Interview with the author of The Pennant

Matthew: We welcome as our guest us today the author of the new book The Pennant that launched on October 29 at the J. Press store in New York and is available exclusively from J. Press—jpressonline.com.

Richard: Hello Matthew! Thank you for inviting me to speak about The Pennant on Ivy Style—I am a great fan of your work here and with The Preppy Handbook Fan Club!

Matthew: Thank you Richard, it was great to meet you at the New York event. As I mentioned, I am a collector of vintage collegiate pennants—mostly Yale—so I was excited to pick up a copy of your book. Tell us a little about yourself.

Richard: I am a native of upstate New York. Growing up, we lived in a number of cities in the East and Midwest. My dad was in sales with a major food company. The route to success was accepting new challenges and that meant transfers. It also meant new schools— always public schools—and new friends. My favorite port of call was Philadelphia. We lived in Yardley in Bucks County. I think of it often. When it came to college, I didn’t have the chops to make the Ivy League, but have always admired friends and colleagues who did. I started undergraduate studies in the East and finished in the Midwest, followed by law school in the West.

Matthew: How did your personal experiences impact The Pennant?

Richard: My dad’s work took our family on a journey. In the earliest days of thinking about the book, I asked myself what its core message should be. A run of the mill “collector” book was never in the picture—knowing it would have meant a quick trip to the remainder pile. I wanted it to reflect a journey and to be a display of artful objects coupled with the thoughtful expressions of those “touched” by the objects on their own journeys. After that Eureka moment the rest fell into place—eight chapters reflecting a journey. The book features childhood stay-away camps and majestic national parks, schools and colleges, and organizations dedicated to service. There are pennants from the towns—both large and small—from which all of us have come. And—as the reader will quickly see—the book is replete with the “Ivy Style” with pennants from prep schools, Ivy League universities, and Little Ivy colleges in the Northeast. In fact, nearly 20% of all of the quilts which figure so significantly in the book have an Ivy connection.

Matthew: The Ivy League section of your book is definitely my personal favorite. Before you conceived the book, you found and accumulated antique pennants and banners. Please tell us about that.

Richard: Purely serendipitous. My wife and I were living in the Bay Area—Berkeley. Molly was a marketing director with a major transportation company and I was an in-house counsel with an established Big Board company—both in San Francisco. A friend told me about the Marin Flea Market, an iconic outdoor old field marketplace. Iconic doesn’t do it justice. It was fabulous–quirky, unpredictable, and packed with the most intriguing dealers and unusual items. Sad to say, it has since been replaced by a shopping mall. On my very first adventure, I spotted a 1920s sewn letter wool “Princeton” pennant for $1.25! I was hooked and 30 years later had accumulated more than 3,500 pennants and banners—all antique, all wool—and most importantly—all with sewn letters and designs. By the way—that $1.25 pennant has grown in value based on supply and demand—and today would easily fetch as much as $100 or more. These vintage items are from a bygone era and the craftsmanship behind them will not be replicated again.

Matthew: With your collection of pennants in hand, how did the quilts come about?

Richard: Again—quite simply—serendipity. It began at a holiday dinner in late 2018 with a dear friend, Karen Stern, who happened to be a Chicago Art Institute graduate and a premier quilter. The quilts were Karen’s idea. She passed away recently and I will always be grateful to Karen. I then collaborated with a Paris-trained seamstress Janet Parsekhian, who was living in Southern California where we had moved after the Bay Area. The quilting project took over two years. With the help of a fellow New Yorker, Bud Pool, we categorized each pennant and banner into groups. Little did I know that as I accumulated them I had subconsciously created eight major categories  i.e. stages of life—that led to an eight-chapter book. Scary how the mind works, Matthew!

Matthew: Please tell us about the photos in the book.

Richard: The photos developed from the spectacular eye of the book’s photographer Tom Lamb at lambstudio.com. Tom, an East Coast native now living in Southern California, is not only a juried artist but a go-to commercial photographer for a number of national companies and non-profits. Tom guided me, with project director Christine Dodd and commercial photographer Rick Graves at gravesmediagroup.com, through the photo stage of the project.

Matthew: With all of the physical building blocks in place, tell us about the heart of the book—its message—and what you did to bring it all together.

Richard: While the physical part of the project was underway I spent many waking and sleeping hours crystallizing how I would marry those intriguing and colorful objects with the thoughts and expressions of persons who had been “touched” by them and who, in their own way, starting as they did like simple pieces of cloth through their hard work and invention, made a difference in our lives and of those around the world—whether it be in art, science, education, sport or public service. I randomly selected a pennant or banner in each quilt and sought out the existence of women and men who may have had a connection with the object. Once I identified them, I researched their work and life achievements and searched for a thoughtful expression that would act as an intelligent counterpoint to the beauty of the object. I found over 150 such achievers—from a diverse group of backgrounds. The enriching part of it was that despite their differences I found that they shared a single quality—the search for reason and good in all of us—and which by the way has, in my opinion, always been the goal of the traditions spawned by the Ivy League. With that—I had my book. For me the heart of the book is found in those expressions as they pair with the colorful backdrop of the massive (each one is 36 sq. ft.) quilts.

Matthew: Please tell us about your exclusive collaboration with J. Press.

Richard: I always wanted the book to be unique, intelligent, and colorful. The moment I read about Jack Carlson and his seminal book Rowing Blazers—and saw what he had achieved both personally and professionally including his founding of a clothing enterprise of the same name—I sensed that there might be a real possibility to do something together. So I did what other unknowns do—I reached out with a cold call letter sharing my thoughts about a collaboration. At the time, Jack was still President of Rowing Blazers. When Jack sold the business to Chris Burch, I knew I wanted to follow him, wherever his new adventure might take him. Earlier this year, Jack told me about his new opportunity. I knew that the J. Press collaboration would be super impactful due in large measure to the synergy between the book, the store, and its customer base. As brief as the collaboration with him may end up being, I will forever be grateful to Jack for the interest, enthusiasm, and support he has afforded The Pennant.

Matthew: Is there a particular quote in The Pennant that stands out the most?

Richard: The thoughts expressed throughout the book are, in my opinion, both timeless and amusing—and I hope that every reader will find one or more that resonates with them in their day-to-day lives. For me, there are two. The first—Chadwick Boseman, actor and Howard University graduate who said, “In times of crisis the wise build bridges while the foolish build barriers.” The second –Denzel Washington—actor and Fordham University graduate who said, “Don’t aspire to make a living, aspire to make a difference.”

Matthew: Thank you, Richard. I wish you all the best with The Pennant.

Richard: Thank you, Matthew, for inviting me to spend time with you and Ivy Style readers!