BROOKINGS – At this time of year as the Christmas season is upon us, Ed Hogan and his wife Joan Hogan recognize a now gone family member or friend with a one-of-a-kind card, but with the same theme, created in their honor: a Madonna.
Over the centuries, a Madonna traditionally has been a representation of the Blessed Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus.
Ed, 78, a St. Louis native and retired South Dakota state geographer who now calls Brookings home, has been creating Madonnas for the past 23 years. While the theme is always the same, Hogan’s Madonnas have been traditional sketches in colors and shapes, and in other years they have been abstract, minimal or comprised of rectangles, cubes, circles and triangles.
“They’re a different style of art each year,” Hogan said of the Madonna Christmas cards that he and Joan send out to family and friends each year.
“I sit down and I start thinking about what I’m going to do and what it should be, and then I draw it,” Hogan said. “Usually I just do one drawing and I’ve got it. It comes to my mind and I just do it.” He well remembers one exception when he didn’t.
Likes looking at Madonnas
Before he began doing Madonnas more than two decades ago, Hogan created Christmas cards with Nativity themes. His first Madonna – “The Black and White Constructionist Madonna” – came in 1995. Then while his daughter Molly was in school, she did a drawing that he called “very abstract.”
“To me it just looked like the Madonna,” he explained. “I took that, reworked it and fit it into a card and made it into a Madonna.” “Molly’s Madonna” was printed in 1996.
Ed and Joan, seasoned travelers in America and abroad, have viewed a lot of Madonnas in a lot of different places. And a prized possession in their Brookings home is a “Flower Madonna,” a Hummel figurine, given as a wedding present when they were married in 1963.
“Things I’ve seen all around,” he said. “I just like looking at Madonnas. We’ve been to churches all over Europe and here. And it’s probably the one thing I always look at in every church.”
A Madonna he saw in Austria had “a strong influence. I couldn’t draw it if I had to do it today. It just stayed with me.” Another strong influence came in Michelangelo’s sculpture of Mary holding Jesus.
“I saw the Pieta in Rome (in St. Peter’s Basilica). That really got me into Madonnas even more,” Hogan said. “I think that’s probably the ultimate Madonna.”
In the art world, a “Pieta” is a representation, usually a sculpture, of Mary holding the dead body of Jesus taken down from the cross. Like a Madonna, however, it does represent the forever love of Mary – in birth, in life and in death – for her son.
Honoring family, friends
For the past 10 years or so Hogan has dedicated the annual Madonna to a deceased family member or friend. For one of those Madonnas, his get-it-right-the-first-time approach didn’t work.
Glenn Sebastian, a lifelong friend since they were together in the third grade in school in St. Louis, died in 2016. Like Hogan, he was a geographer, a department head at the University of South Alabama. And he had been a teaching assistant for Hogan at St. Louis University.
“We were really close,” Hogan said, smiling. “My kids call him ‘the man who makes dad laugh.’”
He decided to honor Sebastian with a Madonna in 2016. It became a challenge.
“I tried, I think, six or seven different Madonnas,” he said. “I didn’t like any of them. I was going to bed, and I said, ‘Glenn, you’ve got to help me. I can’t come up with I want.’
“He was a redhead. And all of a sudden at 3 o’clock in the morning, I woke up with this thing in my mind. That red ball at the end of the Madonna is his head.
“It’s very different, simply a crescent moon with the Madonna’s face at the top of the moon and a red head at the other end. So it’s like the Madonna’s arms coming down and the baby’s at the other end.”
It remains one of Hogan’s favorites. Another one is the “L,” which he calls “the real modern one.” He added, “I think those two show the most creativity.”
Hogan has dedicated this year’s Madonna to Bill Hoye, Jr., his son-in-law’s father, who died two years ago.
“I started to make one for him. He had 15 kids, and 15 just came in, all of a sudden,” Hogan said with a laugh. “I put it in the drawing.” For the observant viewer, the number “15” can be seen in the lines of Mary’s gown.
In 2006 he honored two late aunts, Rosemary and Audrey.
For fun, not profit
The Hogans have 250 cards printed each year and send out about 225 of them. Ed has never considered marketing his work commercially.
Each year’s message is pretty standard: “Joy to the world. The Lord is born. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.”
Ed and Joan (Ford) are very aware of their Irish lineage and have been to Ireland more than 20 times over the years. Once or twice they used an Irish blessing for their annual message.
Hogan has done some oil paintings and he has had some art instruction. He took art in high school and enrolled in a Bob Ross – “the guy that has the big happy tree and paints it” – class. And he had a maternal great aunt and a paternal uncle who were both accomplished painters. Finally there was a cousin in Ireland who was an architect and an artist.
Hogan has had other artwork exhibited at the former Evanhoff Gallery in Brookings and the Brookings Public Library. Now retired, he can devote as much time to art as he likes.
He left South Dakota State University about 13 years ago, taking with him a list of awards and honors that included professor emeritus of geography, chief information officer emeritus, and associate vice president for academic affairs emeritus.
Hogan is not bashful about liking retirement.
“It’s fun. I love art,” he said. “Somebody once told me work was over-rated, and I think they were right. I really enjoy retirement.”
There’s also some literary talent in the Hogan family. Ed, Joan and their daughter Erin have co-authored a book on geography, Norway and Ireland.
Hogan’s Madonnas may be seen at the Brookings Arts Council in the Community Cultural Center downtown through Dec. 23. Open hours are Tuesdays through Saturdays, noon to 5 p.m. and some limited Sundays during the Christmas holiday season. Admission is free.
For more information, call 692-4177 or email artscouncil@brookings.net.
Contact John Kubal at jkubal@brookingsregister.com.
