Doris Lang

1928 - 2022

Doris Lang

June 13, 1928 - May 10, 2022

Doris Lang (nee Harmon), died in her sleep on Tuesday, May 10, 2022, in Bloomington, IN. She was 93.

Doris was born June 13, 1928, in Tonawanda, NY. From her earliest days, it was clear to all that Doris was born to be an artist. Doris studied Commercial Art and Fashion Illustration at the Albright Art School, before beginning a professional career in art and design. In the 1940s and 50s, she worked as a fashion illustrator drawing the tall, willowy figures that defined the era, as an industrial designer for Sylvania, and as a curator of department store window displays in downtown Buffalo. Later, after fledging her children, she worked as a lead designer in the Advertising and Layout department of Madison Newspapers, Inc. where she saw the transition from lead type to the first desk-top publishing systems. Twice after retiring from the newspaper in 1994, her work was shown in galleries in Madison.

As with so many women of her generation, Doris's professional career was interrupted by marriage (to Peter John Lang) and motherhood. Doris spent most of her married and child-rearing life in Madison, where her artistry was expressed through her dinner parties, her garden, her volunteer work on political campaigns, and of course through her children: Kurt the jazz musician, Annie the fiber artist, and Karl the visual artist.

Although Doris had no interest in being defined as a mom or grandmother (she referred to Mother's Day as "smarmy nonsense"), her performance of these roles produced children and grandchildren who adored her. Doris's magic, in simplest terms, was that she loved people. She was interested in who you were, and you felt it to your core. If an occasion called for a glass of wine and convo with college friends, she was on the couch next to you listening. If the teen years were a struggle, she was there with the needed patience and comfort. If you wanted to compete in sports as a young woman, Doris made the Title IX campaign posters. She was profoundly present for the unique personalities of her growing children, and without consideration of age, race, social standing, or credentials, Doris embraced her children's and grandchildren's friends, mentored her work colleagues, and was an interested and generous listener and advocate for the range of unique people she encountered throughout her life.

Doris's love of people was expressed in her art, where her greatest gift was drawing people. With a practiced eye and a quick hand, she could channel her deep understanding and capture something essential about humanity with a few revealing lines. Unprepossessing, often quiet, her art spoke for her. As her eyesight dimmed, and the world blurred, she was still able to capture with her sketches the complex emotions of the dying of her light. In one drawing, when she was essentially blind, Doris sketched a tree shedding its leaves in the autumn; a contemplation of loss, eloquently rendered.

Doris weathered tragedy - including the premature death of her eldest son - but she never allowed it to keep her from the next thing. She put the past behind her and encouraged her children and grandchildren to do as she did: to live in the present and embrace the future. She'd tell us to have a party, not a funeral; to move on and embrace life, and to create beauty.

Doris was preceded in death by her son, Kurt Lewin Lang; her parents, Charles and Georgia Harmon; and her brothers: Edward and Donald Harmon.

She is survived by her children: Annie Lang Derryberry (and spouse KB Derryberry) and Karl Glen Lang; her grandchildren: Dakota (and spouse Richard) and Rory; and her great-grandchildren: Jeffrey "Django," Zahavi, and Felix Ari.

Those who wish to honor Doris with a charitable gift on her behalf may contribute to her favorite charity, the Kurt Lang Memorial Fund (for young musicians) at Malcolm Shabazz City High School: 1601 N Sherman Ave, Madison, WI, 53704.