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Table of contents What's This?
  • Conditions Governing Access
  • Conditions Governing Use
  • Preferred Citation
  • Immediate Source of Acquisition
  • Biographical / Historical
  • Content Description
  • Arrangement
  • Processing Information
  • Related Materials

  • Contributing Institution: University of California, Santa Cruz
    Title: Miriam C. and Raymond Rice Papers
    source: Rice, Felicia
    Creator: Rice, Miriam C.
    Creator: Rice, Ray, 1916-2001
    Identifier/Call Number: MS.277
    Physical Description: 32.5 Linear Feet 28 boxes
    Physical Description: 5.31 GB (453 digital files)
    Date (inclusive): circa 1930-2010
    Date (bulk): bulk 1960-2000
    Abstract: This collection documents the careers and artistic works of Miriam C. Rice and Raymond (Ray) Rice, two artists based in Mendocino, California throughout the twentieth century. It contains artwork samples, including batik prints, sketches, paintings, and dye samples, and photographs of mosaics, sculptures, and paintings. Miriam's extensive research on mushroom dyeing is included along with materials documenting her involvement in the International Mushroom Dye Institute (IMDI). Samples of Miriam's and Ray's writing is represented in this collection in the form of poetry; manuscripts of Miriam's books on mushroom dyeing and papermaking; and Ray's artists' books, journal and magazine articles, and personal journal entries. Both Ray and Miriam corresponded extensively with family, friends, and colleagues, which is represented in the Correspondence series.
    Language of Material: English.

    Conditions Governing Access

    Collection open for research. Audiovisual media is unavailable until reformatted. Digital files are available in the UCSC Special Collections and Archives reading room. Some files may require reformatting before they can be accessed. Technical limitations may hinder the Library's ability to provide access to some digital files. Access to digital files on original carriers is prohibited; users must request to view access copies. Contact Special Collections and Archives in advance to request access to audiovisual media and digital files.

    Conditions Governing Use

    Copyright for the items in this collection is owned by Felicia Rice. Reproduction or distribution of any work protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires permission from the copyright owner. It is the responsibility of the user to determine whether a use is fair use, and to obtain any necessary permissions. For more information see UCSC Special Collections and Archives policy on Reproduction and Use.

    Preferred Citation

    Miriam C. and Raymond Rice Papers. MS 277. Special Collections and Archives, University Library, University of California, Santa Cruz.

    Immediate Source of Acquisition

    Gifts of Felicia Rice, 2019.

    Biographical / Historical

    Miriam C. Rice (1918-2010) and Raymond C. Rice (1916-2001) were two Mendocino, California based artists known for their artwork across various kinds of media, their teachings and impact in their profession, and strong involvement within their communities. Miriam and Ray met in the early 1940s as students at the New York Arts Students League, and married in 1942 after Ray finished military service in World War II. After the war, Ray and Miriam spent time working and teaching in Arizona and Mexico, and eventually settled in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1950s. During these years, they had three children: Mira Ellen (born 1945 in New York), Rachel Susan (born 1948 in New York), and Felicia May (born 1954 in San Francisco). Miriam and Ray were regular teachers and working artists at the Mendocino Art Center, which they helped develop, along with other artists recruited by the Center’s founders Bill and Jennie Zacha. Miriam and Ray settled in Mendocino in 1970, where they continued developing their respective art, research, and writing practices throughout their lives.
    Miriam C. Rice was born in 1918 in Clinton, Massachusetts. Miriam began her artistic career as a sculptor, receiving early recognition for her work in the form of gallery exhibitions, article features, and awards. She studied and worked in a variety of spaces, including the Art Students League in New York City, the upstate New York artists' community Yaddo (where she was an artist-in-residence), and in New Orleans where she assisted sculptor Enrique Alférez. In the 1960s, Miriam began working with natural dyes in wood block printing and batik. Her work across these two mediums featured explorations of positive and negative space, and mainly included images of women and children. Miriam's artistic repertoire also included textile arts, mushroom pigment extraction and dyeing, and organic paper making. Miriam's mushroom dyeing journey began in the late 1960s, when she began learning about mushroom identification. Miriam discovered a large variety of colors, and through rigorous experimentation and note-taking, created a replicable dyeing and pigment extraction process. One of her many pigment creations included Myco-Stix, crayons made from combining mushroom pigment and beeswax. She became an authority on mushroom dyes, traveling internationally to lecture and teach, publishing three books on her research ( Let's Try Mushrooms for Color (1974), Mushrooms for Color (1980), and Mushrooms for Dyes, Paper, Pigments & Myco-Stix (2007)), and co-founding the International Mushroom Dye Institute (IMDI) in 1985. Miriam also produced two videos on her work and research with mushrooms: Mushrooms for Color: Dyeing with Fungi (1988) and Mushrooms for Paper: Papermaking with Polypores (1993). Miriam was honored for her 90th birthday in 2008 at the International Fungi and Fibre Symposium in 2008 in Mendocino. Miriam passed away in 2010 in Mendocino, California.
    Raymond Rice, also known professionally as Ray Rice, was born in Elkhart, Indiana in 1916, and lived his life as an interdisciplinary and independent artist. He designed and built mosaics, sculpted statues, painted murals, worked with watercolors, and contributed to newspaper comics in The San Francisco Chronicle and various local and international publications. Ray spent his early life as a student and attended the Chicago Art Institute, the Art Students League of New York, and the New School for Social Research in New York. After graduating, he served in the military as an Army Captain in World War II. In the 1950s and 1960s, Ray's work was instrumental in the development of the "Art and Architecture" artistic movement in the United States. Ray combined sculpture, mosaic, and paintings, fulfilling major local and international commissions from The Ford Motor Company, Bank of America, and The Fresno Airport. Ray released over forty films between 1965-1985, a medium that combined his talent in the visual, written, and musical arts. His films mainly utilized time-lapse and stop motion animation, where objects were physically manipulated in small increments between photographed frames, giving the impression of independent motion when the series of frames is played back. In the later part of his life, Ray collaborated with his daughters on three artist's books: De Amor Oscuro (1991), The Wages of Age (1996), and Cosmogonie Intime (2005). His work began evolving, and he focused on sketch art, poetry, and wood strip paintings, among many other creative activities. Ray passed away in 2001 in Mendocino, California.

    Content Description

    This collection contains the artistic work of Miriam C. and Raymond (Ray) Rice, as well as personal and research files. The series of Miriam's files include dye samples from mushrooms, organic paper samples, drawings, writings, book drafts and manuscripts, prints, research, and materials from the International Mushroom Dye Institute (IMDI) and other professional organizations. Miriam's early and extensive work in sculpture is represented in the collection through photographs and slides. The series of Ray's files contain notes, sketches, paper cutouts, scripts, film acetate drawings, and other process materials from his experimental films; sketchbooks filled with drawings in pen and ink; examples of his poetry and journals; photographs of his mosaics, sculptures, and paintings; as well as book drafts, manuscripts, and artist copies. Both series include research, correspondence, and articles about or related to their work. Also included in the collection are articles about Miriam and Ray's exhibits, work, teachings, and professional activities. Correspondence related to Miriam and Ray's specific projects are arranged within the file for that specific project, and general correspondence from friends, family, and colleagues are in the Correspondence series. Photographs are also found throughout the collection in the form of slides, negatives, and prints. In addition to capturing their artistic and professional work, many photographs document their travels, and activities with family and friends.

    Arrangement

    This collection is arranged in four series:
    • Series 1: Personal and family papers
    • Series 2: Miriam C. Rice papers
    • Series 3: Raymond Rice papers
    • Series 4: Correspondence
    Materials within each series are arranged chronologically by date, unless otherwise specified.

    Processing Information

    This collection was processed by Joseph Finkel, Sienna Ballou, and Alix Norton in the Center for Archival Research and Training (CART), 2022. Most titles in this collection were derived from the original folder titles as received from the donor. Digital files were received on 9 CDs, 2 DVDs, and 1 3.5" floppy disk. Digital files were captured from physical media in 2018 and 2022. Duplicate and out of scope files were not retained. Files were not reformatted, and file names are original to the creator. Original disks were not retained in the collection.

    Related Materials

    The following materials are available in UC Santa Cruz Special Collections & Archives:
    • MS180 Ray Rice Films
    • Let's try mushrooms for color. Rice, Miriam C., author. Beebee, Dorothy M., illustrator. Dassett, Marlene Nordstrom, photographer. (1974) Call number TT854.3 .R52 1974
    • De amor oscuro = Of dark love. Alarcón, Francisco X., author, translator. Aragon, Francisco, translator. Rice, Felicia, book designer, printer. Fields, Scott, book designer, printer. Rice, Ray, illustrator. Call number Z239 .M68 1991b
    • The wages of age. Rice, Ray, author, illustrator. (1996) Call number PS3568.I288 W34 1996
    • Cosmogonie intime. Peyré, Yves. Rice, Felicia, book designer. Rice, Ray, illustrator. Jackson, Elizabeth R., translator. Call number Z239 .M68 2005
    Digitized versions of Ray Rice's films may be found in the UCSC Library by searching "Rice, Ray" in the Author/creator field in UCSC Library Search.

    Subjects and Indexing Terms

    Women artists -- California
    Mushrooms
    Mosaics -- 20th century
    Dyes and dyeing
    American poetry -- 20th century
    Artists -- California -- Mendocino County
    Personal correspondence
    Rice, Felicia
    Rice, Miriam C.
    Rice, Ray, 1916-2001