Roberta Bailey ’78 and Joann Weeks Bailey ’50 hold the ceramic bear Joann created in Karl Drerup’s classroom nearly 70 years ago.
Joann Weeks Bailey ’50 and her daughter, Roberta Bailey ’78 returned to campus in March accompanied by a family treasure—a ceramic bear created in celebrated artist Karl Drerup’s classroom almost 70 years ago.
Drerup, Plymouth State’s first art professor, started in 1948, the same year Joann began her studies. Drerup helped her create the bear in the basement art studio of Rounds Hall; he would later become a nationally renowned American enamellist and New Hampshire Living Treasure.
Joann is the third member of four generations of her family to attend Plymouth.
Her grandmother, Winnifred Page Smith ’00, and mother, Esther Smith Weeks ’24, graduated from Plymouth Normal School; Roberta Bailey ’78, completes the family’s multi-generational connection.
Joann said donating the ceramic piece to her alma mater was a joy. “I have such wonderful memories of my experience here. I felt Plymouth should have my Drerup bear for its collection and safekeeping,” she explains. PSU maintains a collection of Drerup’s artwork, much of it donated by his former students.—Bruce Lyndes
Tags: ceramics Karl Drerup multi-generation New Hampshire Living Treasure
