All of us leave a legacy when we die. Wisdom, material wealth and memories get left behind. In the case of a prolific and gregarious artist like Rodger Mack, that legacy is clearly visible and worth keeping in the public eye. 

During his tenure at Syracuse University, which began in 1968, Mack made an international name for himself with his distinctive sculpture. As the first director of SU’s School of Art and Design—he held the post from 1982 to 1991—Mack was instrumental in the creation of the Comstock Art Facility. Melanoma ended his life in 2002. Teddy Aiken, director of the graduate program in Museum Studies at SU, has helped organize an exhibition of Mack’s work at Cazenovia’s Stone Quarry Hill Art Park. Other old friends and colleagues lent work to the show and even helped install it.

The exhibit opened July 26 as part of Cazenovia Counterpoint, a festival that also celebrated poetry and music. The opening saw the premiere of A Resonant Chord: Rodger Mack and the Creative Process, a film by Linda Herbert. In the roughly hour-long movie, Mack and a handful of peers expound on what makes artists tick. Lingering looks at works of art and footage of sparks flying in the studio spice up the talking heads. Marc Mellits and Ed Ruchalski composed music for the soundtrack, commissioned by the Society for New Music. The movie plays continuously on a loop amid the works on display in the gallery. 

The film provides helpful insight and context in bits and pieces. Early on Mack identifies the dominant theme of his work: the interpretation of music. Painter Ludwig Stein recalls Mack’s fondness for jazz: “In early Miles Davis, he would play a note then pause. That pause would cause you to do two things: you’d anticipate the next note but it would also cause you to reflect on the last note. You had that space in between.”