TRAVEL
Savannah News-Press • Sund
ortrait
Marty Shuter
SCAD Grad
Moving To
'Land Beyond
9
The River
A
rtist Michael Chad Barrett will
be leaving Savannah soon. The
1993 SCAD graduate is going to
pursue his artistic dreams in
the Big Apple. He doesn't know exactly
what he's going to do once he gets there.
But one thing is for sure, the lanky
young man plans to learn more about
art, get more ideas and experiment with
new things in his work.
Currently, Barrett is showing his
most recent works at Exhibit A Gallery,
340 Bull St., through the end of the
month. This is his last hurrah in Savannah. And Barrett titled the show "Land
Beyond-the River" - words for him that
are synonymous with pursuing an art
career outside this city.
After a four-year art degree, Barrett
is not an expert with brushwork, color or
detail. But his work is often an interesting combination of decorative art, collage, text and fine art/Barrett frames
all his work himself, And the painted
and decorated frames are an integral
part of the completed work.
His art can be broken down into four
groups - landscapes, people, flowers
and collage pieces. The landscapes depicting mellow and hazy Lowcountry
scenes - are some of the more intriguing pieces in the show Much of the intrigue comes from the juxtaposition of
the painted frames and block lettering
set against the small landscape paintings.
Some of the text comes from a poetry
book Barrett said he bought at a yard
sale back home. Barrett grew up in
Northeast Georgia in the small town of
Baldwin. It's a "blink and you'll miss it"
kind of town, he explained. The woman
who wrote the diary between 1901 and
1920 grew up in Habersham County,
home to Baldwin. She never married.
Her memoirs, mostly poetry and verse,
remind Barrett of home.
This text, often cryptic, adds a mysterious and thoughtful note to his landscapes.
Barrett likes the idea of using text in
his work. The majority of his pieces include what at first appear to be cursive
writing covering much of the canvas,
somewhat hidden under layers of paint.
Upon examination, the marks only imitate handwriting. The curving lines don't
form words or even letters.
The "text" works as decorative elements in his pieces, he said. He also
thinks the markings make the viewer
examine the work more closely. Such
elements, innovative trademarks in his
work, also make Barrett's show intriguing.
There are several successful works in
the show, one of which is a combination
of a sketched portrait of. a stereotypical
Japanese Geisha woman juxtaposed
with a full-length painted portrait of the
woman. "Double Portrait of a Culture"
is a result of Barrett's fascination with
Oriental culture and his interest in decorative Japanese art, he said.
However, the piece works on a number of levels. In some ways, it seems to
be a pop art statement with a familiar or
stereotypical image. An empty pack of
American cigarettes reminds us of the
Japan's fascination for anything American and our own pop art that makes
icons out of familiar brands.
The work also has political overtones.
The block lettering around the painting
is a poem about a sunbeam "lighting up
the darkness, shattering the gloom," as
if to remind us that women are often depicted as ornaments, valued only for
their pretty faces.
Not all of his paintings and drawings
work on so many levels, but most all are
interesting.
Good luck in Manhattan, Chad.
A Sampling of City Market: A group
show by Art Center artists in City Market (plus a few others) is now on exhibit
in the Art Center Gallery, 20 W Jefferson St. The exhibit showcases the work
of almost every studio artist in City
Market. It's a good opportunity for
someone who hasn't been to see the studios to get an idea of what is there.
The colorful thickly painted flower
still-life by Sharon Saseen, the Haitian
village-scape by Alix Baptiste and the
photo portrait of Molly by Jimmy
Holmes are typical of the works you
might see in the respective artists' studios; or in the case of Saseen, in the Signature Gallery in City Market.
Since last summer's group show, six
new artists have opened studios in City
• See ARTS, Page 2F
Savannah photo focuses
attention on sculptor
Section F
rtist
By GENE DOWNS
Features Writer
H
er name is Bird
Girl, and her
mystery is her
fame.
Jack Leigh's
photograph of a
cemetery statue
on the cover of
the book "Midnight in the Garden of Good and
Evil" has done
two things: inspired imitators (a model struck the
pose, holding pocketbooks, for a local fund-raiser's publicity posters)
and become a symbol of Savannah.
For all its local fame, however,
the statue's past was unknown here.
And it never may have emerged if
Judy Gummere, a librarian from
Lake Forest, 111., hadn't seen a
newspaper article about Leigh's
photo.
Gummere was visiting her
daughter and friends in Savannah
When she saw the article She
thought she recognized the statue as
the work of an accomplished sculptor from her hometown north of Chicago.
Back home, Gummere searched
the library until she found a copy of
"For Gardens and Other Places:
The Sculpture of Sylvia Shaw Judson." The cover was a photo of Bird
Girl, bathed in a green wash oddly
like that of the "Midnight" cover.
The connection was made.
Gummere learned that three Bird
Girls are known to exist. One is in
Savannah; two are in Illinois, where
Judson's story begins.
• '• •
Sylvia Shaw was born in 1897 into
a family of artists. Her father, Howard Van Doren Shaw, was an architect; her mother, Frances Wells
Shaw, was a poet and writer.
Sylvia was the middle child,
three years younger than Evelyn and 15 years older than Theodora. The family spent summers at
Ragdale, an estate in Lake Forest, where the sisters played croquet and tennis, practiced the piano, took hayrides, and made cider with orchard
apples.
Ragdale is like Savannah: a place where time,
though it can't be made to stand still, has been
slowed.
Sylvia Shaw Judson and her daughter Alice
Hayes established the Ragdale Foundation in
1976, and today the estate is a retreat for artists,
writers and composers.
But physically it is as it was at the turn of the
century. The trees are different, of course. And
with so many artists in the family, the statues in
the yard were certain to be nomadic. Otherwise,
the main house is so little altered that photographs taken at various times in its history are interchangeable; glazed planters on the front porch
in 1902are still in place, and Frances Shaw's embroidered curtains cover the front door panes.
Perhaps the best illustration of Ragdale's hold
on the past is the tale of the clay. In a phone interview, Alice Hayes explained:
"When she (Judson) graduated from the Chicago Art Institute, her father, who was very interested in her being a sculptor, gave her a chest that
was probably 5 feet long and 2 feet deep and full of
an oil-based clay. And everything she made her
whole life, except a few things she carved from
stone or made from other media, everything else
was made out of this clay."
Once the mold for a sculpture was made, "she
would take the clay down and put it back in the
box. It was oil-based so it never dried out. It is
just as good now as it was in 1918 when she got it. I
have a little bit of it left."
Judson's father, like the clay, was a defining
factor in shaping her life and art.
Mary Gray - a researcher and writer who prepared an article about Judson for an encyclopedia
of 400 Chicago-area women artists, to be published
next year said Howard Shaw's influence on his
daughter's artistic development cannot be overestimated easily.
"There is no question that her father decided
she would be an artist," said Gray, who lives in a
Howard Shaw-designed house in Chicago. "But
she was grateful for this She appreciated the direction he pushed her in."
Sylvia was 29 when her father died in 1926.
Five years earlier, she had married lawyer
Clay Judson. They lived in Ragdale's main house
in the summers until 1942, when they installed
heat and made it their permanent home.
Judson's first studio at Ragdale was a replica
of Abraham Lincoln's log cabin homestead in Indiana that came from the 1934 Chicago World's
Fair: it is now the summer home of Hayes and
her husband
Judson's second studio was the meadow studio,
where she sculpted for 35 years. It is still used by
artists visiting Ragdale
Judson crafted scores of sculptures before her
in 1Q78 busts, animal?, children q Madon-
Sfwclal
STORY OF A STATUE: At
top, the cover of the book
sculptor Sylvia Shaw Judson
wrote about her work uses a
picture of one of the three
known copies of her creation
Bird Girl; one copy of the
statue was in Savannah's
Bonaventure Cemetery when
photographer Jack Leigh
photographed it for the cover
of John Berendt's best seller
'Midnight In the Garden of
Good And Evil.1 At left, Sylvia
Shaw Judson. Below,
Ragdale, Judson's Illinois estate where she sculpted for
35 years; today the estate is
a retreat for artists, writers
and composers.
JACK
na and Child, the Stations of the Cross, and garden
pieces. Bird Girl, sculpted in 1938. is in the latter
category
In l>eigh's photograph, the figure, starmg
blankly and holding a bowl in each hand, suggests
Justice weighing good against evil
But the name Bird Girl suggests another pur
pose for the bowls bird baths or feeders
The book cover is "an unlikely place to find her
work," said David Wilkerson, director of the
• See PORTRAIT, Page 2f