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?