Buffalo Street Books welcomed back two Cornell alumni Friday, Nov. 22 at 5 p.m. to host a book discussion of “Rooms: The Work and Life of JJ Manford” by Gordon Sander ’72 B. Arch. ’73. Sander — a writer, photographer and teacher currently residing in Riga, Latvia — led the event alongside the subject of his biography, Jonathan “JJ” Manford ’06, a painter practicing out of Brooklyn.
The discussion was the last of four held since the book’s publication in February 2024, the others taking place in New York City, Denmark and Latvia. Although the turnout never exceeded six attendees and the projector failed to work, the event went overtime, marked by Sander periodically taking breaks from reading aloud the first chapter to finish his beer and Manford cracking jokes, seemingly taking advantage of Sander’s bad hearing. Both author and artist described this event as a “homecoming,” and their easy yet comically professional conversation for an audience smaller than the number of organizers emulated the eccentricities of their relationship.
After getting suspended from Cornell in the ’70s for having a 0.0 cumulative grade point average, Sander graduated a year late and spent the next 30 years writing for publications including The New York Times, publishing books and getting knighted by the president of Finland.
Sander said he came back to the University in 2002 as the “prodigal son returneth,” becoming an artist-in-residence at Risley Residential College. That’s when Sander met Manford, a “troubled” freshman Fine Arts major living in the dormitory.
Manford was struggling through losing his father to cancer at the time, and he said Sander essentially “adopted” him.
“When I came back to Risley, I was sort of compensating for the lack of help that I had as a student, and I quickly saw that there were a number of students at Risley who needed my counseling and help,” Sander said. “JJ was one of them. You know, JJ was going through a difficult time at that time, … and I think we kind of bonded on that level.”
Manford started working for Sander as an assistant, or “munchkin,” as Sander likes to refer to the students he employed over the 15 years he spent in Ithaca. Manford helped him with copy editing, organizing several of his photo shows, making flyers for the “Twilight Zone” marathons he hosted and organizing a “dadaist” ball. They continued collaborating after Manford graduated, embarking on projects such as a photo and painting exhibit at the former Gershwin Hotel in New York City.
After moving to Brooklyn after college, Manford briefly returned to the Ithaca area to work as an artist’s assistant for the paleontological sculptor John Gurche before pursuing a post-baccalaureate program at the Art Institute of Chicago, completing an MFA at Hunter College and establishing himself as a burgeoning “psychedelic realist” artist in New York City.
Manford said that as a college student, he began to admire Sander because he “generally didn’t give a f*** about what people thought.”
“I was inspired by Gordon as a student and as an adult, because he was doing what he wanted to do, despite all the odds stacked against him,” Manford said. “[He was] someone who cared about his craft and was in love with it, really passionate about it, but wasn’t ever going to make a fortune from it, or … wasn’t first and foremost concerned with that. …That was huge for me as a 20-something-year-old.”
At the same time, Sander said he recognized Manford’s artistic talent, both through their various collaborations and Manford’s “biomorphic drawings” on Risley’s walls. He promised Manford then that he was going to write a book about him one day, and three years ago he decided that Manford had progressed enough in his career to be deserving of a book chronicling his artistic evolution.
After not having spoken to each other for around a year, they arranged a Zoom meeting, and the formation of the book was put into motion.
They spent two and a half years working on the book, and Sander said he tried to make it a “literary equivalent of the Guggenheim.” Each section acts as a separate room, inspiring the name, “Rooms,” as the reader “walks” through different periods of Manford’s life and artistry. The sections of the book begin with Manford’s life and move on to an anthology of over 100 of his pieces split up into five parts chronologically.
Manford’s paintings from the past few years almost solely consist of vibrant indoor spaces marked through the optical rather than physical mixture of colors, similar to pointillist or Impressionist artwork. Along with otherworldly color palettes, Manford said he especially likes to incorporate animals, which he calls “omniscient narrators.” He said the disparate concoction of psychedelic imagery and recognizable animals, plants or pop culture references in his paintings tries to “tap into something that’s universal” for viewers.
Sander said he likes to think he influenced Manford’s work through his mentorship, although he does not want to take credit for his work. He said “Rooms” is a final project for Risley from the two of them, a “special place” that fostered their relationship. Coming back to Ithaca for a book discussion was a natural decision for both of them.
“I think Gordon always had a vision of a homecoming of sorts, or at least doing something at Cornell or in Ithaca, because it’s so pivotal to the book,” Manford said. “It’s the reason why [the book] happened.”
Shubha Gautam ’28 is a Sun contributor and can be reached at [email protected].