Raúl at the Plains

It isn’t every artist who has his or her art and design widely distributed in a public forum once a week. But that is the case with High Plains Reader co-owner and graphic design editor Raul Gomez. For over a decade, Gomez has created serious, provocative, comedic and powerfully memorable cover art for the High Plains Reader. Displayed on crisp white board in the Plains Art Museum’s Landfield Atrium, the head-turning graphics are a testimony to the museum-worthy quality of the Gomez aesthetic.

In the right hands, and from an imaginative mind, graphic design is a powerful medium. The best graphic products are attention grabbers. In a world saturated with visual images, only top designs create indelible impressions. Gomez is one of these top designers. In his case, we might say that Gertrude Stein’s bell rang early.  For those readers unaware of Gertrude Stein’s statement on genius, it is printed here: “Only three times in my life,” she noted, “have I met a genius and each time a bell rang within me, and I was not mistaken….”

To put the excellence of Gomez’s design art in perspective, a look at a number of High Plains Reader cover designs is in order. The notable first discovery when studying the 48 covers on exhibit is the sophisticated use of the common place in combination with highly personal graphic symbols. This duo cinches the “message is in the medium” distinction of Gomez’s art.

On the cover titled HPR’s Guide to Going Green, for example, Gomez uses the common object. In this case, numerous images of glass bottles encroach, from all sides, upon a centrally-placed bottle cap. The cap seems to symbolize the globe, the Earth, our world; and it also appears to represent the circle of life, a circle that could, without progressive action, be irreversibly broken under the weight of pollution. This unforgettable cover speaks forcefully to the continued dissing of Mother Earth and to the need to reverse wasteful and destructive environmental practices. With just a few image selections, Gomez puts the entire argument in visual focus.

In keeping with this theme, an additional first-rate Gomez cover depicts a stove top in angled, distorted perspective. Inside a large pan sitting askew on one burner is the image of a flattened earth, frying in the unattended pan like a broken egg. The text reads: We Are Frying Our Earth and We’ve Got to Do Something About It. The symbolism is obvious and the objects presented ordinary, but Gomez’s design approach is anything but mundane. The Gomez strategy is to compile the common and the disparate, plus surreal images to create clean, concise, potent communicative symbols. His color palette matches the central ideas expressed, in this case variations of green, from the off-putting to the oxygen-creating chlorophyll-saturated versions. The graphic gestalt of the overall form, plus color, plus concept is overwhelmingly provocative.

Conceptual perception is a profound gift for a designer. Gomez uses imaginative elements in a December 2005 cover where an all-seeing eye dominates the picture plane. Inside the eye is an hour glass with decorative side-bars. The simplicity of this design matches the spiritually-minded feature it represents.

The heavy topic of abortion is portrayed by Gomez in the following visual terms: Nursery room wallpaper, complete with little ducklings, forms this cover’s backdrop, while a large clothes hanger spreads across the page. Scales in balance complete the visual and are situated on each side of the menacing hanger. The potency of this personal cum communal symbol is a testament to Gomez’s design prowess. No matter which side of the abortion issue the viewer favors, both sentiments appear and vie for power.

Whether Gomez is representing the Erdrich family of writers, Louise, Heid and Lise, or Chuck Klosterman’s Fargo Rock City, or Doug Burgum’s significant influence and presence in the FM community, Gomez’s graphic choices inform HPR readers in one glance of the major thrust of the articles.

The preceding is but a sampling of the intriguing designs of Raul Gomez. Add his own version of Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man—in the form of a woman—which accompanies HPR’s feature, The Price of Beauty—plus 43 designs not even discussed here—and a visual feast awaits. The Plains was right to move beyond fine-art boundaries with this extraordinary exhibit on the 15th anniversary of the High Plains Reader and its artful covers.

The exhibit also features a number of local contributors as well. In one edition of HPR, an article outlining the world genetic debate by Winona LaDuke surfaces. Local artist William Block uses basic symmetry as an underlying structural framework for this cover, while plant forms take on modified visual aspects that speak of human manipulation. A hypodermic needle is injected into the scene and the design becomes a perfect symbol of the “Genetic Conundrum” facing our increasingly altered world. Other featured artists include Don Renner, Modern Man, Jeff Nelson, Haney Photography, Janeen Kobrinsky, Wade Myszka, Sara Watson, Matt Mastrud, Randy Schwartz, Jesse Anderson and Ben Hamilton.

Brief Bio of Raul Gomez; In His Own Words:

I grew up in a sleepy little river town in Iowa called Muscatine. My folks were both born and raised in Mexico, which was sometimes a challenge when faced with the people of a somewhat conservative town. My parents had to go through a lot of unpleasant things so that I could be here. I never forget that. I guess that played into wanting to work for myself. I don’t think I ever set out to be a graphic artist. I was only mildly interested in art growing up.

I went to college with the plan to come out as a civil engineer. Then, partially by chance, I got a job working in a pre-press department in Grafton, North Dakota. Again, I never planned on becoming a partner in the High Plains Reader, but after a year working there, I quit my job and I did just that.

My first contact with HPR was while I was working in Morgan Publishing in Grafton. I worked with the designer for the Reader, Len Schmid, in the same department, and I was instantly intrigued. When Len told me he and his girlfriend were moving to the Cities, and that the Reader would be no more, I talked to John Strand about possibly getting together and buying it. So in early ’97 I quit my job and started doing the Reader out of my house. [Editor’s note: and the rest is history.]

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The Art of the High Plains Reader
The Art and Design of Raul Gomez
Celebrating 15 years of the High Plains Reader
The Plains Art Museum
September 3-September 27, 2009