Sandusky's Merry-Go-Round Museum

Merry-Go-Round Museum in Sandusky - former US Post Office

In addition to being known as "America's Roller Coast," Sandusky is also home to the Merry-Go-Round Museum. While this attraction may not rival the Millennium Force, its knowledgeable and friendly staff and beautiful historic carousel figures make it well worth a visit. For me, its location between Cleveland and Toledo made it a convenient attraction. This past weekend I was visiting some friends in Cleveland and then drove on to see my little brother who is interning at the Toledo Blade as a photographer. Stopping in Sandusky was a great way to break up my drive. I learned a lot during my short visit and even took a ride on the museum's own carousel after getting a little encouragement from the staff. They truly believe that carousels are a "joy for every generation."

While seeing beautifully carved and decorated wooden animals was the primary reason for my visit, the museum's informational signs and carving demonstration were what made a lasting impression on me. The museum pointed out many characteristics that are true for most carousels that I had not really realized. For example, did you know that almost all carousels spin counter clockwise? The museum displayed all of its carousel figures as if they were mounted on a functioning carousel. Deciding to exhibit the figures in this way made it so that the more decorated side, or romance side, of each carved animal could be seen by the viewer while the plainer side faced the wall. In carousel design, it is customary to make the side facing toward the outside of the carousel more ornate than the interior side because this side is seen more than the other. Consistently placing the carvings so that they appear to go from left to right also was helpful because it singled out one figure that did not follow this custom and faced the opposite direction. This figure was a British ostrich. Its orientation reflected the practice in the United Kingdom of constructing carousels to spin clockwise.

 British ostrich by Gustav Dentzel facing right to left

 Carousel on the Brighton Pier in England - 

Despite firsthand experience with British carousels, I hadn't fully realized they went in the opposite direction of American ones.

I also learned from the carving demonstration that most carousels are made out of basswood. This is because basswood has a very fine grain and is a softer wood. The close grain makes it so the wood is capable of rendering subtle details and can easily be painted over.

In addition, the museum made me aware of the major styles of carousel horses and the artists associated with each style. There are three distinct styles: Coney Island, Philadelphia, and County Fair. Coney Island figures are known for their use of gold leaf and elaborate decorations, the Philadelphia style is noted for its realism, and portability was a key feature of County Fair horses. The National Carousel Association's website provides additional information on these styles and prominent carousel artists.

                       Marcus Illions jumper (Coney Island style)             Charles Loof stander (Coney Island style)
                                       Note its gold leaf mane

Front tiger by Gustav Dentzel (Philadelphia style) - Both animals are standers, or figures that do not move and are typically on the outside edge of the carousel. Brass rings were first added to carousels to entice riders to choose standers.

 

Exotic animals by Gustav Dentzel

The functioning carousel within the museum follows the County Fair style. The figures are relatively small in size.

For a past horse lover and current student of art history, the Merry-Go-Round Museum was the perfect combination of fun and facts. If you're ever in Sandusky, consider stopping by the museum.

Just a few notes on working at the UNC Music Library

Among several other commitments, this summer I have been working at the UNC Music Library. The Music Library is tucked away in the bowels of Wilson Library and therefore is at times overlooked, but the library has a great staff and lots of interesting materials that I am just beginning to delve into. My job for the summer is to catalog a collection of sheet music that is primarily from the early 20th century. While I have never cataloged before, my Organization of Information course (INLS 520) and lots of help from my supervisor, Renée McBride, have helped me start making a dent in the piles of scores. While the progress I have made in the few short weeks I have been working so far is nearly imperceptible, I have come across a couple pieces of music that made me pause for a second and look at them more closely at them.

The first of these scores is "Gloomy Sunday" (or "Szomorú Vasárnap"), popularly known as the "Hungarian Suicide Song." The cover is still under copyright, but here's a link to an image of it. The song has supposedly been connected with nearly twenty suicides in Hungary and the U.S. These individuals left suicide notes with quotes from the song or were even found holding the sheet music for the song. While many are fascinated by the song's preoccupation with death and the urban legends that surround it, I was primarily interested in it because of its longevity and transfer from one culture to another (I also enjoy minor music). It was composed by Rezső Seress and the lyrics are by László Jávor. It became popular in the United States when it was translated from Hungarian to English by Sam M. Lewis in the 1930s. Since then it has been famously sung by Billie Holiday as well as by numerous other artists such as Mel Tormé and Sarah McLaughlin. For more artists and both the Hungarian and English lyrics, visit Wikipedia. In addition to the lyrics found on Wikipedia, the English version includes an additional final verse that lightens the somber song by suggesting all of the negative thoughts that came before were simply part of a dream and that the singer's love did not leave him.

Two other scores that I cataloged interested me simply because of their connections to the south generally and their candid lyrics and cover illustrations. These two songs are "Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes" and "Just a Little Bit South of North Carolina." Click here for a picture of the second song's cover. Both songs also reference a place where one would rather be and display a strong sense of home. As someone still adjusting to my new home, these lyrics resonated with me. "Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes" tells the story of a man who has just become a father and who is returning to Tennessee to meet his son (the owner of the ten little fingers and toes referred to in the song) for the first time. The lyrics to the song can be found here. In "Just a Little Bit South of North Carolina" a man sings of his desire to return to his sweetheart in South Carolina, which he refers to as "paradise." Click here for a version of the song by Dean Martin.

Beyond sharing a little bit about the music and lyrics, I especially wanted to post about these songs because it gives me a chance to share the cover illustrations. Because of the vast number of scores that need to be cataloged, scanning these covers is far beyond the possible scope of the project. Still, as someone interested in making and studying art, I think the covers are quite noteworthy. I have been doing my best to accurately describe the covers in my MARC 500 fields, but obviously these brief comments do not come close to replicating the images included here. These remarks do not even mention colors and typically only describe concrete subjects and not abstract designs. Hopefully descriptions will become increasingly more representative of all kinds of images as the field of library science progresses. Still, I understand that most people searching for these materials would plan to use them for the musical information they contain rather than their visual attributes.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about these three songs and hopefully I will find time to share a few more before the summer is up.

Welcome to Orange County

When most people hear the words Orange County their minds probably immediately think of that county in California that had a whole TV series named after it. The Orange County I am referencing is definitely not that one. I am talking about Orange County, North Carolina, which is home to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This county has also been my home for the past few months.

My first semester as a dual-degree student at UNC in Library Science and Art History was a rather hectic one that kept me from posting. Before too much time has passed, I wanted to share a project and mapping assignment that I completed on my new home for a course I took at Cleveland State University on cartography (click on the image above). Doing the project was a lot of fun because it helped me research the area before moving. While some facts and figures on Orange County are included, keep in mind that the main focus of the assignment was the creation of maps. The class focused on gaining skills using MapInfo, but also covered the history of map making and the politics behind them. The course also introduced me to the mental maps of Kevin Lynch and Ian McHarg's text Design with Nature.

On the subject of the politics of mapping, during my first semester I did have the chance to see a cartography exhibition at Duke's Nasher Museum. It explored the relationship between mapping and empires. For more information on this past exhibition, click here.

Farewell to Cleveland: Some Architectural Favorites

When I first took a tour of the Cleveland State campus on my HR orientation day nearly three years ago, I remember distinctly regretting not having a camera on me. The art deco style of Fenn Tower caught my eye right away.

 

 Fenn Tower - The first building on the Cleveland State campus (then Fenn College)

Detail of Fenn Tower

Despite passing numerous amazing buildings in downtown Cleveland by bus throughout my employment at Cleveland State University, I rarely made the time to take pictures of the structures I had grown to know and love. After deciding that I would leave my job at Cleveland State to pursue graduate studies at UNC, I always planned on having a week or two to spend simply taking pictures and enjoying Cleveland after resigning. This plan did not pan out as I hoped, but I did manage to spend an afternoon taking pictures after my last day of work. Included in this post are a few of the pictures from that bittersweet day. Oddly I was asked three times during those few short hours if I was a tourist. I proudly told these individuals that I was not a tourist and that Cleveland was my home.

Taking photos around downtown made me notice things I never had before even though I had seen many of these buildings too many times to count. I had never truly looked at the semicircular mural paintings in the entrance to Tower City. I had also never realized that figural designs were included in the surface treatment of the buildings behind Tower City on Prospect Ave. Like sketching, photography also forces you to inspect things more closely than one might otherwise.

 Inside Tower City

 Ceiling in Tower City

One of seven murals in the entrance way of Tower City

Old Stone Church

 Rockefeller Building entrance - 614 W Superior Ave.

 Rockefeller building

Rockefeller building

 Robed men in art deco style that I never noticed on Prospect Ave. behind Tower City

 Deco doorway on Prospect Ave.

 E-Line Trolley with Trinity Cathedral in the background

I was not able to visit all of the buildings I love in the few short hours I had. One notable exception was Cuyahoga County Juvenile Justice Center. I also didn't get to the Westside Market, of which I have very few pictures. There are so many other sites in Cleveland I wish I had seen again before moving, but I guess this gives me a good reason to visit soon.

Museum of Divine Statues: Lakewood, OH

I finally made a visit to the Museum of Divine Statues a few weeks ago. It is located right in my own backyard in the city of Lakewood, OH. Over the past few years in Cleveland a plethora of Catholic churches have been shut down because many are considered redundant. The Museum of Divine Statues made one of these churches, St. Hedwig, its home. Its creative reuse of the building is especially appropriate because the museum houses statues from other churches in the Cleveland area that have been closed. In this way the museum not only preserves one particular church, but has also saved many beloved statues that would otherwise be lost.

St. Hedwig

St. Hedwig historically had a primarily Polish congregation, as did many of the other churches in the area due to the large number of immigrants from Eastern and Central Europe that came to Cleveland. In addition to St. Hedwig, other closed Polish churches include St. Adalbert, St. Casimir, St. Hyacinth, and St. Stanislaus. Note that there are multiple saints with the same names and that there were even several churches in Cleveland named after the same saints that were closed. In the end, 29 total parishes were closed and there were 18 different mergers. For pictures of specific churches that were closed, visit Patrick Richard’s blog Closing Catholic Churches in Cleveland or search the Cleveland Memory Project. For the complete list of churches affected by the closings and mergers, click here.

Beyond the museum’s connections with the extensive church closings, it is a great space in its own right. One of the most interesting things about the museum to me was the opportunity it gave visitors to see many different versions of the same saints at the same time.  I was especially struck by the vast number of Mary figures I got to see in one place. Because there are so many different aspects of or titles for Mary, having numerous statues of her is a great way to compare these various aspects. There were also at least three different statues of the Child of Prague, who is a very common representation of Jesus in Cleveland due to the large Czech population in the city and suburbs.

 Mary - Our Lady of Perpetual Help (St. Margaret of Hungary - Chagrins Falls) 

The museum was also fun to visit because it includes statues of several less common saints. Saint Lucy, Saint Barbara, and Saint Hedwig were some of the saints that were least familiar to me that were represented in the museum. The objects associated with all three saints are a bit unusual. Saint Lucy, pictured below, is depicted holding a plate with eyes to show that her eyes were gouged out prior to her execution.  Saint Hedwig is typically shown holding a monastery or a pair of shoes while Saint Barbara wields a sword. Since visiting the museum, I actually came across Saint Barbara in my summer course on African-American art. I learned that Saint Barbara is often associated with the African orisa Ogun in the religious tradition of Candomblé. Ogun is the god of iron and war and therefore is visually connected to Saint Barbara because of her sword.

St. Lucy (Our Lady of Mount Carmel - Cleveland)

Of all the statues, my favorite was the one of Joan of Arc. The statue was so well done and the marble eyes had a deepness to them that the other statues did not. Compositionally the statue was engaging because of the sculpture’s sensitive tilting head and the presence of the banner and the sword. I’ve also always simply loved Joan of Arc and her story and took her name for my confirmation name.

If you live in Northeast Ohio, I would highly recommend that you visit the Museum of Divine Statues. Lou McClung, the founder of the museum who restores many of the statues, seems genuinely passionate about Cleveland religious history. His mother, who you’ll likely meet when you buy your ticket ($8), is also deeply invested in the museum and extremely friendly. My only complaint about the museum is that its hours are too short, though I understand that being open more would be costly. The museum is only open from noon until four on Sundays. If you have a Sunday afternoon free though, you should take the time to stop by.

St. Christopher - "Christ-bearer"

Maya Lin: Memory and Landscape

This past week I had the pleasure of listening to Maya Lin speak at Oberlin College. If you’ve heard Maya Lin’s name before, in all likelihood you know that she created the Vietnam War Memorial and the Women’s Table at Yale University. I still remember first learning of Lin’s work in an introductory art history survey course my freshman year of college. As survey courses typically go, we only brushed upon her two major career highlights. Lin’s presentation was intriguing to me because it introduced me to all of her lesser-known work and her intentions behind her creations. In particular, her work seemed to focus on the themes of memory and landscapes.

A number of her series, including her current show “Here and There,” combine these two interests by showing the disappearance of natural features. The works that best represent this idea in her present show are her “Disappearing Bodies of Water” that include sculptures of Lake Chad and the Aral Sea over time. In many ways these sculptures look like topographic maps. Her collaborative web memorial "What is Missing?"and her film “How to Unchop a Tree” also deal with the loss of the environment over time. Lin's website seems unique to me because in a way it redefines what is considered a memorial because of its virtual nature. Instead of having to visit a physical site to honor something or someone that has passed, clicking on a link is now the equivalent of a journey of remembrance.
A statistic that she mentioned a few times during her presentation that similarly drove home the idea that there is (or has been) so much on earth that we cannot see is that the island of Hawaii is actually 500 ft. taller than Mount Everest. Like the huge volume of water that has vanished from the earth, the massiveness of the mountain that forms the island of Hawaii is also unseen.

By pure coincidence, I also had the opportunity to see one of Lin’s created landscapes in person this past week. While I was down in Athens, OH, to run a half-marathon and visit my little brother who goes to the university there, I got the chance to explore her piece “Input.” The work is composed of a series of rectangular indentations and projections that are supposed to represent IBM punch cards. Her brother, Tan, composed a poem for the piece. The words of the poem are found on the concrete edges of the rectangular boxes. While I did not love the piece, I found a lot of the text intriguing. I especially enjoyed the phrases that were related to mapping, though I haven’t quite figured out the meaning of the piece as a whole. She mentioned several times that the work is in a way her own personal tribute to Athens. I was surprised to learn that Lin is a native of Athens and that her parents were both professors at OU. In the end I think the piece's purpose is to memorialize Lin's childhood and adolescence in the town of Athens.

 

"Input" in Athens, OH, on the grounds of Ohio University

"I wanted to draw a map of memories" 

"like the photograph of a landscape"

"carved out to resemble rectangular bits of binary code"

When I visit Las Vegas for my first, and probably only, time this May with my sisters, I hope that I’ll get to stop into MGM’s Mirage and see Maya Lin’s rendition of the Colorado River in silver. Listening to Lin speak about her fascination with the natural world definitely made me appreciate her work more and think more about my own obsession with the way people interact with their environments.

Downtown LA: The Eastern Columbia Building and Art Deco Architecture

In October of this year I flew out to visit my sisters in Los Angeles. Along with seeing my second oldest sister's apartment and meeting her two cats, Rosalie and Esteban, I also took the opportunity to see as much art as I could. Some of this art was found in a typical museum setting at the Getty, but I also saw quite a bit of interesting art while wandering downtown LA.

The Central Garden at the Getty by Robert Irwin

My twin sister was nice enough to accompany me on my self-planned walking tour of downtown in return for shopping with her later in the day. Our first stop was the Oviatt Building which once served as a penthouse for owner James Oviatt as well as a haberdashery, or men's outfitter. One of the special features of the building is that it includes glass details by René Lalique. Included below are a few pictures of the entryway.

Other sites included several theatres, the LA public library, Angel's Flight, and the Eastern Columbia Building. I really enjoyed the bright colors and unique fonts used on all of these buildings.

Since arriving home, I was recently reminded of my trip while watching an episode of the Office online. The unforgettable bright turquoise Eastern Columbia building was featured prominently in a Lexus commercial I saw while watching the episode. Included below is one of the commercials that shows the building.

 

 Eastern Columbia building

The fact that the Eastern Columbia building is included in an advertisement for a luxury car speaks to the current popularity of Art Deco. Apparently it is "cool" enough that a frame of the Eastern Columbia building can fit seamlessly into an advertisement that highlights partying and cruising on a Friday night. From athletic shoes to women's fashion, retro is currently in demand.

Building included at the end of the commercial

What is troubling is that the images of downtown LA included in these commercials are probably not recognizable to many people, even those that live in Los Angeles, because the downtown area in LA is not the social center it could be. While the downtown definitely has nightlife, during the day I saw that many of the city streets were inhabited prominently by the homeless. In some ways the anonymity associated with the buildings downtown works well for the commercial because it makes it so that the audience does not immediately connect the car to a very specific geographic region. This allows viewers to identify more closely with the commercial and the product. Including more iconic buildings, like the Empire State building, would immediately limit the ad.

Still, while the relative obscurity of edifices like the Eastern Columbia building serves the purpose of the commercial, it it does not bode well for the city itself. If these buildings are unfamiliar to most, that means the downtown area is not often frequented by visitors and residents. In the field of urban studies, much has been written about how the downtown areas of many cities are dying and the negative effects that come with this trend. One well-known publication on this topic is Robert M. Fogelson's Downtown: Its Rise and Fall. Much needs to be done to resuscitate America's downtown city centers.

In my opinion, historic buildings have the potential to revive activity in downtown areas that are no longer thriving by promoting tourism and creating interesting and beautiful environments. It seems that the city of LA agrees with me on this because on their tourism website they include several posts on architecture that visitors might want to see. Most notable is their current post on buildings featured in the film (500) Days of Summer. The Eastern Columbia building is one of the edifices that makes an appearance in the film, but it can only be seen for a mere second or two. As the home of Hollywood, it makes sense that much of Los Angeles tourism is connected to film.

In a small way, the inclusion of architecture from downtown LA in commercials can also help promote and build the city center. Yet, for the commercials to succeed in doing this, the landmarks included must be recognizable. I personally do not believe that images of downtown LA are yet ubiquitous enough to be easily identified by the typical American, but I hope that one day soon they will be. I greatly enjoyed my trip to LA and hope that visitors and residents alike are drawn to its historic buildings in the future.