Life by design: From ephemeral to historical
A daughter’s tribute to her graphic design historian father.
As you read my father’s writings on design, imagine what it might be like to grow up as the daughter of design historian Philip B. Meggs. At first, the idea of life with a scholarly researcher might seem dry, full of bibliographies, bland biographies, and dusty boxes of books. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Life with my father was always full of adventures, outrageous and outstanding people, amazing imagery, and fascinating stories, and that was without ever leaving the room. His sense of humor and fun, and his sense of the poetic, informed his approach to life. He was truly excited by history and its potential to provide insight and answers in the present and future on any subject. Dad could and would put anything we said or did into a historical context, including refrigerator drawings by my brother and me as children, and Dad didn’t restrain himself from doing so. He seemed to have an innate ability to quickly observe everyday reality and put it into a dialogue of historical context, analogy, or funny anecdote. For example, on an evening walk with Dad in the summer, he would observe that the sky was “a Maxfield Parrish sky,” or the clouds might be “N.C. Wyeth clouds.” People he observed were not spared from this. A crowd of passersby might include a “de Kooning woman,” “a Gibson Girl,” “a Bosch creature,” or “a Rockwell boy and dog.” He could apply this historical contextualization and dialogue to any aspect of all that is visible in the world. Dad was history — he lived it, and made it current and alive for us. Somehow, it seemed that like a sponge, Dad completely absorbed and then consciously and subconsciously understood all of the art and design he had ever seen or studied.
By teaching us that we were part of the ongoing historical narrative of human life on Earth, my father made us feel that what anyone does and says has the potential to be of great importance. Certain common denominators seem to exist in order for a person to do great work of historical significance in any field: a keen understanding of history is necessary, along with a scholarly and artistic spirit of exploration, a mind open to broad possibility that does not edit itself too soon when thinking of ideas, a willingness to face dissension and being misunderstood when one truly believes in his work, an unwavering work ethic, a sense of wonder, an ability to be thrilled by one’s work, and a deep analytical objectivity that does not negate spirit or passion or intuitiveness.
Dad’s broad knowledge of the lives and backgrounds of historically significant designers and artists revealed that many factors people often think of as obstacles to doing great and significant work are not real obstacles at all. In no way launching a platitude, but speaking with informed sincerity, Dad would say, “It doesn’t matter where you are, it’s what you do — your work — that matters most.”
He then would cite numerous innovators of wildly different backgrounds in order to underscore that the work is what matters. I believe that one thing that made Dad such a great teacher was that he saw huge potential in every person from every walk of life to do great work, because he knew that that was the truth of great innovators. Dad always believed that through disciplined hard work and study, an answer to any problem, whether it was a design problem or an automotive concern, could be found. I admire my father’s ability to be clear and communicative, and with a complete lack of pretension.
Indeed, I believe that through being a historian, Dad showed his love for all that is ephemeral and fleeting in this world (which, according to scientific theories regarding the life of this universe, is ultimately all that exists as we know it), by recording it and presenting its significance within a historical context. He did this in many ways on a personal level for my family. In every role Dad played, as a painter, a historian, humorist, father, husband, son, educator, writer, or designer, he operated at a level of artistry. No matter what role he approached, he put his whole heart into it and took it to a level of high art. That’s why, if I had to use one word to describe my father, it would be this: artist.
In 2002, my brother and I were both working in jobs in California. October arrived, and we both knew the brilliant fall leaves back home in Virginia must be stunning. We didn’t say anything about being homesick for the east coast autumn, but my father must have known that where we lived autumn was not the stunning display of color it is every year in the Virginia woods. So, he went into those Virginia woods, and found the most beautiful leaves that had fallen on the ground. He gathered a spectrum of purple, magenta, red, orange, yellow, and green in thin veined shapes and brought them inside the house to press between wax paper in our family’s big old encyclopedia. He was going to send us some color, send us some beauty, and send us a poetic reminder of home in the mail. My father was going to send us pressed Virginia autumn leaves.
He never got the chance. At the end of October, on Halloween, Dad’s doctor discovered his leukemia had returned, in spite of a miraculous recovery and nearly two-year remission. Within weeks, he died.
When I came home, it was November, with autumn leaves brown and falling and dead. I found the pressed leaves on Dad’s drawing board. My mother explained that Dad had been ready to send the beautiful pressed leaves to us.
Nothing made sense to me in the wake of my young father’s death. I read, and thought, and looked. I wanted answers. I could see physical evidence of a large intelligent design to the world, from a minuscule spider building a web to the Blue Ridge Mountains; from the ocean to the stars; from the enormity of the universe to the microscopic order of atoms, and in the beauty of fall leaves. These natural wonders seemed too complex and awe-inspiring to be explained except that there is an intelligent design to the world. “But spiders die, mountains erode, oceans dry up, stars expire, and fall leaves… fall leaves turn brown and dead and crumbling,” I thought bitterly.
My next thought was, “Fall leaves turn brown and dead and crumbling… unless someone presses them, preserves them, and remembers their beauty. Gone forever… unless someone loves them.”
My father loved. That is the biggest thing I can say about him. He loved art and design and people, and his work told everyone how important all the ephemera of the world is. The fleeting colors of fall leaves are worth preserving.
I looked at the stars one blue night. I remembered learning long ago in an elementary school science class that many stars humans can see from Earth died hundreds of years ago, but their light still travels out into the universe. Since the starlight travels at the speed of light, the light that may have been emitted centuries ago is just now reaching us from a very distant star, which is actually currently burned out. Of course, in the night sky, I couldn’t tell the living stars from the dead ones. They all sparkled.
Every year since my Dad died, the autumn trees glow — Oh! you should see them! The fall leaves are a poetic reminder of something bigger than my father initially intended when he pressed them in the family’s big old encyclopedia weeks before he died. Every year they are beautiful, and every year their glorious colors return in the fall, as if to say in my Dad’s voice, “Don’t worry so much, kid! There is a continuity to life, and it is beautiful. There is a purpose for everything that happens, and for every life.”
So, I leave grief behind, and I figuratively gather purple, magenta, red, orange, yellow, and green leaves from the ground to press, preserve, and send out to the world. That is what being an artist is to me, as my father taught me. The cycle continues. My father was sending his love to me, now I will send my love to others. We should never underestimate the long-reaching power of what we as humans do while we are alive, for, like the stars that died long ago but still twinkle in the night sky that is visible to us, our light can travel far beyond our own lives.
Seeing how my father’s work has extended beyond his own life, which I was privileged to share for 25 years, I know that the light he brought to this world extends indefinitely and exponentially.
This essay was first published in the 2008 book “Meggs: Making Graphic Design History,” John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Essay text © copyright Elizabeth Meggs.
