Email This PageAmerican Gothic meets Swarthmore College
Grant Wood’s American Gothic may be the most widely recognized, reproduced—and parodied—work of American art. A search of Google Images reveals thousands of takeoffs on the 1930 painting, many hilariously funny. So when Mike Kappeler, Web content coordinator for Information Technology Services, was asked to make a poster for November’s Academic Technology Fair, he turned to Wood’s iconic Iowa farmers for inspiration—then used his considerable Adobe skills to create this not-quite-Gothic image. (Parrish Hall’s dome actually quotes the French Empire style.) The annual one-day fair shows off the latest software, hardware, and other digital tools that are—or may soon be—available in the College’s classrooms, labs, and offices. This year’s hit was a three-dimensional printer on loan to the College that was turning out little scale models of Parrish Hall that it had created in white gypsum. Engineering students, of course, could see practical applications, while artists’ minds reeled with other possibilities.
