I had the good fortune of having a teacher in high school who was a cultured, informed person. And, I think the way a lot of working-class kids encounter their counselors in high school-the counselors maybe don't know them too well, and really will throw in a suggestion, but not, not really quite believing that you're going to go any further. But my art teacher did. And she had gone to Pratt and advised, and tried to get me a scholarship at Pratt. Didn't work. And she said, \"You apply to Cooper Union.\" I had gotten a scholarship to what would be a GI school in the depths of Jersey. \"Don't go there,\" [she said]. So I go in to, I take the bus in to Cooper Union. I'm standing there with these kids from Music \u0026 Art [the High School of Music \u0026 Art, in Manhattan]. They seemed so incredibly sophisticated. Anyway, we took the test and it was in two steps. You took, you - there was a kind of regular test, written test, and you did a drawing and piece of sculpture. And, go back home and you'll hear from us. And a couple of weeks later come back for the second round. Where we again made a drawing, a sculpture and an architectural model. And a couple of weeks later you're in. And that was - I've had a couple of good breaks in my life. That was certainly, that was certainly it. Cooper Union had no tuition, right? And had some terrific people teaching there and also a student body, which are very, very good people to know.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2692.0,2892.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/97","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: OK. I went to Cooper. And many of the people in Cooper went into design and graphic - you know, immediately professional fields. A lot of them became big-time art directors. It was the \"Mad Man\" period. Fifties, right? A couple of my friends were genuine Mad Men and did very well with their, with the ad agencies and things like that. But I was at Cooper Union for a three-year period, three-year program. And at the end, toward the end of the three years, I didn't know what I was going to do. I was a little bit at loose ends and some friends said, hey, there's this fellow up who's going to give a talk at lunchtime, he's from Yale. And he, they're talking about Yale. Come on! OK. I came up and Bernard Chaet, who later became the chairman up there, was talking. He was a young man. And Yale was recruiting. Josef Albers, a year or two before, had come to Yale and decided to remake the whole school. And they were recruiting students from art schools. So at one point I drove, we drove up with several of us all piled in a car with our work. This is my favorite story, I have to tell it. We get up there and each of us carrying our paintings or drawings or whatever. There are about eight, eight, 10 of us. And we were told to stand along the wall of a medium-size room and put your work on the floor in front of you. So everybody's spaced - socially distanced! - around this room. We wait for a little while and in comes Josef Albers with his assistant. He was a very short, stocky German guy with a grey flannel suit with a yellow tie. Very dapper. And he looks around the room without saying anything for awhile. And then he said, [putting on a German accent] \"Well, who will start?\" Who will start talking. Who will start talking about their work? Nobody says anything. And he turned to me and he said, \"You boy.\" I started to talk. My work was sort of expressionist figurative work, which was very typical of Cooper at the time. Lots of drips. And I got about five seconds into my, my statement when he cut right into me. And he told me how my work was shit and New York was, they were obsessed with drips and stupid. And, he just demolished me. Demolished it. And I'm 19 years old, 20, 20 years old. And I was just- [laughs]. And so then he went around - but he really had expended his store with me, but he was critical of the others. He went around and he finished everybody and he stood in the middle of the room and sort of went around, looked at everybody, turned and turned around, looking at everybody. And he said, \"I take you, you, you, you. Go in and see the secretary.\" That was it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=2892.0,3178.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/98","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: It's so different now.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3178.0,3179.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/99","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I went to the secretary together with four others, I think. And she took my name and she said, come back in September. That was it.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3179.0,3193.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/100","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Yeah. It's so different now.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3193.0,3195.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/101","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Oh, you bet! It is, it's - I tell that to younger people and sometimes they can't believe it. It's -","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3195.0,3206.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/102","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: But I think- I was speaking to someone once. I did an oral history interview with a man who - Hans Guggenheim. And he, he had lived in Europe, in South America. He's in his 90s now. And he said he wanted to start, study art history at the Institute of Fine Arts [at NYU]. He went there one day to speak to the director. He hadn't been to college. He hadn't been whatever. You know, the things in Europe. And he speaks to the director who said, you know, you really need a degree. We can't take you here. And then as he's leaving, he notices a certain German art book on the person's shelf. And he starts to, \"Oh,\" he said, \"Oh, I've read that book.\" They start discussing it. And the guy goes, \"You've read it? I'm taking you in.\" It was so different.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3206.0,3257.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/103","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Yes. It was.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3257.0,3258.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/104","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Much more personal, less bureaucratic, which could be wonderful for people, or it could be terrible for people.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3258.0,3266.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/105","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: It could be, it could be. And there are a lot of, there were a lot of negatives in the choice process at the time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3266.0,3280.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/106","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Right. Right. So if I can ask? So, with the American Academy, you were there for three or four years?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3280.0,3289.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/107","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Three years. A year in London and three years in the American Academy.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3289.0,3293.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/108","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Was that unusual? Because from what I know now, people get like nine months.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3293.0,3302.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/109","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Well, this would've been 1960. The American Academy at that time was still very oriented toward Ivy league. Most of the people who go there are scholars, philologists, art historians, some musicians and painters. And it also had still the flavor of the kind of elite situation. Because a lot of the people who - who were accepted were, had very shortly before been graduate students recommended by their professors. And it was rather a boys' school. There were accommodations for wives. And there were some women who were, who were there as fellows. But it was very much a kind of old school sort of place. I remember the distinguished novelists, like Katherine Anne Porter. She was a guest there at one time. She was an elderly lady, and they had her walk up to the third floor to her little room. No, there's no elevators in the building until-They were very selective in who they gave major attention to.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3302.0,3433.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/110","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: By that point in your life, had you gotten over the feeling of being a working-class boy from New Jersey and felt more at home in these-?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3433.0,3444.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/111","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I never did. I never have. I think those things-  you gain a certain, you gain experience, you gain a way of working, living and moving yourself through the world in accordance with the particular social and cultural context you find yourself in at the moment. But, I think that the stamp of class is something you feel within yourself all your life though, you know, though you learn how to be appropriate in different situations.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3444.0,3507.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/112","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: So do you think that having come from a working-class background made you more approachable or made you understand where city college students were coming from?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3507.0,3525.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/113","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: To some degree. I - to some degree. I didn't take into account as much as I should at the beginning, how much some of the students were struggling both in terms of time and the, their other obligations. And initially I kind of discounted it because I wanted to kind of recreate - I assumed I could recreate - the kind of a situation where someone could be completely focused on their work. It wasn't until after I'd been there awhile and I became much more acquainted with the situation of many people in the student body, many students who were working long hours or who'd come to school later and had other family obligations. I think I became more sensitive to that as time went on, you know. But I can't claim that I was as much as I should have initially.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3525.0,3611.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/114","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: How many years did you teach at Queens? When did you-?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3611.0,3615.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/115","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I started at Queens in 1964 and I retired in 1999.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3615.0,3625.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/116","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Oh, wow.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3625.0,3626.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/117","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: 35 years.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3626.0,3628.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/118","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Right. So if, just, if, if you want, just before I let you go, just sort of a short, if you can say - the changes over those, that period.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3628.0,3637.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/119","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I went to Queens when young ladies, it was mandated that they wear modest skirts. That was, in the studio art department, the girls, the women, the girls in the studio art department who wanted to wear jeans, they were instrumental in knocking that rule down! [Laughs] And back then, you know-  and of course I was there during the student uprisings in the late '60s. And Ed Koch and the closing of the school temporarily in the mid-'70s with the [financial] crisis in the city. All of those, all of those things were happening during that time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3637.0,3686.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/120","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: You were there, I guess, when tuition was instituted, and-  did that have an effect on the art department, on the studio art department and people coming?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3686.0,3698.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/121","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I think by that time, the department had reached its probably maximum size and was beginning to, uh, diminish. Yeah. It changed. It was changing character, too, over time as different faculty came in and had different interests. More women, too, teaching.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3698.0,3735.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/122","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: And when you retired, it was, you just felt it was time to retire, or-?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3735.0,3741.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/123","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I was at 65. And-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3741.0,3746.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/124","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Is there man-, was there mandatory retirement at that point?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3746.0,3752.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/125","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: No. No. I had been - in the last 15, 20 years where I had been making sales, I had been, I'd been taking semesters [off] very often. Taking a timeout very often, so many of years I was there just half a year. And I felt in the later years that - I was teaching graduate students - that somehow they, the graduate students were looking for some other thing. And I felt I wasn't as in close contact as I wanted to be, right? It was to be a difference of, you know, two generations practically. And when that happens well, I felt I wasn't being as useful.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3752.0,3831.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/126","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: You're pretty much a figurative painter, to some extent. Had the tide turned by then for, to-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3831.0,3842.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/127","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Well, what's coming, what was- I think this was true, not only of myself, but some other people who had come onto the faculty at, around the time I had. As students became interested, more interested in conceptual art, installation art, things of that nature, I think that some of the older members of the faculty were not sympathetic to it and couldn't, didn't feel it. Right? And there were some younger people who were coming into that, that were - younger teachers who were interested in that area. Yeah, that's, I think that was- Also, I just was kind of tired.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3842.0,3898.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/128","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: You were coming from New Jersey then, or from Manhattan, or?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3898.0,3902.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/129","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Well, by that time- I moved out to New Jersey in 1975.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3902.0,3904.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/130","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: So you were traveling from New Jersey back and forth.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3904.0,3908.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/131","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Yeah. But that wasn't it. I wanted to give all my time to my own work.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3908.0,3916.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/132","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Can I ask you just one question, even though this is such a good point to end at? In the department over the years you were there, was there any, um, sort of education of the students in some of the materials and techniques of their craft? To understand how, what, how paints are made? How things are done? So they'd have an understanding of what materials to use or not use if they wanted their works to last?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3916.0,3949.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/133","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Well, for instance, in a painting class, you would go into the qualities of, in this case oil paint, oil paint, and the use of it and the background of it and the way different, at different periods it was employed, if that's an answer.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3949.0,3979.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/134","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: No, I'm thinking more in terms of, OK, you know, especially as artists begin, began to use non-traditional materials in their works, which have issues","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3979.0,3994.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/135","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Other than paint.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3994.0,3995.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/136","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Yeah.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3995.0,3997.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/137","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Like collage or other objects combined.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=3997.0,4003.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/138","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Or even, I guess, the idea of craftsmanship in the application of paint and in the technique of using it. So-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4003.0,4012.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/139","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: With paint, sure. With paint, of course. But I thought you were just, you're talking about..","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4012.0,4020.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/140","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: No, I'm thinking about how, from the point of view of works of art lasting or falling apart, or the colors changing, because-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4020.0,4030.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/141","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I would say that was never true. Well, I think that was never emphasized.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4030.0,4037.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/142","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: OK. That was just a question I was interested in, but we should have probably ended it at that perfect moment when you were discussing about retiring. But this has been very interesting and I appreciate your speaking with me. I'm just curious, did you drive from New Jersey to Queens or did you take buses and trains and-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4037.0,4058.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/143","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Well, in a funny way, when I lived on Riverside Drive on, near 125th Street, it was a longer trip. Take the subway down, take the-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4058.0,4071.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/144","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Other subway.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4071.0,4073.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/145","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Yeah. Take the subway to Forest Hills, I guess. Take the bus, etc. When I was here, you know, I would drive across the George Washington Bridge and so forth to the school. And that took less time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4073.0,4094.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/146","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Did you have a parking pass so you could park on campus?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4094.0,4098.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/147","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Yes, I did.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4098.0,4099.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/148","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: OK. Yeah. That helps.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4099.0,4105.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/149","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Yeah, it helps a great deal. Because I was always carrying a lot of books. And I remember the schlepping these heavy books from the, sometimes in the parking area, which is further away from the building I wanted to get to than I wanted it to be.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4105.0,4126.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/150","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: OK. Well, thank you. What will happen is-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4126.0,4131.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/151","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: I don't know that we've talked a lot-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4131.0,4135.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/152","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: About Queens?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4135.0,4137.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/153","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: No. I haven't given you much as much information about, as much information about the college as I might, but it-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4137.0,4148.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/154","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: If there's anything else you wanted to-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4148.0,4150.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/155","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: It is what it is, and it was fun!","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4150.0,4153.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/156","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: OK, good. Good. OK. I'm going to end.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4153.0,4157.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/157","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: What do they do?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4157.0,4159.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/158","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: With these? They end up in the collection of the Queens Public Library and excerpts are put on the website, and then if people see the excerpts and they're interested in the full transcripts, then they can request-","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4159.0,4179.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/159","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Is it edited at all?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4179.0,4181.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/160","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: No. You'll have a chance to go over it. When the transcript is made. If there's anything you decide, you really must take out, they can probably take it out. But it's pretty much as we spoke.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4181.0,4200.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/161","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: OK. Well, thank you. You've been very nice.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4200.0,4203.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/162","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: OK. Good to meet you. And thank you for your time.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4203.0,4206.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/163","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Shall I leave now?","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4206.0,4208.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/164","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: We'll both leave.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4208.0,4210.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/165","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Robert Birmelin: Goodbye.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4210.0,4211.0"},{"id":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486/transcript/38797/annotation/166","type":"Annotation","motivation":"transcribing","body":{"type":"TextualBody","value":"Rebecca Rushfield: Bye-bye.","format":"text/plain"},"target":"https://queenslibrary.aviaryplatform.com/collections/150/collection_resources/75074/file/161486#t=4211.0,4213.26933"}]}]}]}