Ode to Spring - Scraps

"Lot's Wife", 2005, enamel, salt and pastel on masonite
Cropped from original 10" x 10"

It's been a gorgeous couple of days and it has improved the mood beyond measure. Spring in Chicago is like having a plaster hip-cast removed. You feel physically lighter and more flexible. A troublesome itch can be scratched. Tasks pass more easily.

I'm leading a tour on William Le Baron Jenney for the Society of Architectural Historians - Chicago Chapter next Saturday. We'll have a reception at the end of the tour at the Columbia College Center for Book & Paper Arts which is located in his Luddington Building - one of Jenney's important works.

Today, we met with Bill Drendel who is the Exhibitions Coordinator for the Caxton Club and he gave us a tour of the studios at Columbia College. We saw an outstanding collection of historic vernacular wood type and bindings.

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Being in the paper-making studio was nostalgic for me. I spent six months in 1985, making paper casts of a slab of the Parthenon frieze under Frank Gallo's supervision. It was a very independent project that took place in a freezing garret of Lincoln Hall at the U. of I. - Urbana.

Frank Gallo and me pretending to work. I remember he just said something hillarious.

Frank had a marvellous sense of humor and viewed himself as an outlaw artist. He had a wild sense of humor and really tested the boundaries of political correctness. He saw himself as bad but he was a lovable teddy bear. Here's his bio and here are good images of his work.

Frank's initial commercial breakthrough as an artist depended on a masterful casting of his female nudes in bas relief's in epoxy resin - material which has a lovely semi-transluscent property like ivory or human skin.

Copyright Frank Gallo

Tragically, the epoxy turned out to be extremely toxic and Gallo suffered permanent neurological damage but he prevailed. He bounced back in a big way by adapting his style to his new invention - paper casting. He also really promoted the whole idea that Universities could teach "paper" as a curriculum which led to programs like the Columbia College Center.

Gallo's paper cast from a frieze designed by Wright for Dana House

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Mrs. Huxtable

Photo Copyright Harry Heleotis

She Knows Moses...

Ada Louise Huxtable wrote a great Wall Street Journal article on the Robert Moses exhibits currently – and appropriately - scattered through Manhattan. If anyone knows from Moses....it must be Mrs. Huxtable.

For the majority of the 20th century and on, she defined the language relevant to architecture, urban development and planning which also informed the whole direction of contemporary historic preservation while saving important landmarks of old New York.

She continues to make us feel that she shares our pain when great buildings are annihilated and stands firm when mediocrity is proposed or executed.

And she negotiated a tricky course with grace; Mrs. Huxtable helped Americans to reconcile the idea that modern architecture must replace the old - even if this includes durable examples of a vernacular. Cities change - lets make it good change.

It takes courage to be the first at anything in a public discourse but imagine – a woman writing in the New York Times and getting in the public faces of thuggish developers, politicos (like Moses, himself) and perhaps even colleagues. She received a Pulitzer Prize in criticism because she carved such an impressive niche.

Huxtable's work is infused with a sublime sense of irony and Yankee wit. It’s not hyperbole to rank her zingers about design with Oscar Wilde’s. One of her book titles is “Kicked a Building Lately?”

Last year, it was my privilege to have cocktails with Mrs. Huxtable at her club - the Century Association. She was a fantastic hostess with incredible warmth and kindness. I could have spent days there – just the two of us - in those leather chairs sipping a special Amontillado.

The Club’s identity is wrapped up in the creative history of New York. Every surface seems encrusted with artworks and books - all produced by its members which have included the building’s architect Stanford White, Louis Comfort Tiffany, Winslow Homer, Morse, Dove and on and on. It was heaven. We laughed like crazy.

Stanford White

Samuel F. B. Morse

I asked her if there was an architect working today that she would compare with Frank Lloyd Wright in terms of originality and influence and without pause she declared, “Gehry. No doubt. Because you know – Gehry has a program.” We talked about his line of jewelry that had just been launched by Tiffany & Co.

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In terms of her career (1963 – 1982) at “the paper” she stressed that Clifton Daniel was a heroic mentor - and she expressed a tremendous gratitude to him which proved a general point again - even the best acknowledge help.

She knows such incredible people and has seen such enormous change. When I brought up the idea of an autobiography she was completely dismissive in an authentic self-effacing manner. A tender light of shy vulnerability flickered in her eyes.

Here I must objectify. For any age - she has a gorgeous head and bearing. She reminds me of a Roman empress or a lady in a portrait by Ingres.

We lost track of time and left the club much later than planned. Some aspects of Manhattan will never change. Getting a cab on a Friday night remains a crap shoot. Throw in an oncoming rain shower and we rolled snake eyes.

I remember watching the cars zip by on 42nd Street, Grand Central Terminal behind herself and I was amazed that this woman, for whom every New Yorker owes a debt of gratitude, was going to hop a city bus. Just then a gorgeous gypsy town car pulled up. We negotiated two stops for thirty dollars – Mrs. H. to her Park Avenue awning and me back around to the site of another bloody preservation battle - Penn Station.

As we drove back to Park Avenue, patrician limestone façades rolled by mixed with newer glass walls the color of cheap sunglasses. Mrs. Huxtable gave me brief lessons about a few of the buildings. When we arrived she said something with such wistful sincerity that I’ll never forget it; “You must come back soon. There’s no place in the world like New York.”

Postscript: I read this over and I have to say that my awe produced a slightly memorial tone. Mrs. H. is still very much alive, kicking and writing a new book. She is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal (which should make us all want to subscribe).

June 2007 Addendum

OH OH OH Another Brilliant article.

A moment in time and some stuff (Although the National Trust is a capital sucker) that just makes ALH the most vital voice.

Mrs. Huxtable wrote independently on the Glass House and clearly after the NYT Celebutant treatment that appealed to those who would like to envision white powder and backward sexses in a portable petri dish.

She did this great treatment and overcame it all so to speak. I just think she gets better as she gets better. The glue is the idea of Johnson and Huxtable cocktailing and absorbing the view of the flora and fauna.

IN THE GLASS HOUSE.. IMAGINE; They're laughing the whole time. Think about the acoustics in a glass house.

I remember I asked Mrs. Huxtable why she hasn't published a biography and she just sort of fizzled kind of like "that's not what 'they want' or maybe what I would I do"? I don't think she thinks we want it. And we do.

Very, very much. I really think the BIG story is Mrs. H life - the span and scale and romance. It's not about structure - it's about language. I'd buy it in a book or a movie or a download on youtube. Good Lord. Give us the low down, nitty gritty love we deserve! Sign a heavy upfront contract and research the hell out of it but give us your pure overview.

Miscellaneous Stuff

Untitled, Mixed Media, 2004

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Let's Call it Funky-tecture

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Visible from the Eisenhower Expressway in Maywood. An eccentric mason has added on to a brick salt box with these wonderful follies and inventions. The tower is amazing with champfers on the clerestory and incredible windows.

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Pearl Fryar Topiary

Last spring I visited a wonderful place outside of Columbia, South Carolina. Pearl Fryar has really reintrpreted a vernacular and used his work to unite his community. The day that we visited was rainy and foggy which just added to the beauty of this place.

UPDATE: SEE THE FILM - "A MAN NAMED PEARL"

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The words "peace" and "love" are carved into the grass.

The Hoard Dispersed

The Baby Grand Excavated

Final tally: four 30 foot dumpsters, 350 contractor bags, 25 filter masks, a couple dozen pairs of rubber gloves.

Staging for the Garage Sale

So Mrs. R. haunted garage sales shuttling paper bags of pottery, and chipped figurines back to her repository. Now comes the culmination - the re-distribution of the collection. I've always enjoyed garage sales and the camaraderie they engender. But I'l never look at them in quite the same way again.

Altar of the Dispossessed

The Croquet Party

It would be premature to sum up the experience of this project but there are little areas which seem clearer. Mrs. R's disorder is much more common than people think but there is such shame that it remains in the closet, so to speak. And I believe there is a general cultural disorder at the root. We have all been defined by what we have. We are the most acquisitive culture in the history of the world and we are indiscriminate.

Notes:

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Periodical and Information Hoarding

A friend spoke about his wife who had a specific variety of the disorder. She could not let newspapers or periodicals go. And it was necessary for her to read the papers sequentially and completly. People were so frustrated with her piles that she eventually rented a storage space.

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Hoarding During Wartime

The same friend talked about the specific shame and alienation of hoarders during world war II. While people were rationed for essential nutrition and medicine, some people would hide supplies away. I think every family did this a little but if it was discovered that you had an unreasonable amount of something you would be shunned - or worse - driven from the community.

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Possibly Inherited Trait

Several times within the course of purging Mrs. R's hoard I've noticed her daughter slipping close to the behavior and several of this blog's readers have recounted stories about how their brothers, sisters, children or spouses slipped into the same destructive behavior. I'm not certain how Obsesssive Compulsive Disorder is structured within neurological biology but there is also - possibly a learned behavior.

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Finally...

Almost all of the care takers, family or friends who contacted me report that the hoarders, themselves don't seem to suffer specifically because of the hoarding. They are described as living in an alternate reality where there behavior is completly justified and everything has real value and the potential to be a treasure. There are certainly environmental and public health implications. And I think the saddest part of the whole equation is the fact that this disorder splits up marriages, families and friendships and deprives the hoarder of society.

Gawking on the Road

"Gawking on the Road to Compassion"

Mixed Media (Collage including Columbian volcano postage stamp

with surreal airplane cancellation and a steel engraving of a nautilus - circa 1890.)

5" x 5", 2006, Collection of Julie Osborne and Tim O'Hagan

This is a continuation of the previous entry brutally titled "HOARDING".

We've made amazing progress cleaning out the house. A crew of three of us have emptied two bedrooms, the study, two bathrooms and more and we've filled three 30 foot dumpsters containing over 250 black contractor bags stuffed with waterlogged clothes and the ephemera of a hoarder's treasure. The bones of the house have slowly reappeared. Walls appear where they should be and they terminate in perpendicular corners at the floors and ceilings. There is a slight echo. Mrs. R's museum is empty except for the cases.

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We've also filled dozens of 15 gallon plastic bins with treasures that could be considered salvage. The bins contain the objective booty of the treasure - the wheat from the chaf - which is comprised of porcelain figures from occupied Japan, milk glass and McCoy vases, at least four heavy cast punch bowls from those decades when punch was mandatory, etc. As we've worked we've tried to pull things of value from the sludge.

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The other two helpers are named Anthony and Daniel. They are amazing guys - sweet, compassionate and hardworking. They saw something of a mitzvah in the work. They talk about Mrs. R. and her compulsion with respect and empathy. Admittedly, some gallow's humor circulates among us but nothing that isn't due to this crew who've taken responsibility for an evacuation. Undertakers deserve that ghoulish laugh now and then.

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Yesterday, the wind and snow were blowing like Antartica. As we worked upstairs, the front door was blown open twice before we secured it with a 20 pound sack of salt. There have been ghostly thumps during this process - probably shadows of residual fears that provide sensations on the periphery. The incidents are announced with the same hushed phrase; "Did you hear that?" Ghosts make us pause in our work. Ghosts make us stop and wonder.

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Around 1:30 pm, Daniel tugged at his mask and safety goggles, "Did you hear someone downstairs?" Shuffling noises were confirmed and we descended to the front hall where a stranger stood surprisingly well inside. His embroidered jacket and cap both said "Water Department". He was a workman from the village.

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The water was shut off two months earlier when broken pipes froze and a glacier formed on the exterior of the house. When she was alive, Mrs. R. had a lengthy, running battle with the local civic bureacracy. Communitites need clear, practical policy to deal with hoarders and their families. As with any government intervention, there's a right way and a wrong way. Just cooked that blurb up. Feel free to quote.

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With proprietary authority I asked, "Can I help you?" I landed in front of him - between the rooms and his 6 foot frame.

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"I just saw your car and I'm with the Village and I wanted to see inside. So she died - right?" As he crained his neck he also entered my reasonable comfort zone. Around the male of our species this can mean many things. This time the transgression was a test for permission. Could he push his way through?

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"No." I replied, "I'm sorry. We're working. And the lady who lived here was a friend." A little tension was building when he added, "I just wanted to check it out." He felt no need for politeness or compassion and he was tipping against civility. There was no concern for me as a friend of this poor dead lady. For him there was only the desire to enter a long anticipated freak show.

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Casually and with no invention he let it blurt he said, "I just like to see how people could live like this." The phrase dangled mid-air like a huge yellow wasp. I couldn't summon indignation because that cold observation was part of my consciousness. In some ways I've been a gawker. I heard myself repeating these banal phrases as I worked him back out the door - back into the blizzard in the world and in his tiny mind; "It's a family matter and we're dealing with it. It's a sad situation. We're taking care of it."

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I felt the shame and protectiveness that children of hoarders must feel all the time. After he left in his Village truck my temperature started to go up. I was furious and my anger was confirmed by Daniel. "That was bullshit, man."

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We've all been gawkers on the road to compassion. Charity is filled with voyeurs. When we see tragedy, the mouth drops open a little and the neck muscles become elastic, fluid, spiral. The eyes awaken as camera lenses. The body braces like a tripod. I wonder if Buddha - during the earliest part of his journey to infinite compassion - didn't rubberneck a little.