INSTALLATIONS AND GEORGE ELIOTT

I need to re-read MIDDLEMARCH and troll through the mind of George Eliott; she’s tapping me on the shoulder. (How do these authors find me? I was minding my own business reading a bit of fluff when I happened to pick up an old book by Rebecca Mead, “My Life In Middlemarch,” and started thumbing through pages, stopping at passages I’d underlined years ago. And there she was - Eliott grabbing me by the shoulders for a good shake.)

To the extent that she had a faith, Eliott called it “meliorism” - the conviction that through small, beneficent actions and intentions of individuals, the world might grow to be a better place.

Eliot was not concerned with showing the effects of large, heroic acts performed by extraordinary people. She was more concerned with changing the reader’s perspective than she was in encouraging that reader to contribute to soup kitchens.  Her mantra: If I really care for you - if I try to think myself into your position and orientation - then the world is bettered by that effort. If you respond to my effort by extending the same sympathy and understanding to others, then the world has been minutely but significantly changed for the better.

In the search for a life of grace, this looks like a promising path.

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INSTALLATION ART is usually inside (outside = land art, public art). It can be permanent or temporary. The creator intends to change the viewer’s perception and force the visitor to reconsider space, nature, or ideas by taking charge of a space and loading it with disparate items. The transformation can be heightened through use of smell, sound or touch and/or an invitation to visitors to participate in the experience. 

Installation art became a “thing” in the 70s but actually Walt Disney knew all about this idea of skewing perceptions when he designed and built Disneyworld in 1955. I think any good garden designer or architect practices the same slight-of-hand. 

Here are some photographs. The balloons billowing out of an empty building (“Family Memories”) and floating out of a basketball hoop are pieces by french photographer Charles Petillon. The “Tea House” by Judith Olson Gregory featuring walls of paper scrolls made from used tea bags was installed at Burchfield-Penney Gallery in Buffalo. My favorite all-time gardener Vinnie Massaro turned his tiny slice of city garden into a Grimm’s fairy tale setting.

Which brings me back to SANCTUARIES and the architect’s gift for creating environments. Here are two examples. Designed by Rochester architect Jim Johnson, Temple Sinai is simply transformative. Added bonus: all the altar furniture was created by Wendell Castle. The catholic church is in Naples and I’ve always called it “Our Lady of the Grapes” but it’s actually titled something much more sonorous. Those glass inserts cast in concrete walls?  Standing inside the sanctuary is EXACTLY like standing inside a Christmas tree. 

Johnson had some building misses but I think these two hits are enough to get him into heaven.

THOSE CRAZY ARTISTS!

I went to a wedding in St. Louis a few years ago and during down time, visited the 96 acre Laumeier Sculpture Park, a good idea gone bad.  It was dismall, deserted, and worn weary. I could almost hear the sales pitch when the idea of this place was presented and dedicated; I made a few of those myself back in the day. But I came away thinking you can build anything you want - that’s the easy part! -  but without on-going dedication to impeccable maintenance, you’ve done more harm than good to the idea of public art.

Just as I sank into despair, I came to the Missouri Botanical Gardens smack in downtown St. Louis. The 79 acres were dedicated in 1859 making the MBG the oldest continuing botanical garden in the nation and it is spectacular.  And there is art everywhere! And it’s good! And installed beautifully! And people who work there seem to know about it and share information! I haven’t delved into the $$$ sources for these places. I’m betting that there’s a gulf between the bankrolls of these two. Why?

Meanwhile, I’m ready to go back to St. Louis and visit the city’s Contemporary Art Museum where the first in-depth solo exhibit by folk artist Jesse Howard is installed. 

Howard was a crank, a pre-Rush Limbaugh crazy who spent his time painting signs covering his 20 acres in Fulton, Missouri, damning to hell his neighbors, his town and all governments and quoting scripture to do it. While he hand-lettered (always in red and black) signs (he named his “farm” Sorehead Hill so he at least had a modicum of humor), his wife took in ironing to feed the family of 5 children. Meanwhile, his neighbors stayed busy finding ways to have him locked away in an insane asylum.

Folk art was legitimized through serious writing in the 1960s, specifically “Grassroots Art in America,” written by Gregg Blasdel and published in ART IN AMERICA, 1968. Howard was among the handfull of artist whose work became part of permanent collections in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, American Folk Art Museum and American Visionary Arts Museum. Art academics and students began making pilgramages to Sorehead Hill; his neighbors continued to vandalized and resist any legitimacy to Howard’s “art installation.” He himself would never title himself “artist”; his very contankerousness added to his mystique.  Howard died in 1983.

THE REST OF THE STORY

Jesse Howard was not the only folk artist to cover his property in painted signs. Two others, several states away and unknown to one another, created the same kind of environments during the same time period. (I can’t find their names this minute...if you know, add them please.)

Howard left home when he was 18 and became a hobo/migrant worker. 

Hand painted signage was the method of communication advertizing employment needs as well as early labor union efforts throughout this landscape at that time.  Woody Guthrie, the very same troubador of “This Land Is Your Land,” was - by trade - a sign painter. He traveled the farm labor circuit, painting his signs mostly to advertize organization meetings where he also performed his distinctly pro-labor music. 

Art stew! The creative quilt! Inspiration jumps from one voice to another’s canvas. Isn’t that just the best?! 

(P.S. Guthrie got fired for using red paint for lettering a store sign. It didn’t stop him from using red to protest unfair labor practices. )

SANCTUARIES

I am drowning in Marilynne Robinson’s GILEAD TRILOGY (“Gildead,” “Home” and “Lila”). Why have these books put me in such a heartlock? I read “good” books often and analyze  - in a group with other serious readers -  style, vocabulary, imagery and originality. I rarely re-read novels: I am on my fourth Gilead go-through.  

So what’s the deal here? Easy answer: Robinson knew that my soul needed tending so she wrote these books for me. They speak with razor sharp precision about grace and forgiveness, my hardest challenges. 

If I reach the sweet spot of forgiveness, am I required to forgive EVERYBODY, EVERYTHING?  My list includes the 5th grade teacher who made a joke about my weight and my father who disowned me for not staying as a housekeeper after mom died when I was sixteen. I need to forgive a purely mean neighbor who made my life miserable for two years and the driver who cut in front of me to steal my parking spot yesterday. But do I need to forgive Hitler? Or Bush? or a child abuser whom I don’t know but whose existence gives me nightmares? the priests who preyed on young boys? Isis?

Asking for and accepting forgiveness is the important second half of this requirement and it is equally hard. It would take all day, every day, to write such a list. I need to start by asking my daughters to forgive me for all the parenting mistakes I made but mostly for not cherishing every minute of time I had with them. Forgive me, sister, for being too scared to let you talk frankly to me as you lay dying. Mostly, how do I forgive myself for falling short - time after time? 

I’m pretty sure this is the crux of all faiths - the giving and the asking.  But how logistically does one do any of this? Is there a Craig’s List somewhere or a facebook posting for itemized “Gets” and “Gives”? My religious friends probably think that prayer is the answer. I have a problem with the concept of prayer so I’ll read Marilynn Robinson again. I think she knows me pretty well.

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$15 million is the price tag to build the romanesque chaple on the University of Texas Austin campus designed by Ellsworth Kelly. $7 million has been raised; it will take a year to build when the $$ goal is met.

The structure looks a bit morrocan - 4 large segments form a rounded “x” shaped, modestly sized building(approx.2700 square feet).  Inside and outside surfaces are smooth and white broken only by contemporary slashes or dots of colored stained glass (the rose windows?) in 3 of the 4 chancels. A tall redwood totem stands in the 4th space and 14 black and white small marble panels hang uniformly around the walls. It appears that no seating is allowed...standing room only.?...or maybe kneeling room? Will Mr. Kelly (who is presently 92 I think) sign this artwork? Inside? outside?