Posts Tagged ‘Smithsonian Institution’
“One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star”*…
Long-time readers will know of your correspondent’s fascination with– and affection for– outsider art. We’ve looked at Henry Darger, Ron Gittins, Grandma Moses, and others– so many of whom have been fueled by fervent faith. From Jeff MacGregor, another wonderful example…
For some 14 years he labored in solitude. Lovingly. Obsessively. Every night after work, in a rented garage on 7th Street NW in Washington, D.C., James Hampton, a World War II veteran and janitor for the General Services Administration with no artistic training, methodically built what he came to call The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly. Hampton prepared the throne to receive Jesus, flanked by a dozen angels, at the time of the Second Coming.
Born in 1909 to a South Carolina preacher, Hampton, who may have lived with schizophrenia, had his first religious vision at the age of 22—a visitation from the patriarch Moses. He later said Adam and the Virgin Mary had come to him as well. Why he began the Throne in 1950, no one can say. Passion. Devotion. Divine inspiration. But it came to comprise a handmade masterpiece of 180 or so separate components, each crafted from found and scavenged parts. Hampton embellished discarded furniture and light bulbs, tin cans and jelly jars with gold and silver foils and wrapping paper—materials reflecting light and inspiring something like awe at the prospect of an apocalyptic end to this world and the peace and glory to come in the next. Leslie Umberger, a curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, describes the part of the sculpture on display as the “central section of a spiritually driven, pulpit-style array” that Hampton created “as a sacred space for sharing his faith.” The “third heaven” is a reference to God’s home, an exalted heaven-within-a-heaven; the Throne, Hampton is reported to have said, “is my life. I’ll finish it before I die.”
Hampton’s materials were an inventory of junked 1950s office supplies: inks and desk blotters, construction paper and sheets of transparent plastic. The chairs and altars and offering tables are made of what he carted home from used furniture sellers, often cut in two. Each half of the assembly is beautifully symmetrical with the other. It is a miracle of craft and art and carpentry, of architecture and engineering, ingenuity and loneliness and holy madness. With a million featherlight hammer taps, Hampton built batches of trim molding and sawtooth decoration. Wings upon wings upon wings. Above the throne, Hampton placed these words of reassurance from Revelation 1:17: “Fear not.”
The Throne’s story has since hardened into legend. Hampton died of cancer at a Veterans’ Administration hospital in 1964. The work was unfinished. But then his landlord, Myer Wertlieb, came to the garage to collect the overdue rent, not knowing Hampton had died. Instead, he found the Throne. For months, Wertlieb searched without much success to find someone, anyone, who might want it. Then Harry Lowe got involved.
“It was like opening Tut’s tomb,” Lowe, head of exhibitions and design at what was then the National Collection of Fine Arts, told the Washington Post about entering that garage for the first time. Lowe paid the landlord Hampton’s back rent and arranged the purchase of the entire assembly for the museum. A selection from the center section was first exhibited in 1971. The illustrious art critic Robert Hughes wrote in Time magazine that the Throne “may well be the finest work of visionary religious art produced by an American.” Just as often, though, critics marginalized it as “outsider” art…
How deep faith created one of the loveliest—and most curious—sacred objects in the Smithsonian collections: “In His Garage, an Untrained Artist Created a Work of Sublime Divinity,” from @Jeff__MacGregor in @SmithsonianMag… where you’ll find more of the story and more wonderful photos.
* Friedrich Nietzsche
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As we appreciate art, we might recall that it was on this date in 1866 that Charles Elmer Hires created a faith-inspired addition to the culinary (well, gustatory) arts: he formulated his eponymous “root beer.” Hires was inspired by root tea, but thought that “beer” would be a more attractive name to “the working class”– for whom Hires, a supporter of temperance, saw it as an alternative to alcohol. While he failed in weaning the working man from his suds, his concoction was a hit that helped establish the “soft drink” category and attracted numerous competitors.
“I rather think that archives exist to keep things safe – but not secret”*…
For hundreds of years, families in Mauritania have been maintaining libraries of old Arabo-Berber books. Originally on the route of pilgrims traveling to Mecca, the libraries are now at risk from the spreading Sahara and ever dwindling numbers of visitors, in part because of security restrictions due to terrorism. One center of this preservation is the vanishing city of Chinguetti.
Most of Chinguetti consists of abandoned houses which are being swallowed up by the ever encroaching dunes of the Sahara. But this was once a prosperous city of 20,000 people, and a medieval center for religious and legal scholars; it was known as “The City of Libraries.”
Seen as a legacy from their ancestors, the families feel it’s an honor for them to care for these books:
About 600km north-east of the capital, in Chinguetti, once a centre of Islamic learning, the Habott family owns one of the finest private libraries, with 1,400 books covering a dozen subjects such as the Qur’an and the Hadith (the words of the Prophet), astronomy, mathematics, geometry, law and grammar. The oldest tome, written on Chinese paper, dates from the 11th century…
Precious Arabic manuscripts from western Africa are under threat as Mauritania’s desert libraries vanish. Learn more– and marvel at the photos that you’ll find at “Mauritania’s hidden manuscripts” (source of the direct quote above) and “Desert libraries of Chinguetti” (general source). See also @incunabula and the photos at Messy Nessy.
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As we treasure treasures, we might recall that it was on this date in 1846 that President James K. Polk signed the legislation that established the Smithsonian Institution as a “trust instrumentality” of the United States, to be administered by a Board of Regents and a Secretary of the Smithsonian.
Based on the founding donation of British scientist James Smithson, and originally called as the “United States National Museum,” it now houses over 150 million items in 19 museums, nine research centers, and a zoo, several of which are historical and architectural landmarks. “The Nation’s Attic,” as it is fondly known, hosts over 30 million visitors a year.
The “Castle” (1847), the Institution’s first building, which remains its headquarters
Hardcore History…
Your correspondent and his daughter were recently in Our Nation’s Capital, and visited that collection of museums arrayed around The Mall. We were amazed to have the exhibits more or less to ourselves.
So it was a delight to discover the work of artist Jenny Burrows and copywriter Matt Kappler, who created a wonderful set of fake ads for that famous institution. E.g.,
The originals of the ads above and below, and of the rest of the set, featured the name and logo of “America’s Treasure Chest”; but as our friends at Design Milk report, “unfortunately, that major museum was not a fan. Jenny had to change the text at the bottom to read “Museums” and change the logo. You can read all about that here.”
See the rest of the Jenny’s and Matt’s portfolio at “Historically Hardcore.”
As we wish that our tax dollars could stretch to cover a sense of humor, we might recall that it was on this date in 1940 that Booker T. Washington became the first African-American to be depicted on a U.S. postage stamp. (The first U.S. coin to feature an African-American was the Booker T. Washington Memorial Half Dollar, minted from 1946 to 1951; he was also depicted on a [“regular”] U.S. Half Dollar from 1951–1954.)
Show your work…
From the always-amusing xkcd
As we contemplate coincidence, we might pause to remember Chester Greenwood, who died on this date in 1937. One of the Smithsonian Institution’s “America’s 15 Outstanding Inventors,” Greenwood created the bottom whistling kettle, the mechanical mouse trap, and the spring steel rake, among many other indispensables. But he is best remembered as the inventor (at age 15) of earmuffs. By his mid-twenties, he had a factory and 11 workers producing Greenwood Champion Ear Protectors in his hometown of Farmington, ME, producing 50,000 earmuffs yearly; output grew to 400,000 pairs by the year he died. In 1977, the Maine state legislature officially declared the first day of Winter, December 21, “Chester Greenwood Day,” which Farmington celebrates with a parade.
Pi in the sky…
As we watch sheep chase ice cream cones across the summer sky, we might recall that on this date in 1974, at 8:01 a.m., a “10-Pak” of Juicy Fruit chewing gum with a bar code printed on it was passed over a scanner at the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio– and became the first product ever logged under the new Universal Product Code (UPC) computerized recognition system.
Sharon Buchanan (pictured above 30 yrs later) performed the first ever bar code scan when she rang up this 10-pack of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum, which is now at the Smithsonian. (source)
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