AAP video of Class of '64

Alumni couple's video on six AAP Class of 1964 grads to screen at reunion

Dobson	Fox	Morse-Goldfarb
Myers	Seligsohn	White

By Susan Lang

For the fifth year in a row, video producers Phil and Maddy Handler have spent a year capturing the lives of graduates of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning who are celebrating their 40th reunion in June. What's special about this year's video, to be screened Friday, June 11, at 1 p.m. in 157 East Sibley Hall, is that it's Phil Handler's 40th reunion year as well.

Phil Handler earned his B.Arch. degree at Cornell in 1964 and his M.Arch. in 1965, the year Maddy Handler received her B.S. degree from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. They met on campus and married soon after graduation. After working as an architect for 25 years, Phil launched Fly on the Wall Productions in 1991, a videography business.

In this year's film, as in years past, six AAP Class of '64 graduates talk about why they enrolled, what they experienced at Cornell and how their professional and personal lives have evolved since they graduated. After the 1 p.m. screening, Phil Handler will discuss making the video and introduce the six featured alumni for a panel discussion, moderated by Kent Hubbell, Cornell dean of students and AAP architecture alumnus of the Class of '67. The event is free and open to the public and will be followed by a reception in Sibley's Hartell Gallery, where the works of the six Class of 1964 alumni featured in the video will be on display. Also on view will be designs for a competition for a museum in China by renowned architect Peter Eisenman '54 (see related story, this page). Video portraits of the six alumni and Eisenman, filmed by Phil Handler, will play continually throughout reunion on televisions in the gallery supplied by the Handlers.

The six featured alumni are:

Jack Dobson, B.Arch., a retired architect and urban planner in Baltimore, Atlanta and Boston. Currently, he spends his time renovating his Federal-style home on Main Street in Newburyport, Mass.

Paul W. Fox, B.Arch., a city and regional planner in central Connecticut and a consultant to land and real estate developers.

Leslie Checkley Morse-Goldfarb, BFA, a Seattle artist, graphic designer, framing designer and design consultant.

Linda Brandt Myers, BFA, a senior writer/editor at Cornell News Service and creative writer, who has completed a collection of short stories and is currently writing and illustrating a children's book, and working on a novel and an essay series.

Valerie Jesraly Seligsohn, BFA, a landscape painter and retired art professor whose work is displayed in numerous public collections, such as the Rita J. Kaplan Breast Imaging Center, Bellevue Hospital, New York City.

Ortrude Busse White, B.Arch., who heads her own firm, Ortrude White and Associates in Atlanta, Ga., and designs custom homes and renovations; she also is a community planner for residential and mixed-use development.

The Cornell AAP reunion video project is a labor of love that both Handlers participate in and pay for, traveling distances to interview subjects. Typical interviews take up to three hours to videotape, then are edited down by Maddy Handler to five minutes per person.

For details about the AAP reunion, videos, panel, exhibitions, reception and other college events, contact Carol Cooke at 255-1501 or coc3@cornell.edu.

June 10, 2004