Wheels of Service

Narrative for Wheels of Service: an Information Age Matrix

Rotary was started in the Industrial Revolution. In fact, even the Rotary “gear image” is a piece of a larger reality: the use of interchangeable parts in business at the beginning of the 20^th century. Today we live in the Information Age where business thrives on global information and innovation. The laptop is sometimes the office.

When this process of creation began for Wheels of Service, this Rotarian artist wanted to wed some items of information together into a system matrix that showed what many Rotarians see and have found worthwhile in the Rotary experience. What you see now is a selection from four very different attempts and adjustments/refinements after that (another four drafts). What is behind the final work are: the concepts that have made Rotary great and still growing (ideas, systems, interactions, diversity and globalization), suggestions at interactions of all the bits and pieces of information that make up contemporary history, what this Rotarian artist knows about system thinking and the history of gestalt thought in art, science and life today and an open matrix where any Rotarian, any Rotary Club or eClub, or any perspective Rotarian or young person could put themselves into the matrix and find a place, a niche, where their talents and service could be used. More than anything Wheels of Service must fit today into Rotary fellowship, service and purpose as it is now and emerging. In the process of creating this matrix of Rotary information interactions, the title changed to Wheels of Service (from a beginning idea of Wheel of Service), which is attributed to Galileo when he describes the universe as the workings of “wheels within wheels”.

The present image is information working with other information, bits and pieces (gestalt imagery and thought) that when seen from the sky makes a pattern. Any suggestion of that “gear” (Rotary) in the title is an honoring of an organization that has been important in history. I do want the world to see and credit Rotary for moving ahead, changing as the times change and embracing where we live today so that services can be given, expanded globally and make a better world. Like many others, I have a romance with Rotary. But too, I have a duty to live in the present as a Rotarian who has a profession (and comes to Rotary with specific skills and knowledge from that profession). The Wheels of Service, in this final version, is a realistic view of the “break up” of information where we now live. With the mountains of information about Rotary that is being assembled by all clubs, Rotary International and Rotary Global History, all Rotarians need (and I think that others need it also) a matrix, a system diagram, to picture where they are in the “Wheels of Service”. The colors of the matrix come from the flags of many nations and collage thinking is a way to see contemporary life.

Credits: Original creative concept and art work: Joe Kagle, RECSWUSA and RGHF; content suggestions: Basil Lewis and Eddie Blender, RGHF; support and content suggestions: Jack Selway, RECSWUSA and RGHF; and digital finishing of letters and background: Karen Naranjo, RECSWUSA.

Joseph L. Kagle, Jr. Essays