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.

Nothing Like Home

Black Friday began auspiciously with the cracking of my morning egg.

Double yolks! I’d heard of them but not actually cracked one open myself. I took that as a sign to emerge from the cocoon of dread that I have spun around myself these past many months. After all, a vaccine is on the horizon! Finally–light at the end of our pandemic tunnel!

My cocoon hasn’t been so bad actually–I’ve been working away in my studio on a conveniently meditative project which has kept me properly numbed. But still, I kind of dropped the ball on this blog which travels hither and yon seeking out all things quirky to bring to your screens. I was just finishing up a post on one of my favorite odd museums in France, La Fabuloserie, when the March shut-down fell like a curtain across our world. And though I was pulling the Fabuloserie images from my archive, suddenly it felt ridiculous to be posting tempting travel when we were all beginning to shelter in place. I will finish that post later but for now, I’m getting back on the blog wagon with sites closer to home. I mean, we’ve still got another several months of NO TRAVEL, right? So you may want to do a little more tootling around in your own backyard. (backyard if you’re one of my Boston readers, that is).

As Black Friday sirens attempted to lure the rest of America to do their bit for capitalism I found the day clear for quirk hunting. I hopped in my Honda to snag some images of a few of the eccentric houses in and around Boston that are missing from my archive of photos. If you only know Boston through your history books and endless recountings of our Puritan forbears, you might be pleasantly surprised to learn there are plenty of eccentricities sprinkled throughout the city and its ‘burbs.

I am lucky enough to have my studio in the city of Somerville, which by the way is purported to have the highest per capita number of artists in the USA after Brooklyn, NY. And what a fair city it is! A quirk-lover’s community of whackiness, from the annual Fluff festival which celebrates the birthplace of Marshmallow Fluff (yes, Somerville!) , to Honkfest in which activist street bands from all over the country converge to march while they toot and dance the streets of Somerville, to one of our family’s favorites, the annual Illuminations trolley tour for which an impressive number of home-owners run up massive electrical bills , one upping each other with over the top holiday decorations.

Somerville’s wonderful eccentricity started a L-O-N-G time ago, apparently. And so, with a nod to history, I’m starting this post with the oldest odd home I’ve documented for this post: Somerville’s Round House:

The Round House was built in 1856 by Enoch Robinson, a locksmith and hardware manufacturer. He chose this round design with the goals of economizing space, light, and heat. Despite the fact that these attributes remain relevant in modern times, this unique structure lay abandoned for many years throughout the 1980’s, ’90’s and into the millennium, becoming a teenage hangout and falling so far into disrepair that Preservation Massachusetts placed it on its list of endangered historically significant buildings. In 1986 the renowned North Bennet Street School took up the Round House as a project and made critical repairs to the structure that kept it from deteriorating beyond hope. Happily in 2006 George Sarapoulos, a local contractor, purchased the Round House and began the painstaking process of restoration, ultimately making it his family’s home. It would be so lovely to tour inside, to discover if the circular library was retained, to hunt for the glass door knobs that were one of Enoch Robinson’s specialty, to gaze up through the glass skylight. But just a viewing from the street (Atherton Street) is worth a visit to this neighborhood, where it should be noted there are a remarkable number of beautifully restored Victorian gems.

Speaking of Victorian gems, the historic district of Arlington has many beauties, and a few that merit a place in the Quirk blog. The Edward Hall house (built in 1890) on Pleasant Street shows off the Victorians’ penchant for dragons, or if you want to get technical–griffins.

And just a few blocks away in what’s know as the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Arlington, is one of the neighborhood favorites, unless you happen to be the grouchy neighbor who wrote a letter to the owner who transformed the blandly colored 1864 Mansard into the “Purple Palace“, telling them they should move to San Francisco:

A very different transformation of a Victorian home can be found on Dwight Street in the South End of Boston. A completely unassuming rowhouse was gussied up by the 1960’s homeowner:

Cherubs! Poodles! Urn carrying goddesses! All smooshed together in a smorgasbord of schmaltz by the blind(!) artist Phillip Ligone. Mr. Ligone no doubt learned his skill from his father who created cemetery statuary. There is very little info out there about this quirky artist and his abode. What little I know comes from my favorite arts and cultural blogger, Greg Cook. If you haven’t ever checked our Greg Cook’s “Wonderland“, it’s time to do so!

Here’s a grand arts and crafts house in Boston, back side of Franklin Park, I’d like to know more about. Anyone? Seriously, I have done a fair amount of scouring to try to find our more about this beauty, but curiously, no matter what search words I used I could find nothing. Seems like it should be a historic landmark.

As you can see from these details it’s got a magnificent bas relief of Paul Robeson (I think) and several more carvings embellishing the building around the windows and doors.

Hip hopping back to Somerville to have another look at one of my favorite home transformations, Martha Friend’s Glass menagerie:

Martha Friend has not been shy about attracting attention to her house. It’s right on Highland Ave, a main thoroughfare through the city of Somerville and so her house draws an abundance of gawkers who stop to admire and photograph.

On a perfectly ordinary stretch of College Street in the north end of Somerville is this over-the-top house museum, Museum of the Modern Renaissance:

This modest building began its life in 1932 as an Odd Fellows Lodge, followed by a second fraternal order, the Free Masons which took ownership of the building in 1963. In 2002 the building was bought by an artist couple. Russian emigres, Nicholas Shaplyko and Eketerina Sorokina. The have named it The Museum of Modern Renaissance and have painted every inch of this building inside and out with swirling mystical imagery. I can see from their website that their creation would merit an in person visit (once we’re doing that sort of thing again). They promise on their website to guide me on “a mystical journey rooted in a place of healing” We all could use that, right? Stay tuned….

I don’t want poor Cambridge to feel left out of this posting so here’s a siting that I think qualifies for house quirk. This lovely tree house is in a well-heeled neighborhood, walking distance to Harvard Square.

And while I’m on the subject of tree houses, I happened upon this litttle gem on the Brandeis campus in Waltham:

You still with me? I have two more discoveries farther afield that I do so wish to share. I know nothing about this amazing Queen Ann in Gloucester.

Can we even call it Queen Ann when the turret is five stories high? Anyone out there who’s a Gloucester-phile want to tell me a story about this place? And the person who lives here, could you invite me over for a cup of tea and a view of the sea?

Onward to the most far flung of home oddities in today’s post: Bancroft Castle in Groton. More of a folly than a house really. First of all let me say that Groton has become my go-to exurb for soothing pandemic era country walks. If you need to forest bathe or want to commune with swans along the Nashua or Squantacook Rivers check out this amazing resource for trail ideas and detailed maps. In the search of bucolic and panoramic views of peak foliage when a trip to Vermont was verboten we headed to Gibbets Hill (try not to think about the origin of the word “gibbet” –old English for “gallows”, usually placed on a hill for public executions. Thus the notion to this day that Gibbet’s Hill might be haunted. You’ll see no sign of that, at least in the day time. ) You can park your car in the big parking lot of Gibbet Hill Grill which serves the black angus and produce raised on the surrounding Gibbet Hill Farm which you’re welcome to tour.

Follow the electric fence along the Angus pasture and then up a steep hill to the castle. Drink in the magnificent views along the way.

And soon you arrive at Bancroft Castle in all its forlorn grandeur:

Bancroft Castle started its life with the vision of being a home, if you can believe that. It was a wee little retirement project of one General William Bennet who had visions of a lavish retirement home for him and his sweetie. Turns out castle building was a tad more costly than the general bargained for and after 12 years he was forced to sell the entire property never having broken ground on the mansion part of his dream. Bancroft Castle was sold to a local physician who turned it into a tuberculosis sanatorium. The Sanatorium touted the restorative breezes and soul cleansing views that could be acquired from its perch on the hill. The Sanatorium was in operation for only a ten years. Whether that is because this particular TB retreat was too expensive or whether TB had started to recede enough that demand for sanatoriums dwindled, I do not know, but after a decade of operation the castle was sold again. This time it was reborn as a social center and dance hall. If you walk the steep hill to visit Bancroft Castle you will marvel over how tricky getting back home at the end of the evening would have been to drunken revelers. I am absolutely certain many revelers ended their evenings with sprained ankles. After ten years enduring party goers the castle succumbed to a devastating fire sparked by errant an errant firecracker. Every bit of the castle burned except the superbly built stone structure.

This gorgeous floral arrangement, which looked to be just a day or two old, greeted us as we came around to the front side of the hearth. I assume it was left over from a weekend wedding of a couple searching for a pandemic safe wedding venue.

Or perhaps Gibbet’s Hill really is haunted.

If you know of other follies and house whackiness send me info. I can add them to this post. Have fun being a tourist in your own backyard!

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?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picassiette

My last post, “Creating an Ocean…” brought you just outside the city of Chartres, France. And surely if you are just outside Chartres you will continue on into Chartres.  And surely you will visit the famous, famous Chartres Cathedral.

And I know,  because you are a “Quirk” reader, you will not simply finish with the cathedral, go to a cafe, then hop back on the next train to find the next cathedral in the next town. You will go to “Maison Picassiette“, a reasonable walk from the cathedral and one of France’s most famous quirky sites.

Leaving the cathedral and the lovely half-timbered houses of the center city behind

you will enter the  neighborhood where Raymond Isadore and his wife Adrienne Dousset made their home. Isadore, a cemetery sweeper,  built his house in 1930, cozy enough, but nothing that would have stood out in his ordinary surroundings. On a walk one day his eye was attracted to a pretty shard of broken pottery which he picked up and brought home. And so, it is said, began his collecting habit. Soon he was frequenting rubbish dumps, actively seeking out cast away crockery. With the little pile he had amassed in his garden Isadore began a modest mosaic project on the wall of his home.

Pleased with the effect, Isadore carried on.

In fact he didn’t stop until twenty four years later, when he had covered every surface of his house, inside and out.

From walls to floors to ceilings

interspersed here and there with his folkloric paintings.

With his wife’s approval, when all the structural surfaces were covered, Raymond Isadore tackled the furniture.

An autodidact, Isadore paid homage to great artists and monuments, including these mosaic portraits of French cathedrals adorning the garden wall. And in the center–a throne for his Madame and himself to rest a spell and admire his work.

Word of his marvel spread, and in 1954 Pablo Picasso paid a visit. Some say that the “Pic” in “Picassiette”, the nickname given to Isadore by neighbors, refers to Picasso. Assiette is the french work for plate.  But most translations converge on “scrounger” or “scavenger”. Whatever the case, the word “picassiette” coined for Raymond Isadore has entered the French lexicon,  interchangeable with the term for mosaic-ing. Come to think of it, we’d be well served to use “picassiette” as I see spell check does not approve of mosaic-ing or mosaicing, or mosaicking.

Raymond Isadore completed his ouevre in 1962, two years and one day before he turned 65. I’m going to go out on a limb and say he was a happy man.

If you are itching to see more and don’t have a trip to France in your back pocket here’s a nice walk-through video.

 

 

Creating an Ocean, One Blue Tile at a Time

In the middle of the fields in the Perche region of France, just 30 kilometers west of Chartres lies an oasis of blue,

a whole ocean tucked away behind the walls surrounding the modest home in the village of Harponvilliers, of nonagenarian,  Renée Bodin.

Renée Bodin,  who calls herself “Hurfane” (a name she derived by combining the first three letters of her father’s name and the first four letters of her mother’s name), spent most of her life  in Paris as a Classics language teacher.  In 1978 she purchased this house as a summer residence:

In 1980 she began her mosaic work, but, still being a teacher, her work was limited to weekends and school vacation. When Hurfane retired from teaching in 1992 she threw herself full time into the transformation of her property.  Hurfane feels she’s been working on this oeuvre her whole life as she began envisioning the creation as a child. 

We felt lucky to be welcomed for a visit to Hurfane’s mosaic masterpiece as we had arrived at the “Jardins de la Feuilleraie” a the very begining of April, before the official start of the visitor season.  We sheepishly knocked of the door of this tidy but ordinary looking house and patiently waited, wondering if anyone was home.   A tiny, shy-looking woman opened the door and we immediately began apologizing for arriving unannounced and before the start of the visitor season, but, we explained, we had traveled a long way and hoped we might be allowed to have a peak. “Yes, yes, you may, but really, it’s not ready–it’s a mess”, she answered. Of course we said” We don’t mind!” and she ushered us in.  As we walked about, Hurfane darted ahead of us, picking up fallen leaves, which was clearly the “mess” she had been referring to. But really, what’s a few fallen leaves among artists? The grounds were pristine! The first area Hurfane led us to was  her rose-colored garden in which the imagery is a folksy mix of animals, flowers and peasant life.

All very lovely, but nothing prepared us for the vast mosaic masterpiece at the back side of the house. It was as if Hurfane’s vision had catapulted itself from human’s puny little concerns  to the vastness of earth’s surfaces and finally to the infinite universe.

Here she explained were the elements of the universe: the sea, the stars, the heavens.

 

 

 

 

Hurfane had attempted to capture Time itself, but she explained, “Time runs away and is lost forever.”

“They made fun of me when I first began this work–a woman attempting masonry. But really, I found that working with cement was no different than working with flour to make a cake.” And so Hurfane persisted, one tile at a time for forty years. The universe is not quite finished, but almost. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bonavista Biennial

Summer ended on a perfect pitch with an August trip to  Newfoundland.  We were greeted with a miraculous (for Newfoundland) string of sunny days and found “the Rock” covered in an amazing array of berries, most of which we’d never heard of before we started traveling to Newfoundland, and most of which can be eaten raw or made into famous Newfoundland jams.

These are Crackerberries. The trails were paved with them.

Though berries would be enough of a reason to go to Newfoundland in August or September, it was the chance to see the Bonavista Biennial which drew me up this time.

Here is the Godmother of the  Bonavista Biennial, Catherine Beaudette,

who also is the founder of the 2 Rooms Artist Residency where I had the delicious pleasure of working last summer. Catherine had shown me the catalog for the first iteration of the Biennial (2017) and I knew I wanted to catch the Biennial the next time around.  I thought it was very brave of Catherine to name the first Biennial a BIENNIAL because that meant she HAD to rally for this enormous effort even before she saw how the first one shaped up. But rally she did, with a whole troupe of volunteers, to bring world class art to Newfoundland. One of the things that makes the Newfoundland Biennial so special is that geographically and culturally relevant work is installed up and down the Bonavista Pennisula in predominantly untraditional venues: a chapel, a breakwater, a root cellar!!!  All this art is interspersed with the quirky pleasures that Newfoundland has to offer: strolling miles of board-walked trails ringing most every town and village,

following the Devil’s Footprints in Keels,

convening with puffins, and did I already say counting root cellars?  There are over 100 of them in Elliston, which proudly calls itself of Root Cellar Capital of the World, a claim, I for one, am not going to dispute.

With my down-loaded Biennial map in hand we started our scavenger hunt in little Duntara (not far from the devil’s playground in Keels) where I had done my artist residency last year. In the evocative space of 2 Rooms, a beautiful heritage house that Catherine bought several years back and rescued from it’s likely trajectory into demise,

we found our first installation: the work of  Jason Holley.

Holley’s chains are both powerful and vulnerable. They look for all the world that they are painted metal, but on very close examination one discovers their fragility, as each link is hand crafted in clay.

Just the walk up the steps to the second floor of 2 Rooms made me squirm with pleasure. The souls of this heritage home are curated by layer upon layer of paint and wallpaper lovingly left clinging to the walls.

Catherine Beaudette called forth these souls with her Crib

and accompanying watercolors whose palettes echoed the surrounding paint chips.

After a reminiscing walk around Duntara, we headed to Bonavista, the largest town on the peninsula, to see Anna Hepler’s installation, “Mooring” which filled the salt storage warehouse of the historic Ryan Premises. I loved that this big, bold, voluminous ship hull cum whale rib-cage was constructed of re-purposed cardboard boxes which no doubt, like ships criss-crossing the Atlantic, had found their way to Newfoundland’s shores via eCommerce.

We tried to find Robert Hengeveld’s outdoor installation in Bonavista and discovered his lived sized house frame had moved! Very fitting for Newfoundland which has suffered the heartbreak of resettlement (a program which began in the 1950’s and continues today, in which the government pays residents of “outports” to abandon their heritage property and move to more populated communities).

We found Hengeveld’s house beautifully sited in Upper Amherst Cove.

We took the short cut across the peninsula which means driving though the boggy, forested, whole-lot-of-beautiful-nothing landscape and were reminded why we love Newfoundland so much. First, we passed this sign:

Then this:

Then this:

We arrived in the little community of Catalina to see the work on exhibit at the Salt Fish Plant. Drawing on a typically meticulous boat-builder’s approach to craftsmanship (as opposed to Hepler’s DYI approach) was the work of Ian Carr-Harris. Carr-Harris presented an exquisitely built model of the ship Theoris, the ship that carried Theseus on his quest to vanquish the Minotaur. I’ll let you read here why Carr-Harris has entitled this work “A Paradox”.

Showing alongside Carr-Harris was the equally well-crafted sculpture of Yvonne Lammerich, a forced perspective model of Champlain’s fort in Quebec.

We drove on to Port Union, one of my favorite Bonavista Peninsula towns (you just gotta love the birthplace of Newfoundland’s first labor union, no? In fact, Port Union is the ONLY union-built town in north America!!) Besides the wonderful interpretive center at the Fisherman’s Protective Union Factory and home of Fisherman’s Advocate Newspaper (back when newspapers were the heart and soul of democratic ideals. Hey! Why aren’t there more newspaper museums?!?)

One can easily spend all day in Port Union hiking the magnificent shoreline trail (top photo in post), hunting the water’s edge at low tide for the world’s oldest fossils–560 million years old.  (Yup! Don’t doubt me on this one)

Across the street from the Fisherman’s Protective Union Interpretive Center lies a long block of row houses which used to house the office managers at the fish plant and newspaper press.

On one end of the row sits the newly established Union House Arts. In the gallery of Union House Arts we saw the work of Meghan Price, who recorded the surfaces of erratic boulders, then carefully stitched her papers together to create alluringly ephemeral “rock” sculptures.

Besides these erratics,  Meghan Price also spent a couple weeks in Port Union drawing on trail marker imagery to create kites.

I too am drawn to the cryptic trail markers.

Behind Port Union’s main street with its hopeful renovations lies the less lucky boarding houses of Fishermen Protective Union’s workmen and their families.

But wait! What’s that pink shimmering at the end of this sagging row?

Ah!  Artist Robyn Love has stitched and hung  drapery which wafts protectively in the breeze enshrouding what used to be someone’s home.

In Port Rexton, just south of Port Union, we saw entirely different work of Meghan Price in the old post office. You had to look really, really hard at these geologic layers to discern that they were made from sliced up New Balance sneakers.

Finally we headed to Elliston for a long hike where we were rewarded with huge patches of Newfoundland’s most prized berry, the bakeapple, AND an escort of spouting and  breaching whales. On our way to the trail we stopped at the lovely St. Mary’s Church

photo credit: Brian Ricks

 to see the work of collaborating artists Jane Walker and Barb Hunt.

photo credit: Brian Ricks

Ringing the interior of the chapel with the ubiquitous artificial funerary flower petals, Hunt and Walker have spelled out (in Morse Code) “This slow loss reminds us to move”.  It’s a quiet, mournful piece, but not without a touch of Newfoundland wit.

Still counting root cellars in Elliston we headed over to the puffin viewing site

and right there at the start of the path are two well preserved root cellars with the telltale Bonavista Biennial placard announcing we’ve found another  art installation site.

Leaving the door cracked a bit to adjust our eyes to the dark we reached out for the cord dangling from the ceiling, waved the wand about and presto! Drawings appeared on the phosphorescent rocks gathered by artist Sean Patrick O’Brien.

Oddly satisfying. When we finished our rock/light drawings we stood outside the door for a while to watch others’ responses and ended up serving as art ambassadors, encouraging parents to let their kids in. One by one we heard them exclaim, ‘Wow! Cool!” No need for didactic art criticism here! That’s what I love about the Bonavista Art Biennial.

Enough of this high brow stuff. You can’t go to Newfoundland without having a good chuckle. There is a reason why I do so many Newfoundland posts in a blog I’ve entitled “Quirk”.  What can I say–Newfoundland is a quirky place! Our first helping of quirk offered itself up on night two of our Newfoundland stay on the less touristed Eastport Penninsula, just north of the Bonavista Penninsula.

 We poured over the recipes to see if there was something new we could try. There was no shortage of options. We did NOT try:

Luckily for us our host came by with some freshly caught cod and not seal flippers.

Fancy Rice Salad might have been a good accompaniment but, alas, we had not picked up Dream Whip on the way in.

And we  were oh so tempted by “Sex-in-a Pan”: (hmmm, is Dream Whip the same as Cool whip? Well, as I said, we didn’t have any.)

Instead we joined our lovely hosts, Linda and Cyril for a sunset boat ride, where we passed around a chocolate bar.

and then finished off the night laying on our backs in the mosquito-less yard watching shooting stars. Better than Sex-in-a-Pan!

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.

Pourquoi pas?

Since the theme of these last couple of years has been TransAtlantic, I’m going to zip from this side of the pond where I’ve located the last few posts over to the other side, to the lovely and lightly trodden Sarthe department of the Pays de la Loire, France.  A few years ago I had mapped out a route through Pays de la Loire (the region where my mother was born) and Normandy visiting the myriad of outsider art sites along the way.  YES, there are many. And yes, I too have wondered why. Of all cultures, the French are known  the world over for being proper. And yet, AND YET, France has the highest concentration of wacky built environments. Sitting alongside their deep sense propriety is a simultaneous undercurrent of “pourquoi pas?”, maybe more commonly thought of as Joie de Vivre! I can hardly think of two more apt phrases to describe “Le Jardin Humoristique” that I visited in the Alençon suburb, Fyé.  This roadside environment had been on my bucket list since I found this book , “Bonjour aux Promeneurs”, in 1996. If ever there was a character beckoning to me from a book cover, this was my man!

By the time I made it to Le Jardin Humoristique this jolly fellow felt like an old friend AND I saw, as I stepped  out of the car, he had gotten a face lift and had sprouted hair!

Fernand Chartelain, a one time baker and subsequent farmer, built this roadside attraction in his retirement for his own and passerby’s amusement.  He sculpted a welcome sign, “Bonjours aux Promeneurs” and affixed it front and center to the modest fence that bordered his property on Route 138.

Knowing that drivers would be jamming on their brakes he added admonitions such as “Be careful not to have an accident” and later more whimsical advice, “Only roll downhill”.

Chatelain drew his first inspiration from a dictionary illustration of a centaur.

And the Mobile gas station logo of Pegassus:

And the familiar children’s story, Babar.

But as he grew more confident he let his imagination go wild, and wild was his imagination!

Though most reports suggest Chatelain’s creations were enjoyed by the public, his work also suffered from periodic vandalism. But despair and discouragement were not in Chatelain’s wheelhouse. With the assistance of his wife, Marie Louise, he  repaired and re-painted, his work constantly evolving. Finally after 23 years creating his Jardin Humoristique, Chatelain was forced by age to abandon his work in 1988. For 20 years forces of nature took their toll on this whimsical roadside attraction until at nearly the last minute a group of art brut admirers formed “The Friends of Fernand Chatelain”  in 2005 and got to work to restore the sculptures. Though there have been detractors to the shockingly vibrant new paint applied to the reconstructed concrete surfaces, I really don’t think Monsieur Chatelain would have minded at all. In fact I’m quite certain he is broadly smiling from above or below.

 

 

 

 

 

Ghost Houses

One more Newfoundland post. Best enjoyed on a slow, low-sunlight winter day. So here we go, convening with ghosts on The Rock…

When I left you last in Newfoundland I vowed to go back and spend time in the  two little settlements of Open Hall and Red Cliff on the north coast of Bonavista Penninsula. I had  driven past earlier and spotted beautiful heritage houses clinging to their souls as they succumbed to the elements.

This beauty revealed itself slowly and achingly as I walked around.

curtains drawn one last time

roof shingle blown onto the deck,  now disguised as lichen

do not enter

I put my hands to each side of my face to interrupt the reflection as I leaned against the window, and OH!  I could see that really it wasn’t so long ago that this home had to be left behind.

It is not so long ago that the “Cod Moratorium” changed Newfoundland’s economy forever. In 1992, in response to the ever dwindling and endangered population of cod in the waters surrounding Newfoundland, the Canadian government imposed a moratorium on cod fishing. Needless to say, with 35,000 people suddenly put out of work, the effects on the Newfoundland’s economy was devastating. Initially meant to last a couple of years, the moratorium has continued to this day with only minimal recovery in the cod population.

 

Sprinkled throughout the landscape are many beautiful fishermen’s houses which have been abandoned as people left to find a new life elsewhere.

 

becoming transparent

Exhaling

revealing its layers

washed in or left behind?

Commiserating

holding ground, but barely

back to the wind

 

dressing in layers, still shivering

hauled up one last time

Hanging in there in Summerville

 

Shuttered shops:

with hand painted signs:

and even a hand painted speed limit sign–now that’s a first for me:

 

 

And whole towns disappeared:

This is Bruce of Rugged Beauty Boat Tours showing us a snug harbor, once cheek by jowl with homes.

There is still a  town of Little Harbour. But it is washing away at about the same rate as its welcome sign.

 

But, wait! All is not lost. The indomitable spirit keeps springing up.

That Newfoundlanders have been able to maintain their spirit despite this assault to the cultural identity inspires me every time I go spend time there. We were happy to meet Peter Burt, who together with his partner Robin Crane found a new way to make a living from the sea with the production of (gourmet) salt!

And the foodie movement has helped to rejuvenate the Bonavista Pennisula.

The Boreal Diner–where we sampled fried dandelion flowers. YUM!

 

And always, always Newfoundlanders are quirky, spunky, funny!

ever optimistic:

excellent problem solvers:

and did I say funny? Oh yes, I did!

 

Lest so many images of abandonment at the top of this post have left you bereft I will end with images lovingly cared for heritage homes and sheds on the Bonavista Penninsula.

 

Adieu Newfoundland. Til next time!

 

 

 

Heart Achingly Beautiful

Enthusiasts of this blog who live in the Boston area should head over to the National Center for Afro-American Artists, an underappreciated museum in Roxbury. Hurry, over, in fact, because the beautiful objects on display in the current exhibition, “Inmate Ingenutiy: The Cell Solace Collection” are scheduled to depart the museum at the end of January 2019.

The twenty or so exquisitely crafted handbags, boxes, and other vaguely utilitarian objects are on loan from Roxbury collector, Antonio Inniss who first saw one of these creations as a boy when family members received two bags as gifts from an incarcerated friend.

His enthusiasm for these objects encouraged more gifts of bags to Antoinio Inniss. Eventually his appreciation evolved into a passion and his passion evolved into a collection. The works shown here span from the 1930’s to the 1970’s.

Look closely at the lyrical abstract patterns to discover the source of the materials:

Cigarette wrappers and cartons!

When smoking was banned in prisons, stamps found their way into the craft:

There’s more to see–but I’m telling you–just GO!

OK, now in the “ya never know when you’ll meet someone interesting” department:

As we were oohing and aahing over the weaves and patterns, into the gallery popped a man with a sparkle in his eye who offered up some insight into the collection. I could tell he knew a thing or two not just about the about the museum, but about LIFE. It was Ras Ben Tau, who has been Artist in Residence (and museum caretaker) at the Center for Afro-American Artists for over 30 years! I asked if we could see his work and he happily brought us downstairs to see several of his creations which ranged from metal work:

to abstract painting:

to this magnificent portrait of Haile  Selassie:

We learned many things from Ras Ben Tau, including the existence of PurBlack, which I assumed, when peering into his little jar, was a paint pigment. True to its name I had never seen a blacker black!  I thought I was being shown the richest black known to man, a wonderous, light absorbing material to coat a canvas or sculpture. But no! Ben scooped out about a 1/4 teaspoon and swirled it into his teacup to drink. And as he sipped he recounted the most amazing stories of PurBlack’s restorative powers along with his own story of near death experiences and rebirths. One sniff of PurBlack (a rare mineral pitch found on trees in the Himalayas!) was enough to convince me of its powers.

Before leaving we stopped in to visit the museum’s extraordinary burial chamber of Nubian King Aspelta, on permanent loan from Boston’s MFA:

thus nicely cementing our feeling that we had stumbled onto magic at the Center for Afro-American Art on what had started out as a dreary day in January.

This beautiful head of Boston sculptor John Wilson greets visitors to the Center for Afro-American Artists in Roxbury, MA