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<\/a>Anna Campbell Bliss in her studio, 2012. Photo by Zoe Rodriguez.<\/p><\/div>\n
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Anna Campbell Bliss: Avoiding the Obvious by Laura Allred Hurtado<\/p>\n This article appeared in Artists of Utah’s 2014 publication Utahs 15: The State’s Most Influential Artists<\/em><\/p>\n In a career spanning more than six decades, Anna Campbell Bliss has created a large body of work, from which \u201cintersection\u201d has consistently emerged as a theme. In concept and in style, Bliss\u2019s artwork draws upon mathematics, science, architecture, calligraphy, choreography, computer technology, color theory, pattern, and form. In sum, it is smart work, thinking work, work that emerges at the plane where disciplines intersect and that requires both a visual and intellectual engagement from the viewer.<\/p>\n Of this intersection, Bliss says, \u201cI approach art as exploration. I seek connections between nature and constructed environments, poetry, and math. Use of the computer must be balanced with the more intuitive tradition of artistic expression. Often the most exciting ideas emerge at the intersection where more than one disciple meets.\u201d<\/a> Her life\u2019s work, both within her studio and within the community, has been one of seeking out and building intersections, constructing sites of this particularly-balanced space where interests of more than one discipline lie, colliding in abstract angles and rich dialogue.<\/p>\n Her interdisciplinary model was mirrored first in the community she and her husband, Robert Bliss, found at the Walker Art Center while living in Minneapolis, a city she described as, \u201ca stimulating place\u201d that was progressive in its interest in art and modernism. Scaling back further, Bauhaus pedagogical theories are ubiquitous with cross-discipline dialogues and comprehensive workshop, a school of thought which Anna had first-hand training. After earning a bachelor\u2019s degree from Wellesley in art history and mathematics, she pursued a graduate degree in architecture from Harvard in the early 1950s. In her early design training, Bliss learned from pioneers of this seminal modernist movement, studying under Bauhaus giants such as Walter Gropius at Harvard and working with Gyorgy Kepes on color and light theory at MIT.<\/p>\n Since her arrival in Utah in 1963, Bliss has cast a wide net and thought broadly about intersections of conversations and community. Recognizing the need for financial support at the Salt Lake Art Center, she started the Contemporary Arts Group, designed to create dialogue and foster support for the Utah art world. Such a group was built with artists in mind but also included engineers, poets, chemists, dancers, architects, and mathematicians. She met many of these involved at the University of Utah, the epicenter of Bliss\u2019s intellectual community, where her husband Robert Bliss was serving as Head of the school of architecture. Such a diverse group of thinkers expanded the notion of traditional art supporters, extending the range of support for art and widening the conversation of art making in Utah. Reflecting Bliss\u2019 style, the group not only focused their interest in fine art, but also supported and explored modern dance, poetry, literature, and theatre. Like a predecessor to The Leonardo, Salt Lake\u2019s museum of art, science and technology, Bliss\u2019s group organized several conferences and panel discussions surrounding the topic of new technologies, and investigating the blurry boundaries of art and science. Noting the ripple of influence from Bliss\u2019s academic notion of intersection, interaction and integration, art historian and curator Mary Francey, wrote in her book Anna Campbell Bliss, Intersections: The Art of Anna Campbell Bliss<\/em> that, \u201cBliss\u2019s vision of interconnectedness of design with environment has transferred to the community and, to a large extent, increased our awareness of the relationship of objects and images to the spaces they occupy.\u201d<\/p>\n In her film Arc of Light: A Portrait of Anna Campbell Bliss,<\/em> Cid Collins Walker described Utah as a cultural desert \u2013 for Bliss, a site of cultural exile. While disparaging, this is perhaps true. Utah certainly did not offer the same modernist aristocracy that Cambridge played host to, but Bliss\u2019 more recent comments are more optimistic than that of the film. She speaks of her efforts to look towards other disciplines within the state that were at the cutting edge of the field, most notably the University of Utah computer science department and Utah\u2019s technology sector. \u201cThere were many talented people doing quite important work, in the very early stages of programming,\u201d she says of Utah\u2019s early tech world. Starting first with the Omega computer, Bliss said her interest was less about the equipment but more about an interest in a field ripe for exploration. Her experience with Utah\u2019s tech community, therefore, softened her views of the state\u2019s cultural potential.<\/p>\n
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