THE 1970's: DEPAUW / Ghana / new york
Wendell Ray Walker
A lot happened in my world in the 1970s after a fairly quiet life growing up in Laurel, Mississippi, where I was born in 1954. I was named Wendell Ray Walker in honor of each of my grandfathers, Wendell Morse Pou and Ray Maddox Walker. Because Daddy Ray, as the family called him, died a year before my birth, and because I also had an uncle named Wendell, the family decided to use my middle name, Ray. I grew up with nobody ever knowing my first name was Wendell. I was known as Ray Walker.
I had a fairly uneventful life growing up, but then had an emergency departure from Mississippi when I was 15 and a freshman in high school. I had developed a relationship with a fellow student who was African American. We got to know one another working on the student production of The Sound of Music. I was a dancer in the ballroom scene, and Rosalind worked behind the scenes doing makeup and managing costumes. Our friendship grew and I gave her my class ring, and we kissed once. We dared to danced together at a party with fellow classmates, and rumors spread. It blew up one day into a major incident with me being physically attacked, and that was the end of my days as a Mississippian.
With such a turbulent start to the 70s, my high school years had further complications—partly the result of my reactions to the impact the events described above had on me. I took a year off between high school and college and lived in Albuquerque for 6 months working in restaurants. I worked my way up to a job in flight catering at the Albuquerque Airport.
My time in Albuquerque confirmed my desire to go to college, but I wanted to travel first. I saved up and with help from my father got a roundtrip ticket and a Eurail Pass—and a tour of Eastern Europe. With a tent and a backpack, I made my way around Europe sleeping in campgrounds and meeting interesting people—and I ended up going to Morocco. It was unlike any place I'd ever been, and I realized how little I knew about it or Africa in general. I went from there to Eastern Europe, including Moscow and Leningrad. I came back from that trip with new enthusiasm and drive to learn, and a new interest in the very rich history and cultures of the African continent, and the complexities of the world.
My first semester at Depauw started with the roll call in each of my classes listing me as Wendell versus Ray—my middle name that I had always used. At first, I objected but then realized I actually liked the name Wendell, and I also realized it gave me a clean break with the recent horrors I had been through in Mississippi. A name change had actually been suggested at one point by legal authorities due to the ongoing harassment I experience for several years. I became Wendell Walker, and I declared studio art as my intended major, and registered for a course on African history with Dr. John Lamphere. The artist Bing Davis, painting professor, was assigned as my advisor, and we immediately bonded. He took an interest in my interest in Africa, as well as my pursuit of a voice through my art. Edward DeCarbo (Ed) became part of my world in my sophomore year. He had just completed research in Ghana, and he got me further interested in Ghanaian history and cultures, and introduced me to people in the world of traditional African art, including the legendary Roy Seiber, the master scholar of the study of traditional African art.
While continuing to focus on my art and art history, I got further engaged in the University's African Studies program through my new friends at Indiana University, and with John, Bing, and Ed each encouraging me, I decided to pursue a year abroad in West Africa. Depauw is part of the Great Lakes College Association, which enabled me apply to programs sponsored by Kalamazoo College. They had the best programs in Africa, but nobody had programs focusing on art. I investigated further, with Ed's guidance and approached the College of Art at what was then the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi. (It was later changed to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.) I managed to get an invitation from UST to attend, and Kalamazoo agreed to sponsor me as a pilot program. Unfortunately, I was the first and the last.
I was one of six foreign students at UST, with a full student body of around 4,000 students. Four of the other six foreign students were from other African countries, and the fifth was from India. I was the only western student in the university the first term, though there were several American faculty members. I attended my full Junior year, and my focus was painting, with a studio session from 8 to 4 Tuesday through Friday. Monday was reserved for discussion and review of each student's recent art, and an overall discussion about art in general.
I often found myself in opposition to many of my fellow students during these discussions. Most of them didn't agree with my approach to creating art, feeling I had no structure, and that I needed to take creating representational art more seriously, particularly while in school. I had some allies, though, and it often created interesting conversations.
The highpoint of my year at UST was my unofficial apprenticeship with master traditional wood carver Nana Osei Bonsu. He came to campus every Wednesday at 4 pm when our studio session was out for the day and was available for any student interested in working with him using traditional tools and techniques to create traditional Ashanti objects, like Akuaba dolls. Most of my fellow Ghanaian students were not interested, and that basically left me alone with him each Wednesday. We had language challenges, with my Twi being very basic, alongside his basic English, but we managed. After working with him for some time, he had a set of traditional tools made for me, including appropriate traditional procedures for their production, and for me taking charge of them. I produced several traditional forms of sculpture under his guidance.
My painting studio class was based on a very traditional British approach, with specific assignments of what to paint, and at times how to paint it in terms of realism versus abstraction. Some of my favorite memories are of the location painting sessions we would have, where the entire class would go to some location in Kumasi and paint what we saw happening on the street. We usually had nude models for studio work.
I returned from my 9 months in Ghana fully energized and clothed in Ghanaian attire and jewelry, ready for my senior year at Depauw and a new approach to my art. I got the best student job on campus, serving as a nude model for drawing and painting classes at $20 per hour, and got involved in various campus activities. I also co-founded "The Androgyny Discussion Group" along with two fellow students. I was full of energy!
My time in Ghana, and my woodcarving apprenticeship with Nana Osei Bonsu, totally changed my whole approach to my art. The body vs. landscape issue was gone, and replaced by shapes and contrasting materials—and my new interest in existentialism following a course on Sartre and Camus. I explored carved wood versus cut wood, and usually mixed the two, and loved combining silk with wood. I also volunteered to assist the art department's woodworking shop manager, who was a retired cabinet maker, and my time with him essentially became another valuable, though unofficial, internship in power tool management—and it was the perfect follow-up to my time with Nanna Osei Bonsu.
Bing Davis continued as my advisor, and I started to assist him with preparation and installation of his art in local exhibitions. It was literally my first experience doing that in a formal gallery context, and I loved it. I also got involved in management of the student gallery that was in the Art Department building and got very exciting preparing for my upcoming senior exhibition there.
Between assisting Bing Davis with installations of his art, installing exhibitions in the department's gallery, and assisting with management of the woodworking shop, I was well on my way to not having a career as an artist! My painting professor, the artist Ben Kingsley, once told me I was more obsessed with my materials and process than my content. He said he felt like I was looking for a content excuse to justify the materials I seemed obsessed with using one way or another. Many years later I saw him at an alumni event and shook his hand, congratulating him on how well his projection of my future had played out!
I came to New York almost immediately after graduating from Depauw, thinking I had an internship at the legendary Tribal Arts Gallery, which was located on 10th Street between 3rd and 4th Avenues. My plan was to work there for a year and then return to school to do graduate work in traditional African art—which in those days was still part of anthropology. Unfortunately, the internship fell through, and I got a job at David Findley Gallery managing their art storage facilities instead.
I kept searching for the right job, though, and ended up getting a position at another traditional African Art gallery just down the street from Tribal Arts Gallery. It was called Galerie Africaine, and it exhibited contemporary artists alongside traditional African Art. It was single-handedly run by a woman named Lisa Ludlow-Hyland, and I had not idea what all was waiting for me when I agreed to work for her. She actually gave me my entry into the contemporary art world, which was her interest alongside traditional African art. I did what I consider my first serious installation of a contemporary artist, Lisa Bradley, at the gallery, and that was followed by an artist in residency and exhibition with the artist Dorothy Fischer, who created amazing woven sculptures.
Galerie Africaine continued to grow and soon after starting to work there, I started the search to find a new, larger home. We moved to 57th Street, with an expanded gallery facility that I designed, a new name (Gallery Yssa) and a new title for me (Associate Director) and an assistant. The first exhibition was a more formal installation of Lisa Bradley's work and plans for changing exhibitions followed. It was very exciting!
One of our most memorable adventures was when we secured a large contract to upholster a line of sofas using a line of tie-dye fabric that was created by a group of women Lisa had gotten to know in Sierra Leone. We submitted the order to them for hundreds of yards, but unfortunately they didn't understand the need to match the sample. The yardage was rejected, and I was dispatched overnight to Freetown to coordinate the rushed production of the correct yardage, using the same dye and techniques as the sample. When I got back to New York, I used the mistaken fabric to create a dining space in Lisa's home, and we used it for press opportunities. The whole thing was put together with safety pins!
In 1980, on behalf of Gallery Yssa, I organized a small exhibition at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in my hometown in Mississippi which turned out to be my first Museum exhibition! It was a small exhibit, and I wrote all the texts and did the installation myself, and it served in many ways as an incentive to start branching out. At just about the same time, Gallery Yssa was suddenly forced to close due to plans to demolish our section of 57th Street for new construction. Lisa secured a new space at 100 Greene Street, and I designed plans for the space’s renovation. We got a new name, Ludlow-Hyland Gallery, and a temporary home at Alain Bilhaud Gallery at 96 Grand Street. I managed the renovations alongside Alain's gallery, with Art Nouveau posters alongside works by the artists Gallery Yssa represented. The highlight of this era was the Whitney Counterweight 3, which involved coordinating daily activities with all the neighboring galleries. Unfortunately, that highlight was short-lived. Surprise financial challenges suddenly resulted in an abrupt termination of my position, and the new Ludlow-Hyland Gallery never opened.
Of course I faced all those challenges with my partner, Leon Waller, by my side. I actually met Leon soon after my arrival in New York, in September 1977. I got my first job soon after arriving at David Findley Gallery managing their storage vaults, and other maintenance tasks as they arose, and I was very excited. It was the first Sunday in October, and it was a beautiful day, and I felt on top of the world. Money was tight in those days, but I decided to splurge and go to the Whitney Museum.
Leon had also recently moved to New York and had just moved in with a friend and they also went to the Whitney that day with another friend. By amazing circumstance, Leon and I each walked up to the same Paul Cadmus painting (Finistere, 1952) at the same time. Our timing was perfect, and the subject matter caused us to share a smile... and a gaze.
I went on to the next gallery, and then in the gallery after that Leon approached me in front of a Hellen Frankenthaler painting and introduced himself. He invited me to have lunch with him and his friends, and wanted to play a game—to pretend that we are old friends that just re-met in the gallery. Totally a cover story, but I agreed, and we had a great time making up stories about our past lives together. It was a really fun meeting and gathering—and something seemingly magical happened. Long story short... Leon and I re-met the next day and the magic resumed, and we started what is approaching a 50 year adventure together.
Leon is an artist (leonwaller.com) and for years worked in museum education and he is an adjunct professor at New School University. Our work versus personal lives have always intertwined in an interesting way.
1980-1985: THE FIRST WOMEN'S BANK, NEW YORK
Wendell Walker, Art Consultant
In 1980, when I was working for Gallery Yssa (a gallery focusing on traditional African Art alongside contemporary art at 123 East 57th Street, between Park and Lexington) one of the artists the gallery represented was included in an exhibition at The First Women’s Bank, which was almost next door to the gallery. The Bank was an historic institution, said to be the first bank to offer equal credit access to men and women. Laws were changed just as the bank was founded, and the bank's focus immediately shifted to small business, and it developed a distinct presence on 57th Street at Park Avenue in the late 70s into the mid 80s. The bank's interior had been designed with the idea of having art exhibited, with large clear sheetrock walls with a hanging system built in, and track lighting throughout. Only occasional installations, like the one I assisted with, happened in the bank during the early years.
During the installation of the work Gallery Yssa was lending to the bank, I got interested in the space and learned all about the bank's history and the original vision and plans. I wrote a proposal to the bank’s president, Judy Hendren Mello, and I also connected with the New York Foundation for the Arts where I got interest in supporting my proposal. Though the NYFA affiliation ultimately did not come through, the work toward that established the parameters, and with support from the Bank’s Board of Directors, a bare-bone budget was established, and I was hired for one day a week with the title Art Consultant.
To supplement that one day of paid work, I was also paid hourly to serve as a host for evening events and meetings happening at the bank—providing more paid time to work on future exhibition plans and correspondence. This also enabled me to meet and get to know many of the Bank's founders and supporters, and many civic and business leaders of that time. It also led to me doing projects for Ms. Magazine, Prospect Park, and Deutsches Bank, and ultimately to my first museum staff position at The Studio Museum in Harlem.
From 1980 to 1985 I was filling the Bank's public spaces with a series of successful exhibitions, 6 each year, with press coverage and an expanded audience for the bank. I got full recognition for the success of the program with several bonus awards from the Bank’s Board of Directors, and in addition to managing exhibitions, graphic design services were added to my portfolio in 1982. This including updating and maintaining the bank's letterhead and envelope templates, various forms, management of the bank's information and event signage, various applications of the bank's logo, and design and production of two of the bank's annual reports.
My exhibition management responsibilities throughout the five years grew as the exhibition program grew and gained support. They included curating and selecting guest curators, non-stop review of exhibition proposals and artists’ submissions, fund raising, pursuing partnerships, gifts-in-kind solicitation, writing press releases and managing public relations with guest curators, and managing the transport, preparation, and installation of the exhibitions. I did all this on a budget of $150 per exhibition — the equivalent of $600 in 2024.
I had so many memorial experiences during my years at The First Women's Bank. I organized 6 exhibitions each year over a 5-year period, with at last 6 artists in each exhibition—and one installation each year that included almost everyone who had submitted a request, which could mean 20-30 artists. It amazes me to think that I exhibited more than 250 artists over my 5-year era at The Bank. I was often able to tie exhibitions into special events happening in the city to obtain special funding for some installations, and sometimes I brought in collaborators who shared production and installation costs. One way or another, I was determined to keep it all going on schedule and on budget.
The exhibition that turned out to be a landmark event in my life was a survey of African American women artists that I organized in 1983. It was curated by Ernest Chrichlow and Terrie Rouse from The Studio Museum in Harlem and working with them led to many new friendships and connections. It was my first time working with Faith Ringgold, followed by the de-installation of her exhibition Faith Ringgold: Twenty Years of Painting, Sculpture and Performance (1963-1983) which was my entry into the museum world as Exhibition Designer and Preparator at The Studio Museum just a few years later.
Textiles for the Home 1850-1950 from the Silver Studio Collection was probably the most elaborate exhibition I ever did at the Bank. It was a loan from a foundation in London and was part of a Briton Salutes New York 1983 festival happening throughout the city, and Mayor Koch came to officially open it. I remember being nervous about introducing him! It was a big success, though, and set the stage for other partnerships.
The only controversy I ever had involved Hanna Wilke and a series that I approved for inclusion—and I confess I was always pushing the boundaries a bit at a time, and this one was probably too far. It was a bank, after all, and it was amazing that they allowed people to walk in to see the exhibitions, and wander around the desks of people who worked there. It was very exciting when we got in the Weekend section of The New York Times with a review by Michel Brenson. Then came the controversy in The Village Voice just a few days later.
In the end, I moved her work to a new area of the bank's downstairs lobby where it was considered "less confrontational" (according to the president) as a solution. Hanna was very upset, of course, but we worked it out cordially in a meeting between her and the president, and it was ultimately a blip on what otherwise was a 5-year era with no controversies or issues with any of the artists or organizations I collaborated with.
One of my favorite memories, and most impressive installations, was working with Eva Zeisel for the exhibition "House/Work" which was another collaborative project. Zeisel's contribution was special because she created a unique ceramic partition in one part of the bank's downstairs lobby. It was quite impressive! She was in New York because of a separate exhibition happening at the Brooklyn Museum, Eva Zeisel: Designer for Industry. We were able to tap into her free time, and her installation was the hit of the exhibition. It also led to the idea of having an artist in residency program, which unfortunately never got implemented alongside many other ideas for expanding the program.
"The First Men's Show at The First Women's Bank" was fun because no man-made art had ever been exhibited at the bank, and I thought this was a great way to break the glass ceiling: male artist working in media traditionally considered female such as sewing, knitting and batik.
Then there were the various projects that I did with other organizations and cooperatives. Convergence was one of my favorite exhibitions, led by the artist Françoise Gilot. She was part of a collaborative group of 4 artists, each from different countries: France, United States, Germany, and India. Françoise had already organized the content and gotten the funding together and was looking for a venue. We met, I loved the content and immediately saw how it would fit in the bank's facilities and approved it. Suddenly I had a small team and a small budget to do the installation! The exhibition opened with great fanfare, including a party at Studio 54 (with Andy Warhol and Mick Jagger as guests!), and it then traveled to San Diego and Grand Rapids.
In 1984, I started working at The Studio Museum four days a week, and at the Bank one day— but I also worked many nights at the bank continuing to host night-time meetings, and that's when I got most of my Bank exhibit work done. It was hard doing both jobs, though. At the same time, leadership at the bank changed and the support I had always enjoyed was not the same. I soon went full time at The Studio Museum, and that was the end of my days at The First Women's Bank, and unfortunately it was the end of the exhibition program there as well. The bank went through various challenges in the years that followed and moved to a new location on Park Avenue before closing permanently.
1982-1983: UNICEF, UNITED NATIONS
Wendell Walker, Project Coordinator
After my job at Ludlow-Hyland Gallery ended suddenly, I did have my very limited consultancy at The First Women's Bank, but couldn't live on that alone. I got some small jobs here and there, and I briefly started a sofa slip-cover and drapery business. You could hire me for the day and I would arrive with my sewing machine ready to transform your home that afternoon. I was a big hit in Stuyvesant Town!
When I originally met Leon at the Whitney Museum (see story above), he was with two friends. One was Bjorn Oldaeus, who was part of the Swedish delegation to the United Nation. Alongside the story of me and Leon was the story of me an Bjorn. After our meeting at the Whitney, I actually moved in with Leon at Bjorn's residence on Sutton Place. After Leon and I finally got our own home, my friendship with Bjorn grew. He quickly advanced in his work at the UN, and joined UNICEF's senior fund raising team. He was soon traveling all over the world raising money from governments to support UNICEF's initiatives, and was very successful.
One day I got a rushed call from Bjorn who was very excited. He had just facilitated major funding from the OPEC Fund for International Development, and part of the deal was that UNICEF had to organize a clean water education project for children with art as the focus. His rushed question was if I would be available the next day to meet the Executive Director of UNICEF to discuss being the coordinator of the project. Of course I said yes, without fully understanding the scope until Bjorn gave me a detailed briefing later that night. I got very excited!
The meeting the next day went very well. As Bjorn had explained, they really had no plan—just a mandate to do something. My mandate was to figure out what the best approach would be to end up with an exhibit of children's art that could open at the OPEC Fund headquarters in Vienna. I was given an office at UNICEF headquarters at the United Nations, and a 3-day work week. This was perfect, with The First Women's Bank a 20 minute wall away. I was very excited and proud to be part of the United Nations, with my United Nations ID and access to the delegates dining room. I remember taking my mother there for lunch once when she was visiting and she was so excited to be sitting next to Jeane Kirkpatrick!
Getting to know the UN's communication structure was my first challenge. These were the days before internet, and I had to communicate with UNICEF offices around the world using telegraph mostly. They had defined procedures for everything. Alongside that was the process of defining the project. I met with many different people overseeing many programs, and specialist in children's education and therapy. Out of the process I developed a set of guidelines that was acceptable to everyone. It focused on having kids take part in a workshop to learn about clean water and personal hygiene, and to then create an artwork about what they learned. The most exciting element of the plan was my idea of having kids create a collage versus a drawing or painting. This enabled kids anywhere to create without a specific medium designated. Each country was also to select representative artworks, versus competition winners. I was sent to Vienna to present the plan to the OPEC Fund, which went very well. They fully endorsed the plan, and sent a letter to my boss at UNICEF complimenting the work I had done.
Once the guidelines were sent out, I had a very complicated era with UNICEF offices from all over the world responding with questions and expansive proposals. India went national with it! I ended up with 25 countries all together, and the project was implemented differently and at different scales in each country.
I remember getting so many moving stories throughout the process. Some officers would send me notes about something a kid said or did, and it was always wonderful. I also loved the way many kids literally used found materials to create their collage. Some were elaborately painted. The photographs of kids gathered to hear about clean water issues, and to create their art, were also wonderful.
The creations of the catalog to accompany the exhibition was a whole separate process. I did two version in six languages: one in English, German, and Arabic, and one in French, Spanish, and Russian. Typesetting and layout were both challenging with the various languages, but with a wonderful team and many late nights, we pulled it all together.
Organizing the opening exhibitions was the final phase of the project, and of course it was as unique as everything else had been. The grand opening happened in the main lobby of the United Nations. I was able to adapt an existing wall system the UN had for various displays, and struggled to make it look less like a trade show. It was very well received, in spite of the wall system, and went on to have a grander installation at the OPEC Fund palace-like headquarters in Vienna, to several UNICEF offices in Europe, and then finally to the 1984 World's Fair in New Orleans.
1984-1989: PROSPECT PARK, BROOKLYN
Wendell Walker, Art Consultant
Following my days at UNICEF, and overlapping with The Studio Museum in Harlem and Grey Art Gallery, I had some unique adventures working with Prospect Park as a design consultant for several years in the mid 1980s. My first project, and my primary focus throughout my days there, was an exhibition inside the Sailors and Soldiers Memorial Arch at Grand Army Plaza, across from the main entrance to the park. Designing the exhibition led to several years working primarily with Mariella Bisson, who wore a wonderful sheriff-style badge but said Curator rather than Sheriff. We basically did a Spring and Fall exhibition, and each installation required a total cleanup and repair of the interior. The interior got very humid and that created many challenges not only for what Mariella could exhibit in the space, but also for how long.
The other unique challenge with the space is that it's totally vertical, until you get the large space over that exists over the arch itself. If I remember correctly, it was 110 steps from ground level to the top floor... and of course another round of steps to get to the roof top deck. I would always joke that this meant, inevitably, when I would get to the top floor, I'd realize I needed a tool that was back on the first floor.
It could also be very difficult to install works, with all the various stairs and barrier railings making it difficult to maneuver ladders and access various areas of the walls, and scaffolding was a whole different story.
I unfortunately do not have many photographs from my days working in Prospect Park. Of course, back in those days you had to have a camera. There were no mobile phones of any kind, and having a camera on site also involved film, etc. There is also very little online about the exhibitions we did back in those days.
It was a very exciting time in Prospect Park. The park's buildings and basic infrastructure were in very poor condition in the early 80s after many years of neglect. Ed Koch was Mayor at that time and got behind funding to totally renovate all the park's facilities. Alongside those funds, the Parks Commissioner Gordon Davis also got federal funding that enabled the hiring of a new commissioner, Tupper Thomas, and for the exhibition programs to take place, including hiring Mariella. These funds also enabled the park to hire me—to make their visions come true!
My responsibilities generally included all design, as well as overseeing any fabrication of furniture of other infrastructure the installation required. I also did a lot of the physical installation work myself, along with a crew that Mariella would hire to assist me.
When I did my first installation in the arch, it was after the full structural restoration had been completed. The interior was pretty rough, requiring a lot of cleanup and spackling and painting. It had a basic electrical infrastructure with very few outlets and only basic lighting. It definitely presented some challenges that I had not faced previously, and one of the big ones was the humidity levels and fluctuations inside the arch, where the exhibitions were being installed.
These conditions not only presented potential challenges for some of the art, it also means some of the wall surfaces were not stable, and in some areas the stability problems went beyond the surface. This sometimes mandated where we could and could not install objects.
The stairs, and getting things in and out, was also the biggest and most exhausting challenge of them all. Boaz Vaadia's "Schmai'ah" installation required moving three tons of bluestone slabs to the main "gallery" which, of course, was at the top of the stairs. Mariella and I went to a local gym and hired a team of weightlifters to help carry all the slabs up the 110 steps. It was not only the number of steps, though. The curves add to the complication of not only with objects of length, but weight as well. Of course, everything taken up the stairs would also eventually need to be taken back down, and we always had to consider all that when we planned the installations.
I think the biggest challenge the Arch ever present me was a wall painting disaster while preparing for one of the installations. We had hired a team with a goal of getting the entire interior painted in one day. In the past, we had always done it ourselves in phases, and just allowed time in the schedule to space it out. It turned out this made more sense than I realized. When we brought in the team and did the whole thing all at once, it apparently caused a larger humidity buildup. The next morning, we arrived to find all the paint had run off the walls and onto the floor. We had floors and landings with pools of wet paint standing. It was a nightmare!
Despite such challenges, for me personally, as an exhibition designer, the exhibitions I did with Mariella were some of my favorite past experiences. The arch also presented an opportunity for special interactions with artists, and those opportunities were explored. Whatever exhibition I'm working on, and whoever the curator is and whatever the curatorial concept is, I always want to understand the space an artist's concept requires, along with the physical requirements and curatorial requirements. My goal is always to find a way to bring it all together, but I want to fully understand the various perspectives I'm juggling.
Of course, the Arch imposes itself on any installation one does inside it. I think that also part of what is uniquely wonderful about it. It's not just the stairs or the crumbling walls alone. It's their combination along with the humidity and the sounds that make it very challenging to provide a neutral space. When it all works, it because you have found the right balance and allowed the arch to have a voice.
Irons in the Fire was in some ways one of the easier installations—mostly because we didn't have any huge, heavy works to maneuver up the stairs. It is unfortunately the only installation I have photos of.
I loved the installation we did of works from Mel Edwards Lynch Fragment series in the most gallery-like space in the arch, located directly over the arch itself, and directly under the winged goddess of victory sculpture on top of the arch. The dark beauty of his work was very powerful in this context, along with the rough wall surface and general environment the arch’s gallery spaces presented. Context aside, Mels's works physically almost appear as though they are part of the structure, and even the inadequate lighting seemed comfortable.
I usually resisted using pedestals and other furniture in the Arch. I did this not only because of the water issues, and the inevitable warping that would happen with any such furniture, but in Irons in the Fire, I broke that rule. Using pedestals, and adding some directional lighting that was a challenge, enabled me to add more drama to the installation than I had done in the past. It was also a fall installation, which meant the space would dry out more than it did for the installations that went into early summer.
One project I did for Prospect Park separate from the arch involved installing large sculptures in the park. It involved working with a different team from the Parks Department, and my role was primarily placement of the sculpture and the label text that went with each installation. It was wonderful to explore the park with sculpture placement in mind!
In addition to working in the Soldier and Sailors Memorial Arch, the Boathouse became a major focus of attention after the renovations of the building were complete. I was presented with a beautiful new, raw space, and a checklist of artists' works to be installed there as part of the opening festivities. Mayor Koch would be overseeing those festivities... which always adds a certain psychological pressure to the project.
I designed a modular wall system and found a local carpenter who could construct it, and it became a permanent fixture of the gallery space. I designed an optional lighting system as part of the wall structure that included a protruding arm to hold the fixture.
The buildup to the grand opening was intense. Mayor Koch arrived, shook hands, and sat down for the speeches and presentations... and fell asleep! It was so funny--and awkward for the speakers welcoming him!
In addition to The Boathouse, I was also contracted to design new signage for the Prospect Park Zoo around 1988 and was then contracted to design new barrier railings for Lefferts Homestead. That was another special project that I enjoyed. I studied the existing moldings and details, and the history of the house and how it became part of the park, and I designed a railing that didn't copy, but was compatible those historic details, and provided the practical applications required.
My days at Prospect Park had many challenges, but partly because of that, they were very special days with many wonderful memories, including working with a team of people with wisdom, vision and humor.