Meier Wing Revisited

I was quite happy to be able to get into the Meier wing of the DSM Art Center the last time I was there with my Art History class. I had forgotten about many of the pieces that appear in this wing, and I found I actually missed some of them, like I would old friends. Some, were more like being at a class reunion - I was perfectly okay to ignore them and pretend like I didn't even see them across the room looking at me, trying to make eye contact.

I remember John Chamberlain's crunched up car sculpture - I liked it the first time I saw it and I still like it. That is a very tactile piece for me. I used to frequent junkyards with my first husband, looking for elusive parts to restore our old cars with, and I frequently brought my camera because I always saw very beautiful things there.

Julian Schnabel's broken pottery gimmick is still just that - a gimmick. I never really liked it the first time I saw it and I don't really like it now.

Joseph Beuys' Chalk on Slate - I love it! Again, though, I have always loved real slate chalkboards - I hate these modern white boards. I can tolerate the SmartBoards because of their technology, but give me chalk and slate any day. The photo at left does not show what is at the Art Center, but it is the same type of thing with an aluminum frame. (left)





Mona Hatoum - Hair Grid - Love it! So delicate. It is so lost from your vision at even ten feet from the piece. I want to know how she made it. I want to know if she used a pegboard to keep the knots in relative alignment. Very obssessive, very appealing to me. (left)



Gerhard Richter - Landscape 1985 - Love it!

Felix Gonzalez-Torres - Silver Plated Brass - Love it!

Anseim Keifer - untitled, 1987-88 - Love it!
  


Vik Munoz - Chuck C-print - Buzz, thumbs down. My enjoyment across the room was dampened as I came closer to find out that this was not "real" dimensional swatches on a canvas.

Ruud van Empel - World #21 Cibachrome - Buzz, thumbs down. Just don't like it. Looks entirely too much like the big-eyed cheesy art from the 1970's - that anti-Holly Hobby stuff that was everywhere. Icky. (left and right)

Cindy Sherman - Untitled #218 - I am mixed on Sherman's stuff and let me tell you the main reason why. I think it's a cop out to not title your work. Of course, you can keep track of them if they are all titled "Untitled" and then assigned a chronological number to it at the end, but come on. You can do this for a living and make a fairly substantial mark on the world of art history ... and can't come up with enough titles for your work? Please. I agree that sometimes the title is the hardest part, I've been there, but did you really have 218 untitled pieces in 1990, or is the 218 number a running total in your entire career? What do the numbers go up to? Or was it your intent all along to "title" it all along with sequential numbers? I seriously doubt it .

All in all it was a very enjoyable trip down memory lane for me. I will have to make it a point when I go back to go again with a notebook to take notes. I may feel differently next time I am there. My notes for that day will be titled "Untitled, 57th visit".

Dario Robleto - Survival Does Not Lie in the Heavens

Our class visited the DSM Art Center again, this time to see Dario Robleto's show Survival Does Not Lie in the Heavens in the main gallery and to visit portions of the Meier wing that were closed due to construction the last time we were there.

Robletos's work is pretty fascinating to me, as I currently seem to be drawn down a path leading to more collaging and assemblage in my own work. Looking at his work online cannot possibly show what it is or how it is assembled. Most of them are filled with so many cut pieces of colored paper and hand-made Victorian paper flowers that the dimension in the pieces just can't be shown. I did find some detail shots of most of his work, but they were still straight on shots. If even one of those shots had been taken with some lighting off to the side, or a camera angle off to the side, I would have been able to make them out a little more clearly. My first impression on seeing them in person is that they look so sweet they make my teeth hurt. Literally. They are so sugary and dripping with emotions and ... pretty. Not that pretty is a bad thing, but it found I could not stand and admire them from a distance and enjoy them as a whole. I had to either look away or come so close to them so I could admire the details a short distance from my nose. The white one (Defiant Gardens) and red one (Sailors Valentines) shown on the right are examples of this kind of work.

Some of his other things are very appealing to me. I love the very historical items - the ones that are in cases that have the look and feeling of an antique casket. I really enjoy the pieces that have the very real appearance of something you might find in the Historical Building, or in the Smithsonian Institute of Antique-y Looking Cool Things From Victorian Times. His pieces that are in wooden cases with glass faces all have that same look and feel. I think I like those more because they do remind me so much more of a historical display than of an art museum.This octagon wall piece consisted of "glacially released petrified woolly mammoth tusks" and several smaller interior pieces that are Victorian hair breads, some of them inter-braided with '"glacially released woolly mammoth hair". Hmmm ... I have some "glacially released petrified bison tusks" hanging on my living room wall. Three of them, right by the front door. My mother-in-law gave them to us - they were from her grandmother's things. If they were hanging in a nice case with some other Victorian memorials, could I get a show with them?

The piece titled Violet Remedies was in such a large case with such an unusual shape to the case itself, I actually spent more time looking at the outside of the case than the pieces that were on display inside of the case.  I was trying to figure how it closed, and just what shape it would be when it was closed. The doors and lids were angled and the whole outside shape of the case was not square, it appeared to be kind of like a trapezoid-shaped unit, and that when the lid was closed, the lid itself would slant towards the front of the piece. Highly unusual and a fabulous creation all by itself. I did go back by that piece so I could look at what was on display on the inside of the case. They are arranged beautifully, but the gold text on those tiny glass vials was just too small for me to read them. The stanchions guarding us from getting too close to the piece, also kept me too far away for my old eyes to read what they said.

His installation piece titled Candles Un-burn, Suns Un-shine, Death Un-dies is a C-print installed on a curved wall. It is large and I would think the viewer has an unavoidable impression of being able to buy this collage of stars and lights with a planetary feel at the Science Center Gift Shop. It does not have the same historical impression as the other pieces in this show. It does not have any kind of "wow" factor for me. I think I "get it", I just don't think it's very cool or interesting. 

I liked his album-like assemblages, specifically because he did use actual parts of real album covers. That is so cool. I also liked these the most because of the sense of humor I could see in these. For example, in Tales of Theodicies, there was a juxtaposition of religion and prison and I thought there were several funny things in it. First was the phrase, "If a meteorite falls on your head, then God was aiming." Next was, "Praying for an Unselective Rapture". Some of these hit tunes were apparently sung by the The Dis-Harmony Choir. One of the things we were encouraged to contemplate was "Evil is a mystery we don't care to solve." And out of the blue in one corner was "Jail Block Chastity." Hilarious, I like this kind of campy, cheesy stuff to appear in the art museums I visit. Some people might not think that is art, but I think it is the best kind of art. It is funny and it is memorable.  

Jeff Pierson

I know I have already talked about signs as massive displays of public art, but here we go again.

Jack Pierson. He is mentioned only once in our art history books, on page 190. As I read this book, I find I have to be by an Internet connection so I can look up images for any artist I am not familiar with.

If I had a studio and the means to be collecting these lit channel letters and an electrician on my staff to wire them together, this would be my kind of art. But since Jack already did it, how do I take it one step further? I think these are truly incredible pieces of art that clearly speak to my professional work history. I would pay money to see a Jack Pierson (and that says a lot, considering I am poor/thrifty/cheap - pick your favorite adjective).

I just can't get enough of these images. They are saved everywhere I can think to put them. I have a paper copy that I use for my bookmark in my art history text book.

I don't know if I am capable of making art with the same impact. I want to see them in real life. I want to know if he altered some of the letters with paint, so they are different from their original "sign" intent. My guess is that they must have been. In 27 years in the sign business I never once sold polka-dotted letters. I would have loved to, but it never happened. I have salvaged some sets of letters off of different signs that were being torn down, or bought them when I saw them at business auctions. It was my intent to resell what I could to new sign customers, and I did that with a lot of them. In reality, I have hoarded the rest of them and kept them squirreled away - with the intent of making art projects with them.

I had one large set of red, 24" tall plastic molded letters that I bought from one of the Des Moines Public Library sales they used to have at the old downtown branch on the river. Once a year they would sell books they had taken out of circulation, but they also sold furniture and framed art - just things they didn't need anymore. One year I saw a washing machine-sized box with giant red letters sticking up out of the top. $5. I drug it to the cash register and was ready to pay $5 per letter. It was $5 for the whole box, and the nice lady told me they spelled out "NORTH SIDE LIBRARY". I practically danced the rest of the way home.

I have had those letters for almost twenty years now. It was my plan to use the letters that spelled LIBRARY in my library. If I wanted to split them up between windows and doors, I could have done that, but that layout did not appeal to me. I used the letters SALE and attached them to a piece of plywood and used it in my front yard when my neighbor and I had our annual yard sales. That really attracted attention.

When I got serious about emptying my house this past summer, I put the letters out. I had been seeing them used in decorative ways in people's homes. Now that it is a fairly common and even trendy way to decorate, I no longer want to use them. They were the hit of the sale in that it kept my neighbor and myself occupied in spelling different things. Her front yard has enough of a slope that people in cars could read the letters as they drove by. It wasn't until we spelled out "I HORNY BRIT" did I sell most of the letters (for $5 each). I kept my SALE sign, and also the letters R and D. I gave up on the LIBRARY idea and have decided to put up READ.

I like the way he has used the letters in a ransom note kind of way. I like the mixed up feeling, the chaos involved. I like the simple fact that I have found a like-minded individual that appreciates these items for the pop-art gems that they really are.

Jeff Koons

I like the basketballs (especially that they are floating) but not the vacuum cleaners. I love to play basketball, I hate to clean my house. Connected? Maybe, maybe not.

I love the over-sized, stainless steel bunnies, tulips, and balloon dogs. I hate, hate, hate that same glossy finish applied to his figures - MJ, himself, and his porn-star ex-wife. Did a Koons fan come up with the giant Burger King personification that is so nightmarish? They look like yucky blow-up dolls. So blow-up dolls are not okay, but blow-up balloon animals are? Would I like Koons' figures if they were changed to the monochromatic stainless steel? Hmmm ...

I had to take a look at Koons again after I read the interview given to me as part of my art history class. In it, he talks about his love for cereal boxes. That woke me up - yikes! Someone who shares my passion for this kind of art! I can't believe he had the guts to say that. I love that form of advertising. Sometimes I just walk down that aisle in WalMart and just smile. Just look at all the colors and fonts! Look at the graphics! If I taught graphic design, I would definitely have a cereal box assignment - just imagine the competition. Just think about how high that bar is - competing with a wall that has millions of dollars invested in marketing and design. Maybe I like Koons more than I think I do.

Since I was in a "research Koons" moment, I inevitable came across the porn star ex-wife stuff. Absolutely tasteless. Even more so that he included himself in the tableaux, or still-lifes, or whatever you want to call them. I found an interview on Swedish TV where they spoke with him at what appeared to be a photo shoot with him and his "muse" (pre-marriage). He was pretty outspoken and kept referring to the fact that pornography was "her art and she spoke with her genitals" in the same way some artists speak with their paintbrushes. Unbelievable. In the finished sculptures, with all that glossy paint and hyper-coloration, I could only think of taking it one step further: He should have encased it all in a giant snow-globe apparatus, and rig it so that it rotated upside down 360 degrees so that the snow gets shaken up every once in awhile. I would also remove Koons from that composition and let her stand (or lay) alone as the mermaid-y princess-y creature she dolls herself up to be.

I think it must have been Jeff Koons who came up with the BK King, or certainly inspired someone to come up with it. He certainly fits the molded, glossy image. He certainly has the ego. It is unfortunate that his marriage ended. Who wouldn't wanted to be married to a perfectly glossy man?

One of his glossy hearts sold for about 24 million dollars last time it sold. I think I would marry the glossy BK King for 25 million, or just half of that, which his ex-wife certainly earned in the divorce settlement. Well, let me conditionally say that I could conceive of marrying for money - if my porn star career was over. It appears that the divorce was so nasty that Koons destroyed most of the "art" from that period, so only images remain.

Every time I think of Koons now, I will have to keep the basketballs and the stainless steel bunnies in the foreground of my memories. I don't want to remember those really awful, glossy figures. I want to remember that he talked with a Nobel Prize winning physicist to figure out how to suspend that basketball perfectly in the center of that tank. I want to remember that he really likes cereal boxes, and Cheerios in particular (my favorite cereal).

I most of all want to remember that it is important for me as an artist to learn what I like from other artists, and then effectively appropriate it for myself and my own art.

Oh, no - Judy Chicago!

At the Art Educators conference I attended this past weekend, there was a silent auction for a fund-raiser. At a slow spot during the weekend, I took a leisurely stroll across the front of at least four tables loaded full of items donated by people attending this event. Most were original items, like bracelets and pottery, but there were also some items like books and art supplies. A very good range of things and I hoped it raised some cash for them.

As I got towards the end of the last table, I saw a large but shallow cardboard box standing on one short side so it displayed the contents in a "portrait" format (I hate that portrait/landscape choice in all computer software - have people really forgotten the difference between vertical and horizontal? We are really dumbing ourselves down.).

I wish I had taken a picture of the contents of the box. It was clearly and proudly labeled "Judy Chicago Place Setting".  Huh? Did she sell off reproductions of that awful feminist table piece she did? I stated in class that I thought The Dinner Party may be the worst use of art museum real estate I have ever seen. Not that I think it is a terrible piece, I just think it should have been conceived and installed along a long hallway in The Women's Studies Museum, not in any art gallery. Since then, I have had the chance to look at some more detailed photos of the piece. I stand by my original opinion. I actually have much stronger and vulgar opinions of the work, but I found another writer who took the words right out of my head, so I will let her take the stage:

http://www.maureenmullarkey.com/essays/dinnerparty.html


On the table at the silent auction was ... I'm not really sure what it was. I am guessing it was someones individual recreation of a single place setting of The Dinner Party, but it was done in paper plates, paper cup, and plastic tableware. Now that was funny. The choice of materials elevated this item to the status of kitsch, and I really liked it. How much more appropriate to make this out of very disposable substrates instead of the ceramic and china and silver and glass that the original piece is constructed of. I think the paper setting makes a much stronger statement - of our disposability as human beings. Even in the greater context of a feminist movement piece, it makes more sense to me. The uber formal settings in the "real" piece with embroidered place mats are just over the top, and not in a good way. Paper towels will do just fine.

The artist of the paper setting did get creative with the substrates - she (presumably it was a female artist) had used some construction paper, gluing on colored strips to the plates and cup. There was also some light painting and maybe colored pencil work on the surfaces of the napkins and paper towels. She did not use the "ready-made" decoration provided by Bounty or Viva, or whoever was the corporate sponsor of this lovely piece. There was some thought and some legitimate effort to this piece.

Was it an individuals project done at a Women's Artist Retreat? Was it an art therapy project done after the individual read a copy of Fearless Creating? Did the artist really created an homage to Judy Chicago, her favorite artist?

I think that whoever donated this desirable piece of collectible art history actually acquired it at a conference similar to this one, in a land far away. I think her friend made the piece because the theme of that particular conference was focusing on women artists in history, and since we have so few to emulate and honor, she chose a very obvious and recent subject. It was also very easy and inexpensive to manufacture. Unfortunately, as the auction time got closer and closer, she realized that no one had bid on her friend's project. Since she loved her friend, she put in a bid of $20. No one bid above her, so she brought home her friend's Judy Chicago paper place setting, and put it in her closet. A year later and a day before this conference, she saw it in her closet when she went to get her suitcase out to pack. On impulse, she brought it along and donated it.

If you did not visit the link above to read Maureen Mullarkey's opinion, I'll wait while you do that right now. It is important for you to realize how much bullshit went into the manufacture of The Dinner Party. It is not artistic. At least 75% of the actual manufacturing was by men. Seriously, the whole piece of work was just a very large piece of wool pulled over feminist's eyes.

My Facebook post right after I finish this blog will be this: Did anyone look in Judy Chicago's pants to see if she had a penis? Cuz I'm thinking she screwed everybody.

For Sale: Original Art, Five Cents

My dear sweet boys, who are 9 and 10, occasionally get in the mood to earn some money, and one of their favorite ways is to have an "Art Sale". They both make a stack of paintings or drawings or pastels, write their prices in the corners (usually ranging from one penny to twenty-five cents), make a sign proudly stating "Art Sale" with an arrow which they tape to the kitchen doorway, and then they sit down and wait for business.

Sometimes they do this when they know their Grammie is coming over. Sometimes they do this when we have invited friends over, but whether they know we have impending visitors arriving does not seem to be the real impetus behind the art sale. It is also not usually not tied to the desire to get some extra cash to buy a coveted toy. Believe it or not, it is usually tied to using a new medium or trying a new art style that gets them excited and focused on creating new pieces for their demanding public.

I had attended a conference for art teachers over the weekend and brought home a handful of the new Crayola Color Sticks. If you have not heard of them, they are kind of like the colored lead inside of colored pencils, but thicker and without the wood. They are not waxy like crayons or dusty like pastels. The surface of them almost feels like a ceramic finish, but that is the feel all the way through the Color Stick. We know because we already broke some of them.

I found a stack of colored construction paper, cut them in half (so each boy would have the exact same number and color of sheets that his brother had), and they went to work excitedly on their "abstracts". They do know that if a painting does not have figures or identifiable forms that it is considered "abstract".

With the excitement and lack of indecision that sometimes only a child can exhibit, they produced their art rapidly and without fear. It wasn't a scribbling thing, though. They paused before each picture and put some thought into their next piece. Sometimes, while they were working on one piece they would declare, "Oh! I know what I am going to do on my next drawing!"

I have a hard time remembering when I attacked any art project with what could legitimately be called "unbridled enthusiasm". I do remember being excited about new materials and new directions. I can even remember being enthused about new compositions. It makes me sad to say that I do not remember attacking my substrate with new materials the way my boys did with those Color Sticks. After an initial test of just a stroke or two on some scratch paper, they were ready and raring to go.

Think of idea. Execute idea. Prepare show for display. Reap the rewards.

Shouldn't it be that simple for the rest of us artists? Are we too "mature" to express that kind of passion? I sincerely hope I am not. If you don't have passion for your art, you need another profession. If you don't feel like you must create your art no matter what, then you don't have enough passion for your art.

As a "non-traditional" senior in college, every time I go to class I am exposed to a younger generation of artists that are preparing to embark on the world. We talk in our Senior Seminar class about very pertinent things like resumes, CV's, and the daunting "Artist's Statement". We look forward to having guest speakers come to our class later in the semester to share information with us about interviewing skills. Building our own webpages, getting arts festival experience, networking and volunteering - all of these things are things that seniors should be focusing on.

As an older student, I have already been in the work world for 27 years. I have a resume and I have made an artist's statement, both of which are horribly out of date, so I am looking forward to working on those. I have already struggled to network and make a living as an artist. Most of my painting successes have been commissioned murals in restaurants and decorative finishes in private residences. I did have a few canvases sell over the years - my highest sale was for $1500 for an acrylic on canvas for a private collector (that sounds important!), but certainly not enough canvases to be considered even remotely a commercially successful painter. 

Don't we all just want to get paid to be an artist? "Please buy my work - just buy enough so that I can pay my bills and not live at home anymore. Pretty please?" I have to say that I never considered living at home with my parents - even if it meant that I would have been able to paint full-time in my quest to become a professional artist.

I am a little embarrassed to admit that I really did not consider being a full-time artist as a viable career choice. I certainly did not have anyone cheering me on the sidelines, encouraging me to "be all that I could be" and forge a path as an artist. Was it because I did not go the Chicago Art Institute? Or a School of Design? Was it because I selected a more mainstream four-year college instead of an institute of higher learning that was solely dedicated to art? There were a couple of students older than me that left Grand View to go to "real" art schools.  There were also some that went on to grad school - but I remember that choice being made because they specifically wanted to follow the footsteps of the professors at GV

So do I fall into the category of these other "sell-outs" that never really considered being an artist for a living? Was it purely selective cognizance that allowed me to work in the sign business for 27 years? Did I just tell myself that signs were really "pop-art" (which I love) because the only alternative was to admit to myself that I failed to have a career as an artist?

Maybe I should take my young sons' approach and set up my own little art stand.
For Sale: Original Art, Five Cents.

Signs of the Times

I have retired from the sign industry after being gainfully employed in it for 27 years. It was my first "real job" (i.e. - a job actually related to your college major). I worked the summer after my third year in college at a small shop that had two "sign writers" (Jerry and Odie), back in the day when nearly everything was still painted with lettering brushes and One Shot Lettering Enamel. I still paint signs once in a blue moon, but only for special occasions, for special projects that need restoration, or special people that I still know and love from the sign world.

I suppose I have always thought of signs as legitimate art because I have always loved text. When other kids were drawing dogs and trees and balloons, I was trying to execute a perfect Helvetica lower case "a", straight out of a magazine, usually with a magnifying glass. Free-hand with a No. 2 pencil. Once it was perfect enough, I would fill it in with a ball-point pen. The markers I was allowed at that age were way to fat and fuzzy to do such detailed work.

I was excited to be working in a sign shop. Of course, as a college kid just helping over the summer, the closest I came to detail work was with a 12" roller, coating out the white surface of a 4'x8' plywood site sign for a local real estate company. I helped move things around, drove on some deliveries or installations, and got to do general go-fer things, but I loved that place and knew I had found my niche. One of the sign-writers/owners of that small shop was the fishing buddy of another sign-writer at a much larger sign shop. I began working at the larger shop the following summer and was hooked.

It is a delightful combination of graphic design and pop-art. Signs are modern art. I could go on for hours about fonts, weight, movement, and spurs (kids nowadays call them "serifs"). Nothing makes my blood run faster today than seeing a high-stepping, upper case letter "R" - and actually knowing that I am looking at a vintage hand-painted sign by one of my mentors - Jerry and Odie each had their own signature style of making a capital "R". Not many people have this skill and fewer people yet are still alive to teach it. It's not calligraphy, it's sign-writing.

Most people in Des Moines, Iowa are completely unaware of the fact that they have an internationally acclaimed sign in their humble Midwest city. A few years ago when Merle Hay Mall refurbished their exterior and had some major change in anchor tenants, their main sign on the corner of Merle Hay and Douglas was awarded Sign of the Year by the International Sign Association. The sign system (directionals) throughout the mall parking lots also won as Best Directional/WayFinding System. This was a huge honor for a market the size of DSM. Very people outside of sign professionals in Iowa knew about this award. I think it got a tiny little press release in the DSM Register, which is absurd, but I am not in charge of politics at the DSM Rag (oops - typo!). It is a very retro-styled sign which uses a large variety of materials and lighting options, and it is just stunning. I will reroute my driving pattern to just drive through this intersection and enjoy this sign. It makes me smile to know that a sign in Iowa was Sign of the Year once upon a time in Des Moines.

I realize it is kind of like Miss Universe - someone wins it by default. There will always be a winner - they have never held that pageant and got to the end and said, "Sorry, folks, but no one qualifies for this title." It is a comparison against the other entries from that year, and many have said that the competition field was weak and that was the only reason this Iowa sign won that year. I don't care. I love it and am proud of it.

There are a few other signs that I would include as public art in Des Moines, but I am going to take up the torch I lit in my last blog: Are memorials public art? I don't mean when you erect a sculpture with a little plaque that says, "Dedicated to the Memory of Dick Blick". I mean when there are names as apart of the public art, like Maya Lin's Vietnam War Memorial with more than 58,000 names. Or the stainless steel guitar at the Buddy Holly crash site in Clear Lake, Iowa. No one remembers the name of the metal artist who created that sculpture. I don't, and I just looked it up yesterday. Was it because it was not for thousand lost in battle? Was it because there was no contest for artist's to submit an idea to? I am still convinced that both of those pieces are signs - signs as public art.

What about other signs? There is a Neon Sign Museum in Las Vegas (been there - loved it!). There are signs that have been designated as local treasures: "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada". How many people who haven't even been in the state of Nevada can identify this sign?

What about the recognizability of a logo turned into a sign? The most well-known world-wide logo has to be the golden arches of McDonald's. I have seen many of those that are simply just the arches, no text is needed. In fact, the corporation has been moving back in time, more towards their original restaurant sites where the arches were a part of the building itself, not the name above the door. You can see the golden arches for miles at night on the interstates - no text needed. In fact, I would vote for the arches as being the best logo design ever - marketed and recognized worldwide. Nike took the same approach with their swoosh.

Whether you are discussing the golden arches, a swoosh on an athletic shoe, or a mall sign in the middle of America, there are certainly signs that qualify for public art. They are multi-media sculptures. They are interactive light shows. They are 3D canvases that you can walk up to or drive around. They are colorful representations of pop art that legitimately come to life.

The Day the Music Died

I spent the past weekend in Clear Lake, Iowa. For those of you who don't know, this is the home of the Surf Ballroom, which is mostly famous for hosting the last concert in 1959 of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and JP Richardson. Their small plane crashed in a snowy cornfield just about five miles north of town. Much of Clear Lake's tourism is connected to the Surf and the crash site, but the town has primarily been developed as a lake destination spot. The entire town surrounds the lake and there are lots of rentals available year-round. My three sisters and I decided to meet there not because we were Holly fans or because we are water junkies. We met there because it is centrally located for the four of us and they do have an annual Harvest Festival.

After we dropped our bags and belongings in the rental cabin, we drove around town to check things out and see what there was to see. I was eager to see what I expected to be an amazing amount of 50's era rock'n'roll kind of public art. While I did see a few musical homages scattered throughout town, there were mostly  references everywhere of a nautical theme. Not just the names of the businesses (my personal favorite - Lake Meat Cheese), but the decorations in peoples' yards of things that most certainly did not occur naturally along the shores of Clear Lake - a huge anchor attached to the ground with a rope as thick as my thigh, as well as miniature boats and lighthouses everywhere. I saw one restaurant that had a pair of unusual sculptures clearly done by the same artist. They were made from brightly colored bicycle parts and mounted on a 12' flagpole. I liked them - they were different. They almost seemed light enough to spin with the wind, but I think they were welded in place. They were happy and cheerful and light and breezy.

I was on a hunt for public art. Did this count? If you display it on your lawn, is it to be classified as a yard ornament? It is certainly put out there for all of the public to see. Since it was at a place of business, surely it was "professional art", right? It could have been made by his teen-age kid in shop class, but I sincerely hope that it was seen at an arts festival and he just had to buy it, bring it home, and install it as "public art".

When we left the business district and were driving through a        residential area, I saw a couple of things that may be classified as "art", one of which stopped me cold. The first was a tall metal sculpture of a palm tree. Since it was early evening and we were driving by, one of my sisters said, "Wait, is that a real palm tree?" I replied, "Of course not, it's northern Iowa." She was correct in that it was well-crafted enough to appear real when driving down a road at about 30 mph in the dusk, but does this count as "art"? It is not public in that it
is clearly tucked in close to the entry of their home, but it is at the front of their house for all to see that are driving by. It is extremely well done.
I would like to think that if I had a zoom lens on my camera that I could have zoomed in on the palm fronds and seen little wire hairs coming off of them, just like on real palm fronds. It was tasteful and coordinated with the architecture and materials of the home. Did that make it "art"?




The second metal sculpture that just stopped me cold was only a  couple of houses away from the palm tree.
Undeniably hideous. Literally, stopped my heart cold.
This is so nasty. We had some debate over what materials it could have possibly been made of, simply because we were concerned that the weight of a wooden duck would be likely to pull the whole wall down. Fiberglas would have been a good choice. In the sign world that I am so familiar with, we would have molded this out of polycarbonate and painted it with automotive silver enamel. I suggested that a piece this size may very well have been salvaged from a large business sign. Why someone would want to put this on the front of their home was beyond comprehension for all of us. Keep in mind when looking at this photo that the windows you see are about 4' tall. I am not exaggerating. This duck was huge and ugly. Seriously. It's not even an accurately portrayed duck. So is that what makes it bad art? I am only sure of these possibilities - (A) the person who owns the house lives there thinks it is just grand and every bit as artistic as the palm tree that his neighbor has; or (B) the person who lives there is a renter and has no authority to remove it. I would not even rent this place because of the duck. You couldn't give me a large enough discount to rent this place. Even if you spend your whole time there on the lake or at the back of the house and you never even see the duck except for when your weekend starts and ends (Look away! Look away or the image will burn into your retinas!), the whole time I would be in the house with the knowledge of that thing hanging on the front of the house. It would be hovering around the edges of my consciousness, like a bad smell. **Shudder**

Enough of the private water-related "art". We wanted to get some exposure to musical history and wanted to travel to the crash site to see the memorials. I knew there was bound to be something permanent there, but I was not sure what. The sisters were not disappointed. The Buddy Holly glasses were very cool. 

There is no other marker or sign on the edge of the road, or even at the edge of Clear Lake, that gives you directions to the crash site. Not sure what kind of
bureaucracy is preventing that from happening, but at
the side of the gravel road about 5 miles north of town is this perfectly simple, perfectly dignified pair of horn-rimmed glasses - usually associated with Buddy Holly. Made from 1/8" aluminum and painted black, it is austere and speaks volumns - without a single word. I was kind of appalled at the concrete pillars they were perched on, but I tried to ignore that part of it while I was there.

At the actual spot in the fence row where the plane came to its final resting spot, there is a stainless steel monument (erected 1988) that consists of a guitar (with the names of the musicians routed through) and three records, one for each artist which includes the title of the their biggest number one hit. There is another stainless steel monument to the pilot just a couple of yards away that was added in 2003. I am not showing the picture of that one, but it is a set of pilot's wings with the pilot's name routed in it. It was very eerie and touching to be there. It choked me up to see the very personal items that people had left. Just behind the guitar you can see a cheap plastic blue bin. Written on the top in black sharpie was a message telling people to leave the stuff in the box alone - don't take anything and don't read the notes that have been left inside. If you have a note or something small to add, though, you were welcome to do that. The items that were there could not have been there that long -certainly not more than a few weeks. I wondered how many people year-round visited the crash site. It was sad. I was glad we made the short trip to see it, and I loved the large glasses, but the whole thing left me feeling profoundly sad. Was this art? Do grave markers and memorials count as art? The man who donated these monuments was a metal worker that lived in Wisconsin and was a fan during the 1950's. It made me wonder what, if anything, was there before. Did the artist visit the site? Was he shocked and appalled that there was no permanent marker? As we walked the half-mile back to our car along the edges of what is now a soy-bean field, I was also impressed with the farmers who have owned the land through the years who have continued to let people walk along the fence row to visit the site. I imagine that the real estate transaction is only made if the new buyers agree to having an easement on the edge of the property, so fans old and new can continue to make the trek to see the stainless steel marker that now marks the crash site.

We were a more subdued group in our short drive back to town, and my thoughts were not really on public art anymore. I should note that we posed in pairs (one face in each lens) to take our pictures with the glasses. I am glad we took the pictures before we walked up the path, because we were all smiling. We were all tickled with the pop-art, over-sized, iconic image. I don't think we would have seen the mirth in the glasses after we stood at the actual site where four men died. Of all of the photos that were taken on this trip, we each individually chose our pictures with those glasses to be our new profile picture on Facebook.

We learned later that day on a tourist trolley ride that there was a new monument in town for the three musicians that died in that plane crash in 1959. Members of all three families would be in Clear Lake for the dedication next week, but that very night, the lights on the monument were to be lit for the first time. We also learned that the monument was less than a block from our rental cottage. Right after dinner, we went directly back and stopped at the monument to take daylight photos. The three discs represent the three artists and it is supposed to look like a stack of records on the spindle of an old record player (ask your mom or google it).

The bottom disc has the names of the three artists routed out of the polished metal. The entire monument is in a circular courtyard surrounded by benches. At night it is breathtaking. There are blue LED lights that highlight the edges of everything, making it look like the classic skeleton neon from the 1950's. The edges of the discs, the vertical strips on the spindle, the edges of the benches, and each of the routed names are backlit with this wonderful blue glow. Now this was great public art.

Do I only feel this way because of the 27 years I spent in the sign industry? I love neon. I dream in backlit channel letters. When I see vintage signs I think they should all be crated and shipped to the Neon Sign Museum in Las Vegas. This is public art. Even though this specific one is only to honor three musicians, it is every bit as much public art as Maya Lin's Vietnam War Memorial, which honors more than 58 thousand. Does that make all memorials public art? Or is it only public art when it is your loved one's name permanently carved on it?