Two-Headed Snake

Last time I’d been to the Woodman Museum in Dover, NH was, well, decades ago, with my girl scout troop.

I had been seeing references pop up here and there about the Woodman Museum, describing it as an eclectic, old fashioned place, a curio cabinet kind of museum. You know what I mean: hand-written or typed labels (a few of the “e’s” clogged), bell jars of birds perched in front of hand-painted landscapes,

oak-cornered vitrines (which you definitely should NOT lean on) with wavy glass protecting eggs in nests or rolling about on file cards, hopefully arranged in size from hummingbird to ostrich.

I wanted to see for myself if the Woodman had indeed resisted the tide of modernity. But really, why I wanted to re-visit the Woodman Museum, was to check in on my favorite specimen, the two headed snake. I emailed my old friend Brett, who, like me, had grown up in the area, to see if she could be tempted to join me. She was tempted, she was. But, dang(!), she had other commitments. “Let me know how the two headed chicken is doing.” “Two-headed chicken?” I shot back. “I thought it was a two -headed snake! Could they have two, two-headeds?” Now I had to go! Lucky for me I was able to snag one of my kids to go with me. Off we drove on an unseasonably warm November day. Time was of the essence as the Woodman Museum closes for the season at the end of November.

An old-fashioned museum that only a small town would think of as encyclopedic, the Woodman Museum has something for everyone: florescent minerals, (the museum’s guide opened a closet door and throw on the lights to reveal these beauties),

taxidermy (including a a gigantic polar bear and the last mountain lion to be killed in NH but which looks like it could have been purchased from the stuffed animal department of FAO Schwartz, though frightfully thin),

civil war memorabilia, bolts of cloth from the local textile mill, all jumbled together in a sometimes pleasant, sometimes jarring manner.

Saddle ridden by President Lincoln days before he was assassinated

There’s a ton of Abraham Lincoln memorabilia in the Woodman collection because of the connections between President Lincoln and New Hampshire Senator John Parker Hale (founder of the anti-slavery “Free Soil”party), whose family home is on the museum’s campus. Really if I laid out the crazy connections, as the guide so colorfully did, I would have to post a spoiler alert but let’s just say it has to do with Hale’s daughter and Todd Lincoln and oops, I gotta say it, the fact that she was secretly engaged to John Wilkes Booth. Now you know there was a rough night or two around the dinner table before and after that infamous night at the Ford Theater.

OK, back to my meanderings around the museum:

I wanted to hunt right away for the two-headed whatever it was. But first the friendly guide greeted me asking if I’d ever been here before and what was my particular interest today. I explained my quest. He paled when I said I was here to see the two-headed snake. I knew something was amiss. “Well, sir, is it still here?” And I wanted to know if it was a two headed snake or a two headed chicken. “Oh, the four legged chicken is here and “doing” fine. “(OK, Brett, at least we straightened that out) “But the two headed snake, well, let’s just say it’s seen better days.” Uh oh. I braced myself and tore upstairs. But nothing could prepare me for the sight.

First I encountered the swirling arrangement of the lepidoptera which I had remembered well from my girl scout days:

Then I encountered the chicken. Lookin’ good!

But then, around the corner from the chicken, the reptile display:

Good to see the mayonnaise and jam jars are holding up!

But uh-oh!! Here I see the label for the two headed snake:

What a shock! I stared mournfully at the striped layers at the bottom of the jar and finally had to move on.

I was somewhat consoled by the nearby specimen of the iguana whose label cheered me up. This is one way to build a museum collection: exotic pet road kill.

Time to seek solace elsewhere. Up to the attic we go.

The third floor is a curious mix children’s playthings and military paraphernalia, half/half—-oh well, kind of like they don’t think you’re going to make it up that far or that you’ll either head right or left and not both.

Before we entered the doll room we were greeted with this sign:

Kids need so much supervision. Or maybe adults are the problem. But I agree with the don’t waste water directive.

OK, OK, the two headed snake may not have survived ,

but by golly, apparently my girl scout leader did!

I do not think anyone ever took the middle dolly to bed with them.

We were fetched by the guide as we were absorbing this one.

The museum guide came to get us just as we were finishing up with the dolls and before we started in on the guns saying it was time to go–we agreed.

There was so much to see beyond the main museum building. First off, the oldest Sycamore tree in the county. (sorry forgot to snap a picture), and behind that–the oldest surviving house in town–the Garrison house built in 1675.

Here’s a wee glance of our guide.

You think the road kill iguana was a lucky acquisition, well the garrison house:

was just sitting empty in the back yard of this woman who lived down the street:

When she could no longer keep up with its upkeep she asked the museum down the street if they wanted it. They did! They popped it off its foundation ad rolled it down the street.

The garrison is complete with a rifle pointed out its sidewall and is full of beautiful artifacts. Most of all I loved the wormy lime-coated walls.

Just about time to wrap up our visit. So satisfying! In assessment I’d say The Woodman Museum has mostly been spared of modernizing save for one woeful period not so long ago when the then new director decided to throw out most of the typed and handwritten labels and have them redone with the aid of a computer. GRRR!

Here’s an idea, Woodman Museum, hire a handful of University of New Hampshire hipsters to retype the labels on the Olivetti’s they’ve procured on Ebay. And throw out those soul-less modern labels! Or better yet, hand pen them like this lovely label that thankfully was not replaced:

If you are already planning your itinerary for your own Woodman visit, please note that it will reopen for its next season in April.

Alley of Giants

Cossé-le-Vivien: a speck of a village in the Mayenne Department in the Pays de la Loire region of  France, equidistant from Le Mans, Nantes, and Caen, in a region not on many tourists’ itinerary . But, oh! If you go! A wondrously bizarre environment beckons you in with jaw dropping sculptures.

This Outsider environment, La Frénouse, was created by Insider artist Robert Tatin.  La Frénouse is a tour de force in concrete that took Robert Tatin twenty years to complete with the help of–you guessed it–his wife, Lise. (Do you think it might be relevant that Lise was his fifth wife? Wonder what he asked of the other four) )

OK, let’s start at the beginning. Robert Tatin was born in 1902 of humble origins in nearby Laval. His father worked for the fairgrounds setting up and even performing in the local circus, an environment which had lasting impact on Tatin’s aesthetics.  Robert Tatin began his working life at age fourteen as a house painter.  As a young adult Robert Tatin took off for Paris to study painting.

When he completed his studies at the school of Beaux Arts he returned home to earn a living. Lord knows, that wasn’t going to be as an artist!  He morphed this first profession as house painter into decorative painter, then designer, and eventually he became a sought after restorer of historic architecture. With extra cash in his pocket from his successful contracting business Robert Tatin set off to travel the world…and to paint!

He was called back to France in 1938 to serve in the war after which he set up a small ceramic and fresco workshop to earn a living.  in Paris. He also began to pursue his painting in earnest.

While in Paris he formed friendships with several of the great artists living in Paris post World War II: Giacometti, André  Breton, Jean Dubuffet (inventor of the term Art Brut), and Jean Coctueau (of Beauty and the Beast fame). With these colleagues, Tatin participated in what was called the “cultural reconstruction” of post war Paris. Tatin’s painting and sculpture garnered him national and eventually international recognition. He even won first prize in sculpture at the Sao Paulo Biennial in 1951. But it was his travels and encounters with indigenous people of Brazil that had the greatest influence on his artwork.

He quit the rarefied world of fine arts at the age of 60, returned to his homeland to live out the rest of his life. He bought a little ruined farmhouse in Cossé-le-Vivien and got to work restoring it.

Once this cozy home was livable, Robert Tatin started work on what turned out to be his grand oeuvre, which was to take him the next twenty years to complete. There is really no easy way to categorize or even to describe with words the sculptural environment that Tatin called, La Frénouse. When I checked google translate for the definition of La Frénouse, I got this for an answer: La Frénouse. OK, well…

La Frénouse is first an homage. One enters the property via Tatin’s “Alley of Giants”,

an 80 meter long paved path lined with nineteen statues, each labeled with the names of a historic, mythical, religious, or artistic personage who influenced Tatin to believe what he believed in and to have the guts to pursue his vision. It’s quite a roster ranging from Joan of Arc (!) to Jules Vernes to Picasso.

By the time you come to the end of the Alley of Giants you are well-prepped for the  bizarro aesthetics that Tatin poured into his garden, an odd combination of grotesque fantasy embedded with lyrical details.

The open-jawed dragon that headed up this post is the Guardian of Knowledge. If you are not totally swallowed up by him you’ll see his claws cradle dice, for surely chance plays a huge role in one’s fate.

At the center of the environment one enters the garden of Meditations, with twelve statues around a central reflecting pool, one for each month. Six rooms symbolize the rotation of the earth. One enters via the Gateway of the Sun and the Gateway of the Moon on the East and West sides.

 

 

But really, it’s good not to over-analyze Tatin’s work. Scientist and art lover Otto Hahn put it nicely when he said of Robert Tatin’s creative impulse: “In all his quests, Tatin finds the same answer: you never reach paradise, unless you create it.”  And truly isn’t this what we’re doing as artists in our insane world?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bryant Stove and Doll Circus

I don’t have to tell my fellow New Englanders that this spring has been one of the wettest  on record. What to do on these dreary days?  Just read the title of this post and you’ll know we found the perfect outing.   From our starting point in Appleton Maine, we drove through Liberty and then Freedom to get to tiny Thorndike. As we pulled into Stove Pipe Alley (yup, that’s the listed address) and parked the car, it was pretty obvious we had arrived at our destination, The Bryant Stove Works and Doll Circus:This forlorn assemblage of stoves and dolls which flanked our parking space did nothing to prepare me for glories of what lay inside the Stove Works and Museum. We opened an unassuming door with a plastic-covered welcome sign, and entered a darkened structure that we could see, at the very least, was packed to the gills with dolls. Impressive!

But wait! My friend, intrepid fellow traveler, and on this occasion, my guide, Abbie, asked “Are you ready?” She flipped on the light (and sound) switch and here’s what presented itself:

We entered the wondrous world of Joe and Bea Bryant’s Doll Circus.

In every nook and cranny there’s more spinning and clatter:

Dancing and merriment:

And dolls coming oh-so-creepily to life:

 

Somehow I garnered great satisfaction in seeing that Ken is the wallflower here–despite his well-developed pecs: (Hello, Ken–that’s not the only thing the gals are interested in… could you please button up your jacket–geez!)

In a rare departure from dancing dolls is this lovely ode to the Slinky:

All of this was assembled, designed and engineered by Joe (who sadly passed away in 2018) and Bea Bryant, owners of the Bryant Stove Works (Don’t worry, I’ll get to the Stove Works).

The Bryants very sensibly fled to Florida every winter to escape the harsher climes of northern New England. (I am not kidding, they lived in the town of Zephyrhills. What I really want to know is whether they chose the town for its name or whether the town chose them. By the way, if you click on the link for Zephyrhills, THE Official town website,  you will note that one of the three things “happening” in Zephyrhills this year is a traffic light relocation.)  Anyway, the Bryants settled in nicely to winters in Zephyrhills and they just needed a little project to while away their hours. (I mean, really what’s there to do when there’s no snow shoveling?) Then they met Henry Stark…

Joe Bryant found a kindred spirit and fellow engineering wizard in Zephyrhills resident, Henry  Stark, who became a good friend. I can picture Hank and Joe brainstorming the mechanisms for the Doll Circus in their Florida basements.

Stark’s mini mechanical marvels are now housed in Room Two of the Bryant Museum:

Here is Joe Bryant’s lovely write up and portrait of his friend, Hank:

As we were  taking in the whirls and twirls of the Doll Museum and testing every one of Stark’s little engines, in walked Bea Bryant!

Bea said, there’s more! Oh so much more! And she led the way through the next door into a humongous Quonset hut which housed the stove (!), antique car (!!), and music machine (!!!) museum.

First of all, I was so overwhelmed by the stoves I hardly took any pictures of them, but here’s enough to clue you in to what I had not known before: Back in the day, stoves were gorgeous pieces of sculptures:

Bea was very rightly proud of the fact that one of their stoves was borrowed and used as a stage prop in the 2012 Spielberg film, “Lincoln“.

And yes, antique cars are tucked in here and there, comfortably cohabitating with whatever creatures roam about.

We could see that Bea’s pride and joy were the music machines which she both demonstrated:

and invited us to try our hand with the cranking.

 

The Bryants bought this magnificent Wurlitzer from a 98 year old gentleman in Connecticut. They towed it themselves back to Maine, completely restored it to working order, added a bubble machine and entered it in many a parade.

The Wurlitzer in action:

There are player pianos:

with rolls and rolls of tunes. Multiply this image by ten and know that you are not going to have to repeat a tune no matter how dark and dreary your winter is.

And adorable toy pianos. (really, you MUST click on this toy piano link–it’s a YouTube video of a VIRTUOSO toy pianist!)  Plink, plank, plunk:

Not enough stuff for ya? Luckily for us, Bea had too much time on her hands while Joe and Hank were working out the complicated mechanics of carousels. So she took up button carding. (how did you and I not know that was a thing?)

If you’re wondering where Bea got her work and fun ethic read the fine print above her father’s portrait:

I don’t want to make you worry and fret, but Bea made it clear she is worrying and fretting about the fate of the Bryant Stove Works and Doll Circus now that Joe is gone. I just know some of you are heading up to Maine this summer, you might want to turn up Stove Pipe Alley and have a look around.

A sad post script to this post. Bea Bryant passed away at the age of 89  just three month after this visit. I learned in her obituary that she had been the twelfth of 16 children. She and her husband raised  eight children of their own while they started and ran the Bryant Stove business. Besides all this Bea was named the Outstanding Person in the Wood Stove Industry in 1981 and a few years later was named the Most Outstanding Woman of the Year of Northern and Eastern Maine by the Bangor Daily news. I feel so lucky to have met her and am so sad that she is gone.

Last I heard the Bryants’ children are planning to keep the Stove Works and Doll Museum open. Check their website before planning your visit. They are closed during the cold months.

Bread and Puppet

The directions to get to the Bread and Puppet Museum in Glover, Vermont from nearby Barton were simple enough.  Still I managed to take a wrong turn which I noticed only after I had my first Bread and Puppet sighting:

Even without the identifier painted above the windshield, I would have recognized a Bread and Puppet bus anywhere. In this case the bus was in for a little TLC at the local mechanic. Wrong turn or not I knew I couldn’t be too far away. I turned myself 180 degrees around and headed properly towards Glover. My little unplanned detours took me past some lovely hand painted signage–something I’m always on the lookout for.

and this very enticing motel

with seven rooms to choose from.   (I’d like the Aardvark’s Attic please!)

          

      

 

I know if I don’t stick this excellent, excellent sign I saw in  Lyndonville now I’m going to miss the opportunity to show it to you altogether.

OK, on to Glover! On this, the first of three visits to Bread and Puppet, I pulled into the uncongested parking lot

I slipped right in beside the B and P vehicle that was not paying a visit to the mechanic:

crossed the street to the BIG barn

adorned with the signature Bread and Puppet signage

and found a hive of activity in the yard. It was the Friday before the last Sunday performance of the season and there was still paper-mache-ing to be done!

I chatted awhile with this fellow and headed up the wooden stairs to the upper floor of the barn which houses five decades of puppets from Bread and Puppet performances around the globe. I’ve visited the museum four times now, but each time when  I reach the top of the stairs and catch my first site of the collection it takes my breath away.

 

Here I am in the converted dairy barn, given to Bread and Puppet visionary , Peter Schumann and his wife Elka,  by Elka’s parents, the last farmers on this property in Glover, Vermont. The barn,  now known as the Bread and Puppet Museum, houses, as Peter describes his creations, “the retired warriors from the battles against the tides.” There is no shortage of causes that Peter and his ever-changing cast of puppeteers have taken on over the decades and so the barn is stuffed to overflowing with every manner of puppet who has fought the good fight. Every inch of floor except the central walkway,

every inch of the walls,

and every plank between the ceiling rafters is covered.

 

One recognizes familiar heroes here and there.    Our founding fathers:

     

(Our memory of elementary school history lessons is jogged by proper museum signage)

I see an understandably doleful Abe Lincoln:

And over there, isn’t that Oscar Romero?!?!

We are awed by the mythical beings of gigantic proportions

      

several soaring to the rafters to look down upon the little folk populating the earth at  their feet.

there are deities, demons and demigogues

       

      

    

There are victims and perpetrators.

                 

and grandmothers who have seen it all

    

Laborers:

Bureaucrats:

Royalty (Let them eat cake”) :

Impresarios (or perhaps our elected officials):

And beasts–let us not forget the noble beasts:

And reminders here are there of the impermanence of the collection:

     

Suspended through-out the museum are globes which simply cannot contain and sustain the burden assigned to our humble sphere, Earth.

  

There are little drawings lined up like storyboards.

This one, a one word poem:

And everywhere, everywhere images of fire:

           

Contained in the Bread and Puppet Museum:

I return to Bread and Puppet in October and have a happy encounter with Peter Schumann. With Peter leading the way I will visit the Memory Forest and Paper Mache Cathedral in my next post…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everyday Life in the Northeast Kingdom

In need of a salve for your soul in these depressing times?  Zip, zip, take a trip to the Northeast Kingdom. Fellow New Englanders know this means heading up to the tip top of Vermont to hug the Canadian border (which will feel good in and of itself). You’ll feel FAR, FAR away from urban madness and start to wonder just why it is that you MUST live in a city.

My son and I pondered the reason why  eggs would be cheaper on Wednesday. We spent the better part of an hour discussing the possibilities.

 

OK, I said zip, zip, but if you’re reading this soon after I’ve posted it, in November, Vermont’s “bleak season” wait til summer or fall, which is when these trips were made.

I had the good fortune of being called up to the Northeast Kingdom this summer to mount an exhibition at Catamount Arts in St. Johnsbury. I packed my car and drove up there on the most auspicious of dates: the solar eclipse. After  a seamless day of installation (interrupted by a dash up the hill to the Fairbanks Museum for the eclipse viewing party), Catamount gallery director extraordinaire, Katherine French said, “Come let’s have dinner and then I’m going to take you to a little museum I  think you’ll like.” Given that we were finishing up as the sun was setting, I was a little doubtful that she could make good on her enticing promise. What museum would be open after 7PM? “You’ll see”, she said.  I was still worried as our lovely, leisurely dinner pushed past the hour that ANY museum would still be open. “Ok, let’s go!” And off into the starry night we drove further north and west to Glover. We pulled off the road onto a pitch black driveway. Ha! We had arrived at “The Museum of Everyday Life” .

I knew right then and there I was going to have to return the next day to photograph in daylight. Here’s what I hadn’t been able to see as we approached at night:

Katherine fumbled for the lights just inside the entrance

         

and we found ourselves in the Raymond Roussel Vestibule

where there was a nice little introductory assemblage of quotidian objects which set the stage for what lay ahead.

    

Even though I have made a career of celebrating the cast away  stuff of our over stuffed world I was unprepared for the depths that are plumbed in the six or so exhibits in the Museum of Everyday Life. The museum is the brainchild of Intensive Care RN and Crankie enthusiast, Clare Dolan, who I had the pleasure of meeting the next morning when I came back for my daylight photos. She was racing around her yard mowing at a faster pace than I’ve ever witnessed.

“Let me go ahead'” Katherine French said as she opened the (beautifully adorned) door that lead from the vestibule to the museum and found the next set of lights.

     

We were greeted by a curious and pleasing little tinkle of bells which continued tinkling  for our entire visit,  a sonic version of the starry night outside.

You can’t be a reader of this blog and not know that I was utterly enthralled.

Pencils to toothbrushes

If you’re going to feature toothbrushes, you gotta throw in Toothpaste.

Toothbrushes to safety pins

Safety pins to matches

Violin, made by a musical prisoner,  entirely out of wooden matchsticks

Matchsticks to—wait for it—DUST! By far my favorite exhibit! I thought I had intimate knowledge of dust. (I can practically name the individual dust bunnies that live under my bed). But, no, apparently until now I had only the barest sprinkling of knowledge. Here is a bit of the  stupendous Dust display with accompanying label information:

“Hanging for 10 years directly above the kitchen stove in the Chicken Hut in Brooklyn, This ornament is crusted in layers of grease-adhered dusts of all kinds. On loan courtesy of Gregory Henderson”

“Cosmic dust from NASA’s ultra clean Cosmic Dust Laboratory, established in 1981 to handle particles one tenth the diameter of a human hair. The Laboratory curates thousands of cosmic dust particles… Cosmic dust grains…contain material in the same condition as when the solar system began to form…” And being NASA, the explanatory label went on for another three paragraphs.

I was clever enough to photograph the label, so you can read it yourself.

same ilk as the Chicken Hut grease/dust encrusted kitchen ornament above, this is a single paddle from a fan blade.

After seeing this exhibit your response will either be to vacuum the minute you get home, or never vacuum again! I just checked under the bed. The bunnies have multiplied, well, like rabbits. I am feeding them and they are happy.

I reached the back of the museum and finally discovered the source of the tinkling bells. This were the very last display in the Bells and Whistles exhibit:

I was too enchanted to remember the video function on my cell phone, and I really think it would be a spoiler to explain how this tinkling at the back of the museum was precipitated by turning on the lights at the front. I am sure by now you are clicking on your calendars and mapping out your visit. You’ll see for yourself.

Stay here if you go: Rodgers Family Farm, Glover

And get up just before sunrise to walk to  the beaver pond just a quarter mile down the road. I don’t like getting up that early either, but it was worth it!

PS I foolishly thought I would cover every magical thing I saw during my three visits this summer and fall to Glover and environs, but I’ve barely scratched the surface. Stay tuned for Bread and Puppet, Red Sky, and other marvels in the Northeast Kingdom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hubcap Ranch

This post ends with a story of how a good deed turned into an art environment. If you’re impatient to find out how this could be, skip to the end, but you’ll be missing some pretty cool art along the way.

A recent trip to California to visit family and  to tour the fabulous new San Francisco Museum of Modern Art turned into a glorious road-trip. In just three days the Bay area and surrounding countryside offered  up the most glorious array of artistic diversity.

The undulating SFMOMA is now my favorite renovation of the myriad of museum upgrades that have swept the country in the last decade (shout out to Deputy Director Ruth Berson,  for her incredible leadership in this project).

I really loved the little display of idea “sketches” for the museum renovation presented by the architectural firm, Snohetta:

              

              

              

              

Across the street from the SFMOMA is the wonderful Yerba Buena Art Center which–jackpot!– was showcasing at the time of my visit one of my very favorite artists, Tom Sachs.

Whacking together unbelievably complex and massive sculptures with little more than packing tape, cardboard and soda bottles, Sachs has constructed his visionary “Europa”, as part of his ongoing fixation with NASA’s space program. He has thought of “everything the astronauts will need to successfully complete their mission to Jupiter’s icy moon” including the all important outhouse which bears an uncanny and satisfying resemblance to a jet plane’s lavatory.

         

Ruth Berson also introduced us to her beloved “Creativity Explored”, a studio workshop  and gallery for artists with intellectual disabilities.

     

      

We loved it so much we went back for a second visit on Monday and saw the studio buzzing with productivity.

I doubt you’ll find another group of artists anywhere more intent on their work than here.

With the couple extra days I had  to tool around in California I headed up to Napa Valley. The drive through Napa Valley vineyards

is a visual feast in and of itself. But we went to drink in a couple other sites. Our first stop: the Di Rosa Museum. A San Francisco friend had brought me there a couple years ago and I wanted to revisit with my son, who has inherited my penchant for all things quirky.

Situated on the shore of Winery Lake, the Di Rosa Museum houses the estate collection of the vineyard owning,  art collecting, bon vivants Veronica and Rene Di Rosa.

One has the feeling as one tours the estate (and one can only see the DiRosa collection as part of a museum tour–don’t just show up there unannounced), that collecting art served as a great excuse to the Di Rosas for non-stop partying. It’s a wild ride following the twists and turns of the DiRosa’s art tastes.

Art car master, David Best retooled this Cadillac for Veronica Di Rosa.

And Rene jumped into the act of art making with this one creation of his own:

Well, his hanging car may  not be great art, but just about everything else in his collection is top notch–some of my favorite  artists and so many great artists new to me, all hailing from  northern California.:

Viola Frey :

           

These next two are Sandow Birk’s. Though created many years ago, they were apt viewing during our miserable campaign and election season.

 

And this is Chester Arnold. Where have you been all my life, Chester?

And Mildred Howard’s luminescent Bottle House:

OK, finally! The real destination of this trip through Napa Valley (you will now be rewarded for slogging through this post to get to the bait tangled on the hook of the first sentence).  Litto’s Hubcap Ranch!  

 Located just one hour’s drive north of San Francisco, in Pope Valley, Hubcap Ranch was the retirement home of Emanuele “Litto” Damonte.  Litto,  came to California from Genoa, Italy in the early 1900’s. His father passed on his stone mason trade to him which provided Litto  with lucrative work, including marble carving for the William Randolf Hearst mansion.

A smooth ribbon of a road now passes by the ranch but at the time that Litto settled in Pope Valley the rough and winding dirt road was pitted with potholes which tended to pop the hubcaps off  passing automobiles. Litto thought he’d do a good turn by collecting the hubcaps and affixing them to his property fence.

He assumed that folks who had lost them would pick them up the next time they drove by. Apparently nobody came to reclaim their hubcaps and soon the collection grew to the point where passers by thought Litto just LOVED hubcaps, so they started dropping off contributions for his “collection”. These too, he affixed to the front fence til that was full. He then extended the collection to the barbed wired that looped around the ranch.

Before Litto knew it he had become a hubcap connoisseur. He singled out the most select examples for special placement on his out buildings and his home.

No one’s got an exact count, but it’s said there may be as many as 5,000 hubcaps catching the rays on Hubcap Ranch.

Two years after Litto’s death, Hubcap Ranch received the official designation of  California Historic Landmark.

Hubcap Ranch is currently the residence of Litto’s grandson, Mike Damonte, who does his best to maintain the property

in all its quirky glory.

 

 

 

 

 

To Hell in a Handbasket

2016:  It’s 500th anniversary of the death Hieronymus Bosch, and his little home town of ‘s-Hertogenbosch called all of his paintings and drawings to come on home.

(Travel partner, Hannah Verlin, of Ossuary trip fame, drinking in the fact that we have arrived in Bosch’s hometown!)

You’re not the only one who can’t pronounce ‘s-Hertogenbosch–and hey, is it really allowed in Dutch to spell a name starting with an apostrophe? Even the Dutch prefer not to have to say ‘s-Hertogenbosch out loud. They just call this town by its nickname: Den Bosch, which means simply, the forest. And no, it’s not a coincidence that Hieronymus Bosch’s last name is his hometown–Bosch was named after his town, and not vice versa. We’re talking the 1500’s, when they didn’t have the same convention of last names that we do–you could just tack your hometown onto your first name and that was sufficient. (That would make  Facebook searches for your old high school classmates very challenging.)

I can tell you the little town of Den Bosch has gone totally Bosch bonkers:

      

It was impressive how gracefully the good citizens of Den Bosch handled ten times  the number of visitors to their normally low-keyed town, proving once again that the Dutch are just nice, nice people!  Capitalizing on the throngs of Bosch pilgrims, every nook and cranny of Den Bosch was turned into a tourist opportunity with a Bosch twist. Scaffolding was erected up the side and around the perimeter of the roof of St John’s Cathedral (vertigo!) to enable gargoyle viewing.

These figures, which aren’t really gargoyles, were being sculpted as Bosch worked away in his nearby studio.  One could see remarkable similarities between these figures and Bosch’s painted characters.

 

I don’t understand why, but I could not convince Hannah to try on, let alone buy this outfit.

OK, enough of the merchandise–let’s go see Bosch!

The director of the local museum in Den Bosch has been fixated on this 500th anniversary for the last decade and worked like a devil, appropriately enough, to get the world’s most prestigious museums (the only museums that own Bosches) to loan their prized paintings which never , ever get loaned to anyone, let alone to a little museum like the  Noordbrabants Museum.

(shown here, the Prado’s, “Cure of Folly”. This painting is a play on the expression, in Bosch’s time, to “have stones in the head”- saying someone was crazy.)

The fact that the likes of the Prado, the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum, and Washington’s National Gallery of Art agreed to loan their most treasured holdings  was described by London’s Daily Telegraph as  “a feat of stamina and silver-tongued curatorial cunning.” Though Bosch was a prolific painter, only about 25 of his paintings remain in existence today and of these, 20 were loaned to the Noordbrabants Museum along with almost his entire oeuvre of existing drawings–about 20 of the existing 25 drawings. In exchange for the privilege of borrowing these works the lending institutions benefited from  extensive new  research conducted by the Noordbrabants team . Well, benefited might be too strong a word. The poor Prado,  owner of more Bosches than any other museum had to swallow the bitter pill that two of its Bosches were pronounced [ahem] NOT  Bosches after all. Thanks, Noorbrabants!

(Pictured here: the Prado’s downgraded “St. Anthony” –still pretty nice!)

This might be a nice time to point out that this forger took note of Bosch’s  penchant for funnels in his imagery. He snuck them in everywhere. Search through the other images–you’ll find several more.

On the flip side, the Nelson Atkins Museum, humble in comparison to the Prado, learned that one of its “school of” Bosches that had been relegated to their museum storage since its acquisition was done by the great master himself–SCORE! I wouldn’t be surprised if they hold a ticker tape parade to welcome their St. Anthony home.

Well, let’s not quibble. The fact is, the homecoming of Hieronymus Bosch has been  a glorious, once-in-forever event.  And even though I’m usually allergic to block buster events I was happy to join the ga-zillions of people who descended upon Den Bosch to be able to present their own flesh to the master painter of heaven and hell (with an undeniable emphasis on hell).

 

Hieronymus Bosch is surely one of the most widely recognized and revered painters of all times. I first became keenly aware of him in high school, in the drug-infused 60’s when Bosch was elevated to cult status for his psychedelic interpretations of the human condition. He is one of the handful of artists that the “man of the street” will nod in recognition to when his name is pronounced. Case in point, the cab driver who took me to Logan airport on the first, and arguably most dangerous leg of my pilgrimage to Den Bosch, became suddenly very animated on the subject of Hieronymus Bosch. When I responded to the cab driver’s inquiry as to why I was going to the Netherlands,  the driver torqued his rear view mirror to a 45 degree angle to be able to have eye contact with me in the back seat rather than with the road as he expounded on Bosch, all the while telling me that he didn’t care a hoot about art. Believe me, Bosch’s popularity did not start in the 1960’s. By 1560, a mere 45 years after Bosch’s death there were ten to fifteen times as many forgeries of Bosch paintings as there were genuine Bosches. Thus the difficulty figuring out in present day which paintings were actually done by the master himself. These fakes were often done by the most accomplished artists of their era. One imitator  went on to have a  magnificent career of his own: Peter Bruegel the Elder–yup–that’s how he earned his chops in his student days!

As obsessed as Bosch was with phantasmagorical images of the underworld

     

his depictions of paradise would make today’s fundamentalists throw a snit fit:

We have all heard descriptions of the tunnel of light cited in near death experiences. Bosch’s  “Assent of the Blessed” is the first known reference to this tunnel of light.Is it possible that Bosch was the inventor of this notion?

And what’s going on here, Hieronymus? This is one hell of an album cover! Heavy mental!

A couple more excellent uses for funnels:

 

If you have read all this and are now saying to yourself, “Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t I go?”  There may still be a tunnel of light for you to follow: The Prado in Madrid will be having its own 500th anniversary of Bosch celebration with the “most extensive exhibition of Hieronymus Bosch ever organized” from May 31 to September 11, 2016. And they may well be able to claim this as they own the most famous of all Bosches, the Garden of Earthly Delights that they did not loan to the Noordbrabants Museum. A word to the wise, if you’re thinking of going; reserve your tickets long in advance. The exhibition at Noordbrabants sold out very hastily and surely there will be great demand for the Prado’s quincentennial Bosch extravaganza.

 

 

 

Dr. Guislain Museum

A museum whose mission is “to  question the distinction between normal and abnormal”?  You know I’ve got to write a post about that! Just the name itself, the Dr. Guislain Museum, intrigues. Never mind the fact that the guidebooks don’t mention this museum as one of the reasons one might consider visiting picturesque Ghent, Belgium. It is this unique museum that put Belgium on my itinerary a couple years ago.

I had noticed that several of the European outsider artists I follow had work in the collection of the Dr. Guislain Museum, and curious about the museum’s name in relationship to its collection I looked it up. Turns out, not only was Dr. Guislain a real doctor, he was an early proponent of humane care for psychiatric patients. He headed up the first insane asylum in Belgium which became known later, as the Dr. Guislain Hospital.

Following in the enlightened footsteps of the hospital’s founder, the modern day (and current) director, Dr. Rene Stockman, pursued the provocative idea of converting a large part of the hospital into a museum. At the heart of this vision was the belief that light needed to be shed onto the dark history of psychiatry in order to normalize society’s relationship to the mentally ill. Rather than hiding away the array of objects and photographs that the hospital had in its possession, the director put them on display.

 So that’s one part of the museum: the history of psychiatry. There are two other components to the museum: temporary exhibits (mainly contemporary art) that relate in some way to the theme of mental health (There was a great show up when I visited entitled “Nervous Women”, which examined  illnesses historically and culturally  linked to women, such as hysteria and anorexia). The third section of the museum–the section that drew me to Ghent in the first place– is their major collection of art made by artists with mental illness or intellectual disability.

The Dr. Guislain Museum has the largest holdings of Netherlands’s most celebrated outsider artist (one of my all time favorites): Willem Van Genk.

Van Genk, who died fairly recently, (2005) drew, painted and sculpted the subject matter he was obsessed with: urban landscapes with a particular emphasis on transportation systems, and most with references to his other obsession–Russian communism.

At the end of his life, Van Genk turned almost exclusively to sculpture. The Dr. Guislain Museum has  installed his work as it had been set up in Van Genk’s own home:

The raincoats, by the way, were a major part of Van Genk’s oeuvre, as is the library of books upon which his massive train station sits.

Another extraordinary room-sized installation of the little known outsider, Hans Langner, is testament in and of itself what an unusual institution the Dr. Guislain Museum is.

Can you think of any other venue that has given such a difficult, idiosyncratic work this amount of space and this level of respect?

A similarly sprawling cityscape (I neglected to take a note of the artist’s name) occupies another room. Ah! a little edit here: Dutch outsider art logger extraordinaire, Henk Van Es just emailed me to identify this artist–fellow Dutchman, Bertus Jonkers. Read Henk’s very interesting post here.

And then there’s many, many stellar works by both well known and obscure outsider artists.

Oh, I wish I had taken note of this artist’s name. If by chance you know, tell me and I’ll  gratefully add in the info.

 Henk Van Es to the rescue again! He helped me identify the maker of this submarine: another Dutchman, Gerard van Lankveld

 The incredibly knitted work of: Marie-Rose Lortet:

The dense collaged figures of Simone le Carre:

Austrian artist, August Walla:

This gem by Adolf Wolfli:

Well, I could go on–I probably photographed the whole collection. Hopefully I’ve enticed you enough that should you find yourself in Brussels, you’ll hop on the train for the hour-long ride to Ghent. And drink in this treasure for yourself!

Hat’s off (er, I mean–on!) to my fabulous travel partner, and coincidentally my husband, who was thoughtful enough to wear clothing that matched this very photogenic facade.

Should none of this interest you, I am certain, that at the very least you will find solace in Ghent chocolate (It is Belgium, after all!) served to you by this chocolatier:

I get the sense he was put off by the leopard skin coat of this customer. I know you will not wear a similar coat–so do not worry–he will be more friendly to you.

Pollock’s Toy Museum

I love museums of all kinds: art, science, ethnology, history. And while I truly appreciate the big famous venues, I have a special place in my heart for small unheralded museums. Most of all I love a museum which perfectly reflects the gestalt of the collection. Rather than the traditional neutral role that most museums play in relationship to  their collections, these little anachronistic gems become works of art themselves. Their very beings are so intertwined with their holdings that collection and museum become one.

Just such a gem is the Pollock’s Toy Museum in the heart of London. Currently under the directorship of the grandson of the museum founder, Marguerite Fawdry, Pollock’s began its life not as a museum, but as the workshop and store for Benjamin Pollock’s Toy Theaters. Mr. Pollock hand painted and constructed these popular Victorian  paper entertainments. The museum, which was founded in 1956 on the premises of the toy theater shop ( at a  different location than where the Pollock Toy Museum is today), has many of the original paper theaters in its holdings.  The collection has been augmented  with  Victorian through 1950’s era toys.

Stepping into the museum I wanted to pinch myself to see if I had fallen asleep on the couch reading Dickens and was dreaming up my surroundings. The deeply satisfying, thickly layered paint of the red and green walls, doors and stairwell drew me into the space with a magnetic, slow motion kind of pull. After paying my 6 pounds to the ticket taker, who beckoned forward,  I found myself pleasingly alone in this twisty-turny multi-roomed museum.

Up the steps, slowly, slowly, every inch another treasure to admire:

 

And then the individual rooms! Oh! Categorized and organized, but not too organized.

Stuffed with playthings, some just so barely brushing up against my own childhood that I wondered if my siblings would rush in and snatch the vision away and say these were their toys.

But, no, we’d been taught to share, so all was well. I could relax and drink it in.

And send myself backwards and forwards in time, at the same instant.

and marvel over how certain it once had been that some toys were for BOYS ONLY. I was happy that my brother’s Meccano set, a favorite of all of us kids, had not had this definitive labeling by the time it was manufactured for my era.

One of the things I love about the Pollock collection is how used the objects are. Chosen for being loved rather than for being in pristine condition.

The doll room showed this most of all.

And yes, the doll creep factor is in full swing in the doll room. This doll and the next could easily be responsible for the invention of the night light.

Not hard to come up with a story for this pair, Constance and Geraldine, siblings trapped together for eternity, their individual personalities becoming sharper over the decades. Geraldine, always the  confident one, has become insufferable, and Constance, well, poor thing, by now she’s just a shell of her former self.

Chastity could never go outside to play because she could not risk getting grass stains on her outfit.

And no wonder she dressed this way. This was her mother–no fun at all!

Here’s the look on Tildy’s face after her brother told her she most definitely could NOT play with his Meccano set.

It was embarrassing going out with Gertrude. She didn’t seem to understand she was making a spectacle of herself. She never seemed to notice that folks were pointing at her and whispering to each other.

Ah, that Lucinda! She’s been caught stuffing sugar cubes in her cheeks again.

Mary Ella is the perfect child when her parents are at home. But as soon as they leave for the evening she throws wild parties that start with Spin the Bottle and then proceed to much, much worse activities.

And these two kids, there’s a reason why they look, well, so disturbed…

All their furniture is made with BONES!

Time to go! Back down the stairs, past all those games there was never enough time for. (Yes, I CAN end on a preposition if I want to!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Curio Museum: Davistown in Liberty Maine

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It’s not every day that you get a handwritten note scratched onto the back of an envelope inviting you to hang your work in one of your favorite little museums. When that happens, say, YES! And so I did when I saw a penned note to me on the museum newsletter faithfully sent out by the Davistown Museum every year. Very fitting communication method from the Davistown founder and director, salvage meister, and champion of the hand-hewn, Skip Brack.

(Skip in his natural habitat. Excellent suspenders!)

As soon as I got Skip’s invitation to install work I knew what I wanted to bring: I happened to have made a series I call “Special Collections”, an ode to the basement workshop and obsessive collector.

I became acquainted with Skip years ago when I started frequenting his extraordinary “Liberty Tool Company”

in Liberty, Maine, a favorite shopping destination for craftsmen and women and artists seeking tools

(and do-dads) of yore which stand the test of time and often surpass today’s depressingly low standards. Need a saw vice that swivels on an axle and can’t find it in Depot Cheapo? Head to Liberty Tool! A Yankee screw driver? Head to Liberty Tool!

How ’bout a spork?

Oh, but I digress–this posting is about The Davistown Museum,

which is directly across the street from Liberty Tool Company. This crammed packed museum is the repository for Skip Brack’s best finds in his salvage business.  This is the stuff you cannot buy from him no matter how much money you offer because these finds belong in a permanent collection where they will be preserved in perpetuity for us tool and do-dad lovers to admire and covet forever. You cannot believe what Skip has acquired over all his years of buying up old manufacturing inventories.

 

Lord knows where he has stumbled on these treasures that span American history.

 

And to heck with millennial museum practices: if you like it, find a spot for it and settle it in. It’s going to feel at home at the Davistown, because, indeed home is where the heart is!

Skip’s primary focus at the Davistown  is the history of American tools, but really this crammed full museum showcases just about anything that Skip truly loves and so a visit to the Davistown is a window onto Skip’s soul.

Here’s a great little video made by Andrew David Watson that will give you a great flavor for Skip Brack and his noble pursuit in life.

As if the visit weren’t sweet enough there were two lovely, and darned good bluegrass musicians jamming on the porch.

        

Their music accompanied us as we strolled through “downtown” Liberty:

 

Is it possible that Liberty has the only hexagonal post office in the USA?

 

Bye, bye, Liberty! I’ll be back…