Mail has been delivered ever since people could write and wanted to communicate with others. If you go back far enough, you find that in Egypt around 2400 BCE, the Pharaohs used couriers to send out their decrees! The first regular courier service was established by the Persian Empire between 559 and 530 BCE.
Looking ahead about 2,500 years, you have the Pony Express in 1860, which I mentioned last year when I was writing about the speed of mail delivery ...
What I did not realize, however, is that in principle it continues in this country to this very day.
In the current issue of the Atlantic Magazine is an article by Sarah Yager with photographs by Elliot Ross (unless otherwise indicated). It explains that the challenge of universal mail service in this country is with one place which cannot be reached by any ground vehicle, and by helicopter only when the weather and wind are right. That is the town of Supai in the Grand Canyon. Why is there a town at the bottom of the Grand Canyon? Well, because it is part of the Havasupai Indian Reservation.
In 1882, the U.S. Government restricted the Havasupai tribe to just 518 acres of their former wide-ranging hunting grounds on the South rim of the Grand Canyon, in order to create what would become the Grand Canyon National Park. In a 1975 act of Congress, 188,077 acres were returned to the tribe. Though their reservation remains within the National Park, the Havasupai have retained their sovereign rights, and they are considered guardians of the Canyon.
According to the 2010 census the town of Supai had 208 inhabitants. Although the 2020 census recorded zero, the population is currently estimated to be growing. In truth there are about 500 of the 770 registered in the Tribe supported on agriculture and tourism. Of the tens of thousands of tourists every year at the Grand Canyon a few intrepid visitors reserve a stay on the tribal lands. You have to book months ahead and hike down to the lodge or camping grounds. Your stay is limited to 3 days during which you can hike, swim and visit the village to learn about their tribal culture.
Getting back to the mail, like the Pony Express, the current system relies on animals, but with mule trains rather than horse relays, to carry the packages which include food, medicines and anything that is needed for the one village store. From the Atlantic article, “The mule train, which makes the 16-mile, six-hour loop up and down the canyon five days a week, is perhaps the most extreme manifestation of the USPS mandate to “render postal services to all communities.”
Being the mailman is not for the faint of heart. Nate Chamberlain, married to a member of the tribe, did it for 25 years without a vacation and then handed it over to his nephew. The path is narrow, and one slip can be fatal for man or beast. Temperatures are extreme, and when the weather gets bad during the monsoon season, shelter must be found quickly as torrential rains wash down the canyon and there are rockslides.
"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds," and, in the case of Supai, the old ways are the only ways!
I believe in Art, as you well know, and science as well, if it comes from a respected source. When they come together in a symbiotic manner it is most satisfying.
Sequels are familiar in detective stories where the author continues a main character throughout a series like Agatha Christie’s detective, Hercule Poirot. However, I would not have expected a sequel in the form of a medieval manuscript adding to the story of King Arthur. There are around 40 originals, each, of course, written by hand on parchment. Dr. Irène Fabry-Tehranchi, the Cambridge University Library French collections specialist, was one of the first to recognize a sequel in the University library, Identifying it as “an old French vulgate Merlin sequel, a different and extremely important Arthurian text.” It continues the story of King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, a best seller in a time when reading was not yet universal. The manuscript was written in old French. This gave a clue to its origin because this was the language of the court and aristocracy of medieval England after the Norman Conquest and the work was a romance intended for a noble audience, including women.
The discovery was made by pure happenstance when a former Cambridge University archivist, Sian Collins, just happened to notice the word “Excalibur” in the text. This manuscript was found stitched into the binding of a property lease where the durable parchment had been utilized in the 1500’s as a protective book cover. It is truly astounding that this torn fragment still existed.
It took various experts, including curators, archivists, imaging experts, and conservators 3 years to trace and preserve this interesting moment in literary history. Without the newest scientific knowledge and techniques, it might have taken another 100 years to identify and restore the document.
In another case, the Harvard Law Library included in its online collection a copy of the Magna Carta. That is exactly what they believed they had, a copy, but it has turned out to be an original.
The Magna Carta is believed to be the first document to proclaim the principal that the King and his government were not above the law. What made it so important was that it became the basis for English common law and many constitutions since, including our own.
Ratified in 1215 after much contention between the Barons who demanded the charter and King John I of England, it was revised and reissued several times, first, shortly after it was written, then again during the reign of Henry III. In 1297 King Edward I, who was facing issues over his taxation policies, reissued the 1225 version. This helped solidify the charter’s status as part of English law as it guaranteed the rights and liberties it recognized.
How many of us have trawled the internet trying to learn about some subject, often symptoms of an illness. In this case, a medieval history professor at Kings College, London, David Carpenter, was trawling for unofficial versions of the Magna Carta in U.S. university libraries. He was researching the influence of the charter based on its appearance in collections of legislation made for lawyers. He was sidelined, however, when it struck him that that he had come across an original rather than a copy in the Harvard Library.
One clue was that the dimensions were within millimeters of the few known originals. Since the Harvard document was rubbed and stained it was more difficult to confirm the text. Spectral imaging and ultraviolet light made it possible to search the document word-by-word. It was found to match perfectly the 1225 version, even to the form of King Edward’s signature. If you wish to learn more about the discovery of the Harvard Magna Carta, here is an article and part way down you will see the image above and click on the “play button” for the video.
These are just two examples of how discoveries are made in some of the most obvious places by academic sleuths with the help of science. As the late renowned Louvre curator, Pierre Verlet, once said to his students, “Everything exists, it is up to you to find it”.
If you had asked me a year ago whether public funding for the arts by City, State, or Federal Government was a good thing. I would have said, of course, it is. But. the situation has changed drastically and very quickly, at least from the Federal side.
Public funding for the arts can be justified on many grounds. As I have written several times in the past, it has been shown that just seeing art or listening to music has a calming effect and can help keep one healthy. Last month, I even wrote about doctors’ prescriptions for art.
Actively engaging in the arts enhances education both by teaching discipline and encouraging creativity and innovation. We can also learn a lot about history through the arts of the past. Theater, movies and literature can bring the past alive. Also, the art created today acts as a time capsule for tomorrow. Both historic and contemporary arts play a crucial role in preserving cultural heritage and identity.
As a species, we have a need for collective interaction. We read so often that loneliness is on the rise because we are losing our ability to communicate directly, due to our absorption with all the technology we have at home. You have to admit that it is more exciting if you are in an audience with others and can share the experience rather than watching alone in front of your screen.
We cannot forget what the arts do for the economy. How many people are employed in a theater and the support thereof How many musicians play in a concert or orchestra. Movies and TV shows don’t just need actors. Have you ever followed the credits at the end of a film listing all individuals it took to put the movie together!? Contrary to the image of a lone painter in his studio he or she may have a back up team, an assistant, a publicist or a gallery that employs a number of people, including art handlers, packers and shippers. At the end of that line are the clients who purchase the art or buy tickets for the show.
What happens, however, when the government makes the decisions on what should be communicated, be it by the artist, the producer, or the editor? During the McCarthy era, when communists or left-leaning artists and intellectuals were considered the enemy, a professor teaching advanced mathematics was fired for his leftist political beliefs, though the latter had nothing to do with the former.
How much influence should a donor of any sort have on arts and educational organizations. Public schools are funded by governments because it is vital to any country to have an educated and functional population. But what happens when government gets involved in editing out parts of history such as slavery or the holocaust. Is it in the interest of a “Government of the people, by the people, for the people" to keep their constituents ignorant?
What happens when one individual or an administration, be it local or federal, has the power to dictate what we are allowed to learn or see or even create?
In China, today, there are severe restrictions on what can be portrayed in the arts. An artist who portrays anything that the government considers against its interests can be sanctioned, in some cases which can include a prison sentence.
In that situation, citizens cannot know about the ideas that were not being allowed, only what the government finds to be appropriate and in its interests.
Self-censorship will limit the creativity of artists who want to make a living from their art and the same will be true for arts organizations. It is easier to follow party lines and accept what someone else thinks you should enjoy or think. It is appropriate for a young child to be guided by parents and teachers, but in this country, we have been encouraged to question, explore, and expand our horizons beyond those limits. It has made us an admired world world-leading nation.
We are losing the ability to decide what we like or what is good or bad with our current administration’s desire to eliminate the NEA and the NEH and dictate what can be presented by government-funded organizations. I want to be able to have broad exposure and make my own judgments. It is not a question of good art or bad art, or right art or wrong art. This is an existential threat to art itself as all art comes from a creative process which involves free thinking and imagination without restraints.
Fritz Scholder (1937-2005), born Fritz William Scholder V, is a Native American artist enrolled in the La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians. He has worked as an artist creating paintings, monotypes, lithographs, and sculptures. I have mentioned him a few times in various Missives but never devoted one to him. Like so many who have been born of mixed blood, Native American and European, he made his choices; he did not want to be pigeonholeed, but his work relates to Indian issues.
He is generally considered the leader of the New American Indian Art Movement.
A major retrospective of Scholder’s work at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in 2008 was titled “Indian/Not Indian”. Truman Lowe (Ho-Chunk), curator of contemporary art at the museum wrote, “Although one-quarter Luiseño (a California mission tribe), Scholder always insisted he was not American Indian any more than he was German or French, yet he became the most successful and highly regarded painter of Native Americans in U.S. history—a fact that raises the question of what ‘Indian art’ actually is”.
I like to relate my Missives to recent articles or events, and at this moment, there is an exhibition of Scholder’s works on paper at the LewAllen Galleries in Santa Fe, which will be on until June 7. All the images used here should be credited, “LewAllen Galleries and the Estate of Fritz Scholder”.
Most artists’ themes start out expressed on paper, with the immediacy of studies that develop into major works, making this exhibition particularly interesting to me.
Sholder’s self-portraits often grapple with issues of identity. He used his art to challenge the simplistic notion of "Indian" and to portray the complexities of his own mixed heritage. “Self Portrait in Roma” (1978), an etching and aquatint on paper from an edition of 50. shows an individual in classic, if somber, white man’s garb, with a questioning look on his face. The hand emerging from the white of his shirt holds what may be his etching tool.
Furthering the theme of complexity and stereotypes is his “Laughing Artist” (1974), an etching from an edition of 35. The image challenges stereotypical depictions of Native Americans wearing feathers and dancing or as solemn or tragic figures. Though from the and the not quite white coloring of the face you can infer that this is an Indian, but he still looks like anyone you might meet at a party.
“Indian at the Bar” (1970-71), lithograph in an edition of 75 from the “Indian Forever Suite” which consists of eight stone lithographs. The prominent Coors beer can held by the leering Indian, wearing dark glasses and a wide-brimmed hat, is clearly a comment on the alcoholism prevalent in the Indian population. Although many Native Americans object to the characterization, it was a subject Scholder depicted more than once.
My favorite print in the current show is “Indian Contemplating Columbus” (1991), an etching and aquatint on paper from an edition of 50. I like a slightly different title that it is known by better, "Native American Contemplating the Arrival of Columbus." The evocation of a faraway look in the face we cannot see of a figure identified by his moccasin and feathered headdress, I find haunting. How would things be if Columbus had not “discovered” America?!!!
It takes incredible talent and intellect for an artist to combine both sides of an issue so that his work tells the story. That is why I find Scholder’s work exciting, disturbing, and in the end, illuminating.
It now seems that our administration wants to do away with the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). As much as I want to write just about the arts there are times when I feel I have to speak out regarding the most important issues of the day that affect all of us. My blog has several thousand readers a week. The great majority are not subscribers but that is the nature of the internet and the ease of surfing the web.
Like it or not, I have a platform, and I will use it.
Authoritarian leaders, I prefer the term Dictators, have much in common. Basically, they rule by fear and the power of the purse. At the ripe old age of 80, I finally understand how a country can just give up and surrender itself to a single individual.
I have heard that people do not think it is fair to compare Trump to Hitler because Hitler came up with the extermination of 6,000,000 individuals. Of course, that was 8 or 9 years after he became Chancellor (Dictator) in 1933. But there are many other dictators that have followed similar paths if not his “final solution”. Though we have heard that Trump is setting up camps from which to deport our undocumented immigrants and even citizens.
It all gets scarier and scarier!
I found an interview online from the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs from 2019. Ece Temelkuran a Turkish novelist and political commentator had written a book, “How to Lose a Country: The 7 Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship”. She wanted to warn the world about people like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who has been “President” of Turkey since 2014. Temelkuran’s first point is that these individuals will say that they represent “real people” and not the elite. The takeover “takes a lot of silence, silent approval from ordinary people, and it takes a lot of normalization of absurdity and insanity before right-wing populism turns into a real fully formed authoritarian regime.”
Temelkuran also speaks of dismantling political institutions and the judiciary, and, towards the close of the interview, says, “The very end, which I hope doesn’t happen in this country or in the European countries, is criminalizing the opposition, stigmatizing them, and finally making them feel completely insecure and under attack so that they really literally leave the country.” Today we are learning of increasing numbers who have given up their government positions or been fired and former Trump appointees who have come out against him and are being “investigated”.
Viktor Mihály Orbán, who we have heard so much about from our President has been Prime Minister of Hungary since 2010. Did I forget to mention Trump’s closest pal, Vlademir Putin who was President of Russia from 2000 to 2008 and then again since 2012 to the present. So why shouldn’t Trump seek a third term if all his friends have stayed in office as long as they like?
So much comes down to money and fear. The billionaires often rely on government contracts or support for their projects. The newspapers hope to keep the “free press” but knuckle under to pressure fearing the loss of access. Law firms are told they will lose clients, and their lawyers will be denied entry to government buildings if they don’t stop suing the government. They have even been extorted to do pro bono work for the administration.
As I started writing Trump has declared all truck drivers must speak English. Sounds reasonable until you realize that these are grueling, and not the best paying jobs. Those willing to take them may very well be immigrants and to what level do they need English? But this Executive Order gives the government lots of leeway to make these jobs unattainable for immigrants.
Jeff Bezos, who I always thought of as one of the best of the billionaires, started to give in first when he would not allow an endorsement for President in 2024 in his newspaper, The Washington Post. Then he gave in again when Amazon was going to post how much prices would go up because of tariffs. This will harm his company more than anyone because people will just stop buying from sticker shock without a reason for the hike in prices. But Bezos has his fingers in other areas for which he will want and need government support.
Germany had the SA (Sturmabteilung) meaning 'assault division'. They were also known as the Brownshirts, infamous for their operation outside of the law and their violent intimidation of Germany’s leftists and Jewish population. Our Brownshirts include those pardoned for the assault on the Capitol when Trump came back into office. Our politicians are so fearful that they are doing the President’s bidding not just because they may be “Primaried”. Many have received threats of violence and fear for themselves and their families.
How long will we be ruled by fear if the courts and Congress continue to find excuses to sit on their hands? Let me conclude with the final speech from the 1940 film “The Great Dictator”. It starred Charlie Chaplin who also wrote, directed, and produced it. Please listen ...
We have contributed various objects to museums across a number of states in the fields of European and, lately, Native American Art, but not enough to be worth even a single gallery in a museum. But one can fantasize!
I started to think about how I would go about building a museum. One would want it to be a destination place that people feel they must see. If you happen to live in France maybe there is a spare chateau you could renovate, or in Italy, a villa. In the United States, however, there are few pre-existing destination buildings available, so you start from scratch.
How does one call attention to a building? You could start with a striking exterior. A prime example is the Guggenheim Museum in New York, built in 1959 by Frank Lloyd Wright to exhibit the modern “non-objective” art collection of Solomon R. Guggenheim. A cylindrical building on a New York corner is certainly different and almost every New York resident wanted to look at it and some took a chance and looked at the art inside.
What about the Whitney Museum that opened a new building in 1966 to show their collection of American Art. It had to be quite different from the Guggenheim, so they hired Brutalist architect, Marcel Breuer, and if you liked it or not it became another destination building.
I use as examples the museums I knew and remember being shocked by when I first saw them. It took me a while to appreciate them. There are examples like these around the country if not necessarily as extreme. Whether your museum is being built for one person’s collection or for a community, in a single field such as African art or a collection with the broader purpose of showing the history of man, there needs to be a clear concept. Once you have defined your concept, then you need to find an architect.
The Menil in Houston was built by Renzo Piano and opened to the public in 1987 to house the collection of John and Dominique de Menil . Dominique knew what she wanted so had a major role in forming their museum, which, by the way has the most unprepossessing exterior.
It is more often the case that there is a board of trustees with a committee that will go over portfolios of many architects and interview them to see if they will be compatible with what the board has in mind. Of course, you want your public impressed when they come into the building. One device to accomplish this is by the atrium as you come into the building. A very large, high, open space which is not only impressive but has enough room for the large groups of people you are hoping to draw in, as well as for social events. The Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts went through a major renovation and the architect chosen was the Studio Gang from Chicago and it opened in 2023. This architectural fact sheet will give you a great deal of detail.
There is another professional that the board and architect should introduce into the process, and that is the museum designer. Small exhibition spaces may be appropriate for some collections but will severely limit what art can be shown at the time or in the future. Decisions must be made on the variety of spaces you want based on what kind of art are you going to show. A large bright gallery, maybe even with a skylight is fine to show sculpture but would destroy a collection of works on paper. If you are showing decorative arts a gallery scaled to invoke a large size living room might be good. Galleries for temporary exhibitions will need to have flexibility, preferably with movable walls.
If you have an already established museum and are enlarging it, you must not overlook input from your museum team who have had to deal with where they have been working and what issues you and they are trying to solve beyond just creating more space. Practical considerations include more storage space if you plan to grow the collection.
Needless to say, in order to get a grip on costs, construction and engineers etc. need to be in the mix. Only in an imaginary museum can you skip the practical details😊 like temperature and humidity control and don’t forget the plumbing!
After considering everything I have mentioned above one should address the question of whether one’s collection is worthy of becoming a destination museum. With that criteria in mind my museum will have to remain a fantasy.
Many years ago, on a trip through Normandy, France, my wife was intent on seeing the Bayeux Tapestry, which can be found in the Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux in Bayeux, France.
It is a major historical document of history illustrating a turning point in what would be the future of England, but at that time, so long ago, I did not properly appreciate it. The Bayeux Tapestry as it is known, is not a tapestry at all. It is not woven but embroidered and measuring nearly 70 meters (230 feet) long, I facetiously termed it the longest dish cloth in the world!
The embroidery depicts events leading up to and including the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, led by William the Conqueror. It tells the story from the Norman perspective, focusing on William's claim to the English throne and the events surrounding the Battle of Hastings and the defeat and death of the Anglo-Saxon King Harold II. Here is the scene with the Death of Harold.
The style and workmanship suggest that it was made in England, commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux who was William the Conqueror’s half-brother. He participated in the Battle of Hastings and was subsequently made Earl of Kent, given the task of guarding southeastern England. He also served as William the Conqueror's administrator and regent during the king's frequent absences. The embroidery is thought to have been made to adorn the cathedral being built in Odo’s bishopric of Bayeux and sent there around 1077. The first dated record of it in Bayeux is 1476 and it has not left France since.
Last month a missing piece of the textile with no embroidery, was found in the State Archive of Schleswig-Holstein. It had been in the estate of the textile archeologist Karl Schlabow (1891-1984) who worked for the Society for the Study of Ancestral Heritage (Das Arnenerbe) founded by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler to promote archaeological investigation of sites associated with early Germanic settlement. The goal was to trace a coherent history of superior Aryan culture. There was particular interest in the Bayeux Tapestry as it was thought, it might prove that the Normans had Viking heritage and therefore were of Germanic origin.
After the fall of France in 1940 the Nazis sent a team of experts in to examine the tapestry and Dr. Karl Schlabow, a member of the team, removed a small piece for his own study.
Now that it has been rediscovered, after a brief tour in Germany, the fragment will be returned to France, and the tapestry will get longer? Though there is speculation that it may have originally been even longer!
