Earlier this year, John T. Bethell, senior editor of Harvard Magazine,
examined the evolution of Harvard's arms as depicted in metal typographic
blocks ("Variations on a Theme," March-April, page 64). Little
did we know, as that issue was published, how brashly modern interpreters
might render the emblematic three open books and Veritas motto. Working
in clay, that oldest of media, members of the Radcliffe College Ceramics
Studio-faculty, staff, students, and Bostonians at large-expressed their
personal visions of Veritas in an explosion of colors and forms.
Other Harvardians-Adams and Dunster House undergraduates, members of visual
and environmental studies classes, Neil and Angelica Rudenstine-decorated
preformed blanks.
Several dozen of the resulting tiles, gathered as "Visions of Veritas,"
were mounted and displayed on the walls of Holyoke Center's Mount Auburn
Street access ramp for April's Arts First festivities. And there they remained
into early summer, not only delighting passersby with the diverse possibilities
of today's Harvard, but also lending a splash of color to the concrete monolith
looming overhead. This fall, a few of the best go on permanent display at
Adams House.
