An Interview with ISAIAH ZAGAR: Mosaic Muralist; "Mirror, Mirror on the wall....."

photograph by Judith Zausner

 

Isaiah’s Peace Corps roots and his art training at Pratt Institute are the subtle influences of his city wide mosaic murals in Philadelphia.  His most famous project, Magic Gardens, is a mosaic space created with broken mirrors and other recycled elements that surface walls and floors and are indeed magical.

I’ve learned that your first creative awareness, perhaps explosion, was when you were three years old. You were taught to color within lines in your coloring book but then promptly took the crayon off the page, to move it along the table, wall, and refrigerator. So from a primary lesson on boundaries you immediately pushed outside the boundaries. Perhaps this was your first mural of memory?

I don’t even know if I would consider that a mural.  Just feeling the textures of everything and being excited by the visual quality that was presented and that it was different than what was there already. It changed the paradigm and changed the way things looked.  Could you call it a mural? I don’t think you could call it a mural.  You could call it a place where empty spaces were filled with ideas and rituals. But in my case it was just a child scribbling, a graffiti process, a naming that said “I’m here … I’m doing this thing”. And of course it changed everything.  And of course my mother flipped out; she was appalled at what I had done and that was a fantastic eye opener for me. I saw the amazing changes that went on in her from seeing what I had done.

You can’t call it art but it was a creative experience.  It was to color … what I call total embellishment … the continuing and continuing without borders.

It was a moment in time that was very powerful to me and continues to resonate … I have very strong visual memories of the actual event.


After graduating from Pratt Institute and subsequently working as a Peace Corps Craft Developer, you had a personal crisis. You had a nervous breakdown and tried to commit suicide. Yet you turned this around when you began putting discards on the wall with cement and began your mural art. It is ironic that you have rescued these broken bits of mirrors ("My favorite material to use is mirrors because mirrors reflect the present") and pottery (began with his wife’s imported pottery and Eyes Gallery retail store) and elevated them to a new status and purpose just as the process of doing so brought you out of your mental health problems. Do you have thoughts on this?

I wasn’t broken a bit … I was broken a lot.

Your description of it is very clear.  I don’t know what more I can add.
 
I was given a scholarship to take a class with Emanuel Bromberg, an artist and a painter. He saw something in my work and took me to visit the work of Clarence Schmidt.
Clarence Schmidt was an artist who was not an artist; he was a man who just created with discards. I was brought to see the folk art environment or the vernacular environment of Clarence Schmidt and it knocked me for a loop, my heart began to beat very rapidly.  The way I tell the story … there were no young women around so what does a 19 year old man say about his heart palpitating so fast at seeing something that was outrageous and different from anything that I had ever seen.  I just wanted to be there for a while.  I immediately climbed the fence and I went inside the structure and I was just knocked out by its insanity … its absolute insanity of what I had known to be art.  In fact I couldn’t even call it art … I didn’t call it art … I was just knocked out.  

After the nervous breakdown, I had to rebuild myself as an artist. How could I be an artist after a nervous breakdown? That was in 1969 and I was 28 years old. I needed to find a place where I can be a Clarence, not worried about the marketplace, but living the life of the artist. I needed to find something so devastated that I can build it up from scratch and that became South Street. 

I only wanted to create art … I didn’t want to deal with the real world.  I created a fantasy world – an art object that I created a la Clarence Schmidt with the same kind of impetus – using found objects, derelict materials, free materials, materials that I scavenged the world over. 

Last year over 60 thousand people visited Magic Gardens and more have traveled through the city to see the other mosaic murals. 

Your flagship mural, Magic Gardens on South Street in Philadelphia, is an extraordinary and large assemblage of many broken and recycled elements plus your own poetic and artful expressions ("I built this sanctuary to be inhabited by my ideas and my fantasies.") How do you maintain it? Does the weather impact it?

Yes the weather does majorly impact it.  The piece changes rapidly from year to year.  It has intrinsic in it a death knoll and whether we can stave off the death knoll forever is not clear because I was not and am not a structural engineer.  I worked with intuition and worked without much regard to the longevity of the project … always thinking that it was like abstract expressionism … that I could keep changing it – that it was ever changing. A project that could be continually reinvented – not only by myself but also by other people … that it could be kept moving and changing rather than a piece of art that was static.  I’m not sure about that anymore, whether the soul of it can remain intact with so many other hands involved in it.

Your art gives purpose to the recycled movement. As an honorary Dumpster Diver, you have inspired artists and aspiring artists to view trashed objects in a different way. Though you don’t go in the dumpsters yourself, your network of dumpster diver donors keep you actively sourced. How do you store all of these pieces until they are used?

Well I have a garage here that is useful and I have a big building in South Philadelphia that I have been working on for the past 7 years and it is a useful place to store a lot.  I’ve also run out of the energy to do reconnaissance missions to get materials.  I have essentially slowed down to a non-work stop, basically because I have so much that I have done.

I thought that I was skirting the problems of storing art because I was making the art in the street and when I was doing paintings on canvas I didn’t use stretch bars so that I could roll them up or I was even doing paintings on rice paper … that was as easy as pie … I would paint a big painting with several pieces of paper and I could roll it up and store.  However, no one was seeing any of these things … they were made and stored … even I didn’t look at some of them again.  I was having this tremendous problem – although I didn’t know it – of over producing.

The amount of work I have done is staggering. I was able to give one of the larger pieces to the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) because it related to Anne DD’ Harnoncourt. I made this piece called ‘The Futurist’ because she was very involved in a show of the futurists. I made a big 10 x 12 feet mosaic that was accepted by the PMA as a gift.   I thought this would be the beginning of the possibility of moving these big panel mosaics, some as big as the wall. 

 

And your work is all about exploring boundaries on different levels. In creating mosaic murals, you use lots of broken mirrors and glass; those pieces have changed from their original state to one with broken boundaries. Then these pieces are placed in assemblage to create a mural where the boundaries merge and disappear with other elements and they radically challenge conceptions of what a building wall should look like. Do you consciously explore boundaries in making art?

Well the art that I make in the City on Walls have boundaries now. They actually didn’t have boundaries when I was able to do complete walls, the complete building … then I never thought about boundaries in fact.  In this case, where we are sitting in my studio; any place where I looked out onto where I had control over I embellished and they didn’t have rectangular boundaries.  But when I do the murals in the City or on panels they do have boundaries and they do have themes.

I just finished one for a fitness center on between 7th & 8th on Reed Street and it’s a long mural – about 200 feet long by 7 feet high and it has its boundaries, it doesn’t go all the way up through the building,  it just has its boundaries on one level.  Although it has figures that begin at the feet sometimes and only end at the middle of their bodies … you can imagine that it could go to the next level.

Magic Gardens is in the center of a big city and it’s on a street that is known for its idiosyncrasy, it’s movement of hippies and how they changed the way people looked at things.  It has an identity that people want to see before they even know about Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens.  They want to come to the street so they do happen upon the garden and if it was in some outlaying area that didn’t have that reputation then it wouldn’t have the power that it has … the environment … the placement of an art object is so important.

You have completed over 130 outdoor murals AND, in doing that, covered more than 50,000 square feet of Philadelphia. This is an enormous art legacy. Now at 74, have you scaled your art to less physical installations? What’s on your horizon?

I’ve just completed small pieces for a show of small pieces but I’m not enamored of the challenges of small pieces.

I don’t know what the future will bring at all.  I have rebounded several times from complete breakdown failures [mental that pushed into the physical]. Now I’m in another one; I’m not whole yet and I don’t know if I can get whole.   And so I can’t prognosticate about the future without the feelings of the present.  That is how one thinks about the future. 

An Interview with ALICE and RICHARD MATZKIN: Creating Art that Embraces Graceful Aging

Alice and Richard Matzkin, painter and sculptor respectively, are artists whose work focuses on aging. Now in their 70s, they express their thoughts about their own aging and offer wise advice for all of us.


Have you been actively engaged in making art your whole life?

Richard: In my early years I was immersed in art but then completely lost interest in it as I began to pursue a career in music and psychology in the early 60's. Then, 25 years later, my wife, Alice enrolled me in a clay sculpture class. From the first day onward, I began to produce figurative sculptures with ease and without reference to models or photographs.
In my career I was a therapist, men’s group leader, Adjunct Instructor in the California Community College system, director of a court mandated treatment program for domestic violence, and program director of a psychiatric hospital. I hold a Masters Degree in Psychology.

Alice: I have received no formal education in art but as long as I can remember, painting and drawing have been my love. After a 22-year hiatus from painting, while I raised my son and daughter, I returned with passion to my paints and canvas. After moving to the country with Richard, where we share a studio, I painted two paintings - one of the famous potter and sculptor, Beatrice Wood at age 100, and feminist, Betty Friedan - which were purchased by the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution and are in their permanent collection.


Did something happen that provoked thoughts on your own aging?
Alice: I was about 58 years old when I began thinking of my mortality. I realized that part of coming to terms with the aging body is appreciating just how precious life is. And I also knew that if we didn’t change our attitude about getting older we would be very unhappy.
How have you used your art to express your thoughts on aging?

Richard: Fear can be inspirational and I sculpt my fears in clay. I began a series of “Naked Old Men” and I also worked on a series of old lovers which is all about us. My art helped me work through the issues of getting older. If you look at an old face without judgment, you see the person, the history, the character. And that has its own beauty but most people don’t do that.


Alice, you have painted many older women, famous and not famous, naked and clothed. Is there something universal that you sense with all of these women?

I see how the body, although very different for each woman, is simply not what constitutes the person. It’s inside that is important, living in the moment, accepting one’s self. When we get older we tend to compare ourselves with youthful beauty but we’re only young for a very short time and each age has its own beauty. Part of coming to terms with the aging body is realizing how precious life is. To focus on lines and wrinkles is a waste of time; it’s just life taking its course.


Richard, what has been the impact of your art in writing the book?

For us these art projects were very important and generated thoughts for our book THE ART OF AGING: Celebrating the Authentic Aging Self. It just came about as a natural expression from our art. We’d like to pass on some of the things we’ve learned to the baby boomers because it is an important time for them. We want people to read the book, see the art and get from it some of what we’ve gotten.  It’s a gift. The whole of our life is our work of art whether we use paint or clay as a medium of expression. Our real art is how we live day to day. It’s how we live with integrity, how much of ourselves we give to our work, to the people we love and to our world.


Are you working on a new project now?

Alice: Yes, we are working on a traveling exhibit to museums around the country to expose the highs and lows of aging.

 
As part of our personal growth and our responsibility as elders,
our intention is to share what we have learned about growing older. By exhibiting our art, speaking and writing, we intend to spread
the important message that aging is not the end of life, but can be a positive new beginning and the crowning culmination of a lifetime.                                                         
   - Alice and Richard Matzkin
 

An Interview with CLAUDIA CHASE: Designer & Founder of the Mirrix Loom

Weaving is an ancient craft that may be traced to the Paleolithic era. The basic technique is to intersect yarn or threads that are at right angles to produce cloth. A loom is usually an important component of this process because it provides the support and tension to facilitate weaving. There is an enormous range of resulting fabric possibilities which depend on the loom, the threads/yarn used and of course the vision of the weaver.

Although there are many types of looms for handweaving such as the classic multi harness looms, backstrap looms, inkle looms, etc., until the Mirrix was born, they were all traditionally made of wood. This new loom was designed like a gleaming spaceship to be strong, portable and to accommodate both the tapestry weaver and the bead weaver. It’s a revolutionary product and its designer and founder, Claudia Chase, 57,  talks about how Mirrix became a creative success.

AN INTERVIEW WITH CLAUDIA CHASE

You designed the Mirrix loom from the vantage point of a weaver-on-the-go. How did that happen?

As I became more and more involved with tapestry weaving, I purchased two rather huge floor looms. And although they worked quite well (but were very difficult to set up, often taking more than an entire day) they were firmly planted in my studio. I wanted a small loom that I could take places the way one can take one's knitting or crochet anywhere. But the only extant small looms at the time just did not do the job well. They felt more like toys and the resulting weaving always disappointed me. So I talked to a friend who is good with his hands. He took my ideas and the stash of metal he had in his garage and after a few weeks of back and forth and new ideas and changes, the Mirrix prototype was born. It was made of fire truck trim and copper plumbing pipes and it was beautiful.

Can you describe the difference(s) of your first prototype of the Mirrix loom to the ones now on the market?

The Mirrix prototype is not that much different from the Mirrix Loom we now sell. The main difference is that we have refined the details so although the current Mirrix Loom looks very similar to the prototype, the details are greatly enhanced and improved. For example, the prototype handle was bent by hand, dipped in plastic and cooked in a regular oven. Now we order hundreds of handles at a time and have them professionally plastic coated. The brass pins in the shedding device that hold the rods are laser cut to exacting precision whereas the first ones were little metal loops.

Do you manufacture the looms locally?

Mirrix Looms are not only made entirely in the US, but are milled and assembled at Sunshine House, which employs mentally and mentally/physically handicapped adults. Commitment to perfection is obvious the moment you open up a Mirrix box. Our employees deeply care about creating a quality product and they infuse each Mirrix Loom with their amazing work ethic. We at Mirrix feel blessed to be a part of such a wonderful operation.

 How did you select the name” Mirrix”?

I made it up. I think I based it on an Italian verb that means to mirror and then made catchy by adding the "is" noting that a lot people don't ask for a tissue; they ask for a kleenex. The same goes for Mirrix. People seldom say "I am weaving on my loom." Rather they say: "I am weaving on my Mirrix!"

At some point along your life’s journey while you were developing the Mirrix company, you also served three terms as a State Representative in the New Hampshire House. What was the trigger for this initiative?

My daughter discovered that a mother and her daughter had served in the New Hampshire House and she suggested we should do the same. But since she was in college, I thought it might interfere with her studies so instead I ran for office and she ran my campaign. Elena exhibited her grasp of marketing at that point. No red, white and blue for us. Our color scheme was magenta. You could see our signs lining Main Street from miles away. Our bumper stickers were home printed on holographic paper. And our t-shirts were works of art we hand painted. Apparently, we got noticed because I was the first Democrat to win this seat since the Civil war and the first female Democrat to ever win it.

Are you still actively involved in politics?

Six years was enough. During that time Mirrix took a back seat and sales declined. Once Elena came on board as our Marketing Director I once again made Mirrix my single focus. So although I still follow what is going on in politics and always have a very strong opinion, I no longer feel compelled to physically get involved.

Your daughter works in your business also. What separate roles do you have?

My job is to run Mirrix in a general sense which means dealing with the books, answering phones (although I do have phone phobia and it's a lot better to first try to reach either Elena or me via email), processing orders, ordering inventory, paying bills . . . . business stuff which at times I enjoy and at times I hate. My job is also to design new products both hardware (looms and loom accessories) and software (the bead and fiber kits). Additionally, I do a portion of the customer service. Elena is our Marketing Director in every sense of the word. She has swooped us into the modern age. Our online marketing can only be described as cutting edge and ever evolving. Elena is also working on her masters in the field on online marketing, so we have the best there is in that department. She is also the web guru (a job she did part time for many years before joining Mirrix full time). Her other jobs spill into other areas as well. She has been known to design new kits, deal with lots of customers and generally do whatever it takes whenever needed to make sure Mirrix runs smoothly. And since we can pretty much read each others' minds most of the time, our working (and personal) relationship is rather seamless.

What struggles have you had as a business owner of a new craft product?

It's been a long and interesting journey. Convincing established yarn stores to carry the Mirrix loom was actually quite easy. Convincing Bead stores was another story altogether. They just couldn't see why a bead loom would cost more than $20. Whereas the yarn stores, who are used to dealing really expensive equipment, saw the Mirrix as one of their really affordable looms. Marketing to the world at large has been a fascinating work in progress but has never been so fun or so successful until Elena joined us full time.

What is your vision for Mirrix Tapestry& Bead Looms,Ltd.?

To continue in the direction we have been going in since Elena joined us full time. One of our first slogans was: A loom in every lap. That's not a bad goal. We really want to spread the word about the joy of weaving and the fact that on the Mirrix loom you can weave just about anything. We also want to continue to have fun running Mirrix. We will be doing more classes (in person and online), some television shows, etc. in the future. Elena keeps saying "what if?" and then she makes us do it!

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Guiding Creativity Workshops Using Crafts for Older Adults

Creativity Matters blog is licensed under a Creative Commons AAttribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at agingandcreativity.blogspot.com

I am providing a session titled: The Creative Experience- Profiles of Courage and Passion on Tuesday, October 2^nd  at the 2012 Regional Conference on Aging hosted by the Philadelphia Corporation of Aging in Philadelphia. . The following information focuses on Creativity Workshops using Crafts and is an excerpt from that presentation.

In general, I recommend that the leader assess projects for these attributes to provide a successful workshop.

□        Interesting: Materials should trigger curiosity and encourage  willingness to engage

□        Engaging: Materials/project keeps participants involved

□        Clear Objectives: Explanation of tools, techniques and goal; Guidance NOT Duplication of examples shown

□        Success Driven: Encourage satisfaction and completion

□        Socially Supportive Community: Community and  individual respect

□        Project Appropriate for Participants with respect to:

□        Gender

□        Physical ability

□        Cognitive issues

□        Psychological concerns

To encourage safe crafting, it is important to develop projects with attention to these guidelines:

□        No Sharp Tools

□        No Precision

□        No Tiny Pieces

□        No Lengthy Projects

□        No Complex Directions

□       No Difficult Learning Curve

Examples of techniques that may be considered in a project include:

□        Wrapping

□       Weaving

□        Knotting

□        Threading

□        Gluing

□        Cutting (with assistance/supervision if appropriate)

□        Stamping

□        Rubbing

□       Tearing

The participants are likely to realize positive results because the workshop experience:

 

□        Builds knowledge of

□        Materials

□        Techniques

□        Increases

□        Self Esteem

□        Socialization

□        Fosters

□        Independence

□        Problem Solving

□        Expands

□        Creative Capability

□        Confidence

For additional information or speaker and/or workshop requests, please contact Judith Zausner at Judith@caringcrafts.com

"Arts  and aging is neither about arts, nor just about aging. Rather, it is about creativity and positive engagement—that is, creativity as both a goal and a process for shaping the self and society.“

-Steven T. Dahlberg
International Centre for Creativity & Imagination

 

For Veterans: Art Making and Transformation

There are many hurdles in life and, for veterans, many of these hurdles seem insurmountable. The war zone has scorched traumatic memories in their psyche that may sit buried and unreachable. Fortunately now there are innovative support groups that provide a cathartic relief through creativity.

Combat Paper, a New Jersey non profit, is an extraordinary program that travels around the country to help veterans’ relieve their stress from the effects of war. It fully embraces a creative process in three stages. Starting with “Deconstructing”, the veterans bring in their worn combat fatigues for shredding to begin the paper making process, then the shredded small fabric pieces are pulverized to produce paper pulp which begins the “Reclamation” process. They get to reclaim their uniforms as paper. The third stage is “Communication” because when the paper is dry, they can write poetry or draw images on it to communicate their feelings and/or stories.

As they are go through this transformation process of their uniforms and internally themselves, each person is encouraged to talk and share their war experience with facilitators who also have military backgrounds. For most of these veterans, it is the first time they have spoken about traumatic events from the combat zone. Since the workshops are closed sessions for veterans only, they feel safe to open up and process emotions and memories that have previously been untouched. This is a community of veterans helping other veterans to heal with psychologically, emotionally and physically through a creative journey of inner exploration.

Drew Cameron, an Iraq war veteran and talented artist, co-founded Combat Paper in 2007 with his idea to “liberate the rag”. He says "The story of the fiber, the blood, sweat and tears, the months of hardship and brutal violence are held within those old uniforms. The uniforms often become inhabitants of closets or boxes in the attic. Reshaping that association of subordination, of warfare and service, into something collective and beautiful is our inspiration."

With the success of Combat Paper, other organizations have formed to support veterans’ healing through art. Warrior Writers Project is a Philadelphia based non-profit that is a “community of military veterans, service members, artists, allies, civilians, and healers dedicated to creativity and wellness”. There is emphasis on writing although they also encourage other mediums such as painting, photography. To expand their reach, Warrior Writers also offers trainings, retreats, exhibitions, performances and alternative healing practices that include massage and yoga. They have recently published their third anthology After Action Review, which showcases more than 100 veteran poems, creative writing and art.

Inspired by Combat Paper and Warrior Writers, in March 2011, Veterans in The Arts, a Minneapolis based organization, began offering classes. Their direction includes literary, visual as well as musical initiatives. Although new to this approach of creative healing, they have already received the support of ten art partners to build on their mission.

Being deployed overseas will generate feelings of loss of family and friends but it is very difficult to predict what experiences the soldiers come back with. These organizations strive to heal those wounds through sharing, art making and heart felt support.


Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.
Helen Keller

Creating Age Friendly Cities-Part 1

We know it’s coming. The silver tsunami is rising.

Baby boomer Americans are getting older and continuing to increase in startling numbers. The US Census Bureau predicts that between 2000 and 2050 there will be a 147 percent increase in demographics for individuals aged 65 and over while the entire population as a whole will increase by only 49 percent. Older adults will represent more than 20 percent of the population.

So what are cities and towns doing to prepare for this demographic change? What should be done to build age friendly cities and towns?

Fortunately there are some leaders and innovators.

In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has begun to change the face of senior centers. Once just a drop off place to avoid isolation, there are 8 pilot centers now on their way to be an intentional destination with vital activities such as underwater photography, rooftop gardening, technology courses and video conferencing. It will also be the first in the country dedicated to supporting the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities and also focus on seniors with vision problems.

This city is also creatively mining their assets. Idle school buses are being used to take seniors grocery shopping from senior centers and senior centers will offer studio space to artists in exchange for their services, such as teaching art classes to senior center members.

The critical key continues to be communication and support in a networked approach among stakeholders and others to make the Age-Friendly NYC project effective and sustainable. “The mayor’s office formed a partnership with The New York Academy of Medicine to consult with the city’s seniors, service providers, advocates and experts” with a 4 year timeline for implementation. With 59 public-sector initiatives in progress, seniors will reap benefits of being safer and more engaged than other large cities facing such changing demographics. Mayor Bloomberg says “…as older New Yorkers continue to redefine the aging experience, government has a responsibility to keep pace and to find innovative ways to empower this community and improve its quality of life.” It’s no wonder that older New Yorkers are moving back from Florida.

Many urban leaders are tackling these issues because creating age friendly cities is an imperative. They are also aware that when city changes are implemented to assist older adults, it positively impacts other groups. For example, everyone could use outdoor seating, we all would like accessible public toilets and pedestrian crossings reconfigured to accommodate slow walkers would also help pregnant women, adults with small children and people with disabilities.

Cities are dynamic places to live. Many empty nesters are moving to or staying in urban areas for short (often walking) distance to shopping, easy access to transportation, a range of social services and a plethora of cultural opportunities. They pay taxes, fuel the economy and contribute in a variety of ways that maintain a diverse and involved presence. Creating age friendly cities is not only an obligation but also an important way to grow vital and harmonious communities.



"Leaders can inspire cities and cities can inspire leaders."
Jim Hunt, former Governor of North Carolina