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• Herronline:Herron students find inspiration in tattoos and historical homes

Herronline: Herron students find inspiration in tattoos and historical homes

• April 25, 2013

INDIANAPOLIS -- One artist found the inspiration for his creative work in the face of a rapper, while another found hers in house preservation efforts by women whose American ancestry predates the American Revolution.

Tré Reising, a 2009 Herron School of Art and Design graduate, turned rapper Gucci Mane’s facial tattoo of an ice cream cone into a 5-foot hemp and dyed burlap sculpture seen in Mane’s SUV as the rapper left a Detroit performance last year.

The Indiana chapter of the National Society of the Colonial Dames, an invitation-only club requiring proof of pre-1776 American ancestors for membership, unanimously adopted Herron senior Jennifer Jackson’s design for its official club pin.

Both Reising’s and Jackson’s stories are featured in the Herron School of Art and Design’s electronic newsletter, Herronline, out today.

Reising, now a graduate student at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, received a lot of attention in the blogosphere after creating the fabric art of Mane’s ice cream. Reising had figured it was time the rapper had a custom sculpture equal to the value of his famous diamond-encrusted chain that inspired the tattoo.

Just days before the Gucci Mane show at Detroit’s Fillmore last year, Reising convinced the house manager to let him hang the sculpture in Gucci’s dressing room as a gift, according to the newsletter article.

Jackson was recruited when the Indiana women’s club came to Herron on the IUPUI campus looking for someone to design 100 custom pins for its members.

“They wanted a pin that would well represent the Indiana society and yet would be harmonious with the national pin,” said Jackson, a senior from South Bend who is working on an integrative studio practice degree with an emphasis in furniture design.

After a field trip to a building the Colonial Dames helped restore -- the historic home of Indiana frontier banker J.F.D. Lanier in Madison -- Jackson designed a fan-shaped pin that includes nods to the Lanier mansion’s ironwork and moldings and the tulip poplar, Indiana’s state tree. The pin made its debut at a national convention in 2012.

The Society of the Colonial Dames is registering its pins to keep track of them. Members may purchase them for $100 each, with the stipulation that they will be returned and resold to another member.

Read more about Reising, Jackson and other successful Herron students, alumni and faculty in the Herronline e-newsletter.