Design Observer / Jessica Helfand
Very shortly after the first Willard Suitcases kickstarter went up I received an email from Jessica Helfand expressing her interest in the project. She soon invited me down to New Haven to speak to her Yale freshman seminar class, “Studies in Visual Biography”. Here is a post I did just after that first visit. I have subsequently been to her class on several other occasions and it is always very stimulating and fun.
As well as teaching at Yale, Jessica and her late husband Bill Drenttel created Design Observer, which is a fantastic website devoted to creativity and design. That description doesn’t do it justice though, as it is so much more than that. It is really worth checking out on a regular basis. In addition to the site, Design Observer recently started publishing a quarterly magazine. The second issue is just out, and they included a huge spread on the suitcases. I am just so honored to be a part of the issue, and it looks great. Here is a link to purchase it, and I would really recommend all of you interested in the project to do so. It includes many suitcase photographs that haven’t been published before. Special thanks go to Eugenia Bell, who did a great job selecting the images, and making sure it all came together. She was a joy to work with.
As we were saying goodbye after that first class at Yale, Jessica reached out, hugged me and said “We’re friends now!” It was a most touching gesture and I have rarely felt so quickly welcomed into someone’s life. She has been a massive supporter of the project who has helped me in so many ways, and I am very fortunate to be her friend.
Dr.Harvey Cushing / Yale
I was at Yale in November speaking to Jessica Helfand’s class about the suitcase project. I had done it last year and it was a great experience again this time. At lunch Jessica introduced me to Joanna Radin who teaches in the Med School and she mentioned that some of Dr. Harvey Cushing’s artifacts were in a small office in the library and offered to take me to see them. Last year I visited the Cushing Center to see the brain collection and I was excited to learn more about him.
Cushing was an incredible diarist and photographer. His entire life is documented to a degree that is almost incomprehensible. The above volumes contain his World War 1 journals and correspondence.
The correspondence during this period gives a fascinating view into the minutia of a wartime surgeon. Volume after volume of military records. This guy saved everything!
I only had a short amount of time and could have spent weeks photographing the collection. I wonder who the “Southern gentleman” referred to was. Clearly someone who wasn’t much liked by his peers.
A big thank you to the folks at the School of Medicine Library for giving me access to these materials. They have a great website set up where it is possible to view some of the collections that have been digitized. Check it out.
Jon Crispin's Notebook 
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