Exhibit at Tabor Art Gallery, Holyoke Community College, Holyoke, Ma.

February 1 - March 4, 2010

Gallery talk/reception - Wednesday Feb. 10, 11:00am - 1:00pm

the artist's talk begins at noon

Statement:  Holyoke Community College; Feb. 2010.

This mid career retrospective offers me a unique opportunity to assess the changes, similarities and the growth of my work over the past 25 years. And although my work has finally evolved from narrative to abstract and from political/philosophical to visual and visceral, there remains I find, threads of continuity. There is the power of the line - my love of drawing remains undiminished. And pattern - whether in nature, the artistic, or the inadvertent. And, of course, texture - both for its tactile quality and it’s engagement with uncomprehending beams of light.

But above all, there remains my awe and naked jealousy of nature’s artistic abilities. From the beginning, I have attempted to co-opt her into my work by continuing to push technique beyond my control. I’ve layered paints and canvasses, mixed wax and sand in the paints, slowed the shutter on my camera, and shot without composing. And I finally moved on to clay where control is almost impossible (for me) and firing the work in a soda kiln inevitably gives nature the final say. The process is exciting, the results are decidedly mixed, but there is often serendipitous success that would never have happened without this primordial assistance.

And there have been changes. Beyond the obvious changes in media and narrative, the greatest changes have happened in my intentions, my ambitions and what I hope to communicate. I’ve come to believe that while the largest and the loudest get the lion’s share of attention in politics, the art world or the garden, it is the work of subtlety that offers the greatest opportunity of quiet growth and enrichment. Perhaps it’s just my age talking, but for me, less is now more and a rich engagement with just one person trumps the fleeting, passing glance of the crowd.

It’s been a great run so far and I feel there’s something just beyond my sightline urging me to keep this expedition going. So on it goes.

Chuck Stern

The Muffin/Dalai Lama Dilemma

 

 

I was just trying to buy a muffin. I have a love and a weakness for muffins that continually tests my diet and (moral) fiber. I’m a serial indulger.  And although even I consider it a vice, I’m also certain, that on my deathbed, I’ll not regret a single one of ‘em. But getting a muffin can be complicated.

 

For example; the other day, I was up at the corner coffee shop and I encounter this:  When I got to the front of the line, a thin woman of some middling age standing behind the counter looked at me and tilted her chin slightly upward and opened her eyes a tad - seemingly indicating I should speak. I guessed that action passed for “can I help you?” or even “hi”.  That was it - she stared.  I can’t be sure, but she seemed to be the owner as I’d heard her mention  “one of the staff people here” to the customer in front of me. The owner, you’d think, would want to make her customers feel welcome or at least comfortable. I now, was neither.  Customer service is in my DNA. I grew up (literally) learning the art of customer service at my father’s side in his very popular, and now sadly missed, Dunk Donut Shop in Detroit.  And while his donuts were most excellent, I know part of the tremendous loyalty he enjoyed was the warm, welcoming way each customer was treated. I still get nervous when customers aren’t taken care of in someone else’s shop. And now I was nervous. So, while these thoughts and feelings flickered about my neurons - I hesitated. She seemed a bit annoyed - she furrowed her brow a bit, tilted her head and looked square at me.  There was a challenge here: what to do?  Would I just stare back? Would I ask her why she wouldn’t speak?  Would (could) I just walk away? None of the preceding - the sad truth was - it was muffin time, and If I was going to get it here, I was going to have to accept the fact that I was the peon in this exchange. I had the need and she had the goods - and, more importantly, the power. I caved and asked for a raison bran muffin.  She handed me the muffin - I paid - and she turned wordlessly away from me to talk to the staff. I was dismissed.

 

This was a child-centric coffee shop. Maybe if I were carrying a child - perhaps even a fussy one - but mine is far away and far too large to carry. Perhaps someday I’ll have a grandchild to proudly bring in there, because as an old white male, without that child, I fit no characteristics of their perfect customer demographic. I’m not of the same clan and the separation here is not unlike the Tutsis and Hutus - only the degree. Stick to your own kind.

 

At another coffee shop, slightly off center but still in my small town, I was treated to a similar welcome by the owner and offered the offhand “there ya go” when I got my change.  “There ya go” seems to have replaced “have a good one” which was a short-lived replacement for the ubiquitous, and fairly long-lived “have a nice day”.

 

Again, this place welcomes children, business-meeters, and an array of computerized workers and players. There was no bum’s rush out of this place -  and for the folks who use this space, that’s more than enough kindness.

 

In a slightly more theatrical version of this trend, the baristas at another, older coffee shop, in the larger downtown just down the hill, have a tough old coot, salty bartender, performance piece going. But somehow, cute as it is, getting dumped on by a middle class, educated teenager just doesn’t have the same cache as getting dumped on in McSorley’s by a grizzled 86 year old. And I am never amused to see the confused (thinking they’d done something wrong), customers in front of me getting abused. For me, abuse is generally not amusing (Borat notwithstanding). But the truth is, these customers are all grownup and, if they chose, could just go down the street and get very well taken care by the well-trained and friendly staff at our local, corporate chain coffee shop. For them, perhaps, local abuse is better than corporate kindness.

 

To be fair, there are often simple kindnesses from the staff at these shops, but the “ thank you” - the appreciation of your customer that I was taught at my father’s side doesn’t seem widely practiced around here. I’m not sure if it’s just too personal, or it puts the speaker at some disadvantage, or is a sign of weakness, but whatever the case, it feels certain to me that I am not appreciated as a customer. It seems that just being there to provide for me should be enough. And perhaps there’s something to be said for that - cooking and baking and serving - service and retail in general, are tough ways to go, and a business doing a good job should be appreciated. But even if that’s true, they don’t exist without their customers. It’s a symbiotic relationship. It seems we could (should?) thank each other. I’m happy to meet ‘em half way.

 

 But perhaps I shouldn’t take these slights personally - because it seems that this is just the way of the world here. Exiled by choice from the Midwest. It just may be that I’m out of my cultural comfort zone. Like all exiles, ex pats and immigrants, I’ve had to learn the ways of my new home and alter my behavior. I now wait for cars to turn left before I go thru the intersection and no longer use the colorful, crude, “M-F” that does not fit the more genteel New England the way it (sometimes - ok, not often) did in Detroit. One of my son’s good friends (Jonah/Max?) tells us he learned how to swear in the back seat of my car. I’m still learning to adapt.

 

I once mentioned my thoughts about the New England style of friendliness to a restaurant owner, who fits into that ill-defined and unnamed space between friend and acquaintance, and was angrily told that he was not interested in glad-handing and beyond that, I should probably leave New England if I didn’t like it.  Non-Yanqui go home!  Actually, I am all for glad-handing. I’ll take the glad hand, a smile on the street or a wave from a passing car. I’m up for any kindness in the daily storm - random or not. And I’m in very good company - the Dalai Lama considers kindness his religion.

 

Bumper stickers that ask you to “ think globally but act locally” or “buy locally” or offer “random acts of kindness” to the world are all wonderful sentiments, but for me it all comes down to a smile, or a wave or a “ thank you”.

 

A final thought. Lets be clear; I’m a fan of muffins, not of those frosted, overly sweet, weak-structured items called cupcakes. Muffins have a firmer handshake. So, there ya go. Thank you.

 

 

 

 

The Comeback of Jimmy Smith (2005)

My friend Jimmy Smith shot a 33 the other day. I watched his second shot on our opening hole’s long, straight par four, fly just over the stream and roll 25 yards to stop three feet left of the pin. My chip-in par wasn’t enough. I was down one and in his exhaust the rest of the way. His drives settled in the neatly trimmed stuff, long irons found the middle of the green and although putting has never been his strong suit, he dropped fifteen and twenty footers all day.That's how it went: some great shots, some fortunate bounces, and a bogey on nine. Truth be told, I was both enthralled and appalled by the spectacle, because in the end, my respectable 40 went down by 7 and I was out twelve bucks.

I wasn’t around the next day when Jimmy Smith shot a 35, but I’ve no reason to doubt his accomplishment. Chris Kostek - the best player never to win the club championship - was there, and someone else, maybe Cooker. They saw it. Besides, the chalk board where we mark the birdies for the men’s league skins game was still up the next morning and Smith was on it five times. Five. Nobody at the club, not even Frannie, who runs the clubhouse and was there when it was cow pasture, can remember seeing anyone get five birdies on this course. As for the 33 - Jimmy begins to reach into the land of giants -it’s the great Bob Toski that holds humble Beaverbrook’s record of 29. A record that should remain untouchable, because as Frannie says, “Beaverbrook was a much more primitive course in those days. There wasn’t much grass in the summer so the ball rolled forever”. But see what I’m dealing with here; I’ve got Jimmy Smith and Bob Toski in the same sentence.

Modern Beaverbrook is a nine hole, deceptively difficult, hilltown course built in 1964. But 25 or so years before that , the Toski boys, Bobby and Tommy, laid out a three holer on their uncle’s cow pasture, on what is now the north end of the course. “The cows would chew down the grass”, Tom told me,” so Bobby and I could chip there” The course was still somewhat rough when I joined the club just 4 years ago. The bigger hitters, like ex-club champion Paul Jenkins (who first taught me golf, just one short year before jimmy started), or reigning champ Ricky Thomas, or Chris could reach the 278 par four seventh, but mostly guys would hit as far as they could over the hill and roll it up. No more. With thick grass on the fairways, those are honest yards now that Jimmy had to cover. Anyway, the lowest score anyone around now can actually remember is a 32, and that round had four birdies. Jimmy had five. I know people have short memories, so just in case we lose track of Jimmy Smith’s accomplishments: his 33, his 68 over two days, and his five birdies on the back nine, I took a photo of the chalk board.

Others, in their fourth year of golf, have certainly beaten par two days running, but Jimmy Smith’s great golfing adventure should be remembered, because to get to those numbers, he had to come further then anyone I’ve heard of. I don't know; Notah Begay did some serious traveling. But Notah somehow got to Stanford... and the closest Jimmy ever got to Stanford was his GED at Fort Carson.

Condensed as this bio may be, you need to know that Jimmy grew up in a family damaged by alcohol (his father died from drink) and poor enough, “... to get our Thanksgiving turkey donated by the State”. Jimmy spent much of his youth and early middle age doing junk, doing time and paying dues. He destroyed his relationships, (including a couple of marriages ) and his liver. Jimmy’s been tied to a board to keep him from wandering around the psychiatric hospital that served, in the days before drug rehab, as a warehouse for “dope fiends”. “ We were treated like the criminally insane “, Jimmy remembers. “I mean, we were criminals and they figured anyone who
lived like us had to be insane.” He's been awarded medals for combat bravery in Vietnam, shipped to the rear as a reward and returned to find the fellow he saved, dead. He detoxed at basic and backslid with the $5,000 he had when he left the Army. And he's done chemo in the hope of holding at bay the damage to his liver. Our boy Jim has looked up from the bottom of innumerable holes and not one of them was on a green.

So in 1995, His wife in detox, living alone in an abandoned building in Hartford, scrounging and stealing during the day to feed his 115 lbs and his habit, Jimmy decided he’d had enough. He’d dragged his carcass and ego through enough streets and jails and hustles to decide he’d like to try some other kind of life. “I just called my brother and asked him to drive me up to detox in Northampton”

We can all understand Jimm’s urge for normaliity - but golf? Golf is so very normal. Jimmy’s got to be the only guy you’ve heard of who first started golfing from a lodging at the V.A. homeless shelter. And although not everyone would agree, golf is, I’m sure, healthier than Jim’s past addictions

Now, six years clean, Jimmy lives with Margaret, his girlfriend of four years, in a comfortable, photo-filled apartment. And he plays a lot of golf. Jimmy plays for his physical health and his sanity. He flourishes in a game that drives others to Maalox and sports psychologists. He’s surrounded by beautiful landscapes he never expected to walk, his body stronger and browner then it was in the summers he spent in various state institutions. And he is surrounded by people who love his humor, disposition and joy for the game. I’ve only seen him darken once - when it looked like he’d place lower than me in the club championship. He didn’t.

One of Jimmy’s roles at the club is lightning rod for the good-natured adolescent humor that permeates the place . He accepts tees being thrown at him on his backswing, comments directing him toward traps, ponds, and out of bounds, and clubs borrowed from his bag. Once, late last season, we were walking down the fairway discussing a Florida golf trip, when Sully (who must exhibit some sort of empathy or sympathy in his day job as Program Director of group homes for the mentally retarded) advised Jimmy he’d need a note from his doctor guaranteeing that Jimmy would still be alive in two months before Sully would book his flight. When I got up the nerve to look over at him, Jimmy was laughing. It’s all love to Jimmy. Given all the relationships short-circuited by alcohol, drugs, and war, Jimmy seems happy living his life surrounded by people who care enough to give him grief.

Just two seasons ago Jimmy was sent to me as a substitute for my absent partner. I actually got him two weeks in a row, because we had so much fun the first week, we thought we’d keep the party going. But honestly, he couldn't play golf. I called him the substitute from hell. He never won a match for me. He’d probably point out that I didn't win one those weeks either, but I believe my failures were directly related to his abysmal golf. I mean, really, it’s hard to get up the necessary focus and enthusiasm when your partner tanks and he's too damn pleasant and funny to get upset about it. I mean, you just go with the flow, and sink to some lowly common denominator. That’s my position, anyway. (now that it think about it, Jimmy subbed for me early this year and didn't win then,either). But enough of that, winning or losing those weeks is not really the point. Jimmy came to the club, sick, medicated, weak, and untutored 3 years ago, and shot 33, 68, and nine birdies last week. The substitute from hell has become the most sought after member (after a long-hitting woman) of a scramble team. This, I feel, should be noted. This should be remembered.

Just a final comment. Yesterday Chris, Jimmy and I finished 8 holes without blood. When jimmy birdied 9 he won ten skins and chalked up another 35.