At a time when national tragedy has brought memorial art back into the public consciousness, Iowa State happens to be getting a new piece of memorial artwork of its own, said Lynette Pohlman, director of University Museums.

But unlike the numerous memorial art projects and proposals that have sprung up around the nation to commemorate the thousands of victims of Sept. 11, the three hand-built tables that will be installed in the new Honors Building this summer will commemorate just one lost loved one.

Her name was Wendy Bass and she was the front office secretary for the University Honors Program, said Liz Beck, director of the program.

She had worked for the Honors Program since 1993, said Robin Gogerty, Honors Program office coordinator.

Bass “chaired our sunshine committee,” Beck said. “If she was the first person you met as you came into the Honors Program, you’d like [the program] immediately.”

When Bass died unexpectedly in January 1999, her family indicated the memorial should go to the University Honors Program or the library in her hometown of Huxley, Beck said.

In the end, the Honors Program decided to use the memorial to partially fund a project to commission some hand-built tables for the intersection of the building’s two main halls, Beck said.

“We told the family that we wanted to do something in her memory in the entry . of the new building,” Beck said, “because Wendy was out in the front at Osborn [Cottage].”

One of those family members is Bass’ oldest daughter, Heather York, junior in elementary education, who was a senior in high school when her mother died.

“I had been accepted at Iowa State and was working on getting into the Honors Program,” York said.

York met with Beck to discuss the plans for her mother’s memorial the week before spring break. Beck wanted to make sure she saw the final plans, York said.

“I’m pretty excited about it actually,” she continued. “All I’ve seen are sketches . but it sounds really nice.”

Those sketches are already being turned into reality, Pohlman said, by Mary Anne Beecher, a graduate of the Honors Program and an accomplished artist. Beecher, the former chair of the College of Design Honors Committee is now a faculty member at the University of Oregon.

She will be making a reception table with the two companion side tables out of maple and possibly cherry.

Beecher said she wanted to make “tables that . expressed welcome,” because Wendy was “one of the most welcoming elements in the Honors Program.”

“The inspiration for the design is the concrete and stone lintels that were used over the windows of Osborn Cottage,” she said. “The tables will have slightly enlarged tops that overhang the legs and contrast in color.”

“It looks like it will be perfect,” York said. “It’s simple, which makes sense because my mom wasn’t big on everything fancy.”

In addition to the memorial funds, the work will be partially funded by money from the Art in State Buildings Program, Beck said.

That law, passed in Iowa in 1979, states that one-half of one percent of the total estimated cost of state buildings must go toward the purchase of fine art.

Since the furniture is hand-built by an artist, it fits the definition of fine art, Beck said. It should be finished in June.

While such memorial works are not unheard of in the Art on Campus collection, they are rare, Pohlman said.

“We have not done an awful lot of memorial or commemorative works of art,” she explained.

The only other example of memorial art Pohlman said she could think of is a statue of a farm dog named “Shep” that was installed in Reiman Gardens in the spring of 2000 to commemorate the death of a baby whose parents both work at Iowa State.

While it is unusual for Iowa State, the Bass memorial comes at a time when “memorial art is on our collective minds” as a nation, Pohlman said. “I’ve seen more interest in memorials now than I think since World War II.”

“Since Sept. 11 there have been many public art projects and competitions announced that in some way address or commemorate the tragic events on Sept. 11,” Pohlman said. “Most recently is the temporary public art of the twin towers of light in New York City.”

The rush to memorialize events like the Oklahoma City bombing and Sept. 11 attacks “is a peculiarly American thing,” said Karen Bermann, assistant professor of architecture who studies memorial art. “I think it is part of our American optimism and avoidance of the tragic.”

“Memorial art tries to, or intends to, give form to cultural memory,” she said.

“By giving it form, making it explicit, it asks us – or helps us – to raise those feelings to a conscious level.”

“Memorial art really `hit the big-time’ in the United States with Maya Lin’s famous Vietnam memorial [in 1982],” Bermann said.

“Partly because the war was still intensely felt, but even more because the memorial itself was so stark, so shocking.”

And now this topic is becoming one that museums and cultural institutions are intensely reviewing since Sept. 11, Pohlman said.

“I think it will continue to inform the visual and performing and literary arts for quite some time.”

“There will always be human events to grieve, remember, honor, celebrate,” she said.