What is Art?

The very first artwork I saw in the Jepson Museum was Anne Ferrer’s Hot Pink (2012).  I asked myself what does this mean and how can it be art since I do not know what is supposed to be representing.  When I observe a piece of art such as Pablo Picasso’s Guernica (1937) I am able to convey its meaning and/or message; however, when I looked at Hot Pink I did not know what to think about it.  I watched a clip about Anne Ferrer and she wants the viewer to use their imagination on the meaning of Hot Pink.  A piece of art with no meaning is something I did not know until we visited the Jepson, and there is no artwork checklist mandating that an artist has a meaning behind their piece, although most artists have a meaning behind their art work.  This class has changed my definition of what defines art, because art does not need to be oil on canvas, marble, or clay.  Art can be anything that engages the viewer, such as

Courtesy of the Jepson's website

Pablo Picasso’s Seated Bather (1930) is a painting about how cruel one of Picasso’s wives was when they were together.  Seated Bather is about Picasso’s wife who is considered to be evil from her painting.  When I first looked at Seated Bather I did not realize that Picasso was referring to his wife.  I did however come to realize that the Picasso had a sense of hatred and anger towards some female figure, because of her sharp teeth and mean face.  Even though Pablo Picasso’s artwork was mostly in cubist form, I could still understand the meaning behind Seated Bather.

Courtesy of 001galarie.com 

Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister for the United Kingdom during World War II, but he was also a painter.  In his free time Winston Churchill would paint the scenery of where he was visiting.  Lucy Lippard’s Lure of the Local: Being in Place talks about how “layers of meaning [are] familiar to local residents but invisible to visitors, cartographers, and even scholars” and in Winston Churchill’s Scene on the River Meuse you are just looking at a picture of a town on the river; however, the meaning of the painting is invisible to non-locals (34).  Scene on the River Meuse is also “handed-down history” because it is a picture of what the area looked like almost 70 years ago.  I did not know that Winston Churchill painted in order to help deal with his depression during World War II; however, the layers of meaning in his paintings relate to the area where he is painting whether it is in England, France, or Morocco  

Courtesy of the Guardian

There is more to South Carolina and Georgia than palm trees and beach resorts

There is more to South Carolina and Georgia than palm trees and beach resorts

            When I first heard about this May term at the beach trip I assumed that a majority of our time would be spent on the beach.  Well I was wrong, because most of my time was spent in the baking sun while fighting mosquitos as we walked trough time.  During my southern emersion experience I asked myself why did the descendants of former slave plantation not sell their family’s land to real estate developers.  It was because they wanted to see their family’s estate be preserved so that their family history and legacy could be preserved instead of becoming a real estate development.                    

            Hofwyl Broadfield was the first plantation that I visited on the May term trip where I first learned about historical preservation of former plantation estates.  Ophelia Dent was the last descendant living at Hofwyl Broadfield left the plantation to the local historical society to preserve her family’s legacy and the history of Hofwyl Broadfield.  When I first approached the Hofwyl Broadfield plantation house I thought it would be bigger and more elegant like the southern plantations in movies.  It turns out that many plantations were not as elegant and grand as Monticello they were more similar in size to the Hofwyl Broadfield plantation house.  As I walked through the Hofwyl Broadfield plantation house I encountered a house that had been frozen in time with furniture dating back to the 19^th century, Civil War battle relics stored in a bedroom closet for over 100 years, and electricity that was not installed until the mid 20^th century.  Ophelia Dent could have left Hofwyl Broadfield to distant relatives or a close friend who would have sold it to someone who did not want to preserve the plantation, but she did not do that.  Her family history and legacy was so important to her that she donated the property so that it could be preserved so that people can learn about the history of Hofwyl Broadfield and the importance of family history.          

          

             Cumberland Island is an island of hidden beauty that could have been the next Hilton Head or Kiawah Island.  Cumberland Island’s remoteness and vast jungle vegetation reminded me of the Amazon Jungles of Peru.  As I approached Cumberland Island I felt like I was an explorer from Europe coming to an uncharted new world.  While I was on the National Park Service’s van tour where I saw the majestic Plum Orchard, which was a winter home once owned by the Carnegie family until the mid 20^th century.  The Carnegies who still had ownership of Cumberland Island wanted to preserve its beauty, and eventually the rest of the Carnegies sold their property on the island to the federal government.  The Carnegies were known for their monopolization of the steal industry during the 19^th century; however, many of Andrew Carnegie’s descendants who had property on Cumberland Island had to sell their property since they could not afford to keep them.  Cumberland Island is one of the most unique places in the United States due to its remoteness, isolation, and ecosystem that cannot be found anywhere in the United States.  The decision to preserve the island as a national sea shore was a brilliant decision because not only will you be able to look down either end of the shore for miles, but you will be also able to watch turtles crawl up the shore to lay their eggs. 

Courtesy of Charlestonbusiness.com 

            In today’s society people are not valuing history and preservation as much as they used to because people are more concerned with how much money they can make if they buy the land for real estate development.  I was really opened to the importance of historical preservation when I visited PeopleMatter in Charleston, SC.  Charleston, SC has one of the strictest historical preservation codes in the United States, along with Savannah, GA.  When Nate DaPore, President and CEO of People Matter, gave us a tour of PeopleMatter’s office I saw the previous ruins that stood on the property he recently purchased.  Because of Charleston’s strict historical codes he could not knock down the bricks that were still standing, so he incorporated the bricks with his new office building.  I was suppressed to see bricks in an office building; however, it was necessary to help preserve the history of the thriving city of Charleston.  This May term was not only a immersion in the Gullah culture, but it was also about how important historical preservation is so that future generations will be able to visit the same Hofwyl Broadfield, downtown Charleston, and Cumberland Island that I once visited. 

Thank you Bev and Claire for everything!  I hope that we can get together sometime in the fall to catch up! 

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Max                    

Charleston June 4th - June 6th

Drayton Hall, a Charleston Treasure June 4^th

A Hampden-Sydney College Alumnus Dr. Carter Hudgins’00 gave us a private tour of Drayton Hall.  John Drayton purchased the property where Drayton Hall is located in 1738 that became one of his many properties that he was an absentee owner.  The Drayton Hall house was completed around the mid 18^th century.  Drayton Hall became a rice and indigo plantation managed by the Drayton family.  The Drayton family owned the Drayton Hall house and property until it was sold in 1974.  Charlotta Drayton’s two nephews sold Drayton Hall to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, because they could not afford to pay the high costs associated with maintaining Drayton Hall.  

Rice was the cash crop of South Carolina until the 13^th Amendment was amended to the United States Constitution after the Civil War.  Carter told me that the economy for rice was not good in the 1830s, since rice was in decline in South Carolina.  According to James O. Luken’s personal essay What The Land Revels: A Journey Into A Low Country Rice Plantation “rice cultivation was highly profitable due to relatively low production costs and relatively high commodity prices,” was one of the reasons why rice was grown at Drayton Hall (142).  The low costs to grow rice and its high selling price attracted many people to get “land grants from the King of England,” to get into this booming industry (142).  Rice was an industry that died out after the Civil War, because of the 13^th Amendment that outlawed the free labor that helped make rice an extremely profitable industry.   

Drayton Hall was the most magnificent plantation I have visited on this trip.  The history.  Drayton Hall is one of many plantations that we have visited on our May term trip that have been sold or willed in order to preserve the property.  Drayton Hall was the first plantation that we visited that grew indigo in addition to rice.  A once thriving planation owned by the Drayton family became an old summer home that was not the primary residence of the Drayton family after the Civil War.  I was surprised to hear that after hurricanes, floods, and after the Civil War the Drayton Hall house itself still stands today.  The preservation projects scheduled for Drayton Hall will bring the house back to its appearance from the plantation era.  I hope to come back to Drayton Hall someday to see those preservation projects that will help preserve the history and architecture of Drayton Hall.                 

Kayaking through the shrimping and real estate industries of Charleston, SC June 5^th

We kayaked along the Mt. Pleasant side of the Port of Charleston learning about the ecology and industries of the Charleston, SC past and present.  The kayaking trip in Charleston was scheduled, because our kayaking trip in St. Simons was canceled due to inclement weather.  During the trip we kayaked by water front properties that are worth millions of dollars while learning about the rice and shrimping industries that was once a thriving industry in the Charleston area.  This was kayaking trip was my first visit to Charleston, and I was glad that see the City of Charleston from the busy Charleston Harbor. 

Our kayaking guide Witt gave us a tour of Charleston Harbor and told us about the history and economy of the Charleston area.  Witt told us that shrimping was a huge industry in the Charleston area and you could see around 200 shrimping vessels leaving the harbor on a daily basis.  In today’s economy you see a handful of ships leave the harbor, because of the shrimp farms that can sell shrimp for a cheaper price per pound than your local shrimper.  Local shrimper’s selling price per pound of shrimp is more expensive than a shrimp farmer’s selling price.  This is true, because local shrimpers have to include license fees, gas, and other various costs associated with marinating a shrimping vessel.  Local shrimpers are not able to compete with the mass production shrimp farms that lower the price of shrimp and that provide the frozen shrimp that you can pick up in any grocery store in the country for a low price.  Lucy Lippard’s The Lure of the Local  (1997) “the ability to know a new place quickly and well, and to adapt to its circumstance,” there are people like Nate DaPore who adapt quickly to the environment even if it is not a traditional industry (33).  Nate is one of many entrepreneurs who have come to Charleston and started technology related businesses that are not traditional to Charleston.           

The kayaking trip of the Charleston harbor we took opened me up to the history and economy of Charleston.  I knew that the Charleston area has been having an economic boom, but I did not know much about its history or industries that once dominated the area.  Charleston was one of the dominant ports in colonial America, and has continued to be one of the dominant ports on the east coast.  The traditional industries of Charleston (rice, shrimping, etc.) are not as prominent as they used to be; however, Charleston’s recent economic boom is from non-traditional industries (real estate, technology, and finance).  Charleston is a beautiful area that I plan to visit again soon, and I may be a city that I might work in this summer.    

McLeod Plantation, No That's Not the Front Yard! June 6^th

Our last site visit of our May Term at the Beach was to McLeod Plantation.  William Wallace McLeod purchased the plantation in 1851.  After World War I, William Ellis McLeod decided to convert McLeod Plantation into a vegetable and dairy farm, so that the McLeod family could keep the plantation.  The McLeod family owned McLeod Plantation until 1990 when the last descendant, William Ellis McLeod, died and he left the plantation house and property to the Historic Charleston Foundation.  The property was left to the Historic Charleston Foundation in William Ellis McLeod’s will, so that it could be preserved to continue the legacy of McLeod Plantation.

                        

Unlike most southern plantations, McLeod Plantation did not get its start until 1851 when William Wallace McLeod purchased the plantation in 1851 from William McKenzie Parker II.  According to The Friends of McLeod, Inc.’s website (http://www.mcleodplantation.org/) McLeod Plantation William McLeod grew “long staple cotton was normally considered highly profitable, a combination of poor drainage and depleted soil soon made the plantation known as “pick-pocket place,” until 1861 when the McLeod family evacuated James Island.  In the Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839, Frances Anne Kemble mentioned “that the slaves on this plantation are divided into field hands and mechanics or artisans,” this was true with McLeod Plantation where slaves were assigned to various work places based on their skills.  Like many plantations after the 13^th Amendment was amended to the United States Constitution McLeod Plantation, plantation owners lost their properties to Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15, which distributed Union Army confiscated land to freed slaves.  The Union Army confiscated McLeod plantation during the Civil War; however, Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15 was overturned, and as a result the properties were returned to their original owners.  Even though slavery was over, the slave quarters that once housed slaves working on McLeod Plantation were    

McLeod Plantation was the last site on our May Term itinerary where we talked about the plantation era and the Gullah culture.  This trip to McLeod Plantation was different compared to our other previous plantation visits, because the plantations we previously visited were rice plantations.  I found it interesting the McLeod plantation was bought in 1851, when the plantation economy was not doing well especially rice.  When we walked up to the main plantation house we assumed that we were going to walk in the front door; however, the side of the house we thought was front of the house was actually the back of the house.  We pondered over why the back of the house was more majestic than the front of the house, but I believe that it was made to be more majestic to show off to the people driving by to the country club that is located on property previously owned by the McLeod family.   

The Gullah Culture is still alive at the Sweet Grass Festival June 6^th

The last event on our May Term itinerary was the yearly Sweet Grass Festival in Mt. Pleasant, SC.  The Sweet Grass Festival was like a flea market that had dozens of vendors of several ethnicities selling all kinds of items from cultural Gullah cuisine to seashell necklaces crafted by local artists.  This festival is where the “dying Gullah culture” is brought back to life where people from the Charleston area and from a small all men’s college in rural Virginia can come to learn about the crafts, delicious cuisine, and other practices of the Gullah descendants.  After attending this festival I believe that the Gullah culture is not dying instead, the culture is very much alive in people old and young. 

From day 2 of our May Term at the Beach we visited the Penn Center where we were first introduced to the Gullah peoples’ history and culture.  Their culture is derived from slaves that were brought over during the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade era.  Couple hundred years later their traditions of making sweet grass baskets, knitting fish nets, and cultural heritage have continued to be a part of Gullah descendants’ lives.  A woman at a one of the Sweet Grass Festival stands told me that her grandmother taught her to make sweet grass baskets in she was a young girl, and that she has started to teach her own daughter the same sweet grass basket weaving skills her grandmother taught her.  This is an example of the Gullah people preserving their culture by teaching their children the skills brought over by their ancestors coming over to be slaves on southern plantations.  According to Lucy Lippard’s The Lure of the Local (1997), “ most of us are separated from organic geographical communities: even fewer can rely on blood ties.  We can only hope to fund created communities – people who come together because they are alike on some level”, the Gullah people are people who have not separated from their organic geographical communities (24).       

This whole trip has been about sites that thrived between the 17^th century and the Civil War, and the people who helped make those places thrive were the slaves who are descendants of the Gullah people.  While many people have forgotten their origin roots and traditions the Gullah people have not forgotten their origin roots.  The Sweet Grass Festival is a perfect example of the Gullah people preserving their culture by sharing their cultural practices with their children and the community.  This trip has opened me up to a section in American history that I am not familiar with, and the Gullah descendants played a very important role in building our nation by working on plantation or fighting to reunite a divided nation.  I would like to thank Dr. Deal and Professor Rhoads for organizing everything necessary for this trip and for teaching me about the history, culture, and art of the Gullah people, it was better than spending May Term on campus! 

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Max                                     

Cumberland Island Art

For this piece I gathered pieces of bamboo that washed up on the shore and organized the sticks by how dark and how light they were that morning.  I was modeling my art work after Kazimir Malevich's Black Square (1923-1930) by using the negative space to draw attention to the positive space.  The negative space in my art work are the dark sticks surrounding the lighter shaded square made out of sticks.  Those dark sticks are used as a contrasting background, so that the viewer can focus on the positive space (the lighter square).  On the edges of both squares I put sticks facing the opposite direction of the other sticks to separate both squares and to show where they end.  

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Kazimir_Malevich,_1915,_Black_Suprematic_Square,_oil_on_linen_canvas,_79.5_x_79.5_cm,_Tretyakov_Gallery,_Moscow.jpg

For this piece I gathered palm leaves of all three shades/life cycles to show the digression from a healthy green plant to a dying tan colored plant.  I was inspired by Nikolai Buglaj's "Race"ing Sideways (1991) that shows a light skinned runner with a black outfit change to a darker skinned runner in a lighter running outfit from left to right.  When I created this piece I originally wanted it to be a representation of this plant's life cycle from young to old in a rhythm repetition pattern.  The rhythm repetition pattern is similar to Nikolai Buglaj's "Race"ing Sideways (1991).   

     

http://www.valweb.org/Nik/race72.jpg

For this piece I did absolutely nothing, except take this close up picture of a Blue-tailed skink lizard.  I was trying to create a linear piece of work until I this lizard that stood out in a "field of greens" with its bright blue tail.  When I showed this picture to my friends the first thing that caught their eye was the lizard's blue tail.  The lizard's tail is the focal point of this piece, because it grabs your attention the moment you look at it.  When you look at the lizard's blue tail you can see some sort of implied line that was created by its color even though there is not line marked like an arrow.   

Cumberland Island, the Island saved by the Carnegie Family May 31st – June 3rd

Cumberland Island, the Island saved by the Carnegie Family May 31^st – June 3^rd

We went on a van tour guided by Robin Barker, who is a National Park Service Ranger on Cumberland Island.  The tour took all day, but it was a tour that showed me the beauty of Cumberland Island that would not be here today if it was not for the generosity of the Carnegie family.  After we visited the Stafford cemetery we visited Plum Orchard, which is a mansion built as a winter home for George Carnegie around the turn of the 20^th century.  The rest of our day consisted of visiting the First African American Baptist Church, where JFK Jr. was married and learning about the island’s ecology, and how harmful the horses are to the island’s ecosystem. 

As I stepped off the ferry onto Cumberland Island it was like I was stepping back in time as an explorer landing on the shores of America for the first time.  Our tour guide Robin Barker told us that Cumberland Island was once a plantation island that thrived on indigo and cotton, and after the Civil War massive plantations faded away.  Cumberland Island would never come back to its glory as a plantation island managed by Robert Stafford.  According to John McPhee in Encounters With The Archdruid (1971) “at the outbreak of the Civil War, the sea islands were abandoned… nearly all of Cumberland was bought by a Carnegie - Andrew’s brother Thomas,” and as a result of Thomas Carnegie’s purchase of 90% of Cumberland Island Thomas Carnegie worked to restore the natural beauty of the island (99).  Thomas Carnegie restored Cumberland Island’s beauty by letting the natural vegetation of the island regrow on the plantation fields.  Thomas Carnegie, in my opinion, is one of the earliest conversationalists who wanted to preserve the.  “Not all Carnegies could afford to hold land anymore, began to move toward finding a way to keep the island from being developed,” and some of the Thomas Carnegie descendants sold “three thousand acres of Cumberland Island to Charles E. Fraser” (99).  Charles Fraser is credited for helping purchase and develop Hilton Head and Kiawah Island into beach resort communities; however, he was swayed by David Bower to make Cumberland Island a National Seashore.  Now Cumberland Island is not the new Hilton Head, but instead it is a National Park that can be visited by the public to enjoy a primitive environment.      

When I was on the ferry leaving Cumberland Island I knew that I was leaving one of America’s most preserved islands that could have been the next Hilton Head Island.  The history and ecology of Cumberland Island is one of a kind that no place in the United States can match.  What other place in America has a history of cotton plantations, the Carnegies, and JFK Jr’s secret wedding?  As an Eagle Scout I enjoy backpacking in some of the most beautiful places in the country, and Cumberland Island has made the top of my favorite places I visited.  My visit to Cumberland Island was an amazing experience that has given me a new perspective on preserving our nation’s beauty.  I hope to come back to Cumberland Island someday to see an island that could have been the next Hilton Head Island, but it instead stays untouched by corporate chain hotels to remain a hidden preserved treasure of southern Georgia.