Reintroducing The Whirling Arrow
Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation | Feb 14, 2017
In naming our blog – home to updates on the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, pieces of history, and closer looks into the lives of those celebrating Wright’s legacy – we wanted to be rooted in the history of Taliesin.
For Frank Lloyd Wright, everything was intentional. When creating the new FrankLloydWright.org, our site designers ensured that the user experience of our site would be relevant and true to this philosophy of Wright. We wanted everything on the site to have purpose, and make the purpose clear to the user.
In naming our blog – home to updates on the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, pieces of history, and closer looks into the lives of those celebrating Wright’s legacy – we wanted to be rooted in the history of Taliesin.
Wright was fascinated with the petroglyphs found on the Taliesin West property. One in particular, that he had seen on both the property and Casa Grande, sparked an idea for Wright.
Dr. Joe Rorke (Photo courtesy of Pamela Sprenger)
“The Taliesin Fellowship Logo was developed by Mr. Wright from the clasped hands of the American Indian symbol of friendship. This is often referred to as the running arrow; however, Mr. Wright preferred to call it the whirling arrow,” wrote Dr. Joe Rorke, Wright’s personal physician, on January 6, 1986.
Dr. Joe took that label and used it to rename The Journal of a Working Girl, a diary of the happenings at Taliesin West. In The Whirling Arrow, Dr. Joe documented in great detail, events, happenings and the latest architectural projects taking place at Wright’s desert laboratory.
With The Whirling Arrow, Dr. Joe provides vivid glimpse into the Taliesin experience. In our revival of The Whirling Arrow, we intend to do the same. With our blog, we want people around the world to understand how the legacy of Wright continues and how the Foundation is building on the legacy by preserving his homes, providing unique educational opportunities, and exploring new ways to innovate, create, and engage audiences.
Wright’s ideas and works are as relevant – if not more relevant – today as they were in his lifetime, and with The Whirling Arrow, we aim to show how these ideas and work are alive and thriving. We hope that with this blog, you feel more involved and engaged in our work.
We encourage you to reach out with suggestions on blog posts you would like to see here on The Whirling Arrow.
Taken from Volume IV of Dr. Joe’s “The Whirling Arrow.”
