Native American Art

I recently treated myself to a gallery talk at the University of Pittsburgh Art Gallery in the middle of the week. I are an early lunch with my mentor at one of the little plazas in Oakland and then walked over. The Henry Clay Frick Arts Building is a classical-looking edifice with a sweeping  semi-circle entrance facing a bronze and granite fountain of Pan and a Muse. Inside there is a small but beautiful central garden, surrounded by the Nicholas Lochoff Cloister of Renaissance religious artworks. You can just see the Cathedral of Learning peaking over the edge of the roof.

They have newer artwork, too, such as this 2004 piece from the Neon calligraphy series: The Poem of the University of Pittsburgh, in which Gu Wenda uses Chinese characters that read phonetically "you ni fu se ti bi ci bao ge." The words are "shiny -- neon -- blows on -- colorful -- silk -- green --  china -- treasure -- pavilion." It *is* a treasure pavilion.

I was there for the first event in a series focused on Native American art, an object lesson on Inuit Sculpture. Most of the other attendees were Art students or faculty. We practiced observing the mother and child figure, the curator told us about the artist, and then a sculptor showed us how such a piece might be worked out of a block of sandstone held in the lap.

I no longer remember the artist's name, but I learned that he made thousands of sculptures that were sold to a White American dealer, who distributed them around the United States. In the mid-20th century there was a surge of demand for "authentic" artwork that played into popular ideas of what that art should look like. A mother-baby pair such as this one was common. Eventually so much stone was quarried that supplies ran low, the art market was glutted, and the value dropped, leaving the Inuit without sustenance, just as when the beavers and fish disappeared. The New York Times recently profiled a successful Inuit artist collective you can read about here.

p.s. I learned that we're supposed to use "Inuit" instead of "Eskimo," and that the singular is "Inuk."

Czech it out in Houston!

I had a hole in my conference day on Saturday that I used to visit the Czech Cultural Center & Museum. The Lyft driver dropped me off in front of a large European-style building; the inside is decorated with thick carpet and Bohemian crystal chandeliers. Downstairs is a foyer and a gift shop manned by a kindly elderly gentleman. The "chapel" covers religious history such as Jan Huš (c. 1370-1415), while the Presidential Room has collections of ceramics, crystal, and portraits. Upstairs on the second floor are a ballroom, meeting room, and offices. There are paintings and photographs on the walls, flags in the front window, and art and education panels in the ballroom. The third floor is given over to exhibition space and the Comenius Library, named for Jan Amos Komenský (1592-1670), who is celebrated as an educator. They must have a very large collection, as an intern was changing out some of the decorativeware while I was there. The Cultural Center hosts language classes and other events, including a parent-child group that meets on Saturday mornings. 

On the altar are Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish Bibles. The stained glass is of course Czech.

The curator who met me at the door and was pleased to hear that I had Czech heritage told me the only presidents whose portraits she would "allow" in the Presidential Room were Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk (1850-1937), Edvard Beneš (1884-1948), and Václav Havel (1936-2011).

The classic blue-yellow-white ceramics.

They have both traditional and modern pieces. The blue and yellow tea set in the middle isn't easy to make out, but the sauces are shaped like the four suits in a deck of cards. I imagine it being used during a game night.

This collection of green glass objects were intended to look like jade.

Some of the artwork on the walls in the Presidential Room. The "Pittsburgh Agreement" creating the new Czechoslovakia was of course signed in my new hometown on 31 May 1918. I had not known beforehand that Masaryk had married an American woman, Charlotte Garrigue (1850-1923). They took each other's late names.

Down a narrow hallway on the first floor are images and placards about the Communist period, from the take over in 1948, the Prague Spring in 1968 that was put down in fall 1968, and the Velvet Revolution, with both photos and a 10-minute video.  There was also this collection of small placards about art censorship during the Communist period.

There's a grand staircase to reach the second floor, with modernist art on the landing. 

I particularly liked the green painting on the right, "Arrival of Immigrants" by John Pavlicek (1946- ).

This is the ballroom, where I imagine beseda lessons and fancy dinners.

Here's an educational panel about Czech Texans and dance; there are a number of pieces by Alphonse Mucha (1860-1939); and art by Czech and Czech-American artists of Czech and American subjects such as Kamil Kubik. 

This is an unusual travel memento: an artificial rose preserved in the mineral waters of Karlovy Vary; after 2 weeks it collects argonite sediment called "thermal tuff."

Images of beloved Prague.

These are paintings of the Moravian countryside by Antonin Vojtek (1934- ).

Vítáme vás ~ Welcome!

There's a little room set up like a humble abode--except for the crystal chandelier!

I really liked the brightly colored murals!

In this hallways there was also a flat-screen television with a slide show about the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 

A piano on the left, a puppet theater on the right, which reminds me of the marionettes that I bought on the Charles Bridge during our first trip to Prague in 1996. They also had some more recently artwork, including collages done by schoolchildren against racism and discrimination.

The temporary exhibit up right now is about the Holocaust and Terezin/Theresienstadt. This panel is about a little boy's drawing of the Earth from the perspective of the moon. He didn't survive. A copy was onboard the Challenger when it exploded. Another copy did make it up in space with a later astronaut. In between the panel and the case hangs a beautiful cut-paper artwork, "I never saw another butterfly."

More mirror-backed cases of beautiful objects.

They have many different kroj on display. Most of the Czechoslovaks who immigrated to Texas were Moravian, so that is the emphasis. After perusing the gift shop, I walked down the street to a hopping Black vegan restaurant, where I had a nice "hash" named for Houston-born crooner Johnny Nash before taking a Lyft back to the conference hotel. It was such a nice break from sitting inside concentrating on academic discussions to spend a couple hours immersed in my heritage.

Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls?

For Labor Day Weekend this year, good friend J.H. wanted to take a day trip to hike to some waterfalls. Online sources and a couple at church recommended McConnells Mill State Park, so we packed lunch to eat after Sunday morning worship and then piled into our car for the drive about an hour north of the city. As the weather forecast called for rain, we easily parked in the graveled lot. The pit latrines were...rustic, as my mother would say, and then we were off down the path.

This is the hand-painted picnic basket colleague from a vintage shop that P.G. gifted us for our housewarming. Isn't it delightful? It's got everything for four people: plates, cups, mugs, utensils, napkins, a plastic cloth for the table, and a fleece blanket for the ground, a basket for rolls, butter dish, salt and pepper shakers, and two travel flasks. We had curried chickpea salad, gluten-free crackers, salad, carrots and pickles, cherries, and various dried fruits with cherry limeade.

To my utter delight, the old mill was open for viewing, and there was a ranger to answer questions. We ogled the old machinery and felt the building quake when a docent turned on the water turbine in the basement. Over four floors, there are sifters and grinders and baggers for wheat, buckwheat, oats, and corn.

The first mill, with a vertical waterwheel, was built in 1852. It burned in 1867. The covered bridge was built in 1874, and after Captain Thomas McConnell bought the replacement mill in 1875, he fitted it with more efficient horizontal turbines. It ground grain until 1928, when more modern mills put it out of business. 

That's the park's namesake, but here is the mill's most famous denizen, Mose Wharton (1860-1954), who was born into slavery, hired by Captain McConnell to work at the mill, and tended it faithfully until he was 92. This collection of photographs includes memories of his boxing prowess, practical jokery, and that he rescued or retrieved people who fell (or jumped) into Slippery Rock Creek.

In addition to the historical placards, there were some photos, posters, and poems, like this one.

"The Mill," by Joyce M. Tait

I am the mill. 

Melt, winter snow...
Fill my pond and let 

Me catch your flotsam 

On my screen. 

Turn, mill wheel... 

And churn the river's foam
That drives the great
Shaft home.

Flow, river...
Though sluice and millrace,
Making of my wheatstone voice. 

A steady song.

Fill, miller...
My hopper to the brim 

With sacks of ripened grain 

I'll grind to life.

Fly, grain dust 

Abrade my wooden cogs and gears
To satin's bright patina,
Let me glow... 

I am the mill.

In defiance of the rain clouds and drizzle, we set off along the alpha falls trail under the protective covering of the trees, remarking on the moss-covered boulders, antediluvian ferns, and remarkably soft pine needles underfoot.

Upon reaching a parking lot, we stopped for a water break, consulted our map, and set off along the country road, looking for the waterfall. When we reached a major intersection with no sign of the trail, we doubled back and picked it up from a different lot. After climbing the same set of stairs to the first parking lot, we almost despaired of finding the falls, when on our way down I noticed two men driving remote-controlled cars on an unmarked spur: we veered off and shortly discovered: the fall!

Despite the weekend's wet weather, Alpha Falls was just trickling. But we were gratified to have found it, or else we might have rued the 1.5 hours tramping in the stifling humidity. Neither of my traveling companions was familiar with the TLC classic from 1994, "Waterfalls" until I tried to sing the chorus to them:

Don't go chasing waterfalls
Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to
I know that you're gonna have it your way or nothing at all
But I think you're moving too fast

After we returned to our car, it was a quiet ride home for homemade dinner topped off with soft serve from a local shop. I'll leave you with one more poem from the mill.

   "Emotions of Wood and Stone," by Karen Nicely (July 1984)

Old Mill, what history have you seen?

Has anyone died within your walls?

What conversations you must have heard!

Can you tell me some?

Knowledge of life and love have you stored over the 

years--

What problems were solved while contemplating

from your windows the wondrous scene below?

Will I absorb this power if I lean against you long

enough,

If I study each and every stone of your exterior? 

How does it feel to have once been the home of 

deals and transactions, tensions and decisions 

And now to have become a place of relaxation? 

No longer do shrewd businessmen or friendly 

neighbors do their buying and selling within you. 

Young lovers and ancient romantics, children and 

students now populate your wooden floors and 

rickety steps.

Are you sorry for the change or thankful for the

rest, Old One?