Everyone is trying very hard this weekend to make it seem like autumn, despite the warm temperatures. Apple festivals, hayrides, pumpkin ice cream, and corn mazes are everywhere.
I went to the Nathan Hale Homestead for their corn maze. Since a wedding had just ended, I had the whole maze to myself.
Except for Butterscotch, of course.
There’s still some corn left to be plucked.
The corn definitely grows as high as an elephant’s eye, way over my head.
And it makes its own music, like a rainforest, as you can hear in this video.
All is quiet enough to be surprised by a spook around the corner…
…and mourn the loss of some silly spirits.
No doubt, this place would be scary at night, but would it be scarier than this ear of corn?
What any of this has to do with our young patriot who wished he more than one life to give to his country, I’m not sure. But today was not about questions and finding answers. It was about getting lost in the corn.
I’m not often on the art-making side of things, but today I ventured to an encaustic workshop. I do love the encaustic technique of building up the surface with pigment and wax.
After a day with it, I know the process to be very forgiving of someone who is not particularly gifted artistically (a nice way of assessing my talents). There’s also that serendipity thing that happens, which I really like.
Our workshop leader Leslie Giuliani is very talented and a marvelous instructor. She made painting with wax the easiest thing in the world. She even managed to take all my self-consciousness and self-judgment out of my work. What I so appreciated is that Leslie seemed to take genuine pleasure in each person’s work.
She and I shared a chuckle over this homage to Jasper Johns, who layered wax and newspapers onto his paintings of the American flag.
I built up the layers by using pigmented wax, collaing ordinary fabrics and patterned tissue paper, then adding a layer of silver metallic wax, topping it all with ‘medium’ or clear wax. Over the next few days, the piece may clear up, lighten, take on a new look. I like what’s here and am interested in what may emerge.
Leslie passed on the tip of using wax pieces, shards really, on the painted surface. I loved tossing the pieces onto the surface like confetti.
Working with the heat gun, some of the confetti melted, blurred, swirled in a very painterly way. Other bits stayed intact. Just fun.
I’m surprised that I like the results from this playful day as much as I do. I actually may keep these little pieces, unusual for me after any kind of hand-craft, art-making adventure. A really delightful discovery!
Long a fan of the serene West Haven boardwalk, today proved to be just too hot and humid to enjoy it. But what a perfect excuse to visit the Savin Rock Museum.
Norma gave me a very personalized tour, dappled with her childhood and teen-year remembrances. She shuttled me from photo to photo, pointing out fun spots, sharing stories from the history of West Haven, and reminiscing about its fantastic entertainment center Savin Rock Amusement Park. Step aside, Coney Island!
Everything new this year. Safest Amusement.
The park opened in the 1870s, advertising itself as safe.
Savin Rock Park. Yalies supposedly knocked down this tower in a feat of vandalism
By 1925, 60,000 people crowded in for Memorial Day. Shwew!
Right there on Long Island Sound, people from all around the state enjoyed the amusement park and the beach. Free, although the rollercoaster and other rides cost a nickel. The first rollercoaster was a “one hump.” Yes, you understand that correctly. You ride up over one bump, and you’re done.
No wonder the Thunderbolt seized everyone’s imagination, extending loop-de-loops out over the water.
Even I think that looks like fun…remind me to tell you my rollercoaster story.
Of course, there was a wonderful carousel, with only this horse surviving.
Norma pointed out the cast iron shooting targets, with falcons and other birds and animals. Real guns were used. Just like a hunt. Yikes! “Imagine that today,” she said. I can’t. But rest easy. Only parents were allowed to shoot…
I would have loved to go through the Funny House.
When you step into that museum gallery, the Laughing Lady begins howling chortles and guffaws, the same recording as used in the day. You can hear it in this video.
The amusement park was such a big deal, the whole area became famously known as Savin Rock, CT, foregoing any mention of West Haven, the actual municipality.
At its peak, Savin Rock had 68 hotels along its shore, some with fine dining.
How many hotels are there now? You got it. None.
Prohibition came to the park, of course, but so did the speakeasies.
When this hotel bar was flooded, Savin Rock mechanic and passionate local historian Harold Hartmann disassembled the room piece and piece, brought them home, and placed them with dehumidifiers to dry out. The process took 2 years. Then he painstakingly reassembled the room for display at the museum.
You could take the trolley to the park from New Haven. What fun. But car culture was coming.
Roller skating and boxing and car racing. All popular amusements.
By the 1950s, about 150 buses of New York and New Jersey residents started arriving each day at Savin Park. Marketing had gone wide. Bathrooms still numbered 8. Pretty soon, the park experience grew seedy, and locals stayed away.
Just as the town had blasted through the two-block long Savin Rock to make a roadway along the beach, so too the town intervened with the decrepit park. Basically nothing is left today, other than the boardwalk and a few fish shacks.
Yes, when you visit the museum, walk along the boardwalk at least to Stowe’s. You won’t be sorry, with their wonderfully fresh seafood.
Stowe’s on the West Haven boardwalk
Although I’m sad I won’t get to hear the opening bell for Savin Rock Amusement Park or try Terry’s Hot Butter-Flake Brand Pop Corn, at least the museum preserves what it can of the experience.
It’s all about the laughs, right?
Laff in the Dark, in the museum
The museum also features local history. My favorite by far were the late 1800s fire company markers.
When you paid your fire insurance, you placed this marker on your house. Much more elaborate than the simple star from the Colonial era. In the event of a fire, you called your own fire company, but unless the insignia was displayed, no dousing.
As we approach Labor Day, the psychological end of summer, I’ve been noticing how much shorter the days are already. Maybe that’s why I fell under the spell of “Electric Paris” on view at the Bruce Museum.
Only the French would design an electric light pole that looks like this.
Charles Marville, Opéra (Lampadaire), c1865-9
Charles Marville went around the city photographing the extraordinary lamp posts.
Charles Curran, Paris at Night, 1889
Even so, perhaps no surprise to you, I could give a pass on most of the French artists and their take on their city. But I was mesmerized with this Curran painting, with its Americanist approach and style. Look at how the gas lamplight dances on the street and the oil lamps on the carriages glow. I can hear this painting. Can’t you?
1889 was a big year in Paris, as it hosted the Universal Exposition celebrating the centennial of the French Revolution. Artists like Curran were quick to capture the buzz of the spectacles–readymade scenes that pull us in and put us right there.
Charles Curran, Evening Illuminations at the Paris Exposition, 1889
Careful! You might get jostled by the crowd!
See that vertical streak of color in the background on the right? That’s the effect of the water fountains lit each night at 9 p.m. during the fair. The water jets were illuminated by electric arc lamps with colorful glass plates to create the cotton candy effects you see.
You might just be able to make out the Eiffel Tower, at this moment of its unveiling to the world, in the far right background. It served as the entrance to the fair and was the tallest human-made structure at 1000′ at the moment Curran captures. It was lit by two electric search lights at the top, with thousands of gas lamps. By the 1900 World’s Fair, the Eiffel Tower was fully electrified by 5000 incandescent lights.
Here’s Alfred Maurer’s look at the monument.
Alfred Maurer, Nocturne, Paris, n.d.
Now you can make out the beams at the top. Maybe we can take a break and lean up against the rail, too. You can see why the Eiffel Tower has become the symbol of Paris as the City of Light.
And you can get a sense of how fascinated American artists were with painting the night scene, as it was changing with technology.
Theodore Butler, Place de Rome at Night, 1905
Don’t you have a sense of the night energy? Light slashes on the wet pavement. People are mere impressions as they move about their night. Everything pulses with the vigor of the city. Butler takes us way up over the scene, several stories up. We look down on all the hustle and bustle, transfixed by light and color, now anathema to the dark night.
Night life moves inside with Everett Shinn. In many of his paintings, he puts us right up front in the theater.
Everett Shinn, Theater Box, 1906
We’re seated in the box, just behind this woman with her deeply-decolletaged, sage green, pillowy dress. Don’t you love how the faces of the other audience members get lit up? This is truly a shared experience.
But sometimes, the night is just quiet. And who better to give us such a scene than the painter of quiet, Henry Ossawa Tanner? An African American painter, Tanner left the U.S. to live in Europe where his classically-inspired religious works were better received with less overt racism.
For Tanner, light was religious. Sparks of spirit. Perhaps you feel that, too.
With nights like this, we might not mind the shorter days so much. Happy Labor Day!
No wonder the Thunderbolt seized everyone’s imagination, extending loop-de-loops out over the water.
