Found Art—The Scraped Walls of Pirgi, Chios

I often write about art painted on exterior walls—for instance the Murals of the Mission District, San Francisco and the Wynwood Walls in Miami.  I’ve even written about the artistic graffiti of Oaxaca, Mexico.

 But the only place you will find art scraped into the walls, instead of painted on, is in the town of Pirgi on the Greek island of Chios, where every building is a  crazy quilt of  geometric designs, even the churches and banks.

 This kind of decoration is called  ksista (“scraped” in Greek) or, in Italian,  scrafitti  It is believed to have originated in Genoa and spread to Chios when the island was under Genovese rule—from 1346-1566-- but it’s still done today.

 The Ksista designs on the wall vary from geometric to figurative.  It’s is done by covering walls in a mixture of sand, asbestos and cement. Then, when it dries, another coat of white plaster is spread on top.  Finally the designs are drawn on top and with forks, the top layer is scratched away to reveal the darker colors underneath.  On balconies and walls, strings of drying tomatoes add a zap of red.

                                                 I like that the cat in the lower left is black and white like the walls

Pirgi is a fortified village, designed to foil and confuse pirates.  Only on Chios will you find the mastic tree, which produces a resin that has made the people rich since the 14^th century. Mastic is a gun-like sap that seeps out of the tree.  TheTurkish sultans and their harems  loved it as  chewing gun and candy and for medicinal purposes. Today Mastic is more popular than ever for  cosmetics, perfumes and cooking.

                                             Every Greek house has a pot of Basil--for good luck as well as cooking.

The citizens of Pirgi, with their uniquely scraped walls and their famous mastic trees have one more unique claim to fame.  They believe that Christopher Columbus came not from Genoa but from a Ksista-decorated house in Pirgi, and some historians believe them.

                                          Old and young men in Pirgi just chillin' under the strings of tomatoes.

Here is wall art inside a very ancient church in Pirgi.  The winged figure over the window represents the Holy Spirit.

Favorite Photo Friday—Balanced Rock

These two photographs came to me separately and so long ago I can’t remember the source.  They both show tourists posed in front of Balanced Rock, in the Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, Colorado.  Both photos are 4.5 by 7.5 inches in size and mounted on cardboard backgrounds.

The photograph with the ladies (and two gentlemen)  has printed on the  cardboard mounting: “Balanced Rock, Garden of the Gods.  Weight, 600 tons.”  But someone has written in pencil below that “California, 1883”.  The “California” part is wrong, so the date may be as well.

The second photograph-- of three men on donkeys-- has printed in the photograph “Balanced Rock, May 8^th, 1903”, so I suspect that date is correct.  The second photograph is numbered  3450 and the first one 208.

I love how serious the ladies are, standing without fear that the huge rock would decide to topple over on them.  I especially like the elderly lady cuddling the baby donkey.  The woman perched sidesaddle in the foreground does not have a divided skirt for riding, but someone has suggested to me that a lady in the back row does.  It’s hard to tell.  I love all their flowered hats as well.

The three men in the second photo all have dapper mustaches and seem quite pleased with themselves as they pose for the photographer.

On the back of the second photo is printed “Paul Goerke & Son Photographers at the Balanced Rock, Rainbow Falls and Manitou Ave.

Office next to Barker Hotel.  Manitou, Colorado

Duplicates of this picture can be had at any time.  Price 25 cents each postpaid.  Order by the number on the picture.

 Prices for Bromide Enlargement given on Application.”

Professional photographers setting up their large cameras on tripods could make a good living photographing tourists at sites like this in the days before cameras and photography were available to amateurs. 

Niagara Falls was especially popular with tourists and professional photographers at the dawn of photography-- in the 1840’s and 1850’s.  If you find in your attic a full-plate daguerreotype of your great-great grandparents posed in front of Niagara Falls on their honeymoon, you can probably sell it for a small fortune.

Remembering Sixties Fashions and Mad Men Days

 

                                                                                       Megan on Mad Men

As the reaction to Mad Men’s season premiere last Sunday proves, today’s younger (than I am) generations are fascinated with the lifestyle, the fashions and especially the presumed decadence of life in Manhattan in the 1960’s.

For those of us who lived through it, the show brings nostalgia, bittersweet memories of youthful foolishness, and frequent hilarity at anachronisms that slip by, despite the dozens of people on the program who are working to make every ash tray, cocktail shaker and plaid blazer authentic to the period.

I was 19 and in college when the 1960’s began.   In the summer of 1963 I graduated from the University of California,  Berkeley (English Lit.), and entered Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism in the fall for a year-long Master of Science program.   My first job after graduating was in public relations at Lever Brothers—in the iconic Lever House on Park Avenue.  After six months there, I moved a few blocks uptown to  work at the Ladies’ Home Journal, at 54^th and Lexington (right across from what would be Studio 54 where Andy Warhol and Truman Capote played.)

There were no three-martini lunches for someone as low on the masthead as I was, but some of my colleagues did slip out for long lunch hours with older gentlemen and would come back looking rumpled and a bit tipsy.  One voluptuous blonde was having a relationship with a married account executive at J. Walter Thompson and kept us abreast of all the drama.

Yes, I did smoke at the time--in fact when I went to college there was a “smoking room” on my floor in the freshman dormitory where obsessive students like myself could sit up all night smoking, studying and living on Mars Bars out of the vending machine.  I smoked from the age of 18 until at 29 I married a Greek-American New York Times reporter who insisted I quit. (And I’m still married to him 42 years later.)

The thing you have to understand about the Sixties—and this is starting to be portrayed on Mad Men—is that at some point in the decade there was a watershed moment when everything changed 180 degrees:  everything from fashion, music and lifestyle to views on race, women’s rights, health—you name it. 

When people talk about the “Swinging Sixties” they’re talking about the last years of the decade, from about 1966 on.  The first part of the sixties was a lot like the 1950’s—conservative, uptight, well-mannered (although archaic in beliefs about sex, race, whatever.)  Clothing was  conservative and preppy, fitted to the body.  Just look at the pleated skirts and man-tailored blouses that Peggy, the secretary-turned-copywriter on Mad Men is still wearing in the season premiere, which takes place in 1966.

 Here is a photograph of me in the spring of 1965 when I was headed for the airport in Los Angeles to fly back to New York after a visit with my parents.  Can you believe the hat, shoes and gloves?  I wouldn’t believe it myself if I didn’t have the photo as proof.

And here are two photos of me on the job in 1964 and 65.  You can see that we are rocking the  sculpted beehive hairdo’s that were so lacquered with spray that they were un-squashable, inspiring jokes about rodents nesting within.

So we women all looked and dressed pretty much like the earlier seasons of Mad Men.  Then something happened. I’ve often pondered what it was that revolutionized the Sixties.  When I left Berkeley in 1963 the Free Speech movement was just a-bornin’ and it slowly moved across the country bringing sit-ins and riots on campuses, not to mention the surging of the Civil Rights movement. The Beatles came to New York in 1964  which was a cause of great excitement at the magazine. And there was the Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967.

And suddenly hems rose to incredible heights while dresses, once structured  and controlled, became loose on the body, like tunics.  On the Mad Men premiere last Sunday, when Megan, the new Mrs.  Don Draper sang her French song and did her sexy dance, which shocked and alarmed her colleagues and her new husband, she was wearing  a black, flowing mini dress that illustrated perfectly the new fashions and attitudes.  Everything that had been up tight until 1966 soon became flowing and loose and very, very short.

 In this photo from Feb. 1967, when I was  discussing a magazine article with Ruth Jacobs on the “Jewish Home Show”, you can see that my beehive has been replaced by a pseudo-Vidal Sassoon, asymmetrical bob.  Though you can’t see it, my A-line dress with a yellow stripe down the side is very short.

On April 1, 1968, I left New York and the Ladies’ Home Journal to travel and work in Europe.  I was leaving partly to get away from the Greek-American reporter who, I was sure, would break my heart.

As soon as I left New York, Martin Luther King was assassinated, then Bobby Kennedy, then, a year later, Ted Kennedy drove off a bridge at Chappaquiddick and the Charles Manson murders terrorized Los Angeles.  From my vantage point overseas, it seemed that my  country was literally coming apart.

I had scored an editing job in London, when Swinging London was peaking.    I met the Beatles, bought clothes from Biba Boutique and shared a flat with three young women who were waiting to turn 21 so they could get their hands on their trust funds. Meanwhile they got up at four every afternoon and circulated from one club to another all night.  I, meanwhile, went to a nine-to-five job and occasionally handed over my rent in advance when the girl who owned the place got in a jam and had to be bailed out.

In 1969 I traveled to Greece, because I had reconciled with the previously mentioned reporter, and he was vacationing there. I arrived with a whole wardrobe of skirts so very short that he refused to introduce me to any of his friends or relatives until I acquired something of a more respectable length. 

 My asymmetrical bob had grown into a French twist and, for some reason, I seem to be wearing a ratty rabbit fur (or something) coat .  I won’t comment on the shoes, but it all seemed very stylish at the time.

I went back to my job in my beloved London, but we eventually agreed to marry (if I quit smoking), so in 1970, I returned to Manhattan. 

On March 18, 1970, at least 100 feminists staged a sit-in at the Ladies Home Journal, protesting the way the magazine’s mostly male staff depicted women’s interests.  They occupied the office for 11 hours.  They held prisoner my highly respected boss, John Mack Carter, and the managing editor Lenore Hershey.  They even smoked JMC’s cigars.

Unfortunately I wasn’t there to see this historic moment, because by then I was writing articles for the company's foreign syndication service and working mostly at home.  But I suspect that pretty soon I may get to see a similar feminist sit-in in the offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce on Mad Men.  

Found Art – The High Line

You may argue that a park is not art, but in the case of the High Line I think you’d agree with me that it is.  It has outdoor sculpture and artistic plantings, ghost signs, views of  the Hudson river and even a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty in the distance.

Live birds were checking out this sculpture for real estate

 And, in the other direction, you can gaze at cityscapes including the Empire State building. 

 Even the billboards and graffiti seen from the High Line seem like art.

I’d been hearing raves from New Yorkers about this newest park.  I finally got to visit it on March 13^th, when one of the first really spring-like days brought Manhattanites out to stroll, visit, photograph or just soak in the sun.

Originally—in the 1930’s-- the High Line was an elevated freight rail line above the streets of Manhattan’s West Side. The trains carried freight from docked ships into warehouses, where it was stored.  

In the mid-1980’s a group of property owners lobbied for demolition of the entire structure, but the Friends of the High Line was founded in 1999 and ultimately won the City to their point of view—to “reclaim the High Line” by turning it into an elevated park (accessible by elevators as well as stairs).

The High Line runs on Manhattan’s West Side from Gansevoort Street in the Meatpacking District to West 34^th Street between 10^th & 11^th Avenue.  The first section of the High Line opened on June 9, 2009 and the second section, which runs between West 20^th and West 30^th Streets, opened June 8, 2011.  Now they’re talking about a third section.

On the High Line there is room for picnicking, sunbathing and people-watching, and in the summer, street vendors sell food and drink, all made from local ingredients.  Soon The Green Table—an open-air café—will open as well, featuring food from environmentally friendly farms. 

On March 13 there were no food vendors, but everyone was luxuriating in the promise of spring.

Favorite Photo Friday—A Boy and His Dog

I’m passionate about old photos and like to research some that I think may be historically important, treating them as a mystery that must be solved by examining the clues.  When I think I’ve figured one out, I often post “The Story Behind the Photograph”, like the ones listed on the right.

But sometimes I have no clues and no information, but just love an old photo because it makes me smile.  I’m going to share one of those from my collection each Friday, and if you can tell me anything about the photo at hand, let me know.

                                                                                                   copyright Joan Gage

This photo is pure Americana—looks like it was posed for a Norman Rockwell "Saturday Evening Post" cover.  It’s about 8 by 10 inches and mounted on cardboard.  There’s the blue-eyed boy in his suspenders and straw hat holding his faithful dog, who’s ready to join him on any adventure.  Even the screen door behind them is perfect.

Who took this photo, and when and where?  I have no idea.

A Resourceful Mom Writes an eBook Bestseller

 

This is a story about how an intrepid Greek-American mom in Alaska tackled economic problems caused by a family health crisis that forced her to quit her job.  She did it by pouring her family recipes and her memories of her mother and grandmothers into a cookbook that she self-published on the internet as an eBook.  Within less than a month, she had an internet best-seller.

This is also a story about how the internet has made it possible for us to reach out to people around the world to find support, friendship and a marketplace for things that we create with our own hands and talents, no matter how physically isolated we may be. 

The first I heard of Demetra Nerantzini was an e-mail from her on Jan. 9 saying that she would like permission to use a photograph of mine – a view of  Santorini that appeared on my blog in 2010-- for the cover of a Greek cookbook she was writing. She told me what impacted her final decision to publish the book:  The last few years had brought an overwhelming sequence of health emergencies affecting her children and her husband, all of whom had surgeries requiring a great deal of home care while recuperating.  During that time Demetra had no option other than to leave her job.

It was her daughter Marina who pointed out that this would be an ideal time for  Demetra to consolidate all the family recipes into one place.  People were always asking for the Greek recipes she had learned from watching her mother and two grandmothers—recipes that were stored in her mind and on scraps of paper tucked into cookbooks.  And once the recipes were gathered into a manuscript, along with the  cherished memories of the women who created them, then Demetra could self-publish an on-line cookbook that would be available not just to family and friends, but to the whole world.  Marina begged her mother to make the book her single New Year’s resolution for 2012 and kept insisting until  Demetra agreed.

                                                       Demetra & daughter Marina

In her introductory letter to me, Demetra said, “This book will be my most requested family recipes.  I don’t know if it will sell 5 copies or 5,000. I’m not an author and I’ve never published anything before, so my apologies for being very green about this.” She offered to pay for the use of my photo, but I told her she was welcome to use it;  I was delighted that she liked it so much.    

It turns out that Demetra was not green at all about internet publishing.  In her second letter to me she wrote “It appears that Smashwords is really the only aggregator that can help me get this first book out into iBooks and Kindle without a lot of up-front charges. My deadline is to have this book submitted to Smashwords on/before January 25^th since my New Year’s Resolution …is to have this in the eBook stores by February 1^st.”

Demetra kept me posted on the ups and downs of finishing the book by her self-set deadline.  “It’s amazing how hard sticking to a schedule can be at times, having lost my Mother and Grandmothers not too too long ago. (Lost all three between March 2001-Halloween 2006). Some recipes/stories I can sit and smile through typing, while others feel like they’re ripping my heart out…Sometimes I can’t see the screen through tears and need to step away.…Even if this book only sells 10 copies it’s done me a wonder of a soul cleansing”

She finished it by her deadline of Jan. 25,  and the next day wrote me: “A Google search for “Demetra’s Kitchen” already brings up the Smashwords page….  Before the book can be submitted to iTunes,/iBooks/Sony/Kobo, I have to wait until Smashwords does a visual review and then they will assign it to their premium catalog. At that point I can obtain an ISBN through them where I am noted as the publisher.“

Despite getting the book done on time, Demetra was soon disillusioned with Smashwords,  “It is driving me absolutely batty every time I see their screen about the ISBN number. It should say, “Click here to give up your publishing rights…or wait an eternity for us to get to your book so you can keep them!”

By Feb. 3, she was more optimistic:  “Everything is good now. The book has been distributed to Apple and all the other vendors, so I ‘m just sitting on pins and needles waiting for them to update their sites!... It, for sure, is going to be on all the Apple stores (available both in iTunes and iBooks), Barnes & Noble’s e-site, Sony, Kobo, Nook, and then somewhere along the line Amazon too. .. If you happen to be on Facebook, I have made a page for the book itself www.facebook.com/DemetrasKitchen.  There’s already 55 “Likes” on it, and according to the exposure statistics…it’s been viewed and translated for countries from Greece to UAE, to Germany, Switzerland and numerous others.”

On Feb. 11 Demetra gave me the high points of the previous week: On Monday she learned from the Facebook Reach Insight Report that people from  21 countries have been “poking around the Facebook page for the book.”

Tuesday she found out that a chef in Mombasa, Kenya wants to feature a couple of her recipes on his weekly show.

“Thurs—we finally appeared on iTunes/iBooks! (note no sign of it still on Sony, Kobo,  Barnes & Noble, Diesel or Kindle as of today.)”

“Friday—some one at Apple read the book and made it one of 20 categorized as “New and Noteworthy”.

On Saturday she went to the Smashwords home page, clicked on “Cooking” and then clicked on “Best Sellers” and found that “It’s Smashwords #1 cookbook. This is amazing.  I’m honestly floored at all the attention this is getting.  I’ve said more thank-you prayers in this last week than I think I have in the last few months…I’m a housewife in Alaska – I must be dreaming.”

By Monday, Feb. 13—“We’ve hit more milestones today.  We made the front page of iTunes cookbooks page and also, when you click through the recent releases (which are default sorted by sales, not release date) I AM #7 AND MARTHA STEWART’S COOKBOOK FROM DECEMBER IS #8!!!  HOLY COW!!!  This is all just so humbling.  It’s very surreal seeing this little thing that I consider my heart on paper being rated well enough to be sold on the same pages as the likes of Martha Stewart, Julia Child and Mario Batali….

“How very humbling this year has been ever since Marina decided this was my New Year’s Resolution.  Thanking God every step of the way for what a miracle this is turning into for our family.”

Feb. 18—“This is just amazing. God’s hand truly is in all this…For days now, when you go to the iTunes cookbooks page there sits the book cover (with your beautiful picture on the cover) interspersed with the likes of Martha Stewart, Mario Batali and Julia Child…God’s hands combined with the power of the Internet.”

Feb. 20—“Your beautiful cover now graces the first spot on the iTunes main cookbooks page and the first spot on the iTunes Regional & Ethnic Cookbooks page.  I couldn’t sleep tonight and thought I’d see where the book was and now I’m just sitting here in a dark and quiet house shaking (also wishing I could wake everyone…except it’s 3:02 a.m. in Alaska.)”

Clearly it’s too soon to write the ending to Demetra’s story of how she used the internet, her family’s recipes and her computer and cooking knowhow to help her family get over a rocky patch in the road.   But whatever the ultimate monetary rewards of “Demetra’s Kitchen”, its success so far has her looking for a hardback publisher.  And she’s now working hard on “Demetra’s Kitchen Volume 2”.

“I’m going to have to set myself a short deadline for Volume 2 and just bury myself in it” she wrote me.  “ Heck, my birthday is April 27^th –why don’t we make that the official “upload to Smashwords” date.  I wrote the first one straight from my heart and out through my fingers (in a hurry).  Might as well try that again, right?”

Found Art – The Murals of the Mission District, San Francisco

Art is all around if we only keep our eyes open to see it.  So I’m going to try every week to have a post about “Found Art”, sharing some of the beautiful things I encounter, often just walking down the street, like an unexpected gift.

 Marina in front of a mural  including Frieda Kahlo

When I was in San Francisco last year, daughter Marina took me on an impromptu tour of some of the wall murals of her neighborhood—the Mission District.  They are truly astonishing.  Unlike the murals of the Wynwood Walls district in Miami, which are created by established artists like Shepard Fairey, who command huge prices for their work, the Mission Murals are done by “real people” who actually live in the neighborhood.  The best thing about these murals is that they are filled with pride in the culture of the community, and they empower the children of the Mission, reminding them of what their heroes have achieved and emphasizing that their culture, traditions, religion and rituals are important.

Guadalupe & Victory

 If you go to San Francisco, be sure to tour the Mission Murals.  It’s impossible to see them all, but inexpensive tours are given every Saturday and Sunday .  All the information is at the Precita Eyes Mural Arts & Visitors Center, 2981 -24^th Street, San Francisco, phone 415-285-2287, or on their website: www.precitaeyes.org. 

 Cesar Chavez & Mariarchi musicians

Malcolm X on the right

An unfinished mural in the making