Roy Behrens

Behrens has written extensively on the interface between camouflage and art, including on the theories of the artist Abbott Handerson Thayer, who argued that the male wood duck's conspicuous plumage was disruptively patterned, rather than sexually selected.[1] (Painting Male Wood Duck in a Forest Pool by Thayer, 1909)

Behrens was born in Independence, Iowa. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in art education degree from the University of Northern Iowa in 1968 and a Master of Arts in art education from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1972.[2]

Behrens served in the United States Marine Corps 1969 to 1971, rising to the rank of sergeant.[3]

He taught graphic design, illustration, and design history at the University of Northern Iowa, the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, the Art Academy of Cincinnati.[3] He has written several books and numerous papers. For twenty years, beginning in 1985, he published a quarterly magazine called Ballast Quarterly Review (the title is an acronym for Books Art Language Logic Ambiguity Science and Teaching), self-described as a "periodical commonplace book."[4][5] Over the years, he has written numerous articles for Leonardo[6] and various books and journals.

He is the author of Camoupedia,[lower-alpha 1] a book[8] and blog[9] on camouflage. The camouflage researcher Isla Forsyth describes this work as an "extensive study into modern military camouflage..by the British and US military throughout the First and Second World Wars, exploring the contribution of art and science, and the ways in which, via modern and contemporary art, camouflage has been appropriated by contemporary culture".[10] Mike Leggett, reviewing the book in Leonardo, wrote that "the outcome of enthusiastic research it is, but an entertaining summary of the field it also manages to be."[11] Michael Martone calls Behrens "a wonderful writer and artist ... whose work on camouflage and art is important to me. He publishes an amazing 'zine called Ballast on visual and verbal punning."[12]

Behrens is married to the artist Mary Snyder Behrens,[13] with whom he is founder and co-proprietor of Bobolink Books.[3]

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• Roy R. Behrens Pandemic Montages