Conversations with Strangers

You never know where a conversation with a stranger will take you.

Three years ago, I was on the ferry that runs from Peaks Island to Portland, Maine. I always go topside – Casco Bay is a jewel that shines no matter the weather or time of year.

Leaning against the rail was a guy wearing a computer backpack that looked really comfy. (Unlike my messenger bag that hangs off one shoulder and keeps my chiropractor in business.) During the ensuing conversation, we passed Bug Light Park. Located on land that during WW2 was a shipyard that built more than 236 liberty ships, Bug Light is home to a memorial to “ thousands of men and women who worked at the South Portland Shipyards; the seamen who faced the dangers of war on board the Liberty Ships; all of those who served in the war and their families; and the South Portland residents who shared their backyard with a booming shipyard.” http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=50474

As we passed the memorial, I talked about the retrofitting of  liberty ships to transport livestock to Europe following the end of the war. They sailed from ports throughout the US – even from Portland. He was a professor of maritime history at the US Merchant Marine Academy and had never heard about the use of liberty ships as cattle boats.

The Quest:

In 2003, as we were once again preparing for war, I was searching for a topic for my MFA. My quest to find a personal response to the impending war coincided with my search for a thesis theme.

There are several peace  based churches in my town. I began attending the Pipe Creek Friends Meeting House. I met with the minister of the local Brethren Church.  During our conversations, we talked about conscientious objectors who volunteered for starvation experiments to support the war effort. He told me of men in his congregation who participated in LSD experiments. I learned that farmers received deferments from the draft. He then told me that following the end of WW2, more than 4000 cows passed through our town on their way to the port of Baltimore where they were loaded on liberty ships headed for Europe. Maybe I would be interested in interviewing the woman on whose farm these animals were cared for.

The Vision:

As WW2 came to an end, Olive and Roger Roop, Union Bridge, Maryland attended a sermon led by Daniel West. So horrified by the starvation of children following the end of the Spanish Civil War, the Brethren minister had a vision. He wanted to send livestock – heifers – to farmers in war torn Europe. Each calf born would then be passed on to another farm and so on.

Roger Roop was an inveterate farmer who (as Olive said in her interview) “when he saw something that needed to be done, he found a way to do it.” So he offered to care for the donated animals and prepare them for transport.  And he did. And Heifer Relief (now known as Heifer International) was born.

Olive was working in her garden when I arrived. We toured the now silent dairy barn. We examined the contents of file drawers and the boxes of newspaper clippings and other ephemera that documented the beginning of Heifer and the story of the seagoing cowboys.

Passing on the Gift:

While I was interviewing Olive, Peggy Reiff Miller, Indiana, was looking through files and boxes at the New Windsor Brethren Service Center. Her grandfather had been a seagoing cowboy. She had found his diary and wanted to write a series of young adult books about the effort. http://www.peggyreiffmiller.com/

Long story short: which as you can see, is hard to do when talking about synchronicity because there are many twists and turns before the actual moment of synchronicity takes place.  The completion of my thesis exhibition entitled Heifer Relief: Compass, Ark, Berth coincided with the 60^th anniversary of the beginning of Heifer International. I approached the Brethren Service Center to host a seagoing cowboy reunion. We called it: Passing on the Gift. More than 30 cowboys attended and exhibited their memorabilia. We scanned their photos, copied films, and collected their oral histories.

Back to the Beginning:

The American Merchant Marine Museum http://www.usmma.edu/about/museum/ is located on the campus of the US Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY overlooking the waters of the Long Island sound. The museum was once the private home of William Barstow, Thomas Edison’s partner and inventor of the electric meter. The AMMM is a national repository and exhibition center for artifacts, artworks, ship models and maritime ephemera.

Dr. Joshua Smith, Interim Director and my companion on the ferry, had invited me to tour the museum. His next major exhibit: Convoy! would highlight “the Allied effort to supply its forces and civilian populations.” As a companion to the Convoy exhibition, he invited me to install Heifer Relief.

Three years after first meeting Josh, my assistant and I drove a 15’ truck filled to the brim with supplies, sculpture, tools, and NOT my dress clothes across the George Washington bridge to the US Merchant Marine  Academy. We unloaded and began the process of installing the work.

After an arduous 5 day build out, including a visit from the Secretary of DOT, Ray Lehood, removal of VERY HEAVY exhibition cases and the need for a front end loader, Heifer Relief: Compass, Ark, Berth a multi media installation opened. Peggy Reiff Miller presented “The Seagoing Cowboys: Cattlemen of the U.S. Merchant Marine” based on her 10 years of research.

http://www.heifer.org/blog/2012/03/seagoing-cowboys-art-exhibit-now-open-on-long-island.html

You just never know where a conversation will take you:

•  To unearth memorabilia in a basement file drawer…
• To interview a sea going cowboy…
• To creating a vision for the future without forgetting the past; or

To Indiana to find a stone for a library sculpture. Stay tuned.

Reasons Not to Make Art

Ask any artist: What prevents you from making art? The most frequent response is: I don’t have enough time. Artist friends have at least 2 (often 3 jobs): a life job and an art job.

In their life job, they have families to care for, shopping lists to make, homes to repair, cars to maintain, taxes to finish, and 40+ hours of paid work to perform.

In their art job, they have shows to view, work to install, competitions to enter, financial books to keep, press releases to write, address data bases to maintain, supplies to purchase, and of course, art to create.

Leap Years come every 4 years. It’s a gift from the Universe. The Egyptians were the first to come up with the idea of adding a leap day once every four years to keep the calendar in sync with the solar year. Later, the Romans adopted this solution for their calendar, and they became the first to designate February 29 as the leap day.

So, on February 29, I had great plans to work on the design for the library sculpture. I hung up a sheet of blank paper, wedged some clay, and waited for inspiration.

Julia Cameron, author of the Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, believes you just need to make the time to make art.  It’s like exercise: just schedule it. But, creativity is harder to schedule. It doesn’t like to be pigeonholed into showing up at a particular time. After a while, you learn when the Muse has decided to take a day off. So there is nothing left to do except “prepare” for her return.

Sometimes it helps to read art books.

Sometimes it helps to look through your sketchbooks.

Sometimes it helps to write in your journal  (or blog.)

Sometimes it helps to just stack wood, sharpen tools, and retrieve your compressor.

When I completed my father’s memorial garden and granite bench, I left my compressor on the island in Maine. I bought it second hand from a guy in Lewiston Maine who had listed it for sale in an Uncle Henry’s sell or swap pamphlet. This classified ad magazine predates Craigslist by 40 years. Every week, Uncle Henry’s is packed with fresh classified ads. Mainers pick up an Uncle Henry’s, not because they are looking to buy a particular item, but to browse the classified ads for entertainment. You can sell or trade ANYTHING. http://unclehenrys.com/

A friend offered to “store” the compressor while he worked on the roof of his cottage.  At some point, it just “stopped working.” There was no one the island to fix it, so it became a kind of lawn ornament. The summer ended. My friend closed up his cottage, loaded his truck with his tools and my compressor and headed to his upstate New York home.

I didn’t have plans to carve any stone, so there wasn’t any hurry to repair it – or so I thought. A month later  I was awarded the commission for the library. Now there was a sculpture to carve and a deadline to meet.

So, he dragged the compressor to various NY repair shops, doggedly determined to salvage it.  After many unsuccessful forays, he found just the right guy and after paying $1.79 for just the right part, the repair problem was solved.

Cameron also puts great faith in synchronicity and intention. “Synchronicity is like a tap on the shoulder by the universe. It tells us to pay attention, that we’re on the right path… The way will open if you are clear where you are going.”

It takes almost as long to drive to upstate NY as it does to Maine and with the increase in gas prices, it was clear where I WASN’T going, but I needed my compressor to come to me. SOON.

Julia Cameron was right.

I received an email from a friend looking for overnight accommodations on her way to a D.C . conference. She lives in Albany. She drives an SUV. Throughout our years of friendship, she has participated in the schlepping segment of my art life – more times than I can count. It seemed only fitting to offer her the opportunity to chauffer the compressor to Maryland. They lived within 5 miles of each other. He tucked the compressor and reel of 50 foot hose into the back of the Lexus and she was on her way.

I hope you got a few extra hours of sleep on February 29, because we lose an hour this weekend. It’s daylight savings time.

There are a million reasons why artists don’t make art – no money, no time, no heat, no inspiration. However, the most frequent reason for making art is a deadline and I have one.  I have a maquette to make for the Library Design Committee. I really need that Leap Year day now.

Beginning: At Last

When the unconscious speaks, I listen with trepidation. For when it talks, I will have to respond. Sometimes the message comes in the form of a dream. It might be the remains of a disturbing image that lurks beneath my eyelids when I awake. Sometimes it is a missive disguised as a poem or song fragment. Other times, there is only an inkling, an itch, a sense of an unfinished moment that runs rampant throughout the day. I know it is time to go inside myself. And then, I proceed. www.joisraelson.com

Making art is often lonely. I sit in my studio (or more often when I am driving) and jot down ideas, make a quick sketch. Mostly I think. Ideas sometimes come from something I read or a lingering image from a dream. I think about the space; about possible designs; about materials; about the feeling of the work. All this takes place in my mind – alone. From the outside observer, making art can appear to be selfish.

I’ve been watching Art 21- a PBS program featuring artists of the 21^st century www.pbs.org/art21/. As I listen to William Kentridge or Louise Bourgeois describe their work or discuss their process, I grow more comfortable with my own approach to art making. I often look to history for the origin of my ideas and link seeming disparate “memory artifacts” into a whole. I draw (no pun intended) great solace knowing that I have kindred spirits, even though we  work in separate worlds.

BUT

Creating public art requires a different process, a different set of skills and a different way of working. Creating a public art work can not be idiosyncratic. When creating a public work, I attempt to integrate the history of the place and sense of the space with a conceptual foundation based on research. When working in stone, frequently the stone will also ‘participate’ in the creation of the work.

At a Visioning Meeting with the Carroll County Pubic Library Sculpture Garden Committee, the ideas generated were as diverse as the community from which they arose.

The members shared images of favorite sculptures and brainstormed artistic styles that ranged from figurative to abstract; historic to futuristic; organic to formal; monumental to life size.  There seemed to be no common ground.

There are more than 175,000 residents of Carroll County. 17,000 of those inhabitants live in the city of Westminster. Countless folks enter or walk by the library everyday. The performance area and a completed sculpture garden will encourage patrons to spend more of their time outside, as well as inside, the library.

At this point in the process, it seems an impossible task to integrate all the ideas from a 7-person committee – let alone a city of 17,000 – or a county of 175,000 to create an integrated sculpture. But that is the task before me.

Fortunately, when members of the committee described the ‘space’ in which the piece would ‘reside’ – they generated these common elements:

• a sense of openness
• a gathering place
• a focal point, an anchor
• a peaceful feeling
• a sense of whimsy and surprise.

The inkling of the idea I had while in my tree pose combines with the sense of space. Now I must trust the process.

To be an artist is to trust in a deep and profound way in the process of creation. I must be willing to discard the work that does not feel complete. I must be willing to disregard first attempts. I must be willing to be gentle and not berate myself. I must be able to persevere in the path of disappointment or to revel in the exaltation of achievement. I must believe the process is the meaning, not the product. And then, I work.  www.joisraelson.com

Beginnings: Broken Promises

My mom broke her hip. So my promise to post to this blog on a weekly basis was broken – like her hip – before my second entry. I am in Maine. And today the temperature is 0. You ask how cold is that? Well, when you try to breathe through your nose, your nostrils stick . So cold that you can’t take off your mittens to answer your cell phone. The 8 inches of snow we got crusted over  and shimmers in the morning light. I always tell folks in the DC area that Portland streets were cleared within 24 hours after the snowfall.  But due to budget issues, they are conserving sand and  salt so today the streets are one gigantic skating rink. I worry about falling for the first time in my life.  Hence YOGA.

(I promise if you read this entire blog, it WILL connect to creating a stone sculpture for the library.)

Caretakers know that you have to take care of yourself in order to be able to care for others. I decided that a good break from cooking, cajoling and caretaking would be a yoga class. Lila Yoga is located about 1/2 mile from mom’s. It is strange that the neighborhood known as The Hill – thought of as dangerous when I was growing  up (due less to danger and more to ethnicity and poverty) is now the most desired area of the city. In the past few years, there have been a spate of roof removals and glass wall installation so owners could see Casco Bay. There are several organic/local food restaurants and of course, a coffee shop that serves locally roasted coffee.  Although there is a hipper, younger crowd living here, my mom (up until now) has walked through the neighborhood to the local coffee shop daily for at least ten years since she gave up her car and they know her by name. Although most of the people I grew up with are gone, the Hill still looks out for its own.

There are many kinds of yoga practices (emphasis on practice) I am most  familiar with Iyengar….so entering an anyusara studio is a little  daunting especially when everyone seems to be below the age of 30 – including the instructors. More than 35 folks squeezed their mats into the studio space. Yes, we had to stagger  our “bums.”  The first two sessions were a lesson in humility. It has been 7 years since I was on the mat. And I have lost a great deal of flexibility and upper body strength – as well as a connection to the breath..and the ability to remain present.

Staying flexible and strong is critical to working in stone. Standing for hours at a time on a concrete floor  and striking repeatedly on a stone, creates tension and imbalance throughout the body and often carpal tunnel. Yoga helps to realign everything and to maintain focus.

There is one particular pose that I find most difficult (There are many others that I just find difficult.) It is vrksasana: the “Tree” pose. “Standing straight on the left leg, bend the right leg and place the right foot on the root of the left thigh. Stand thus like a tree on the ground.”

In an attempt to maintain my balance, I stare intently at  the wall in front of me. It is constructed of planks of chestnut …the width of which you no longer see. There is a sign on that wall signifying that it was once Longfellow’s home. For those of you who are not New Englanders, Henry Wordsworth Longfellow wrote a famous poem featuring a blacksmith standing under a chestnut tree.  A blight destroyed the American chestnut. But there are organizations attempting to reintroduce it: http://www.me-acf.org/Home.html.

The derivation of the word for LIBRARY is from the Latin word, Liber — with a long I — meaning, “to peel.” It refers to the inner bark of a tree. Early manuscripts were written on bark, and from this, we get the modern word “Library.”

And in that moment of trying to stand like a tree,  my brain made an unexpected connection. And this is how a sculpture starts to grow. And this is how a sculptor walks along the stone path.

Endings and beginnings

Before I start a new art work, whether it’s a film, article or sculpture, I need to close the door on the previous piece. In this case, before I could start a stone sculpture, I literally “closed IN a door.”

I live in an old firehouse with a leaky large door and no pole. (It was a town hall, jail, movie theatre, and volunteer firehouse in various incarnations.) I heat the work space with a wood stove and am ALWAYS cold. This was the year I decided to close in the front door by building a well insulated wall that allowed light in, kept the cold out and provided a wall on which to draw.

Windows appear

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With input from the neighbors and artisan carpenter Larry Fisher, we closed in the firetruck door. As temperatures fell, I completed the final coat of paint and prepared for the next step in my creation process.