Shape Shifter
Sculptor David MacDonald spent the last year creating new pieces of art, and in The Power of Pattern, visitors to the Everson Museum of Art can see the fruits of his labor. The show isn’t a point of departure for MacDonald. Rather, it builds on skills he’s refined during the past four decades and documents his ongoing experimentation with the patterns that decorate his pieces.
Certainly, the exhibit displays the geometric forms that have long been a distinctive element in MacDonald’s clay vessels. On various pieces are triangles, circles, semicircles, lines that sweep across a surface in a wave-like pattern. Beyond that, we view patterns used in various combinations. In a piece like “Planter #1,” for example, MacDonald has decorated the exterior with a wave pattern and the interior with a series of triangles.
Yet, his use of patterns, carved or combed into surfaces, extends beyond the geometric forms. He’s employed arrow patterns as well as the floral pattern decorating “Calabash Vase #2.” He’s devised softer shapes suggesting a lily pad. Finally, MacDonald has created distinctive works like the plate he decorated with a checkerboard-like pattern and then placed lines over it.
In addition, his vessels continue to be vibrant pieces, full of green and brown colors, the only colors he uses in his sculptures. Once again, the artist is interested in variations, and the vessels appear with various shades of brown and green. In another sense, the vessels reflect the care MacDonald takes in constructing his works. He makes his calabash vases with long necks in a gourd shape, doing one with plain brown color, decorating another with tiny dot patterns.
That care extends from small plates to the large storage jars included in the exhibition. The two jars stand roughly three feet tall with a hefty shape suggesting an interior capable of holding a mass of grain or other material. Each jar has a beautifully constructed top, a functional device that could be used to open the jar.
The Everson show draws from several series of MacDonald’s work, including the quilt series, influenced by African-American quilts, and the calabash series, informed by his viewing of African textiles. In the course of his career, he’s incorporated many patterns into his work, drawing from various sources: Nigerian pottery, African cultures in which body ornamentation is an essential element, Islamic designs from North Africa, among others. In each instance, he focused both on the patterns and their cultural connections.
This exhibit emphasizes the sculptor’s ability to play with patterns and to skillfully execute his designs. It also presents sculptures with a certain warmth, pieces done in earth colors that create emotional appeal. And the exhibition updates MacDonald’s long resume of individual and group shows. Over the last 40 years, he’s shown his work not only at local venues like the Community Folk Art Center and Eureka Crafts but also at Rochester’s Firehouse Gallery, the Lemmerman Gallery in Jersey City, N.J., and at his alma mater, Hampton University, in Virginia.
The Power of Pattern continues through Sept. 18 at the Everson, 401 Harrison St. The museum is open Sundays and Tuesdays through Fridays, noon to 5 p.m., and Saturdays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. There is a suggested donation of $5. For more information, call 474-6064.
—Carl Mellor
Pompey Iced Teas
A Pompey woman denied permission to open a school for healing arts along Route 92 is charging that the town’s Planning Board acted improperly in denying her request to teach healthy living skills at her country estate. The fate of the facility, to be known as the Beattie Sanctuary for Lifelong Learning, may be decided at a Planning Board meeting later this month. Susan Beattie Holowchak, 8867 Cazenovia Road, purchased the 27-acre estate in November 2010 for $575,000 along with other family members as part of a living trust in the name of her father, Richard Beattie. She described the Beattie Sanctuary as an “integrated medicine center for people and animals.”
Holowchak, a native of Manhattan and graduate of SUNY Cortland, moved back to the area last year after practicing Chinese QiJong medicine and a variety of healing arts for both people and animals in Florida and New Jersey for many years. She has also taught healthy cooking classes and is currently working on her accreditation to practice similar healing arts in New York state.
Holowchak, 47, first met with town officials in January 2011 after applying for permission to operate a school at the site, located between Manlius and Cazenovia at the junction with Palmer Road. According to an affidavit filed by Kevin Coursen, who chairs the town Planning Board, Holowchak discussed “a number of ideas” for the facil-ity, including alternative therapy for cancer patients, alternative veterinary treatments and an acupuncture school.
Coursen maintains in his June 23 sworn statement that the town rejected Holowchak’s request because the Planning Board “could not coherently understand what she was doing.” Coursen maintained that Holowchak at various times indicated an intent to conduct retail sales, hold “teddy bear teas,” run a photography studio, host a bed-and-breakfast, and conduct unspecified farming activities. Holowchak’s attorney Scott Chatfield acknowledged that his client first approached the board with a number of ideas but her final proposal was refined to consist simply of a school.
The town’s zoning enforcement officer, Lloyd Sutton, had originally concluded that the school constituted a permissible use for the property and the building, pending approval of a site plan. Yet the town denied her request for site plan approval at its April 18 meeting after consulting with their attorney, Jeff Brown, and with Sutton. According to separate affidavits sworn by both Brown and Coursen, the board based its decision on concerns raised by Sutton during a sidebar conference at the April 18 meeting.
However, Sutton, a part-time town employee, later said in an affidavit filed for Holowchak’s appeal of the board decision in state Supreme Court that he “did not say a single word during this conference.” In that same affidavit Sutton said that prior to the April 18 meeting he did confer with Brown and told him that the school would be permissible, as long as it did not include other activities such as retail sales, a photographic studio or the dreaded teddy bear teas.
Sutton also indicated that an earlier affidavit he had signed, suggesting he opposedHolowchak’s project, had been prepared by the planning board and presented to him for signature. In that document, which he later appeared to refute, Sutton suggests that the mention of other activities at the school justified the rejection of her proposal.
Neither Coursen nor Sutton returned phone calls requesting comment on the matter. A phone call to town Supervisor Carol Marsh was returned by Brown, while he didn’t return subsequent calls in time for publication.
Chatfield, of Marietta, has worked as an attorney in the field of land use planning for 35 years, and was for 20 years the attorney for the town of Pompey. “Back in January,” he said, “she {Holowchak} went with her architect and met with the planning board and with Lloyd Sutton. He {Sutton} determined that was a permissible use, but required site plan approval.
She applied for the required approval, and a public hearing was set up for April 18.”
Continued Holowchak: “On April 18, they {the planning commission} flat out denied my request. The chairman of the board lied in an affidavit saying that I had said that I was going to change the building, which I was not. All I wanted to do was add two signs: Enter and Exit.” Since then she has spent $8,500 in engineering and legal fees to take her case to the state Supreme Court.
According to Chatfield, who did not attend the April 18 meeting, the board “asked a bunch of nonsense questions. The chair was concerned that she might do something on the property that would transcend the limits of a school. She had hoped to have teddy bear teas, conduct retail sales—arguably not school related. When advised that these were not permissible, she eliminated them from her proposal.”
Chatfield maintained that the town had no authority to deny her site plan approval. If she overstepped the bounds of her permitted use, he said, that would become an enforcement issue. “They {the board} admitted that they were usurping the role of the enforcement officer,” said Chatfield.
Transcripts of the contentious April 18 meeting indicate that Coursen and others focused on the notion of food being served at the teddy bear teas, semiformal events for youngsters, on the size of animals that might be on the site and on the nature of the instruction that would occur.
At one point Coursen sparred with the attorney representing Holowchak at the time, Michael Plochecky, over the school’s curriculum. Plochecky insisted that the curriculum for a school was not a concern for the Planning Board, and to make it such was a free speech issue. In the official transcript Plochecky is quoted as saying that, “If Susan said, ‘Well, on even days of the month, I’m going to be teaching youths how to be communists, and on odd days, it’s hardened Nazis,’ the board can’t actually deny her for that reason. The actual curriculum of what it is being taught is irrelevant to the site plan approval.”
A June 30 hearing in Supreme Court in Oswego County resulted in the case being sent back to the Planning Board for reconsideration. The Supreme Court also ordered the town to submit any questions about the planned usage to Holowchak by Monday, July 11, and to conduct a site plan review by July 18. The town was also ordered to refund the $1,500 in design fees that had been charged to Holowchak.
In his affidavit to the Supreme Court dated June 24, Brown acknowledged that the fee should not have been levied against Holowchak, and that the town intended to return it.
On July 11, Holowchak received the reimbursement. Asked if he thought the proposal would be approved this month, Chatfield was cautiously optimistic. “It will be—if the town comes to its senses.”
—Ed Griffin-Nolan
History Made
Despite holding only a few addresses, the stretch of Montgomery Street sandwiched between East Jefferson and East Fayette streets houses a whole lot of history. From the stately St. Paul’s Cathedral to the old Carnegie Library building, the street is sprinkled with decades of word-worthy moments. Now, after working to preserve and teach the region’s history to anyone willing to learn, the Onondaga Historical Association has added to its own story through a 7-month-long restoration.
Gregg Tripoli, executive director of the OHA, said the decision to renovate the building was multifaceted. “Historical restoration is a great economic tool,” he said. “It makes our city more attractive.” Along with wishing to enhance the city, Tripoli said OHA staff wanted to make the building’s physical presence more noticeable. “A lot of people would walk by our building and not even know we were there,” he explained of the 321 Montgomery St. venue.
Cozied next to Parisa Restaurant and Catering and across from the YMCA, the OHA didn’t exactly stand out despite some interesting architectural features. At the crown of the five-story building, five cement lion heads roar a silent greeting to the streets they watch over. The cream-coloreed building, constructed of painted brick, winks through the reflection of its new windows. A yellow, rectangular OHA flag fixed on the first floor reads, “It’s the best time in history.”
Tripoli said the renovation process began in January and necessitated a closing off of the museum. Street-level windows were added to alert passersby to the museum’s presence and the building’s façade was restored. Along with installing a fire suppression system, the museum added two galleries. However, Tripoli said the most notable change occurred in the form of retail space.
“The biggest change for us, of course, is the retail store,” he said. “The store is an important part of our strategic plan.” Tripoli said the store will provide additional revenue to fuel the OHA’s educational mission, along with attracting people who love to shop.
The OHA sells one-of-a-kind items inspired by its exhibits. From customized stationery and note cards to clothing, Tripoli said the store will have something for every history lover. Other items include jewelry made from antique typewriter keys and broken pieces of Syracuse China, silk scarves imprinted with Syracuse China designs and cotton shirts featuring prints of pre-Prohibition advertisements from local breweries. “There’s a very eclectic mix that all connects to our history in some way,” Tripoli added. “With everything you buy here, you get a bit of history.”
A new permanent exhibit detailing the history of Onondaga County, titled Heart of New York, will feature antiques Tripoli said have never been displayed before. Another exhibit, Our Sporting Life: The Heroes, The Highlife, The History, will feature a film on the county’s sporting history and information on noteworthy local athletes like Moses Fleetwood Walker. “It zeroes in a little bit on some of the human interest stories,” Tripoli explained.
Still another, Shadows of the Storm: The Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War, displays a Confederate flag captured from Savannah, Ga., and the work of Central New York photographer George Barnard, one of the official photographers charged with documenting that war.
The public is invited to attend the OHA’s grand reopening, Wednesday, July 13, starting at 3:30 p.m. After a ribbon cutting, the celebration will move inside for refreshments and a performance by local gospel group Five to Life. Attendees will mingle with Civil War re-enactors and actors portraying important, historical Central New Yorkers such as feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Harvey Baldwin, Syracuse’s first mayor. In addition, attendees can get a first look at the store and the new exhibits.
The celebration, lasting from 4 to 8 p.m., is also a fundraiser; $40 for OHA members and $45 for non-members. On normal museum days, ingesting facts about Central New York’s history doesn’t cost a cent. “Our mission is about local history. We are free, and we intend to keep it free,” Tripoli said. “We believe people should have access to their community’s history.” The museum opens to the public again Thursday, July 14.
The OHA is open Wednesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturdays and Sundays, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. For more information, call 428-1864, Ext. 312, or visit www.cnyhistory.org.
—Samantha House
