AmericanVisionaries.com

Tea for Six in St. Andrews

Fifteen years ago I bought a complete tea service for six at a china shoppe about a block away from The Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland. 

Do you know how useful a complete tea service for six has been to me in South Texas?

I know why I bought it.  So I could bring home the experience of an English tea party at breakfast.  I wanted to have that all the time -- the experience of walking down the stairs, all polished up and ready for a big day of adventure, having tea and toast and eggs brought to me ... and in the case of St. Andrews, looking over the Old Course or the bay, with their morning mist -- begging me to stay inside that B&B and drink tea all day.

I just read The Art of Travel, and in my previous post I mention John Ruskin.  John was well-traveled.  The author, Alain de Botton, summarizes John's conclusions on travel and our experiences.

"Ruskin's interest in beauty and in its possession led him to five central conclusions.

First, beauty was the result of a number of complex factors that affected the mind both psychologically and visually.

Second, humans had an innate tendency to respond to beauty and to desire to possess it.

Third, there were many lower expressions of this desire for possession (including, as we have seen, buying souvenirs and carpets, carving one's name on a pillar and taking photographs).

Fourth, there was only one way to possess beauty properly, and that was by understanding it, by making oneself conscious of the factors (psychological and visual) responsible for it.

And last, the most effective means of pursuing this conscious understanding was by attempting to describe beautiful places through art, by writing about or drawing them, irrespective of whether one happened to have any talent for doing so."

For over 80 years, lovers of Southwestern and Indian Art make a pilgrimage to Santa Fe, New Mexico for the Santa Fe Indian Market.  Last year, the Market attracted over 100,000 people from all over the world.  The economic impact of the event each year to the state of New Mexico is around $100 million.

The American Southwest has drawn people to its beauty and culture for over a century.  The study of its birth and life has been my fascination and my passion.   And, if you're in art, architecture, tourism or real estate development -- you'll learn from its executions and lessons.

Ruskin spoke of beauty and our desire to possess it and the wisdom of understanding it.   

One hundred thousand buyers still come from all over the world to a special 3-day event in August to possess the beauty of the American Southwest ... from those who know how to share their understanding, their stories, through their arts. 

William Robinson Leigh, The Hopi Pottery Merchant

NOLA KNights

July 29, 2006 - New Orleans, LA

The t-shirts in the shops between the French Quarter and Downtown tell some of the story.

"F - E - M - A (Find Every Mexican Available)"

"New Orleans - Chocolate City, with vanilla flavoring"

The hopeless sideways X's and O's on the houses, doors and sidewalks, the trash in the streets, the grass -- knee-high in the medians -- the empty streets, the "For Sale" signs in the French Quarter, tell some of the rest.

During the day, the streets are lined with construction trucks and vans.  Insurance vehicles are easy to spot.   

If you've already given a gift to a Hurricane Katrina fund, you might be able to give a more important gift.  You can go to New Orleans.  NOLA needs hope.  It's not moving fast enough.  No one knows where to start.   But many hotel rooms are available; great restaurants and shops are open.

It's easy to say yes to a Bloody Mary at breakfast and to a $ 3 tip for a $ 7 cab ride.

They need you to say yes.   Yes to New Orleans.

      

Photo by Sonja Howle

The fountain and sculpture behind Cafe du Monde across from Jackson Square. 

Don't Mess with Texas ... Rocks

In last week's San Antonio Express-News was an article about a Canadian citizen who withdrew his offer on E-bay of a rock from the historic Alamo.  The rock was about 1" in diameter and the bidding began on Monday, January 30, 2006.  The starting bid was $ 499.99 and had increased to $ 525.99 when the offer was canceled by the seller Tuesday evening, the 31st.

The response was more than the seller had anticipated.  The seller responded (in an e-mail to the Express-News), "I did not realize the magnitude and importance" of the matter and he apologized for being ignorant.  Later there were some questions as to the authenticity of the rock -- maybe it wasn't from the Alamo, maybe it had been knocked off an Alamo wall by kids near the Crockett Hotel.

Over 2.5 million people visit The Alamo each year.  The Daughters of the Republic of Texas have been responsible for it's "purchase, care and restoration" since 1905.

The historic hotels which surround Alamo Plaza ... The Emily Morgan, The Crockett and The Menger have rich histories ... with The Menger being one of the oldest, built in 1859.   

Originally known as the Mission San Antonio de Valero, the Alamo (Spanish for "Cottonwood") was built at its present location in 1724.  On February 23, 1836, the Texas Revolution continued at the Battle of the Alamo between Texians,Tejanos and Santa Anna's Mexican army.

Colonel William B. Travis wrote, in one of the last letters to leave the Alamo during the battle, "Victory or Death!"  For the 130-150 defenders, including Travis, Jim Bowie and David Crockett, death arrived at sunrise on March 6, 1836, 13 days after the battle had begun.

Almost two months later, Sam Houston's Texas army defeated the Mexican army and captured Santa Anna the following day.  Texas had won its independence.  "Remember the Alamo!" was a cry of battle.

"People worldwide continue to remember the Alamo as a heroic struggle against overwhelming odds -- a place where men made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.  For this reason The Alamo remains hallowed ground and the Shrine of Texas Liberty."

                                                        -www.thealamo.org

I'm struck by the realization that some of our most glorious victories in life come after some of our most tragic defeats and failures.  The power of these defeats and failures should be embraced, not forgotten.  When Independence is declared, the battle is just beginning. 

Ed

"Know something, sugar?
Stories only happen to people who can tell them."
                                                                     - Allan Gurganus

There's a great story about Ed in the bible, (Joshua, Chapter 22).

In the story, Joshua sends 3 tribes home to their land east of the Jordan.  The three tribes built a landmark, an altar, on the west side of the Jordan before they crossed.  Because the river was a natural boundary, they built it to remind future generations that they all served the same God. 

When the 9 remaining tribes saw the altar that had been constructed on their portion of the Jordan, they were ready to go to war with the 3 tribes.  They believed the altar to be a form of rebellion.

When the 3 tribes explained their intention for building the landmark and what it symbolized  -- everything was fine.  In fact, all 12 tribes rejoiced.  They gave the landmark a name:  "Ed" (A Witness) between us that the Lord is God.

Stories and narratives are an overlooked power in successful architecture and real estate developments.

If success is judged in national acclaim, awards and "historic landmark" designation, let me tell you about one architect who understood this power.

Works from this architect -

• Eleven Works have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places
• Five have been designated National Historic Landmarks "in recognition of their exceptional value to the nation"

She was employed to design luxurious resorts, destination towers, art studios, lodges, gift shops, elegant restaurants, even distinctive china by one of the country's first chain restaurant and hotel operators.  Her works (produced from 1900 to 1958) are still as magical (and desirable) today as they were when they celebrated their "grand openings."

Every project started with a story, with authenticity and indigenous materials -- true to the landscape and the cultures of the regions who would help design and build, so that the symbolism and sacred nature of their stories were shared.

That magic helped turn worthless real estate into the hopes and dreams of a nation.

It helped build Los Angeles from less than 175,000 in 1900 to what it is today.

Her name was Mary Jane Elizabeth Colter.  An American Visionary.

Some architects tell me "they act as historian/interpreter to create the experience for the space."

Most of the time, I see their projects and just want to tell them about "Ed."

Painting: Walt Ufer's Mirrored Lake Desert

For more about Colter, click here: www.npr.org

 

30 Rock

In 1985 Rockefeller Center was designated a National Historic Landmark.
But by the mid-1990s the center had been placed in bankruptcy.

Built boldly in 1931 -- just a short time after the 1929 stock market crash -- the project provided jobs for over 75,000 workers.  It employed artists from all over the world to create the magnificent features on the art-deco monuments that would extend six square blocks from Fifth Avenue to the Avenue of the Americas in downtown Manhattan.  It's one of the most recogniable commericial developments in the world.

On November 1st, they celebrated the icing on the cake, the opening of the grand observation deck , "Top of the Rock," complete with the addition of artistic and experiential elements from Swarovski and Target.

Thanks to the grand restorative vision and implementation by Tishman Speyer, the center is now back to its grand scale, office occupancy has increased from 86% in the mid-1990s to nearly 97% today. 

"It's home to annual public art installations, ice skating, concerts in Radio City Music Hall, live television broadcasts (NBC's Headquarters) and the lighting of the most famous Christmas tree in the world. It has over 100 major sculptures, murals, metalwork and enamels – including Lee Lawrie's Atlas and Paul Manship's Prometheus."  For more about the magnificent collection of art, click here then click on the "History" tab.

Over 250,000 people a day pass through Rockefeller Center, and the opening of the Top of the Rock is expected to increase that number and make it one of the highlights of the New York adventure.

Why should we create a sense of place, or honor an existing historic legacy, or add artistic elements in our public spaces?

Monetary Benefits

• Increased rents and occupancy levels, higher return on investment.
• New Revenue Stream at Top of the Rock -- $ 12 for Adults and $ 9 for Children 6-12. 
• Merchandising Opportunities -- a New Line of Merchandise was created by the Designers at Target.
• Increase in number of people who come to New York, visit the Observation Deck of Rockefeller Center, and spend money with any of the restaurants and upscale retailers at the Center, and in New York.
• The free "word of mouth" and publicity generated by projects like this is "priceless."
  • Today's Civic Generation is much more impressed with what they read or hear than with a television ad.

Aesthetic Benefits

• People enjoy working and living in creative environments.
• Cultural Enrichment
• The sense of History and Place provides a higher level of employee/citizen morale.
• It provides the foundations for a corporate legacy ... lasting many generations.

"In our increasingly mechanized and computerized world, the arts afford a measure of consolation and reassurance to our individuality, a measure of beauty and human emotion that can reach and move most men. 
They are indispensable to the achievement of our great underlying concern for the individual, for the fullest development of the potential hidden in every human being."

                        - David Rockefeller, Former President and Chairman of The Chase Manhattan Bank and Founder of the Business Committee for the Arts, Inc.

 

 

 

Photo of the 2005 Christmas Tree courtesy of wnbc.com.

 

Man versus Machine

As Henry Ford and artist Charles Sheeler were celebrating the age of the machine, (see November 21, 2005 Post, The Art of Industry and Humanity) the fear of the "vanishing American" led America southwest to nature and the native. 

Robert Hughes, the noted art critic for Times Magazine for decades, said this in his 1997 American Visions, "As the desire for the mechanized, impersonal and abstractly urban images developed in the 1920s, so did its opposite: an interest in what was primal, 'primitive.' mythic and linked to the natural world."

He continues, "Where could you go in America to feel such vibrations?  The answer lay in the Southwest, and particularly in New Mexico, around Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos.... early American modernists ... rode the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to the desert after World War I:  Marsden Hartley, John Marin, and most famously, Georgia O'Keeffe all went there."

By this time, 1915, the Santa Fe Railway and the Fred Harvey Company had built a cultural tourism empire.

• The Santa Fe and Harvey architects and builders along the route had inspired the city of Santa Fe to hire archaeologist Sylvanus Morley to create a style of architecture that would be more enticing to tourists (Santa Fe was not on the main line, and although a spur was built in 1880, unlike other cities with access to the transportation artery the population had decreased from 1880-1912.)   

• An innovative Scot, who had married a Santa Fe Railway executive's daughter, had created detours for travelers since it was a 4 day ride from Chicago to Los Angeles.  At various destinations along the rail line, the Harvey Indian Detours, with drivers dressed like cowboys and Couriers, well-educated women dressed in the finest turquoise, would host the tours to Pueblos. Each pueblo culture had stories to tell and art to sell.

• By this time the Santa Fe Railway's Advertising Director, William Simpson, had purchased nearly 300 of the 600 works he would purchase from 1900-1933, primarily from the Taos Society and Santa Fe artists, to be used on annual calendars, in their advertising, in the depots and offices, on posters and in the many books which would be published by the Santa Fe Railway and the Fred Harvey Company about the Native American cultures along that ribbon of rail and about the historic missions (and fiestas) located throughout California.

• The revolutionary hotel concepts of The Alvarado in Albuquerque, the El Tovar and Hopi House on the south rim of the Grand Canyon and La Fonda in Santa Fe had made their mark in the hearts and minds of travelers ... they'd say this about their travels on the line and the Fred Harvey Service -- "There is but one Santa Fe."

• Artists and writers, like Mable Dodge Luhan, had been changed by the New Mexico landscape.  Luhan, who had married a Native American, had believed she was to become a link between the cultures.  The Taos Society and the Santa Fe Modernists, successful artists who had come to Taos as early as 1898, had created art from uniquely American landscapes and models.

If this was Disneyland in the Desert it wasn't built on the magic of make-believe; it was built on the magic of authenticity, reality, history and honor.  It was the foundation of their economy, their commerce.

It helped build the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway from $ 30 million a year in sales in 1900 to nearly $ 300 million a year in sales just 30 years later, the year of the stock market crash.

Today we have new machines to celebrate and new communities to build, on (the) line and off.

"As the desire for the mechanized, impersonal and abstractly urban images developed in the 1920s, so did its opposite: an interest in what was primal, 'primitive,' mythic and linked to the natural world."

Remember, the 1920s began the Civic Generation of 1923-1963, just as 2003 rang in the new century with the Civic Cycle of 2003-2043.

Is your world a little too mechanized and impersonal?

We can help you find your way back.

Moonlight Meditation is featured here, by E. Irving Couse, one of the founding members of The Taos Society of Artists   

A Mouse to Get you There

Behind the Magic:  50 Years of Magic
at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan
September 30, 2005 - January 1, 2006

Walt took two trips to Dearborn, Michigan in the 1940s.  On the train on the way back to Los Angeles, he made notes about his dream, Mickey Mouse Park.

He had seen, at the Henry Ford Museum's Greenfield Village in Dearborn, the Main Street Exhibit, the Lagoon (shades of Pirates of the Caribbean) and the historic steam engine train (yes, it runs all over Disneyland).  They were three of his favorites and were incorporated into his plan.

Henry Ford and Walt Disney shared these core values --

• preservation of the past
• creating a sense of place
• innovation

Over 500 million people from all over the world have visited a Disney theme park in the past 50 years.  Besides the original in Anaheim, California, Disney's dream now extends to Orlando, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong and on the high seas with Disney's Cruise Line.

The Henry Ford Museum's Greenfield Village contains the inspiration for key elements throughout Disney's parks, but has had far fewer visitors throughout its 75 year history.

Not meaning to downplay the importance and relevance of the Ford Museum, let's try something.

Based on the 2004 annual report, the Museum had about 750,000 visitors last year.  If you extend this number to the age of the museum, 75 years, the museum may have had about 56,250,000 visitors throughout its history.

Ticket price for the museum - around $ 20 (2005 Prices)
So that's $ 20 x 56,250,000 visitors = $ 1,125,000,000

Not bad ... but if the average ticket price (over 50 years) for a one-day Disney adventure is $ 35
That's $ 35 x 500,000,000 visitors = $ 17,500,000,000

(The One-Day Park Hopper Pass is actually now $ 76 for Kids 10 and Older.)

There are differences ... besides a mouse to get you there.

Walt Disney and his team of Imagineers took things Disney loved and extended them. A dear friend we loved and trusted would be our host and our guide.

Walt knew.  We don't just want to ride the train, or to see the hometown we grew up in or ride on a boat in a lagoon. 

We want magic.

What's the power of a little magic, to the bottom line?

PS.  Noted Times art critic Robert Hughes, in his 1997 book American Visions, tells us there was another company who was as creative and successful as Disney at this form of "theme-driven" tourism.  Would you like to know more and learn how you can create a little magic of your own?   

Star Spangled Branding

 

Summer, 1813, Fort McHenry, Maryland - Major George Armistead arrives to command the Fort and commissions a flag big enough "that the British would have no trouble seeing it from a distance."

Mary Young Pickersgill and her thirteen year old daughter made the flag and delivered it to the Fort in August of 1813.  It was 30 feet by 42 feet (about a quarter the size of a basketball court) with 15 stars, two feet from point to point; it's stripes were also two feet wide, eight red and seven white.  They had sewn the flag together on the malthouse floor of Claggett's Brewery.   It cost $ 405.90.

In the midst of the War of 1812, in August of the following year, 1814, the British had invaded Washington; the flames of the burning Capitol and White House in Washington, DC could be seen by the men at Fort McHenry, 40 miles away.

A month later, the British fleet arrived to destroy Fort McHenry.  At dawn on September 14, Francis Scott Key, a young lawyer and poet, wrote his impression of being on the river, looking onto the bombing at Fort McHenry and seeing the flag still wave -- indicating that Fort McHenry had not surrendered and when the bombing stopped, he knew the British had abandoned this costly battle on land and sea. 

Key's poem, The "Defense of Fort McHenry" was published in a local newspaper about a week later and sung in Baltimore by an actor at a special public performance for the first time in October, where the name was changed to The Star Spangled Banner.

"Key's song 'The Star Spangled Banner' did more than give the American flag a name; it changed the way Americans looked at their flag.  In the early 1800s, Americans, like people in other countries, considered a national flag simply a military or naval emblem.  But as the nation matured, Americans used the flag more and more to express their understanding of what the United States stood for.  For many people today, the flag embodies the nation's founding ideals -- liberty, democracy and equality.  Although there are other patriotic symbols, the flag stands above them all."

The symbol, the story, the song ... without these, what would the flag have been?
(Salience, Relevance, Associative Memory)
Remember, The Star Spangled Banner and our focus on the flag open almost every sporting event in our nation. (Repetition)

Does your symbol sing, or is it just another big flag?

Source:  http://americanhistory.si.edu

 

Bruce Lee Bronze for Bosnia

Mostar, Bosnia, July 20th, 2003 -- On the thirtieth anniversary of the death of kung fu legend Bruce Lee, members of the Urban Movement Mostar held a public forum to discuss a monument to a "man who has been simply loved by everyone".

The monument was approved, a life-size bronze of Bruce Lee, in the defensive judo position.  Today, Veselin Gatalo, the president of the Urban Movement told NPR's Robert Seigel that it is not a monument to an actor, or to his home country of China.  It's a monument to an idea. The idea of Universal Justice.  It's a monument to the idea that the good of justice, knowledge, honesty and good intention can fight against the evil of corruption and ignorance.

Urban Movement Mostar was formed in 1999, in part to unite the region following two decades of civil war between the western Catholic Croatians and the eastern Muslim Bosniacs.

The Urban Movement believes, "Today, when all the moral values have collapsed, when children walk around armed with guns, criminals being their role models, the monument to Bruce Lee in the heart of the City of Mostar would be a reminder of children's dreams of a more just world where sheer force would not be the value that matters, but rather the skill, speed and power of will of the man who fought for justice."

Bruce Lee is the hero from their childhoods.  He holds the core values they still hold dear, even in an age of political myths and urban devastation.

Their tools in this fight for unification: "The tools used by the Urban Movement initiative are radio, television, press, literature, and various artistic actions."

The power of art in communicating core values.

To hear the NPR story, click here:  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4845621

Excerpts from the texts of www.bljesak.info website   
Photo:  http://www.imdb.com

St. Andrews Tribute in Georgia

1921, St. Andrews, Scotland, The Final Day of the British Open -- Bobby Jones (Robert Tyre Jones, Jr.) tore up his official scorecard and walked off the course, refusing to complete the round.  He'd told his Scottish caddy he hated the course and would never play there again.

What makes St. Andrews so special?  She is the home of golf, the place where legends are made.  She is the legend herself.  Her tight fairways, her small greens, her "Royal and Ancient" past.  She's hosted kings and princes and made kings and princes of ordinary men.  She can be intimidating, as 19 year-old Bobby Jones learned; but to embrace her is to embrace and learn to love yourself ... not always an easy task.

Bobby Jones did walk the fairways of St. Andrews again.  He won The British Open at St. Andrews in 1926, 1927 and 1930.  He had learned to love her; he built a course near his home in America in tribute, in her honor ... The Augusta National, the home of The Masters.

The art of golf, the culture of southern style, the community of Augusta, the commerce that would follow -- Augusta would never be the same.

The Masters is the only major PGA tournament whose home is always the same.  "The Masters" means "Augusta" and "Augusta" means "The Masters."  Bobby Jones and Alister MacKenzie built this course specifically for this grand and glorious tournament, held every year in April since 1934.

Stephen King once wrote that "the best way to learn about a new place is to know what it dreams of."

These acres in Augusta dreamed of presenting ordinary men with green jackets and making them princes and kings.   

And, Robert Tyre Jones, Jr. and Alister MacKenzie were American Visionaries.

Photo:  http://www.standrews.org.uk/