STORIES WE REMEMBER

ESTHER NISENTHALL KRINITZM, 1 of 36 tapestries

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. According to Norman Rockwell’s paintings, tables across the United States will be set with Sunday best linen and china and enough food to satisfy three times the number of actual diners. Family and friends will watch Father carve the turkey before diving headfirst into the ritual of gluttony.  Ah, America! 

Nearly every culture pays homage to the autumn harvest. Most celebrations involve praying to whatever god blesses crops, singing, dancing, and drinking too much — which explains the singing and dancing maybe. It’s all fairly straight forward stuff except for Canada. They celebrate the recovery of King Edward VII ( 1892) who apparently had a serious illness. My husband’s family is Canadian. Never once, in the 50 years I’ve shared Canadian Thanksgiving with them has anyone ever raised a glass to Edward’s good health. 

American Thanksgiving is unique in the interwoven story of starving Pilgrims saved from certain death by friendly Natives. Reminiscing over school years filled with re-enactments and turkeys fashioned from colored paper, I can’t actually imagine why that story holds such a vicelike grip on our collective culture. It destroys the fiction of white supremacy that our nation seems to hold so dear. Does any other single festival/celebration we honor have at its core heroic brown people saving Euro-white Americans? Not that I can think of but tomorrow among the alt-right, in white supremacists households, I’m willing to bet that if asked, everyone can proudly repeat the Pilgrim story.

Story telling is powerful; it’s primal. We grew up with stories, we think in stories. They invoke emotion and inspire us.  They can teach us about hope and they have the power to change lives. One of the loveliest movements in the last few years has been the growth of StoryCorps. Its mission is “to preserve and share humanity’s stories in order to build connections between people and a more just and compassionate world.” 

Becoming part of the StoryCorps legacy is easy. No-one need be famous — no heroics required. Stories are registered and remain part of a permanent record kept in the Library of Congress. 

1 of 36 tapestries in "Art and Remembrance"

Monet’s Waterloo Bridge is the current exhibit in the Grand Gallery at Memorial Art Gallery (Rochester, NY).  It’s a show guaranteed to bring in crowds. After all, who doesn’t at least recognize the name “Monet” even if they aren’t sure why. Art history “isms” may not be general knowledge but most people know the names of the Rock Star artists thanks mostly to calendars and poster reproductions. 

But an interesting thing is happening at MAG. Monet is being upstaged by an un-trained Polish woman. Down the hall from “Bridges” are tapestries made by Esther Nisenthal Krinitz. She was 15 when German Nazi’s invaded the small Polish village where she and her family lived. With needle and thread and fabric, fifty years later, Esther began the task of re-telling her story of love, and loss and how she and her sister became the sole survivors of her family.  Her memories are made human in these 36 works. 

Monet’s bridges — the same scene painted in different shades at different times of day and year.  Interesting in a scholarly, freeze-dried kind of way.  Esther’s “Art and Remembrance” — pulsing with heart. 

Story telling is powerful indeed.

WHAT IS AN ARTFUL LIFE AND HOW DO I GET ONE?

“A good life may be found through craftsmanlike engagement with the actions, objects, and relationships of ordinary experience, through caring about what you do.” Robert Pirsig’s 1970 bestseller “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”

Heady stuff but not exactly a Pirsig discovery. The idea of finding meaning through making things, and creating a thoughtful everyday environment was preached by Victorian William Morris and followers.  

"TROUT" artist: Melissa Greene, Deer Isle, Maine

In the 1980s, mine was the “story of the week” in Upstate Magazine, a piece written by Ron Netsky and titled “An Artful Life.” The cover story meant “free publicity” for Dawson Gallery but I confess I didn’t give much thought to that title. Now I am consumed with the questions: what IS an artful life? who decides? is it some romantic concept? is it attainable? at what cost? 

Melissa Greene and her partner Eric Ziner were my house guests this week during the four day Memorial Art Gallery Fine Craft Sale. Melissa and Eric along with their two sons live on a 60 acre farm on Deer Isle, Maine.  Their artful life is one worth examining. 

Both Melissa and Eric are artists. Eric came to blacksmithing/sculpture through DNA. His father was a graphic designer and sculptor. Melissa — like the apostle Paul — was struck by a career vision while living in Europe. She discovered that Laplanders had a reverent, democratic, respect for aesthetics that was woven into the culture — an awareness that visual delight was as imperative as function. Melissa throws exquisite pots covered with intricately detailed nature and human narratives.

"LOON" bowl, artist: Melissa Greene, Deer Isle, Maine

Melissa and Eric found one another, moved to Deer Isle, Maine (an island with a history in the American studio craft movement. It’s home to The Haystack School of Crafts.) and began Yellow Birch Farm. They are certified organic growers of vegetables that they sell through the local farm market and their own farm stand. They tend, breed and milk a herd of forty goats. Goats’ milk is raw material for the yogurt, cheese and soap they make and market under the Yellow Birch Farm banner.  Several years ago, they teamed with a well-known chef and began a farm-to-table special event dinner service. Last summer, in their barn-turned-dining room,  they played hosts to fourteen of these dinners. Guests are served a fixed menu, planned and prepared to showcase the rewards from their gardens along with meat, fish and poultry sourced from other island producers.

This is all incredibly labour intensive work and they rarely hire outside hands. They screen applicants for four summer intern slots filled from agriculture programs throughout New England. Interns live on the farm during the eight weeks of summer, learning the inside running of an active farm — on the job training — while they earn school credits.

Remember — this is a couple of artists. Yes, they make art. Melissa’s ceramics are prized possessions among the famous and not-so-famous collectors of American studio craft. Eric builds fanciful sculpture but just as often, fulfills orders for functional iron projects such as stair railings and fire screens. Both lead workshops and lecture in their fields. An exhibit gallery space is carved out of the “dining barn.”

Does all this sound like an “artful life?” It most certainly is meaningful labor. Any of us could make a list of pros and cons based on this brief run-down. We might guess that there is absolutely no financial security, that things like health care — illness or accident — can push them right over a cliff.  Age becomes an enemy when constant physical exertion is the primary asset on a farm and while some people might sneer at the free labour of interns, those who have experience working with novices question if time spent training ever equals quality effort expended.

What are the upsides? Freedom of choice? Total independence? Unique near-religious partnership with nature? Self reliance and therefore, stronger — and appropriate — pride and sense of self?

In the search for a quality life, these are trophies that most of us chase. But must we all abandon our offices and return to the soil to claim legitimacy? Frankly, I consider overnight stays in Holiday Inn the definition of “camping.” I don’t particularly like goat cheese but I love goat milk soap and I know just the places to go to buy it!

"The Smithsonian Pot" 

Melissa and Eric have another item in their “pro” column and that is meaningful connectedness.  Their life is one of circles — individual but overlapping, sometimes temporarily with narrow  objectives, i.e. the organic farming community, the very tight civic institutions and connections in their small, isolated  town, and of course, the studio craft world.  

Rebecca Solnit in her collection of essays (“Call Them by Their True Names”) writes about political manipulation — the “Ideology of Isolation.” She lays out a convincing argument that American individualism is a tainted ideal — it probably never existed as portrayed by movie westerns. Building on that mythos allows easier manipulation through tactics all too familiar in today’s political climate. It’s easy to cash in on mass fear when the ears that take in misinformation have no counter balancing point of view!  (There’s a reason prisoners’ of war are kept in isolation.)

Call it “love” or “network” or “friendship” or what-have-you. Connections require work to introduce and energy to maintain. They require compromise and acceptance of human frailty. Connectedness requires trading a piece of individualism for the good of community. 

Artful life? I believe it rests on a triangle: meaningful work, connectedness to a community and respect for the role of beauty in everyday life.