HISTORIC CRAFT OBJECTS; NON-HISTORIC MATERIALS

Henry James Crissman and Virginia Rose Torrence graduated from Alfred University in 2015 and took their MFA degrees with them to start grown up life in Detroit.  Henry was hired to lead the ceramics department in a small liberal arts college and Virginia found her niche in studio ceramics with a few adjunct faculty jobs thrown in.

Virginia Rose Torrence, Untitled Mosaic, 48"x69"

Remember that old adage about “best laid plans?” The college abandoned its ceramic program and Henry was without a regular paycheck. Now what?

“What” is this couples’ search for creative routes toward a full-filling way to live in a challenging neighborhood, in a depressed city, in a stressed physical environment without my generation’s requirement - financial security. Here are routes they are exploring.

Teapot form

Virginia built rather ugly sculptural work at Alfred interspersed with (snooze alert) “utilitarian sculpture.” (Please spare me from ever seeing another “teapot form!”) But in her new studio spaces, she noticed the bins of discards and throw aways. She began retrieving junk from which to build collages. (Didn’t we all do that few years ago -  making mosaic backsplashes and picture frames out of broken china?)

Her mosaics took on added dimension when she began incorporating junk - real junk! - into the ceramic mix: leaves, wood shards, orange peel, odd cast offs picked up along her daily routes. To preserve the organic pieces, she turned to resin as the grout for these super tiles. The resin gives the illusion of looking through cataract lenses. (Virginia describes the effect as “looking through water.” I like my analogy better.)

Will these constructions survive or will the organic bits begin to rot out? I doubt that Virginia knows. Not much in our world is eternal - why should we expect that of art? 

Detail, ceramic mosaic with ½ lemon, resin grout

Henry, meanwhile, built himself a wood fired kiln in the yard of his pottery place and decided to produce  utilitarian tableware - plates and cups and bowls. He set off to blaze new trails that trace back to William Morris “Arts and Crafts” Movement, the dignity of handmade.

North End Pottery

With an NCECA grant in hand, Henry’s first aim was to seduce his impoverished North End Detroit neighborhood. He passed word to announce the firings and invited neighbors to participate in loading, stoking and unloading the kiln; the firings became “people events.” Each piece of pottery was stamped “Made In the North End” and each piece was sold for $1 each but only to neighbors, people who lived within 1 mile of the pottery. 

I don’t know if using hand made dinnerware changed any lives. I’m pretty sure that a few schemers found ways to circumvent the residency requirement - there are always abusers. Clearly, this system required financial subsidy.

But Dang! What a cool project! During my lifetime, I’ve witnessed and been part of the “Turn Inward - Me Generation - Explore the World Within” years. It’s time for change and the change seems to be the age of socially engaged art projects. Our planet cries for compassion. The multiple strands of society must be knit together. 

Artists can be Cassandras warning of the breakdown of our physical and social climate -  a legitimate and honorable role.  But they are uniquely qualified to explore and show us alternative options.  

The rest of us are required to pay attention.  

Tableware made for neighborhood restaurant

LIAR! LIAR! PANTS ON FIRE!

FAKE!  FAKE!  FAKE! 

The art world nearly invented fakery - paintings signed by “the master” when any of his ( always “his”) apprentices actually did the work, blank pieces of paper slipped in front of demented artists (I’m thinking of Salvador Dali) to sign as his originals for later-prints that he never actually saw, copies of copies of copies passed off through the years as originals, often hanging in prestigious museums.  

A few years back, the FBI closed down an art scheme here in Rochester that made national news. An art teacher bought a 15 year old ho-hum neighborhood art gallery.  With the “history” of a mature gallery to lend credentials, he sold “master prints” on line (complete with documents attesting to authenticity). He was the printmaker, was convicted of fraud and spent jail time (but he kept the money.)

With sophisticated technology today, fakery is more advanced, and I was recently hooked into one of the newest frauds.  When a friend, a retired artist and art teacher, recommended a newly released documentary touting the discovery of ancient sculpture, I nestled into my comfy chair for  90 minutes of spell-binding art adventure.

The documentary turned out to be a very cleverly produced “mockumentary” - a completely made up story, fabricated and financed by conceptual artist Damien Hirst. (Remember him? His ‘sculptures” - animals suspended in formaldehyde? He sold all his art at auction to raise money for this project.) 

Called “Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable,” the film recorded the adventure of a deep sea diving crew as it followed up on a lead and sailed off the coast of eastern Africa in search of a  treasury of artifacts lost during the reign of Nero.

Quite an elaborate back story accompanied the discovery and tension builds when the divers report that not only have they found nearly 100 pieces of marble and bronze sculpture but a trove of gold castings as well (with a gold coin stamped with NERO to verify age.)

detail of full human figure with claw feet

Using a huge crane, they manage to bring up even the largest pieces, wash them down without removing attached barnacles and coral, transport the load back to Venice, find a willing and appropriate exhibition venue and there it all sits….magnificently installed…looking for all the world like ancient artifacts…except for the Mickey Mouse character…and all the buxom women…one wearing knickers…and that beautiful, colorful coral that managed to stay intact…and the lost ship’s name Cif Amotan II - anagram: I am fiction.

O.K., I admit, it was fun to watch and marvel at “how are they going to bring that tonnage to the surface?” I also admit there were small clues along the way that sent me to investigate the “real story.”  One: who owns ancient artifacts? Surely not some weird conceptual artist! Since when does one person - an artist at that - bankroll such a venture? And if this is all from the 1st century a.d., how many huge museums - and governments -  would fight for the privilege of exhibiting? And oh, by the way, if this stuff has been underwater that long, doesn’t it nearly disintegrate upon reaching open air and sunshine?

Lapis Lazuli with barnacles

So now what to make of all this? Should we innocent viewers feel … stupid?…inadequate?…suckered?…for falling for this elaborate “art?” Are we maybe ticked off that conceptual art has once again made us feel this way? how many “insiders” got the joke?  why are we all “outsiders” when it comes to art? how does this further art/empathy or art/cultural awareness? What exactly is Damien Hirst up to with all this? 

I might have felt better about it all with a tasteful disclaimer somewhere during the film’s credit scroll. It was fun to watch but…I’m still flummoxed.

How about you? 

CHRISTMAS INTROSPECTION

Like Scrooge, three spirits pressed me back to the blog this week, the place where I write things down that I care about (mostly.) 

The first challenge was to form a clear and concise answer to the question “are you religious?” asked by the dinner guest to my right Sunday night in what was a gala pre-Christmas event. I sputtered, feigned left, dodged right and finally left the table for another conversation less probing.

The second is built on the first: what the hell is Christmas all about if you don’t label yourself “Christian?”  

The third? I don’t remember - the first two are BIG. Do I need a third?

First, most of us marry “religious” with a second label - i.e. Christian, (sub-set, Catholic, Baptist, et. al.), Jewish, Islamist, Buddhist. I reject that marriage and when I look up the definition of “religious,” ( manifesting devotion to an ultimate reality or deity), I’m not too crazy about that either. So, no I am not religious. However, I was raised as a Southern Baptist, married into the Episcopal Church, and spent two years living on a seminary campus all of which makes me a whiz at the Jeopardy “Bible” category. I love the smell of old cathedrals, the music of my southern church roots and some - but not all - rituals that define all religious church services, particularly those that seek to bind us altogether in humanity and humility.

Aha! Now I’m getting closer to that answer. For awhile, I played with “Humanist” (emphasis on the value of human beings individually and collectively and preferring critical thinking over dogma and superstition) and that comes close but not quite.  Then I thought the answer should be “No, I’m not religious but I’m spiritual” (the quest for ultimate sacred meaning) but that isn’t right either. And I discarded “naturalist” immediately (believing that only natural laws and forces operate in the universe) - it seemed too cold blooded, not the least mysterious and besides, it suggests taking off your clothes and I don’t do that for just anybody!

I proclaim myself an Independent, non-partisan participant in the human condition. I believe that we are cosmically tied together on this planet and so it matters what happens in Rwanda or South Philly. We are responsible for each other in that “he’s not heavy, he’s my brother” kind of way and wasting time debating costs of universal health care is blasphemy! I believe that trees communicate with each other - totally believable since all plants and all animals are inter-connected. I believe in mystery all around us and my favorite word this year is “numinous” (arousing spiritual or religious emotion - awe inspiring”) but I’ve just learned “hygge” (hue-guh), a Danish word used to acknowledge a special feeling or moment (alone or with friends, at home or out, ordinary or extraordinary but always charming of special) and I think that may be my word for 2018 but I’m not sure it fits into the spiritual recipe.

Now, about #2, why celebrate Christmas if you have no truck in the whole Christ story?  Good question!  I just listened to Krista Tippett “On Being” talk about Christmas and she brings up the gift thing; it was traditionally a time of reward. You had to learn patience - no bike until Christmas - an entire philosophy not being passed on to our current generation. She also dislikes the distortion that Christmas as an entirely child-centric ethos  - Santa, churches plays, animal blessings, baby Jesus in the Manger cuteness. She’s right but I’m not getting too worked up over any of that.

No, Christmas for me is strictly a special time when we examine what we are to each other and with a dash of ritual - carols, lights, food and gift exchange -  we may experience something transcendent, a memory worth stashing away to re-live when we need to and re-tell when appropriate - fertilizer for cultural continuation.

LIVE AND LET BUILD!

I’m a design snob - I admit it but it sounds worse than it is (or am I rationalizing again?)

I appreciate objects and places imbued with history and memory.  I admire objects and places that surprise with their unexpected ingenuity -  the expressions of some makers’ peculiar insights. I love being startled wide awake by the everyday raised to heights of fine art. 

It isn’t the labels or the makers' names that get me and certainly not the price tags. And like cataracts, jadedness lowers a curtain over mature eyes - all the more reason to appreciate those experiences of discovery. And so, to head my list of Things I am Grateful For, 2017, I list “Thoughtful Design” -  timeless surprises.

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In my next life - right after becoming a worldwide sensation as a nightclub singer - I plan to practice architecture - building, planning spaces, solving problems. Architecture can enhance lives in the most intimate ways or orchestrate the movement of entire populations. Architecture can endure for generations to tell stories of what cultures valued most - it writes history with “bricks and mortar.” 

Like other professions, architecture can serve as a gateway to another career path and often trained architects become full-time sculptors and painters.  Two exhibits now on view - one in Chicago and the other in New York City - attest to that professional switch.

"First Responders," Amanda Williams

Amanda Williams is an architect-turned-artist whose eye turned to commentary on the social implications of how and why buildings are destroyed. Her collages and photographs are on view at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art in a show titled “First Responders.”

A big red X marks the ceiling at the top of the stairway entrance at the museum - a reference to city markings on condemned buildings slated for demolition. A suite of photographs called “Color(ed) Theory” document houses to be torn down in predominantly distressed African-American neighborhoods where aggressive marketing techniques target this population. One condemned house was painted fiery orange - the color of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Another is Crown Royal bag purple.

The Cheetos House

I’m not too sure how I feel about this interpretation of condemned housing. I flinch at a possible too-easy, stereotypical perception that African-Americans somehow partner in the demise of these neighborhoods. 

The exhibit is up through New Year’s Eve.

The Crown Royal Bag House

On the other hand, I have no such reservations about the 270 photographs on view at the Architectural League of New York - “All the Queens Houses.” Houses in Queens, a borough of New York City, were photographed during a five year span beginning in 2012 by Spanish born architect Rafael Herrin-Ferri. 

"Three Musicians" homage to Picasso's work of same name

Queens is as multicultural as any community in America and the result is a laissez-faire attitude about building: Live and let build!  How different from the homogenized zoning restrictions in most of our cities and especially, suburban subdivisions.  The richness and quirkiness of individual style demands an embrace of multiculturalism and challenge those of us who are “design snobs” to set aside preconceptions of “beauty, balance, and good taste” and dive head first into joyful celebration of otherness. Re-read my second paragraph.  This is what it’s all about.

City Rustic Entries

View All the Queens Houses on its own web site.

The Wedding Cake Condos"

Happy Holidays everybody! 

Three Townhomes

'TIS THE SEASON" (ALMOST)

The family crowds into my dad’s 1949 black Ford for the ride into downtown Tulsa.

Outside! In the City! At night! A HAMBURGER DINNER - chili dogs and hamburgers at White Castle for a dime each - a once a year extravagance!

Crowds of people on Tulsa sidewalks hug themselves to stay warm while glittery floats featuring pretty ladies wearing beautiful bare-shouldered gowns and tiaras crawl down center streets.

Homage to the NY Philharmic, BG Christmas window

High school band members strut and play Noel and school fight songs in spite of freezing fingers and numb multi-stockinged feet.

Finally, the main event, Santa Claus riding behind a team of earth-bound horses. The kids (me included) are riled to a state of ecstasy. 

At the end of the parade, we walk back to my dad’s insurance office to warm ourselves before heading home. By then, our hands are so cold that putting them near radiator heat bring tears to our eyes.

But along the way, we slow to check out major department store windows lighted up like full-screen movie sets, in each one a unique depiction of happy families, cute elves, Victorian streetscapes complete with moving carolers and music spilling onto the sidewalks.

One year - I was about 9 years old - on the walk, I found a wallet on the sidewalk full of dollar bills - over a hundred! A fortune! Nothing inside identified the owner and so my parents handed me $20 to spend anyway I wanted as reward. I bought velvet ribbon, packets of sequins and tiny pins to cover cork balls and produce bastardly necklace/scarf/tie thingies that I was positive my older sisters would adore.  They didn’t but I never lost the sensation - the joy -  of “making” something on my own for someone else. I carry that gene to my grave.

Christmas memories of my youth.  Is it any wonder that many of us feel inadequate, depressed, disappointed no matter how much $$ we spend, how much shopping and how many twinkle lights we drape?  We can’t quite match for our own family - our own children and grandkids - the thrill we experienced back in those days when we knew nothing of politics, when newspapers meant no more to us than looking for the comic strips, when we never worried about retirement accounts or health. 

Was it as simple for the grown ups? They aren’t around now to ask.

And so, with a sigh, I put cash in envelopes for each grandchild. I ask my talented grown-up daughter if she will host Christmas dinner this year and what should I bring? the wine maybe? My other daughter regrets that her family will be too busy this year to join us for dinner - hockey games and part time jobs for the college student - but they’ll get over sometime soon.

I just saw these photographs of Bergdorf Goodman windows in New York. They celebrate different aspects of cultural organizations in the City.

I swear I can smell White Castle hamburgers and chili dogs.

CONGRATULATIONS, MR. BINSTOCK

Painting in Motion - Bill Viola

I don’t understand video art. I’ve seen too many art videos featuring fruit being shot or otherwise maimed or some obscure act or sound repeated ad infinitum and wondered “what was THAT ABOUT? Why should I care? Who cares?! Who pays for this nonsense?”

But every now and then, something beautiful changes my mind.

Bill Viola is nearly one of our own. He’s a New York State native who graduated with a BFA from Syracuse University in 1973, and stayed around Upstate New York for nearly a decade working as the video technician for the Everson Museum in Syracuse and presumably honing his craft and his eye.  

Earth, Wind, Fire, Water = "Martrys"

Several jobs, geography changes and decades later, Viola was the United States representative in the 1995 Venice Biennial and was proclaimed a major “pioneer of new media art.” He’s produced some seriously creative and unique projects with live performance rock groups (Nine Inch Nails), opera (Tristan and Isolde).  He’s won a roomful of international awards, been the subject of books and major news articles here and abroad and was invited back to the prestigious Venice Biennial ten years after his debut there. 

After the 9/11 New York City mass murder, Viola set out to produce a major piece built around the theme of suffering. His challenge: to answer the huge question we must all ask at one time or another “what are you willing to die for?”  His inquiry looked at faith, conscience and love of others. Part of the resulting video (Martyrs) is on view now at Memorial Art Gallery; the Museum prologue tells us that the Greek root meaning of ‘martyr’ is ‘witness’ but I haven’t sorted out who is “witness" - we the viewers or the figures in each of the four panels?

“Martyrs” is a separated, four screen video; in each video, the lens is trained on one central human withstanding an onslaught by one of the four classic elements: fire, water, wind and earth. The figures are filmed  (in a rectangular format like paintings - not horizontal as with most film) against stark black (the video lasts 7 minutes). They look like paintings that have moving parts and (insight!) is that the purpose of video art? 

If I understand correctly, “Martyrs” and its second part “Mary” are owned by St. Paul’s Cathedral (London) but are either on long term loan to the Tate or gifted to the Tate and in either case, I’m unsure how Viola’s work happened to find its way to Rochester but I’m glad it did. I have scoffed at the inclusion of video in our little provincial art space and wondered why we were spending money on the physical needs of that medium.  Frankly, I still wonder why the George Eastman Museum didn’t jump big time early on into the video art arena and suck up the air from any nearby art film wannabes and I can only conclude “uh-oh, another lack of forward thinking by a Rochester Eastman.”  (Cornell’s Johnson Museum launched big-time space for video art a few years back.)

And so here I am again…swallowing my words along with my morning coffee.  Congratulations, Mr Binstock. You are making a difference.

DEATH OF AN ORGANIZATION

Private Garden from 2017 Tour

The Rochester Civic Garden Club died last week.

Some of its members are stunned.  Others are pissed.  Still others say “who?”

This was an organization chartered by New York State 70 years ago to help home gardeners, property owners and non-professionals answer questions, find solutions to horticulture problems and inspire the pursuit of all gardening. RCGC was ensconced in “The Castle,” a property near Highland Park on Mt. Hope, owned by Monroe County. 

I think RCGC was first to arrange tours of private gardens, a fund raising strategy that’s since been adopted by many not-for-profit organizations.  Both the Spring all day symposium and Summer Tour of Gardens saw upwards of 600 participants in its best years.  Those numbers trailed off to slightly more than 175 last year.

Private Spring Garden

So what went wrong? It’s easy to say “falling membership/dwindling interest in programs/elusive funds/poor Board and leadership decisions.”  All those things would be true. Organizations such as Girl and Boy Scouts, Elks, Rotary, University Women’s Associations, and League of Women Voters are all facing similar increased pressures.

People are busy, they have more free-time options, they have increased stimulation from technology and don’t need the same social encounters, and more women - the backbone of many of these organizations - have careers now.

I guess all that’s true. But I see two other glaring reasons.  

Siberian Irises

One is that civic participation and public service aren’t valued and passed down by anybody. We are a much more selfish, egocentric society and distrustful of anyone who isn’t!  We are jealous and miserly and mean spirited. (Am I being too harsh?) I include all those people unwilling to shoulder aid for children, the poor, veterans, elderly, sick and disabled. Also anyone unwilling to pick up trash - even if it isn’t theirs, tell parents next door when they see kids misbehaving or in danger, and regularly visit elderly neighbors.  It’s the rarity of empathy that’s contributed to this state. 

Next!  Lack of risk taking, imagination, creativity and enterprise is ripping through the land - Rochester particularly. “This is the way it’s always been done.” “Don’t rock the boat.” “Where will we get the money?” (That one is always front and center!)  “What if we try and fail?”  We are horrified of failure, so afraid that we are paralyzed. With no new direction, organizations atrophy. Elected leaders - and board members -  don’t speak up. In Rochester: “Remember the Fast Ferry!” stops ideas in their tracks.

RIP Rochester Civic Garden Center. Who’s next?