Always Has Been, Always Will Be
Saturday, December 24, 2011 at 5:39PM In Troy, a city on the western edge of Rensselaer County in New York State, on December 23, 1823 an anonymously written poem entitled "An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas" with a first line of, "'Twas the night before Christmas,when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse" appeared in the Troy Sentinel. It was buried on page 5, column three between an article on how to make honey from a beehive and a marriage announcement. Therein was a story of a rotund, red-suited bearded man sitting on a gift-laden sleigh pulled by eight reindeers. It is this image, promulgated by limners, that we see appearing every Christmas season. Whereas in that same county on its northern edge, on December 14, 1961, when a 101 year old American folk artist, creator of 1,600 original works, whose face was on the cover of a 1953 Time magazine, died at the Hoosick Falls Medical Center, with her obituary making the front page of America's newspapers, it's her countenance we need to conjure up as the New Year approaches.
According to her physician, the cause of Anna Mary Robertson Moses's death, known by the press as Grandma Moses, was "arterial sclerosis, but really she was worn out." And when I read all about her in the Albany Times Union I was seventeen, a freshman in college and yet I wanted to attend her funeral. It was to be held in her home in Eagle Bridge, across the river and up a way, but none of my acquaintances shared my desire and I was not motivated enough to go over there and pay my respects alone.
Hoosick Falls, where the Maple Grove Cemetery is and where Grandma Moses was laid to rest, has a present population of 3,182 down from its 7,000 high achieved in 1900. It was known before the fame of this artist as the place where the Battle of Bennington was fought and where the Patriots defeated the British and their hired mercenaries. This village's center is a National Historic Site because of it. Yet this entanglement was named for the nearby Vermont city which has its own monument and what's more, has the Grandma Moses Museum. There among the largest public display of her works is "Fireboard," her first endeavor, created as a fill-in and placed on her parlor wall, for when she was redoing the room she ran out of walllpaper.
Louis J. Caldor, a civil engineer and art enthusiast, uncovered Grandma Moses in 1938. He was traveling the back roads of upstate New York for reasons not specified. He stopped to get a sandwich at the W. D. Thomas Pharmacy. In passing its window he saw four oil paintings of primitive farm scenes astride cans of preserves. When he learned that they were painted by a 78-year old farm widow who took up painting at the age of 76, since she could no longer embroider or quilt due to her arthritic fingers and paint brushes caused her no pain, he bought her entire collection for $16 and then drove straight to her farm.
Over a cup of tea he asked Grandma Moses if she had ten more examples of her art. She did, that is after cutting one of her canvases in two and off he went to New York City promising to make her famous. By 1939 three of her paintings were in a "self taught artist show" at the new Museum of Modern Art. By 1940, she had a one-person show "What the Farmer's Wife Paints" at a private gallery and when she was requested to come to the opening she replied, "Why would I want to do that when I've already seen all the pictures."
For Grandma Moses her art was a business venture, another way to make a living, like her selling her home made jam and butter, or her taking in boarders. She was used to vending for herself, starting at the age of twelve, working as a hired hand on local farms and doing so for fifteen years. Then she married another hired hand, Thomas Salmon Moses, equally penniless and together they ploughed the fields and buried five infants out of their ten children and in 1927 she buried him after he suffered a heart attack.
The subject matter for Grandma Moses' paintings came from the recesses of her mind; her memory. She'd start at the top of a Masonite board, a favored medium and render blue skies, white clouds, an occasional green mountain and then add houses, barns, animals and people working the land, gathering sap, bringing in logs, harnessing horses, skating on ponds, riding in carriages, all the while showing no perspective, no drawing talent and creating small figures who cast no shadows and who seemed arrested in action. Yet these images were transferred to curtains, dresses, cookie jars and dinnerware for what she had, without taking one art lesson, was universal appeal. Her patterns of bright colors elicited an optimistic mood. The viewer looked on and sensed the joy of just being alive which was why more than 100,000 people, on a snowy day in Moscow, waited outside the Pushkin Museum to see the work of the American artist who had "soul."
When Grandma Moses reached extreme old age she did it accompanied with a sense of satisfaction. She had learned to love life and look back at all her years with the same equanimity she got from putting in a day's worth of work. She adhered to her own words. "Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be." She didn't care either if she was remembered or not. I bring her up as the New Year dawns.
We all have the power to create our own contentment. And I say if believing in that rotund, red-suited bearded man who bestows gifts helps you achieve it, go for it.
Reader Comments (11)
Dear Jane; WE know a little bit about DOING WHAT GIVES Y0U JOY! unfortunately, our craft is rather more ephemeral but beloved, nonetheless!! i enjoyed the info on Grandma Moses.
Happy Chanucah!! Love, Anita keal
JANE:
Thank you for talking about Troy, NY. That city fascinates me with its faded elegance, cast iron buildings and the home of the Troy Sentinel - I have a picture of the plaque in front of the former newspaper office building announcing it as the original publisher of the Clement Clark Moore classic - that picture is framed and hanging in an honored position in my apartment. I visit Troy when visiting my son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter who reside in a nearby Albany suburb.
Troy was the onetime shirtmaking capital of the US - Arrow Shirts & Collars was based in Troy. Wasn't George Armstrong Custer the first man to wear an Arrow Shirt?
Happy Holidays!
Lee
I loved Lee's above tongue-in-cheek comment about Arrow Shirts.
Grandma Moses was lucky to have such a capable PR person (Lewis Caldor)..otherwise we wouldn't know about her at all .I think he is one of the unsung heroes for her success, Thanks Jane, for the memory jogger @ Grandma Moses.
What an incredible story - while so many of us think we know about Grandma Moses - no one really knows much about her but thanks to you and this story - now we have some insight! ...and to think she really got started at 76 - this gives me great hope....it should give us all hope....I have a few years left to make magic but perhaps our everyday magic just exists - we don't need to see it but we create it without much thought.....after all, we are who we are - always have been, always will!
Your stories make us think, help us learn and teach us about life......you always have and you always do.....what a gift you give to your readers....Thanks....
Love, Anita
A lovely seasonal story. I, too, went to college in the region (Williams College), so I know Bennington and the museum quite well. VIsitors can continue up the hill to picturesque Old Bennington with Robert Frost's grave (a story for another time) and the Battle monument -- an impressive stone obelisk. A politically incorrect joke of the '60s, when Bennington College was all-women and Williams was all-men, reflected the fact that Bennington students were required to spend a six-week "non-resident term" each year off-campus (form New Year to mid-February) doing research, working an internship, or seeking some other experience in the real world. The joke was that the monument went limp while the women were away. The punch line is that today, when both schools are sexually integrated, both require students to spend six weeks on individual projects, usually off-campus.
Incidentally, I saw no Irony in Lee Gelber's remarks about Troy. The city was built on the garment industry and popularly known as "The Collars and Cuffs City." Cluett-Peadbody, manufacturer of Arrow shirts, was the largest employer. The city's social structure was reflected in geography: workers' tenements were down near the river, managers lived at the top of the ridge. The Cluett family built a lavish country estate 20 miles to the east in Williamstown, Mass.
Great story! Thanks for the share! -Sarah-
What a beautiful story about how creative work that is profound and inspiring can come from the most humble and unassuming places.
Thanks, jane. Did you make the funeral? I would have been interested, too. What a woman. Sounds a lot like theirs hamblett.
Happiest of new years!
P
That's theora hamlett.
So...find what you love and never take yourself too seriously.
What a great reminder Grandma Moses was and is!
What a great story Jane. Thanks again for sharing your knowledge and giving so many such uplifting thoughts....we do have the power to create our own contentment!