Excerpt from my post March 2019 about the garden revamp-
The Elizabeth Gordon Smith (Betty Smith) park & gardens were cleared and the small Picture garden past Stacy Boulevard’s Avis R. Murray tennis courts was unearthed. Because Gloucester garden groups pre-date 1900, it’s especially moving to see the work in progess shoring up inspiring legacy connections. Incredible volunteers past and present serve the city’s Department of Public Works (DPW). Stacy Boulevard & Stage Fort Park advocates like Betty Smith, Louise Loud & the Gloucester Civic & Garden Council tended and protected Gloucester’s natural beauty — the very same grounds that are so lovingly served now by dynamos like Ann Gilardi Johnson and Susan Kelly & the Generous Gardeners. Plaques for Lucy Brown Davis, tribute by her sister Catalina Davis, and for Lucy P. Rogers, “president of the Gloucester’s Woman’s Club 1927-29″, are nearby.
THE SCULPTURE- Triton was the son of Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea. He was thought to be able to control the sea’s wild movement by blowing his conch shell.
THE SCULPTOR- Walker Hancock a sculptor of international reputation and a long time resident of Gloucester
THE PARK- The Gloucester Civic & Garden Council created this park to honor Betty Smith its founder, a woman who has dedicated more than thirty years of her life to preserving the natural beauty of Gloucester.
We hope this small island of beauty will inspire visitors to cherish and create their own beauty wherever they go.
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There is much exciting work in progress along Stacy Boulevard including welcome tributes to women. Incremental aesthetic improvements, public access, ease of movement, and celebration of culture require many hands and deliver a huge impact. Here is a brief description of the special current projects and some people involved.
Two revitalized and enhanced gardens beyond the tennis courts will emphasize generations of care
“Remarkable support comes from volunteer expertise like award winning designer Ann Geraldi Johnson and Susan Kelly and the Generous Gardeners who have stepped up as the city’s groundskeepers on the boulevard.” Mike Hale, Director of Public Works
The Elizabeth Gordon Smith (Betty Smith) garden was cleared and the small Picture garden past the boulevard tennis courts was unearthed. Because Gloucester garden groups pre-date 1900, it’s especially moving to see the work in progess shoring up inspiring legacy connections. Incredible volunteers past and present serve the city’s Department of Public Works (DPW). Stacy Boulevard & Stage Fort Park advocates like Betty Smith, Louise Loud & the Gloucester Civic & Garden Council tended and protected Gloucester’s natural beauty — the very same grounds that are so lovingly served now by dynamos like Ann Gilardi Johnson and Susan Kelly & the Generous Gardeners. Plaques for Lucy Brown Davis, tribute by her sister Catalina Davis, and for Lucy P. Rogers ” president of the Gloucester’s Woman’s Club 1927-29″ are nearby.
photos: Betty Smith garden IN PROGRESS February (overgrowth and clearing underway–poison ivy was found) vs. March and can’t wait to experience the AFTER!
February 2019March 24, 2019 more progress two gardens revitalized- Paul Manship Triton fantastic enhanced boulder base clearingGloucester, Mass., March 2019. Pubic art – Walker Hancock Triton
March 2019 work continuing across Stacy Boulevard – read details HERE about these projects– Hancock Sculpture, Betty Smith Gardens & Tennis Courts to the East, and Blynman Bridge & railings to the West- additional stunning work and investment thanks to Gloucester MA Department of Public Works, Ann Gilardi Johnson, Generous Gardeners, CPA, Department of Transportation (DOT), and more. Stacy Boulevard Part 8
March 24, 2019 photos of Walker Hancock Triton and grounds prep before/in process.
Gloucester, Mass., March 2019. Pubic art – Walker Hancock Triton
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Within its galleries or on the local road, Cape Ann Museum’s inventive partnering promotes art and projects all children can take part in.
Cape Ann Museum education coordinator, Kirsten Vega, shares special upcoming February programming including two new offerings during school vacation 2018: movement games and art at MAGMA, plus basketeball and art with the YMCA.
Thursday, February 8, 10:30-11:30 am:Young at Art – Folly Cove Designer Valentines. Bring your toddler to Cape Ann Museum for Young at Art on the second Thursday of each month. During this special Valentine’s Day session, we’ll explore the Folly Cove Designers exhibit, touch printmaking tools, learn a song with hand motions, and print our own Valentine’s Day cards. Recommended for children ages 4 and younger with an adult. Free for members or with Museum admission.
Saturday, February 10, 10:00-12:00 pm:Valentine Workshop with Coco Berkman. Hand print your own animal themed Valentine’s Day cards in printmaker Coco Berkman’s family workshop! Participants leave with a set of cards. Ages 6+ / Free for families. Space is limited; e-mail kirstenvega@capeannmuseum.org for reservations.
February 20 & 21, 1:00-4:00 pm February School Vacation: Let’s Move at the Museum! Wednesday, February 21 | 1:00-4:00 pm Play creative movement games with Sarah Slifer Swift of Movement Arts Gloucester (MAGMA) studio and create art that moves. Thursday, February 22 | 1:00-4:00 pmWhat’s art got to do with basketball? Shoot hoops at the YMCA and create basketball player sculptures inspired by Walker Hancock.
Saturday, February 27: 1:00-1:45pm: Family Tour A tour for history detectives of all ages! Discover the story of Cape Ann by taking a closer look at 10 objects from paintings to film. End your tour in the Activity Center with hands-on fun and art-making. Recommended for families with children under 12. Free for CAM members or with Museum admission. Children must be accompanied by an adult.
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Photo without irony. For irony scroll down to see the poem, Mending Wall, by Robert Frost, and for Hancock’s portrait of Frost.
Update: shortly after posting and thanks to Good Morning Gloucester facebook feed and readers, there may be more information coming on the outside-r artist who built such a great fence design. Please send in more information soon. And here is some! Danny Diamondwrites: “I painted this octopus (and the rest of the fence) back in October. It belongs to Jon Just Jon and Lisa Bouchie. The octopus was painted entirely with low-pressure spray-cans.” And Lisa Redbird adds: “…conceived by Lisa Bouchie, built by Mark (Girard) of Spotless Monkey and spray painted by Danny Diamond. A true artist collaborative…”
Mending Wall
1914 poem by Robert Frost, American poet (1874-1963), first published in anthology North of Boston
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of out-door-game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
Spring is mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbors? Isn’t it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go beyond his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”
Robert Frost sat for Walker Hancock, Gloucester resident, esteemed sculptor and one of the country’s Monuments Men. Frost walked our local woods.
Artist: Walker Kirtland Hancock, (b.1901-December 30, 1998) Sitter: Robert Lee Frost, 26 Mar 1874 – 29 Jan 1963 Date: 1969 bronze sculpture cast after 1950 original (collection Amherst) Dimensions: Without socle or mount: 16 1/2 x 9 1/2 x 10 inches Collection: National Portrait Gallery
Robert Frost collection at Amherst College (on the faculty for 40 years; also University of Michigan, Middlebury, Columbia, Harvard, and Yale, among other places) Hancock’s sculpture is in this collection. Sculpture of Frost by artist Penelope Jencks was unveiled in 2007
24 NEA National Medal of Arts and NEH National Humanities Medals will be awarded to artists from our country in a special ceremony on September 22, 2016. NEA and NEH “serve different constituents”. Right. Anyhow, celebrating 24 exciting nominees rather than 12 is great! The event will be live streamed at www.whitehouse.gov/live. Both agencies are celebrating their 50th anniversary and request and receive nearly identical budgets, ie. 146 million FY2015.
NEH National Medal (awarding since 1996) recipients
Rudolfo Anaya (author), Jose Andres (chef), Ron Chernow (author), Louise Gluck (poet), Terry Gross (radio host), Wynton Marsalis (composer/musician- he received an NEA one in 2005), James McBride (author), Louis Menand (author), Elaine Pagels (historian), Prison University Project (San Quentin), Abraham Verghese (Physician/author), Isabel Wilkerson (journalist)
There are past NEH recipients with Massachusetts ties. A direct Gloucester match includes Hilton Kramer (2004 NEH). I bet Israel Horovitz and Deborah Cramer will be announced one year soon! Louis Menand to be honored next week wrote about TS Eliot. Prior years there are Gloucester connections like Monuments Men Foundation (NEH 2007/ Walker Hancock.) A wider North Shore net pulls out big names like John Updike/Ipswich (NEH 2003). From the NEH press release: “Since 1996, when the first National Humanities Medal was given, 175 individuals have been honored, inclusive of this year’s recipients. Thirteen organizations have also received medals. A complete list of previous honorees is available at this link: http://www.neh.gov/about/awards/national-humanities-medals”
Rudolfo Anaya’s novel Bless Me, Ultima, is a part of the NEA Big Read, grants awarded mostly for one town events with a book that’s pre-selected. Our local Cape Ann Reads effort will target 4 communities and as Deborah French, Director TOHP Burnham Library comments, “ WE will create one book to be read by four communities!”
NEA National Medal (awarding since 1984) recipients
Mel Brooks (cinema/broadway/tv), Sandra Cisneros (author), Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Morgan Freeman (actor), Phillip Glass (composer), Berry Gordy (music producer/Motown), Santiago Jimenez Jr (musician), Moises Kaufman (theater), Ralph Lemon (dance), Audra McDonald (singer/actor), Luis Valdez (playwright/film/tv), and Jack Whitten (painter)
Any U.S. citizen or group who, in the President’s judgment, “…are deserving of special recognition by reason of their outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support and availability of the arts in the United States.” [U.S.C. Sec. 955b (b) (1)] Have you submitted a nomination? You can- here’s how. And here’s a link to a list of the prior NEA National Medal recipients.
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FIRST PRIZE September 2014: Artist Brian Fay won the 2014 UK’s Derwent Art Prize just this month for this pencil drawing, Looted Salt Mine 1945 Manet in the Winter Garden. You can find his work as part of Pierogi’s famous online flatfiles. http://www.brianfayartist.com/
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During the weekend of September 26-28, the City of Gloucester will celebrate the life and work of Sculptor Walker Hancock. The celebration, sponsored by the Gloucester Committee for the Arts, will feature events in several venues, including The Cape Ann Museum, The Cape Ann Community Cinema, and Gloucester City Hall. Other partners include Essex National Heritage Area and Cape Ann TV.
“It’s a three part celebration,” said Judith Hoglander, Event Chair. “We want to showcase not only Hancock’s great talent as sculptor and his contribution to great art as we know it today as a Monuments Man, but to show his private side as well.”
The Cape Ann Museum showcases Hancock’s art with an exhibit titled A Chosen Place-Walker Hancock and His Friends. This exhibit features works by Hancock and by other nationally known artists who lived and worked on Cape Ann during the period from the 1940s until the 1980s. One of the better-known artists in this group is Hancock’s friend, and colleague, sculptor Paul Manship. Manship is best known for his towering golden Prometheus in New York City’s Rockefeller Center. Manship called Hancock, “The last American Master Craftsman in Sculpture. [He is] equally at home in every branch of the art from medals to monuments.”
On Friday evening (9/26) the Cape Ann Museum will host a Conversation With Deanie Hancock French, Walker Hancock’s daughter, and Jonathan Fairbanks, Director of the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton. This event is free to Cape Ann Museum members with a $10 charge for non-members.
On Saturday (9/27) from 10:30 AM until 2:30 PM, the Cape Ann Museum will conduct private tours of the Hancock exhibit. Space on the tour is limited to 25 persons and is on a first-come first-served basis.
On Saturday afternoon (9/27) at 2:30 PM, the Cape Ann Community Cinema, in downtown Gloucester, will show the film Monuments Men with George Clooney, Matt Damon and John Goodman. Hancock was one of the first to be called to join the now famous Monuments Men. As one of the Monuments Men, Hancock was a key player in the rescue of works of art and priceless relics (including the coffin of Frederick the Great), from the mines at Bernterode in Southern Germany. The mines were packed with an enormous cache of dynamite. The Monuments Men arrived just in time to stop their destruction by order of the Nazis. This event and others during the weekend are part of the Essex National Heritage Area’s Trails andSails weekend and are free to the public.
On Saturday evening (9/27) at Gloucester City Hall at 7PM there will be a special event featuring –ROBERT EDSEL– the author of the book Monuments Men- on which the film was based – will talk about the book and the great importance of the work these men and women did to preserve many of the priceless art treasures we have today. Mr. Edsel is founder of the Monuments Men Foundation, created to “raise public awareness of the importance of protecting and safeguarding civilization’s most important artistic and cultural treasures from armed conflict.” A “Meet and Greet” and book signing by Mr. Edsel will follow the talk. This event is free to the public with donations accepted to defray costs.
Hi Joey, Morgan Faulds Pike here. Remember me? The sculptor. My husband: David C. Pike, Executive Vice Pres. and Tonal Director at C.B. Fisk Pipe Organ Builders. We talked at your dock a few weeks back. Please post this at your site if you can. St. Mary’s Episcopal is the church where David is the Music Director. Thanks!
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