The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-01-09

NAV HEN it comes to interviewing #. 1 W\V sculptors and artists I frankly confess am a very poor rep ture are two things I know absolutely nothing about, but then. somebody has ! said I've often write the best stories l about the things we know the least about" and so my ignorance. which flinches in the face of such facts. ad- mits also that it took new brace from the confident air of the genius I inter- viewed.
 To my fragile and impossible intelli- gence concerning art, might be applied the little verse:
 If you are an artist
 And a lady says to you
 As though it were sensible remark;
 T don't know anything of art,
 But know just what l like" |, You may answer:
 So do monkeys in the park"
 However, after I had finished talking
 with MT. Lorado Taft, the renowned sculptor, yesterday I must confess that came away with my mind joyously re- juvenated concerning painting and mod cling. N
 Remember, I don't know a BotticolB from a bottle of buttermilk;, a master piece spells to my simple mind merely something that is beautiful; but in MT. Tafts presence with all his beautiful, ar tistics, wonderful sense of values and color, I felt as if I really knew some thing of the great things that he was talking about; I even wished for more artistic setting for my story with this clever man; I glanced about to see if revealed somewhere would not be cor ner where dimly lighted candles shaded the room; where table stood on it's tall little spindle legs, holding tiny bits of statuary from this great artists won- derful hand where laid copy, perhaps, of Gautier's "Emaux ct Camees, done in Charpenter's Japanese paper edition with the Jacquemart etching, the binding of citron green leather with design in gilt trellis work and dotted pomegrantes; soft divans; beautiful tapestries; but, alas, no; our environment bespoke only the crowded foyer of a big hotel-cold, business-like, but as Mir Taft laughingly remarked when I commented upon the fact: "We can't always take our studios around with us"
 The last flckers of vernal sun danced along the sidewalks as people hurried to and fro, while Mir. Taft spoke of his mission in bringing to the masses his gospel of art and beauty.
 "As everything-very nearly every thing, is an accident MT. Taft said, 'my life work came about in this way: My father was a professor at the Illinois State university at Champagne; a little place, you know. near Urbana; the stu dents used to call it Champana Dr. Gregory, then president of the university conceived the idea of establishing an art school in connection with the university, and raised 5000, a small enough sum to be sure as a foundation but enough to enable him to go ahead and gather few choice bits of sculpture, and few bits of nainting In bringing them over manT of the pieces of sculpture were broken; it gave him and my father a very solemn task to put them together; they sent for a noted sculptor in Chicago to come and help them with the work; took a hand in it, and I am glad to say proved rather apt, and the sculptor from Chicago seeing that I had some knack at such things, apprenticed me. It was odd that my parents never objected to my profession, but they didn't; on the other hand, they encouraged me, always, but it was a thing that I could not have gotten away from; as a child loved color and loved modelling, but then all children do, don't tfley?''
 Tn making my lecture tour" MT. Taft continued, it is with the intention of bringing before the people my message of the importance of the aesthetic and the