Apr162020April 16, 2020June 17, 2023by Glitterchicken

Dallas Arts District

Posted in Architecture, Art & Literature, Music

When you mention Dallas, sports fans think of the Cowboys, foodies think of barbecue, and history buffs and conspiracy theorists think of JFK’s assassination. But does anybody think of art? How about architecture? No? Well, keep on reading. On a business trip to Dallas, I stayed an extra day to seek out wonders existing right under my nose that I had been too busy working to explore. That’s when I discovered the Dallas Arts District and was totally blown away. Where else can you find world class museums, concert halls, and performing arts venues conveniently located on 19 contiguous city blocks spanning 68 acres? Nowhere. Dallas is the only place in the world where it exists.[1] And it gets better. On those 19 blocks, there are no less than 5 buildings designed by Pritzker award-winning architects.[2] Luckily, I had time to visit 2 of these architectural marvels because I went to the Arts District on a Friday when many of the museums offer extended hours. More about that later . . .  

My first stop was the Crow Museum of Asian Art of The University of Texas at Dallas, an unexpected treasure trove in light of the fact that the Dallas- Fort Worth region does not have a sizeable Asian-American population (5.9% compared with 13% in New York City and 35.8% in San Francisco). Why the Crow? I’ve been fascinated by Asian art ever since I was a kid, captivated by the Zodiac signs on my Chinese restaurant placemat. Although the size of my wallet is considerably smaller, I can related to the museum’s founders, Trammel and Margaret Crow, who fell in love with Chinese art forms on their first visit to China in 1976 after the death of Mao Zedong when decades of icy relations with the U.S. were just beginning to thaw. Over the years, the Crows amassed a sizable collection of Chinese art and as their travels expanded, they added more pieces from Japan, India, and other Southeast Asian countries. With the expert assistance of Clarence Shangraw from the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, they selected the pieces forming the core of the permanent collection and achieved their goal of “bridging the gap between East and West” when the museum opened its doors in 1998.

The Crow Museum defines Asia as “endlessly diverse, and not of one place, time, or idea.” Visitors are invited to explore these dual themes of infinity and timelessness, which cease to be abstract concepts when you’re eyeballing objects originating from a kaleidoscope of cultures that literally spans the centuries. For example, contemporary Japanese ceramics of all shapes, colors, and sizes were exhibited on the ground floor, meticulously carved jade sculptures from the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) were exhibited on the upstairs level along with a mid-career retrospective of Master Shen-Long’s innovative ink paintings, and a Japanese bell from the Edo Period (1615-1868) hung silently in the courtyard, waiting in vain for a monk to come along and strike it with a wooden mallet. In honor of its 20th anniversary, the building underwent a multi-million dollar expansion in 2018,[3] which doubtlessly reinforced the Crow Museum’s nickname “the Jewel Box of the Dallas Arts District,” alluding to the fact that the true gems can be found within, not unlike the Three Jewels of Bhuddism.[4]

On to my second stop–the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, aka “the Meyerson”–which opened in September 1989.[5] As you enter the lobby and pavilion, you walk along a curving pathway connected to other curving pathways constructed of what appears to be miles of Italian travertine (30,000 square feet as a matter of fact). A physically commanding experience that’s absolutely breathtaking, you feel like you’re inside a giant nautilus shell straight out of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, with all paths leading everyone to the central chamber where the Eugene McDermott Concert Hall is situated.[6] It’s worth noting that internationally renowned architect I.M. Pei who designed the Meyerson wasn’t thrilled with the concert hall’s shoebox design that had already been decided upon by the trustees, complaining that it was “too conservative” for him to fully express himself. This illustrates what I believe to be a universal truth–when a modicum of restraint is imposed upon an artist, the resulting work is more impressive. Like when you put a small gift in a large box to instill a sense of mystery and surprise, Pei was prompted to “wrap another form” around the shoebox, giving birth to the curvilinear shape that he later admitted “created excitement in that space.”[7]

Conservative or not, audiophiles will tell you there was good reason for the concert hall’s shoebox design. Celebrated acoustician Russell Johnson succeeded at his goal to create a acoustical masterpiece similar to the Vienna Musikverein and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw.[8] According to Jaap van Zwede, Dallas Symphony Orchestra Music Director: “The acoustics of this hall are comparable to the great concert halls of Europe, and of the world. The concert hall itself becomes an instrument of the orchestra, and we adjust to it and fine tune our music-making to the hall week after week.”[9] I stayed to watch the performance of resident master percussionists, D’Drum, and I can attest to the sonorous quality of the room; instead of all the vibrations rising up to the balcony like heat waves, it sounded like the musicians were down in the Orchestra Section with me, minus the unsettling reverberations that usually accompany the beating of drums and banging of gongs at close distance.[10]  

While the Crow Museum was intimate and contemplative and the Meyerson was impressive and arresting, my 3rd stop–the Nasher Sculpture Center–was open and engaging.

The brainchild of Raymond & Patsy Nasher, “The Nasher” as it’s affectionately called by locals, is one of the first museums in the world exclusively dedicated to modern and contemporary sculpture. Interestingly, it was the Nashers’ travels to Mexico sparking their interest in pre-Columbian art that led to their lifelong love of modern sculpture–a profound example of how learning about the ancient past can produce a deeper appreciation of the present. Besides the popular rotating special exhibitions, the Nasher showcases more than 300 works by Giacometti, di Suvero, Matisse, Rodin, Picasso, Moore, Serra, Miró, Kelly, and other luminaries.[11]

Now, I’m not an expert in modern sculpture–far from it–but in my humble opinion, the building housing the Nasher collection and the adjoining sculpture garden are the real masterpieces. You don’t have to give a fig about sculpture to thoroughly enjoy being there.  The immense 54,000 square foot building designed by architect Renzo Piano has an archeological aesthetic, like a classical ruin in an urban landscape, undoubtedly a homage to the Nashers’ early interest in antiquities. But the building’s design is scientific in a functional sense too; it utilizes the best features of the surrounding natural environment to help visitors see and appreciate the sculptures while neutralizing the harsh effects of the merciless Dallas sun. The ivory, low-reflective Italian travertine tiles provide lightness and minimize glare, the glass walls facing the street and garden connected by 500-foot long corridors provide unobstructed views and create the illusion that the sculptures are floating in mid-air, and the glass roof shielded by a sunscreen comprised of hundreds of cast aluminum shells that looks like a giant honeycomb is a miraculous feat of engineering–direct sunlight is kept out so that only the soft northern light can come in, making the forms and textures of the sculptures really pop.[12]

The 1.4 acre sculpture garden designed by California landscape architect Peter Walker[13] (who co-designed the World Trade Center Memorial in NYC along with architect Michael Arad) is a further extension of the Nasher Center’s successful harmonization of art and nature. As you stroll through the grounds, the sculptures appear to sprout out of the earth like the trees, making you wonder if they have roots too. Many of the sculptures are bigger than you are, creating a Alice-in-Wonderland fantastical effect until you get up close to them and they lose their intimidation factor when you see they’re just big hunks of metal like the playground equipment you climbed on when you were a kid. Maybe that’s not the best example, you’re thinking, because you’ve witnessed jungle gyms and monkey bars viciously attack an unsuspecting kid (maybe you, perhaps?) but if you get out of your own Pandora’s box of traumatic memories and pause for a moment, was that painful bloody mess really the sadistic intent of the equipment or just the unfortunate result of the kid acting recklessly without thinking? The moral of this story is no matter how fun it might look, don’t go climbing on the sculpture at the Nasher, or bad things will happen.

What you can do, though–and I can’t recommend this highly enough–is go to the “Til Midnight at the Nasher” event that occurs every 3rd Friday night during the warm-weather months. You’ll find the building and the garden bursting with activity. Indoors, people are nibbling delectable tidbits at the Wolfgang Puck-inspired café and wandering the corridors learning about the sculptures from enthusiastic, informed employee guides like Heather Joy (don’t know if it’s her real name or a nom de plume, but it’s on her name tag and it fits her perfectly). Outdoors, talented local musicians and DJs perform for a lively crowd. When it gets dark, folks lounge about on the lawn watching films projected on an inflatable movie screen.

Bring your wife and kids! The films are totally family-friendly (they were showing the O.G. Men in Black the night I visited). Or bring your date! I recall passing by a couple kissing under one of the majestic willow trees bordering the reflecting pool. Behavior that would have seemed tasteless and vulgar if it had happened in a bar was somehow touching and aww-inspiring in that sublimely romantic setting. Just don’t bring your wife and your date simultaneously; that would go in the same category as climbing on the sculpture – no bueno. But if your wife is your date, well then you’re Superman and you can do whatever you want.

Or just bring yourself! Take off your shoes and feel the cool grass on your toes and listen to the cricket chorus after a long day of absorbing the sights and sounds of art being created on a great big Texas-style scale.

But first things first, procure a cold beverage and a snack! I sidled up to one of the outdoor satellite bars, eschewed the fancy schmancy signature cocktail, and ordered a can of my favorite local brew, the Dallas Blonde from Deep Ellum Brewing Co.[14] The bartender, a charismatic chap named Chris, talked me into purchasing popcorn sprinkled with the Chef’s special seasoning; he didn’t have to twist my arm because it was packed in a retro-style bag with a smiley clown face printed on it. I was probably 6 years old the last time I saw something like that at a carnival, only this bag was 3 times the size; it was Texas, after all . . .

Now, the popcorn in that bag couldn’t possibly have been coated with crack, but it might as well have been because I couldn’t stop stuffing it in my mouth. Standing there swilling beer with pieces of popcorn falling out of my face, I decided it would be a great time to interview the bartenders for this blog. (Yeah, I’m that smooth). Luckily, Chris’s cohorts, Carolyn and Matthew, were equally charming and gregarious and didn’t seem to mind. When I asked each of them what they liked best about working at the Nasher, they all said similar things: the chance to interact with people from all over the world, the diversity of the visitors, and the positive feedback they get. Judging from our brief conversation, they seemed genuinely grateful for the opportunity to work in such an idyllic environment, ripping to shreds the stereotype about the younger generation’s inability to interact with other humans face-to-face.

Speaking of human social interaction (remember that?), when I reflect back on that balmy Friday evening I spent at the Nasher, it seems even more like the Garden of Eden now that we’re prohibited from gathering in groups due to the fear of spreading the coronavirus. Only time will tell how long our current fall from grace will last. Meanwhile–if we have the means–there’s nothing preventing us from pledging our financial support to special places like the Dallas Arts District that exist for the purpose of bringing us together to appreciate the beauty of our shared human creative legacy.

[1] Formore info about the Dallas Arts District, see https://www.dallasartsdistrict.org/about/and for a quick visitors’ guide, check out https://www.visitdallas.com/things-to-do/trip-ideas/24-hours-in-the-dallas-arts-district.html

[2] Forsome great photos of the “Fabulous Five,” see https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/tour-the-dallas-art-districts-amazing-architecture

[3]https://www.nbcdfw.com/entertainment/the-scene/crow-museum-celebrates-20-years-with-new-name-and-expansion/262267/ Incredibly, after all this money was spent on renovations, admission to the Crow Museum is still FREE. That’s right, you don’t have to pay for time travel throughout the Asian continent, although a suggested donation of $7 for adults and $5 for seniors is greatly appreciated.

[4] Dharma, Sangha, and Bhudda. See https://www.lionsroar.com/trusting-the-three-treasures/

[5] Fun fact: Ross Perot donated $10 million for the right to name the building in honor of Morton Meyerson, former president of Electronic Data Systems and former chair and CEO of Perot Systems, who worked with the Dallas Symphony Association for 10 years to create a home for the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

[6] The “counterpoint of curves” phenomenon is discussed in this fitting tribute to I.M. Pei, for creating the Meyerson Center, in the wake of the architect’s death. See https://www.dallasnews.com/arts-entertainment/performing-arts/2019/05/23/thank-you-i-m-pei-for-the-meyerson-symphony-center/

[7] Pei’s remarks were featured in this better than-adequate bordering on good Wikipedia article. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton_H._Meyerson_Symphony_Center   

[8] Johnson was so enamored with his creation that he requested to be buried in the Meyerson, and while urban legend says that Johnson’s remains are interred within its walls, the facts say otherwise. https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2009/11/russell-johnson-sought-meyerson-burial/

[9] For more about theacoustical qualities of the Meyerson, see https://www.dallasartsdistrict.org/performing-arts/meyerson-symphony-center/ And if you want to geek out on the acoustics of concert halls generally, see http://www.angelfire.com/music2/davidbundler/acoustics.html

[10] Do yourself a favor and checkout D’Drum. Percussion is so much more than drums. Even drums are so much more than drums. http://www.pureddrum.com/

[11] For more info about the Nasher sculpturecollection, see https://www.nashersculpturecenter.org/visit/about-the-nasher

[12] For more about the Nasher’s marvellousarchitecture, see https://www.nashersculpturecenter.org/Portals/0/Documents/Learning-Resources/Nasher-Architecture-Resource-Advanced-Level.pdf?ver=2020-03-06-174152-353

[13] Apparently, Walker got into a big brouhahawith a neighboring building owner, claiming that the glare from the Museum Tower is burning his vegetation. https://www.dallasnews.com/arts-entertainment/architecture/2013/06/13/landscape-architect-peter-walker-who-designed-the-nasher-garden-strongly-denounces-museum-tower-and-its-ownership/

[14] Here’s what the Beer Advocate had to sayabout Deep Ellum Dallas Blonde. The dude who said it tastes like what heimagines a skunk’s ass would taste like must have had a bad one. https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/27403/83956/


Oct302018October 30, 2018November 15, 2018by Glitterchicken

Vermont’s Best Kept Secret

Posted in Art & Literature, History, Nature

We knew that Robert Frost had lived somewhere in these hills, but where? As we drove westward along Vermont Route 125, my mother and my brother simultaneously commented on how perfectly situated the Bread Loaf Campus of Middlebury College was, with its sturdy green-roofed yellow wooden buildings nestled at the foot of Bread Loaf Mountain. “We have to be getting close now,” I said as we drove deeper into the Green Mountain National Forest toward the hamlet[1] of Ripton. I knew that Robert Frost had been closely affiliated with the Bread Loaf School of English, where he had taught almost every summer and autumn since the 1920s and had been one of the co-founders of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference.[2]

About a mile down the road on our right, we pulled over at the Robert Frost Wayside. I jumped out of the car like a detective searching for clues and walked over to a sign with a large glass case enclosing laminated pages upon which thousands of words were printed. There were no touch screens in sight. Passers-by glanced up at the sign but quickly lowered their eyes and departed intimidated, but not I. Oh no, I got out my reading glasses, determined to figure out where Robert Frost had lived once and for all!

When I noticed my mother standing next to me, I excitedly shared with her all I had learned from the imposing sign. Back in the prehistoric days, Vermont had been covered with ice and the mountain range was created by glaciers. Turns out Mom had been wearing her reading glasses too; she started telling me about guys like Nathaniel Chipman and Joseph Battell who were credited with establishing the State of Vermont, Middlebury College, and nearby towns.[3] Great, so we were both tied for the coveted title of “Little Miss Smarty-Pants,” but what did any of this stuff have to do with Robert Frost?

Then I noticed something on the sign saying that the grove of pine trees we were standing under had been planted as a tribute to Robert Frost so that families could enjoy picnicking in the shade just minutes away from the rustic cabin where the great poet had once lived. “So the cabin must be somewhere behind this grove of pines,” I said, “but where?” The sign did not tell you how to get there.

Vermont is famous for its law prohibiting billboards since 1968[4], but not as well documented is the near absence of signs and markers pointing out historical sites or places of interest to visitors. I was wondering if this absence was purposeful. Could it be that Vermonters don’t tell you about things unless you really care to know them?

I pondered this question while wandering back towards the car to get my camera and join my brother who was communing with nature across the road. As I popped open the trunk, a couple of old-timers in a car bearing a Vermont license plate pulled up alongside me. I decided to try an experiment with mental telepathy.  I looked them in the eye, flashed them my best toothy grin and gave them a good old “Hey, how’s it going?” all the while thinking of ideas from the Constitution like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the hopes that they would know what I was looking for.[5]

What happened next gave me goosebumps. The man told me (in an incredible New England accent) that if we wanted to see the log cabin where Robert Frost lived and composed most of his poetry for the last 25 years of his life, just drive out of the parking lot and head eastward (the same direction from whence we came) but don’t go too far;  just a few yards away, we’ll come to an unmarked road where we’re supposed to turn left, then drive a ½ mile up the hill and we’ll come to the Homer Noble farmhouse. His wife told me (in the same incredible accent, of course) that’s where we should park the car and walk about 100 yards farther uphill to the cabin, where we could take pictures of the exterior but we weren’t allowed inside for historic property preservation reasons.[6]

After following our local tour guides’ step-by-step directions, we arrived at the white wooden structure identified by a small blue plaque as the Homer Noble Farm, which is now owned and maintained by Middlebury College as a memorial to Robert Frost[7], who used the property as his “summer home” from 1939 to 1963. Remarkably, the plaque didn’t say a word about the modest log cabin up the hill where Frost really lived.

New York Times writer Robert D. Kaplan, described the approach to the cabin with perfectionistic accuracy: ”To see the cabin itself, walk about a hundred yards beyond the farmhouse up a wide, grassy lane bordered by birch and fir trees until you see an opening on your left that leads into a mountain dell where the cabin is situated.”[8] While Kaplan’s article beautifully captures the subtle splendor of Ripton’s physical geography known as “Robert Frost Country,” what’s missing from his narrative is any attempt to describe  Frost’s internal landscape. Maybe this was a purposeful omission - not unlike Vermont’s historical markers - that forces you to solve the riddle of the poet’s soul yourself?

What on God’s green earth would have prompted Frost to quit his full-time position as a Professor of English at Amherst College in 1938, purchase this 150-acre parcel of farmland, and return to this teeny tiny log cabin every year?  Sure, it was close to the Bread Loaf Campus and it had a lovely view of Mount Moosamaloo[9] but there had to be more to the story. . . something profoundly emotional.

The key to this mystery lies in the unfortunate truth that great changes in a person’s life are often prompted by great tragedy. In March 1938, Frost’s wife Elinor died after suffering a heart attack while recovering from breast cancer surgery. Subsequently, the poet’s life began to disintegrate. Middlebury students and faculty whispered about Frost “suffering a nervous breakdown” and witnessed him exhibiting uncharacteristically erratic behavior – such as the notorious incident where Frost interrupted Archibald McLeish’s poetry reading.[10]

It’s not surprising that Frost would have come unglued when you consider the circumstances. Back in the day, it was customary for wives to take on the role of secretary to their husbands, and if the husband was a big shot, the wife’s job was bigger too, not unlike the role of the executive assistant in today’s corporations. Although Frost deliberately maintained the lifestyle of the humble New England farmer, there’s no denying that he was quite the big shot. With 3 Pulitzer prizes under his belt as well as a plethora of other awards and honorary degrees[11], Frost received a never-ending stream of offers to teach at colleges and universities, invitations to publicly recite his poetry, and buckets of fan mail. Who was going to take care of all these mundane tasks now that Elinor was gone?

Besides the ruination of the practical aspects of his life, Elinor’s loss devastated Robert Frost on a deeply personal level. She started out as his high school sweetheart with an intellectual capacity arguably equivalent to his own; they were co-valedictorians when they graduated from Lawrence High School in 1892. After they were married in 1895, Elinor became more than just a spouse; she was Robert Frost’s best friend and served as the inspiration for most of his poetry. As a couple, they had 5 children together and shared a lot of memories, including an unsuccessful stint at farming in New Hampshire and living in England for several years before the outbreak of WWI, where they were introduced to contemporary British poets who greatly influenced Frost’s work.[12]

Knowing this back story, it’s understandable that keeping up a full-time job may have become unbearable for Frost while he was mourning Elinor’s death, and he might have made the prudent decision to resign from Amherst rather than risk embarrassing himself. But without a wife and a job to give him a reason to get up in the morning, why didn’t Robert Frost’s life continue to deteriorate in 1938? Instead of dying in the depths of despair, he ascended to further greatness by winning yet another (his 4th) Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1943 and still kicking 20 years later, Frost was invited to recite a poem at President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in 1963.[13] Was Frost superhuman? Quite the contrary, he was all too human. It took a woman to stitch the pieces of his life back together and give him the impetus to keep on writing prize-winning poems.

Kay Morrison was the wife of Ted Morrison, a poet and Harvard professor who had been the Director of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference since 1932. Having first met Robert Frost back in 1918 when she was a student at Bryn Mawr College, Kay decided to pay a personal visit to Frost in July of 1938 when she heard that he was having a tough time coping with the loss of his wife. Kay’s goal was to persuade Frost to continue his participation in the writers’ conference, thinking that the intellectual stimulation might set him back on track. Kay’s powers of persuasion must not have been too shabby because Frost ended up smitten with her and proposed marriage, which she refused because she was already married and didn’t want to leave her husband.  Kay did accept Frost’s offer to serve as his personal assistant, however, and served as the poet’s “manager, mistress, and muse” for the next 25 years of his life according to Frost’s biographer Jeffrey Meyers.[14]

Whether or not Frost and Morrison were lovers is still a matter of considerable debate, but they undoubtedly had a tight bond. Frost decided to purchase the Homer Noble Farm rented the farmhouse out to the Morrisons so that he could keep Kay close by. Although Frost slept in the log cabin and did all of his writing there, Kay ensured that he did not live a reclusive life. Not only did Frost take all of his meals with the Morrisons so that he would never have to dine alone, but Kay encouraged students from the Bread Loaf School of English to visit him. Peter Stanlis wrote nostalgically about the first time he and his classmates visited Frost at his cabin in the summer of 1939. They walked all the way to Ripton “loaded down with a half dozen bottles of ginger ale, a large bag of ice, and packages of ginger snaps.” Frost greeted the students warmly and invited them into the cabin where they sat in a semi-circle around the poet and discussed the distinction between “intellectual” and “rationalist” and other philosophical questions.[15] Kay must have had the wisdom to understand that personal interactions like these worked as an antidote to the isolation Frost was feeling, thereby staving off the depression he may have experienced had he been left to his own devices. And Frost must have appreciated Kay’s efforts because he dedicated A Witness Tree to her.

As I surveyed the landscape surrounding Frost’s cabin, I could see how this would be an ideal place to work through the stages of grief and eventually tap into the power within to create fresh new poetry like a bear emerging from its den after a long winter.

There was just enough peace and tranquility to provide solace and just enough activity going on in the natural world to provide subject matter for contemplation. It was hard not to feel a dreamy sense of lightness. While walking downhill towards the farmhouse, I watched my brother compose a photograph with a leaf that had fallen from a nearby maple tree and a baby pumpkin that someone had kindly left on a tree stump to serve as artistic inspiration, no doubt. I watched my mother wave a milkweed plant she had found growing in the meadow; she laughed like a little girl as the silky white seed strands burst out of the pods and drifted away in the wind. Suddenly my brother was Man Ray and my mother was Laura Ingalls Wilder. How did that transformation happen? I felt overwhelmingly grateful that those old-timers had read my mind and told us how to get to this magical place.

As we were getting into the car, a couple who looked like they had just stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting informed us that if we were to walk about 100 feet up the hill behind the farmhouse, we would find the log cabin where Robert Frost had lived and wrote poetry. “It’s not on any of the signs,” they said, “because we only want people who are really interested to know about it.[16]” We looked at each other and smiled, feeling privileged to have been let in on Vermont’s best kept secret.

[1] In local terminology, Ripton is considered a “hamlet,” not a village. This article about neighbors concerned about people shooting guns in the National Forest is a case in point. https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/neighbors-are-fired-up-about-target-shooting-on-national-forest-land/Content?oid=8501904. I’m not even going to try to explain the difference between a hamlet and a village. Ask me about the fine distinction between a shopping center, a shopping mall, and a strip mall though, and I could give you a Bryn Mawr dissertation.

[2] Established in 1926, the Middlebury Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference is considered “the oldest and most prestigious writers’ conference in the country” according to The New Yorker. For more information about what happens there, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_Loaf_Writers%27_Conference and http://www.middlebury.edu/bread-loaf-conferences/bl_writers

[3] See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Chipman and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Battell

[4] For more on the VT anti-billboard law, see Nathaniel Gibson’s  article in the Rutland Herald at http://www.nathanielrgibson.com/yes-we-have-no-billboards-rutland-herald-article/2012/03/13/

[5] I’ll bet you’re wondering why I didn’t just come out and ask them where the hell the Robert Frost cabin was like a normal person instead of trying out this wacky experiment. I’ve asked myself this question many times and I still can’t come up with a legitimate answer. All I know is that the wacky experiment worked and I ended up with a much more interesting story to share with you just by being my decidedly abnormal self.

[6] An alternative to driving that may be preferable is to walk from the Wayside parking lot up to the cabin and back. I suspect the reason why this local couple suggested that we drive has to do with their expertise at mental telepathy. My mother is a senior citizen who has trouble walking any kind of distance, especially uphill, a fact that would have been obvious to them.

[7] In 2008, Middlebury College established a Robert Frost Cabin Farm Preservation Fund and a Writer-in-Residence position, which involves a faculty member actually living in the farmhouse. For more details, see http://www.middlebury.edu/newsroom/archive/2008/node/111607

[8] From Robert Frost’s Vermont by Robert D. Kaplan, The New York Times (Sept. 1, 1991) at https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/01/travel/robert-frost-s-vermont.html

[9] For more about Frost’s connection to Ripton, see Allison Flint’s charming article at http://www.onenewengland.com/article.php?id=396

[10] Stanlis, Peter J., Conversations with Robert Frost: The Bread Loaf Period (2009).

[11] Frost won the Pulitzer in 1924 for New Hampshire, in 1931 for Collected Poems, and in 1937 for A Further Range. He went on to win the Pulitzer a 4th time in 1943 for A Witness Tree. Throughout his lifetime, Frost received more than 40 honorary degrees. https://www.biography.com/people/robert-frost-20796091

[12] For more about Robert and Elinor’s life together and the British poets that influenced Frost’s work, see    https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/robert-frost

[13] JFK had this to say about Frost: “He has bequeathed his nation a body of imperishable verse from which Americans will forever gain joy and understanding.” https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/robert-frost

[14] Meyers, Jeffrey. Robert Frost: A Biography. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996.

[15] Stanlis, Peter J., Conversations with Robert Frost: The Bread Loaf Period (2009). This insightful volume summarizes discussions between Stanlis and Frost that took place between 6 consecutive summers (1939-1944) when Stanlis was a student at Bread Loaf Graduate School of English, plus additional exchanges at Bread Loaf in 1961-1962.

[16] Robert Kaplan attests to the validity of our observation that Vermonters are intentionally secretive about the cabin’s location. When he asked the manager of the Bread Loaf Inn why the cabin and the road leading there were unmarked, this is the response he got: "We only want those people who want to see the cabin badly enough that they'll stop somewhere and ask directions."  https://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/01/travel/robert-frost-s-vermont.html


May312018May 31, 2018July 9, 2023by Glitterchicken

Jiri Trnka

Posted in Art & Literature, History

Imagine a world instilled with curiosity, excitement, and wonder composed for adult sensibilities. It would likely be a world created from the childlike traits of play, persistence, humor, creativity, goodness combined with the adult knowledge and experience of deception, disappointment, power, and suffering. This is the world that Jiri Trnka created in his many poignantly fascinating stop motion animated films.

Jiri Trnka is not a widely known name in our current era dotted with talentless hyper-famous reality TV stars and soulless CGI movies, but his influences are undoubtedly felt and far reaching. Trnka’s creative work inspired several generations of artists and filmmakers such as Kihachiro Kawamoto, Stephen and Timothy Quay, Bretislav Pojar, Zdena Deitchova, Jan Svankmajer, and Stephen Bosustow, the co-founder of United Productions of America. Trnka was also incredibly innovative; countless children and their families throughout Europe and North America have enjoyed his films and books. But even more important, Trnka’s legacy is directly tied to the intrinsic value of artistic expression and the human need to resist totalitarian control over the creative spirit.

Trnka was a Czechoslovakian born artist and he lived and worked under authoritarian communist rule. Although he was not a political artist, he did create work with an artfully hidden political message of resistance. Through his creative adaptation of puppetry, story, and technique, Trnka became enormously famous within Czechoslovakia while walking his secretly defiant tightrope. Due to his fame, the Communist Party sought to appropriate his popularity by subsidizing his films and awarding him the dubious honor of “National Artist.” After his death in 1969, Trnka’s veiled message of resistance and liberty was discovered and his films were banned until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1993. It is believed that Trnka’s influence would have been greater if his films had not been widely outlawed by the Communists after his death.

As an artist, Jiri Trnka was extraordinarily creative and his skills and techniques were amazingly diverse. He was a wildly multifaceted prodigious creator, and he easily glided between numerous mediums such as illustration, painting, wood carving, sculpture, animation, set design, puppetry, and stop motion film; however, it can be argued that his greatest area of artistic expression was storytelling.

Trnka’s own creative story began when he was a young boy living in Plzen, Czechoslovakia. His father was a plumber and his mother was a dressmaker. Raised in a poor family of laborers, they struggled for life’s necessities and as a result, young Jiri needed to help the family earn money. His grandmother taught him to carve wooden toys and sew clothes, which inspired a robust passion for puppetry. After performing his first puppet shows for his friends, Trnka got a job when he was only 8 years old at a local theater owned by Josef Skupa, a relatively famous puppeteer. Skupa trained Trnka and later encouraged him to attend the Academy of Art and International Design in Prague.

After completing his education, Trnka worked as an illustrator for a newspaper and pursued becoming a fine art painter. Then in 1936, at 24 years old, he started a puppet theater, which enjoyed a modest level of popularity until it was forced to close due to the outbreak of World War II.

Trnka adapted by working as a stage designer and a free agent illustrator specifically for children’s books. Although best known for his stop motion films, Trnka first earned fame as an illustrator. During his short career, he illustrated over 130 children’s books, including the Brother’s Grimm Fairytales, the Hans Christian Andersen Stories, Fireflies, and The Garden, which Trnka authored as well. Several of Trnka’s books were met with international success and received prestigious awards such as the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest honor available to an illustrator of children's books. Trnka’s books were quite common in the U.S. after World War II, and it is ironic that a man who lived and worked under the totalitarian thumb of a brutal Communist government inspired generations of American children during the Cold War.

Trnka illustrated in pencil, watercolor, oils, and inks. According to Trnka’s biographer: “By painting the dreamlike aspects of reality Trnka was doing the same as the surrealist, but his illustrations have none of the cruelty or artistic ruthlessness of surrealism. His roaming brush reflected a child’s roaming mind, with its ability to concentrate, its tendency to fantasy.” This theme of maintaining a connection to childlike thinking and feeling appears throughout Trnka’s work, especially in his animation and stop motion films.

When he was 33 years old, Trnka entered the field of animation with short, two-dimensional hand drawn films. In 1946, he submitted three of these films – The Gift, Animals and Robbers, and The Spring Man and SS – to the first Cannes Film Festival. All three films were selected for viewing and they were each well received. In a surprising turn, Trnka’s Animals and Robbers won the short film category. Trnka also received positive reviews for The Gift, which critics from the Penguin Film Review hailed it for its “pure sense of graphic design” and a French critic described it as “the Citizen Kane of animation.”

Despite the impressive accolades for Trnka’s two-dimensional animated shorts he decided to direct his attention toward puppets and stop motion animation films. Dissatisfied with the industrial, assembly line nature needed to create hand drawn animation, Trnka also believed that the process weakened his originality. As a result, Trnka started his own studio and focused his attention on transfiguring traditional Czech folk stories using three-dimensional puppets and stop motion. The first film that came out of Trnka’s fledgling studio was the ten-minute long Bethlehem. The film was well received and his puppets were described as being full of charisma and gracefully nimble.

After his initial success, Trnka completed five more short films inspired by Czech folk stories and combined and packaged the films as a single feature-length film titled Spalicek (1947). In English-speaking markets the film was titled The Czech Years. Trnka collaborated with renowned composer Vaclav Trojan to write the score, a partnership that continued until Trnka’s death. This film won the Venice Film Festival prize and later, two segments from this film – Jaro (Spring) and Legenda o sv. Prokopu (Legend of St. Prokop) – were banned as religious propaganda by the Communist Party.

Trnka eventually made five feature-length puppet stop motion films, including the Emperor’s Nightingale and A Midsummer Night's Dream, which are often considered his best feature films. Emperor’s Nightingale was an immediate success due to its powerful message and interesting mix of live and stop motion to tell a story of a young boy who was battling both an illness and the feelings of alienation and loneliness. The narrative bounces between real life and the boy’s unconscious dreams, where his toys and other items in his room transform into fanciful characters and objects from a far-off land. Interestingly, the English version of the film was created with commentary provided by Boris Karloff. Interestingly, although the Communist censors detected an underlying theme of impeding liberty, they didn’t ban the film. In all likelihood, this is because the film was made with puppets and the story was included within the regime’s approved literary repertoire.

In contrast to Emperor’s Nightingale, Trnka’s A Midsummer Night's Dream was at first not warmly received. It is not clear why, but it was probably related to Trnka’s innovative use of film techniques and camera positioning. Later the film was recognized as a “stunningly beautiful, highly faithful adaptation of Shakespeare’s play.” The film is often described as “astonishingly beautiful” and “achingly tender” and critics also have commented on the impressive focus on design, which was rare for Czech films of that time period. Trnka shot the film with two different cameras, which means he painstakingly positioned the puppets twice, and as a consequence, two versions of the film exist. In one of these cameras, Trnka used Eastmancolor film, which was of exceptionally high quality and thus, very expensive. Trnka toiled on this film for several years, sacrificing his health to attain his artistic vision; he was immensely committed to his art and valued it deeply.

Trnka’s last and arguably greatest film is The Hand (1969), a short stop motion work about the conflict that occurs when a totalitarian authority interferes with an artist’s freedom to create. The film starts with a happy, innocent artist (a potter) who is content making pots for his beloved flowers. This nameless artist lives an uncomplicated life without the luxuries of television, radio, newspapers, or even books. He lives in a small modest room furnished with only a bed and a manually operated pottery wheel. A single window provides light and a comforting breeze. Despite his humble circumstances, we recognize that the artist has the autonomy to make his own choices.

As the film progresses, we learn that the artist spends his days making pots, which he stacks in the corner of his room, most likely waiting to be filled with his adored plants; we don’t see him filling or selling the pots, just creating them. We also see him dancing through the room, his face glowing with joy and his movements revealing a sense of optimism and delight. He is undoubtedly happy making pots and content with his life.

Soon the artist is visited by a domineering, authoritarian figure in the shape of a white-gloved hand, which tries to convince the artist to create sculpture according to its specifications. The Hand attempts to bribe the artist with modern luxury goods like radio and TV. (Apparently, the Hand’s goal is to melt the artist’s mind so that it could be easily manipulated by propaganda). Steadfast, the artist politely and persistently refuses.

Switching tactics, The Hand changes its color to black and makes hostile aggressive demands to the point of assault in order to break the artist’s will. Then, The Hand uses sex as a means of enslaving the artist’s soul, thereby transforming him into a controllable puppet. Imprisoned in a cage and forced to carve a stone monument of The Hand, the artist’s body is devoid of joy as it is pulled by the marionette strings of fear, force, and power.

Awaking from his trance, the artist briefly escapes his predicament only to end up dying from fear. Once again, The Hand takes control over the artist and his work. By sponsoring a state funeral for the artist that celebrated his association with the authoritarian power, The Hand effectively eviscerated the artist’s message.

Clearly the film is a commentary on Trnka’s life and a striking protest against the control imposed upon him by the communist Czechoslovakian government. Interestingly, when The Hand was first released it did not garner attention from the Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakian government. It was thought of as just another animated film created by a prominent Czechoslovakian filmmaker.

The Hand was Trnka’s last film and it is often described as his masterpiece. Sadly, four years after its release, Trnka died from heart disease. Ironically, he was given a state funeral in much the same fashion as the protagonist of his final film. It wasn’t until after Trnka’s death in 1969 that the government finally recognized The Hand’s message and promptly banned the film, confiscated copies, and made it illegal to own or view the film until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1993.

The Hand is a powerful film that through Trnka’s favored medium of puppetry inspires memories of the childlike traits of play, persistence, humor, creativity, and goodness, while also communicating a deeper, more harrowing adult message of deception, disappointment, power, and suffering. Like Trnka’s life, it resonates with a message of hope and celebrates the power of creativity.

Jiri Trnka has not only gifted us with an astoundingly creative and diverse body of work, but his legacy reminds us to think critically about the relationship between government power and individual expression, to appreciate the intrinsic value of art and creativity, and to dream about a world filled with the childlike qualities of curiosity, excitement, and wonder.


Dec312017December 31, 2017December 31, 2017by Glitterchicken

The Angel of Purity

Posted in Art & Literature

This December, I’ve had angels on the brain. According to the Bible, on the night Jesus was born, it was an angel who announced the good news to the shepherds tending their flocks in the fields of Bethlehem. Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel and joined in praise to God,[1] which sourced the Christmas hymns still sung today.

Angels are best known as God’s musicians for their sweet choral singing and harp-playing, but they are also celebrated as God’s messengers for delivering news from the spiritual realm down to the human plane of existence. Most of the time, angels deliver happy news, but sometimes they deliver sad news. I’ve seen a lot of art in my days, but the piece that never fails to bring me to tears is an angel who currently lives in the Philadelphia Museum of Art (“PMA”), delivering the most melancholy message mankind could ever try to comprehend.

The Angel of Purity was sculpted in 1902 by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, a working class Irish immigrant who rose from the depths of The Bowery in New York City to become the preeminent sculptor of the American Renaissance.[2] Doubtlessly the Saint-Gaudens sculpture most recognizable to PMA visitors due to its flashiness and prominent placement is Diana, the ancient Greek goddess of the hunt. Diana was the weather vane on top of Madison Square Garden from 1893 to 1925, when the New York Life Insurance Company gifted her to the PMA, where she dominates the balcony of the Great Stair Hall. Standing with one foot on her golden ball, in shimmering nudity[3] with her bow and arrow tautly poised, she looks like she could suddenly make a quarter-turn and shoot people down on the stairway like rabbits.

The Angel of Purity is Diana’s total opposite. Lesser known due to her out-of-the-way placement and pale shade of marble that blends into the wall, she can be found hanging at the very end of the hallway in the Korman Gallery (#120), which you can access by climbing The Rocky Steps, entering the building via the East Entrance doors, and making an immediate left.

Dr. S. Weir Mitchell, a prominent Philadelphia physician, and his wife, Mary Cadwalader Mitchell, commissioned The Angel of Purity as a memorial to their daughter, Maria, who died of diphtheria when she was only 22. We don’t know much about Maria except for that she used to teach children’s classes at Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church on South 10th Street, which was the sculpture’s original home until the congregation (facing a shrinking endowment) had to sell it. Thanks to the PMA’s former director, Anne D’Harnoncourt, who encouraged hundreds of donors to pledge their support, the PMA was able to acquire The Angel of Purity in 2005 and put it on view for the people of Philadelphia and visitors from all over the globe to admire.

The facial features of The Angel of Purity were modeled after the same woman Diana was modeled after (Saint-Gaudens’ mistress Davida Clark) and she wears a Grecian robe hearkening back to classical antiquity, but that’s where the resemblance between the two statues ends. The Angel of Purity is modest, humble, and pacifistic,[4] characteristic of angels not goddesses. She wears a crown and belt of passion-flowers, a North American plant symbolic of Christ’s passion, and holds a tablet above her head bearing the inscription: “Blessed are the Pure in Heart For They Shall See God.”

Maybe it’s the well-placed spotlight illuminating her from above like heaven’s rays, or the radiant ivory of the marble she’s carved from or some magical combination of both, but The Angel of Purity seems to glow from within as if the warmth of Maria’s soul were re-animating the cold stone. When I look up at her, I have the urge to reach out and touch her bare toe peeking out from under her flowing garment.[5] My mixed emotions are hard to describe. Let’s see. First, there’s gratefulness - that such a thing of beauty lives among us mere mortals. Next, there’s awestruck amazement – that the Mitchells (through their devotion) and Saint-Gaudens (through his artistry) achieved the ambitious goal of immortalizing Maria; and finally, there’s sorrowful grief with the overwhelming power of an avalanche. Not to take anything away from Maria-in-the-Flesh, a gentle young girl whose life was cut short before she had the opportunity to marry and reproduce, but the eternal existence of Maria-in-Marble confronts us with the tragic reminder of all the young people whose lives were snuffed out too soon by disease, war, poverty, hunger, slavery, abuse, neglect, fill-in-the-blank  . . . young people whose families didn’t have the means and social status of the Mitchells to hire an artist like Saint-Gaudens. If we were to try to carve statues for all of them, we would surely run out of marble. This is the poignant message of The Angel of Purity. By praising the pure of heart in perpetuity, she blesses and memorializes all of these innocent lost souls and offers us – as individuals and as a society – a priceless opportunity to mourn their loss.

 

[1] (Luke 2:13).

[2] This period, from roughly 1876 to 1917, overlaps with and is sometimes used synonymously with the Beaux-Arts Classicism period, which dates from roughly 1885-1920, and is characterized by Greek and Roman models combined with Renaissance forms.

[3] Diana was the only nude sculpture that Saint-Gaudens made. She was modeled after Davida Clark, Saint-Gaudens’ mistress who bore him an illegitimate son named Louis. While Saint-Gaudens did not officially recognize Louis, he provided for him and his mother, sending Louis to MIT where he earned an engineering degree. Although Saint-Gaudens and his wife eventually “reconciled his indiscretion,” Saint-Gaudens never ceased loving Davida, whom he described as “the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.” For more on the life and art of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, see http://www.nhmagazine.com/June-2013/The-Saint-Gaudens-Estate-Secret-Treasure-of-Cornish-New-Hampshire/

[4] I can’t help thinking that this characteristic of The Angel of Purity was influenced by Saint-Gaudens’ own avowed pacifism, which he adopted wholeheartedly after witnessing the graphic horrors of the Civil War. From the window of his New Hampshire estate, he watched men marching off to the battlefields singing “John Brown’s Body” only to see them returning injured, missing arms and legs. He also saw President Lincoln lying in state at New York’s City Hall.

[5] Maria wears flip-flops, believe it or not.