Screaming With Quiet Talent, Susan Geissler Makes Her Mark

Geissler’s studio is front row seat on Main Street for Fireman’s Field Day parade Youngstown, NY

Susan Geissler's Freedom Crossing, Lewiston, New York

Freedom Crossing, Lewiston, New York

Susan Geissler with miniatures in her studio Youngstown, NY

To come upon a screamingly talented yet humble artist in a quiet storefront studio on Main Street in the sleepy western frontier village of Youngstown, New York is a contextual experience that dazzles the senses. The town has one flashing stop light. The emerald green Niagara river flows parallel to the Main Street and spills powerfully, yet quietly into the blue expanse of the great Lake Ontario . Surrounding farms offer fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the season while fishermen venture forth and sailors race across the waters between Canada and the United States sharing this joy of the fresh water sports. Steeped in history, this area marks significant battles between British, French and American troops trading occupancy over the land for ages.
Susan Geissler is a local artist and her outstanding larger than life sculptures have entertained, provoked and educated her public all across America far from this quiet rural pocket of western New York. Proud, loud can can dancers that have been commissioned to travel aboard cruise ships to teachers reading patiently to students atop colorful alphabet blocks, Geissler captivates her audience.
She’s funny and self-effacing – brilliantly talented and sensitive. She sees amazingly intimate detail in anything that she selects to depict. Water turtles balancing on logs, carp swimming with nymphs, cheetahs lanky and elegant bodies stalking, butlers at your service, sunbathers reclining in camaraderie, her subjects are as real and varied as her imagination and real life can provide.
We strolled along the waterfront park in Lewiston just up the road to the very compelling Freedom Crossing Monument Installation. The intention was to “honor and pay tribute to the enslaved, who against all odds, sought a new life of freedom, and to the local volunteers who protected and helped them on their journey.” A bit larger than life, this action scene filled with desperate emotion captures the plight of escaping slaves on their way to freedom via the underground.
In addition to honor and pay tribute, this important sculpture is intended to “highlight and celebrate the historical importance of the Niagara River as a gateway to freedom on the Underground Railroad. Once fugitive slaves crossed the river, they were free forever.” This multi figure passionate study of a scene depicting “ the moment in time when fugitive slaves saw Canada for the first time after traveling hundreds of treacherous miles, avoiding slave catchers who were paid to capture and return them to the South.”
The Historical Society of Lewiston, New York continues to describe “handing the baby to the fugitive mother is Josiah Tryon (1798-1886), Lewiston’s volunteer “station master” for the Underground Railroad. A man of simple means, Tryon was quiet, humble and religious. By secretly escorting the slaves to freedom in his rowboat under the cover of darkness, he gave them hope and became a champion of justice and equality. He truly had a rainbow heart, embracing people of all colors and creeds.”
“With her outstretched arm pointing to Canada, Laura Eastman is the iconic heroine in the historical fiction book, “Freedom Crossing”. Laura has become the symbol of the triumph of the human spirit over oppression.”
From that historic and incredibly important portrayal of a time in history to the sculpture of long-haired, muscular Friesian (also Frisian) horses quietly grazing in a pasture just minutes from her studio, Geissler loves her subjects. She knows her subjects and she feels what they might be feeling to the best of her ability to do so.
Never been to Niagara Falls? Take a trip and make your way another 25 minutes along the river to Youngstown and the Old Fort Niagara. On your way, stop along the short stretch of Main Street and have a latte, maybe a grilled cheese sandwich, a beer and an ice cream cone on the corner and see the art in the window at Susan Geissler’s magical studio and if you’re fortunate and she’s there – you’ll meet an extraordinary individual who will welcome you with modest enthusiasm and quietly express her limitless talents and present fascinatingly animated subjects to dazzle your senses!

Whacky WATER PARTY BALL fun at the NM State Fair!!!

This ingenious creation – so much fun to watch – must be crazy to participate! Although the weight limit is 200lbs, we did not see any adults partake while we watched the kids go wild!! Splashing water from the shallow pool scattered with clear plastic orbs inside of each are kids of all ages rolling and running like hamsters on a wheel! Some will lunge at the walls inside of these giant bubbles thrusting themselves against the side and instantly rolling down to the bottom…while others relax and float amidst the insanity around them. It’s like running on water! Standing is a trick, challenging the most balanced of ballerinas. You can hear the squeals and laughter coming from both the kids and the on-lookers! It was incredible entertainment for all. And the time allotted is quite generous – great value for your Fair dollar!
Aside from the energized activity of it all, it reminded me of Chihuly’s colorful glass orbs floating gracefully in the reflecting pool at the St. Louis Botanical Gardens during a magnificent site exhibit a couple of years ago. So to the designers of this refreshingly fabulous feature at the Fair – touché! It should be the best backyard birthday party favorite for adults and kids alike!

Fine Art and Fun Art at the New Mexico State Fair

Graphic inflated animation at the NM State Fair

Take your own fun art shots at the Fair!

Its Fair time and it’s a sensory extravaganza! See the sights, the colors and lights! The sounds of kids screaming with squeals of delight! From corn dogs to turkey drums and pizza galore it’s a feeding frenzy for all ages – check your diet at the door!
It’s really so exciting and with the weather cooperating – it’s a must! A combination of New Mexico’s finest, mixed with funky products and crazy food stuffs! The colors and products presented by the vendors create a tapestry of form and fun. There are fine art exhibits and walls of balloon cartoon characters for sale, Rastafarian bananas and white tigers to win. Signs, lights, graphics, music, barkers, animals, vegetables, minerals and more – the festivities are magical. The slogan tells us, “It’s like all the holidays rolled into one!”
The season’s end of summer’s bounty brings feelings of home and hearth as the air takes a turn toward the fall. Harvest time, Indian summer, its flowers and sky, pumpkins and cider. Cinnamon from the German nut roaster wafts through the air. International shows like the incredible flying Chinese acrobats and our own macho cowboys of the rodeo all present fine skill and athletic prowess – defying gravity and displaying artful dance. Big cats and little dogs the lions pace and perform and the dogs dash and leap for joy. It’s a wild time in the old town tonight and for the next few…you have through the 25th!
So get out there and eat a turkey leg and bite off some cotton candy, swig a brew and pop fists full of kettle corn then take some photos and blow them up! Wall art – here’s my example. Dora meets Sponge Bob and Spider man creating an animated, inflated collage – this colorful pattern of camp cartoon design! Suitable for framing!

One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Treasure – Refinishing

My cousin loves this tedious, but very gratifying work. For years we have seen the results of his patient attention to detail as he peels away and rubs clean the layers of film that obscure once fine pieces of wood furniture. From family pieces passed down to antique finds brought back from Scotland after a memorable Navy tour and even yard sales in the neighborhood, he has labored over these pieces resulting in exquisite finished products.
Recently while visiting our historical family village of Youngstown, New York we were invited to dinner at the home of friends who excitedly exclaimed how they had restored their antique family dining room furniture to a luster that was quite amazing. We were impressed with the soft eggshell finish – not shiny with inappropriate application – still retaining the soft patina of age but clean and very much refreshed from years of life’s layers.
Wabi Sabi, the Japanese word for things of beauty that have been worn with use…a softness that shows the age and years of employment and often enjoyment is a compliment to old things. The same could be said of this fine furniture. These hand crafted pieces purchased by my friend’s grandmother during the depression (“a lot of money for that time – she earned the money by selling live chickens to hotels and restaurants in Niagara Falls and up at the market”) – two pieces, a buffet and a china cabinet, had been used for ages through generations of a large family’s gatherings and maintained well through the years. But despite the good care, age had taken its toll on the finish obscuring the fine wood and leaving a film that was not necessarily an asset to the character.

There is a fine line between refinishing beyond recognition and restoring with historical reverence. Practicing the many options in-between is where most people find themselves. Knowing what you have is an important first step. Sites like this Refinish Wizard at http://www.refinishwizard.com offer helpful information for getting started. For example, it would be unfortunate to irrevocably alter the finish of a piece that has priceless value if properly addressed.
My friends’ method was very simple and with a little care and concentration using steel wool with a cloth (and good ventilation), the results were fantastic! Visit http://www.howardproducts.com/restora.htm for details of the process.

I’m a saver – not a hoarder, thank you – but I value old things, family things, and I believe that there is much to be said, felt, and shared by knowing that certain items have been passed down through the generations by one’s very own family. And if not YOUR family, to find something that has endured through the generations in varying forms of survival causes pause to wonder about where it started and where it has been. When consulting with clients, I am the one to retrieve the piece they left out on the curb for pick-up, the one who pulls something from a closet or storage shed to be re-purposed in a more prominent place in the home. I thoroughly enjoy showing people the potential of forgotten pieces, rearranging to emphasize different things and alter the perception of interesting older pieces.
In another direction, it might seem a sacrilege to some to paint a piece. Even in the most contemporary settings, if the original finish isn’t desirable, painting an old piece can be a creative solution. Whether a glossy bold finish that allows the form to speak through from the past into the design world of the most progressive interiors or a layered, sanded paint process that leaves the piece rendered in a shabby chic-type mode, the options are many.
I hesitate to relate these decisions to an economic reality, however, the practical aspects of saving cost by protecting rather than destroying, refurbishing versus neglecting, renewing instead of replacing, saving rather than tossing…are popular mantras when things get tough. Yes, there are real cost-saving economic reasons to practice these salvaging solutions. But beyond that – I see the value regardless of one’s economic situation. Please take away from this the value, charm, history and sensibility of caring for old pieces.
The design space between the old and the new is where you’ll find the art of successful eclecticism – a place where everything can work based upon the proper balance and context. Watch for that in an up-coming rant!

A “Spirited” Response to Steve Perry’s “What Makes a Good Teacher” piece in Southwest’s Spirit In-Flight Magazine, September 2011

It is a timely coincidence that last night we were engaged in a lively conversation about education. Today as I fly from Buffalo to Tampa on a circuitous route to Albuquerque, I am captivated by the articles on education in this month’s Spirit magazine. In Perry’s article, he tells of how at his Capital Preparatory Magnet School in Hartford Connecticut, judged highly successful by its achievements in sending 100% of its graduates to college, his mission is just that. And maybe it’s because it is a school designed to prepare its kids to go to college that I will acknowledge that distinction. However, as our conversation last night illuminated, what are we doing when we press so hard to impress kids about going to college when we might be over-zealous and over-look their aptitude better placed elsewhere?
For example, kids with great math brains…in the adjoining article, America’s Best Teachers compiled by the Spirit editors, there is a teacher cited in Alamagordo, NM who was being directed toward an engineering degree and the post college practice thereof who, during the continuing education process, called a halt to the stream through which the direction of her life had been channeled and said – paraphrased – “wait a minute, I’ve always loved to teach and want to teach it not practice math as an engineer.” As Perry says of teachers “This isn’t the life she chose, it’s the life that chose her.”
The same could and should be said on behalf of each student. The analysis of each student’s potential paired with their interest by educators during the process of the first 12 years should be pairing their aptitude with passion! Students should pursue that which chooses them – not the other way around – especially if it is chosen for them by others.
This brings me to my point that there are many who are NOT destined for college – a math whiz who would rather work with his hands – might be better suited for the trades. We are emphasizing college and negating the value of the trades. As an Interior Designer I work with these talented and very valuable people daily. A good trades person is worth their weight and beyond in the success of any project. We have diminished the value of the trades so severely that young people do not want to follow in the footsteps of their parents and grandparents, mentors or benefactors who not only had the aptitude but set an example and practiced their trades with art and precision, pride and accomplishment. There are good and less so as in all fields – the better are rewarded with the better positions and the better contracts. It only takes examples of workmanship and finished products to see which are which. A well crafted piece or project done to specification or beyond, on time and within budget is valuable on up the ladder of the domino effect. The buyer, the investor, the bank, the end user all recognize the benefits of a job well done -and they should be rewarded accordingly. It’s not always apples to apples. Yet, the low bid might be perfectly well done. But the proof will bear out every time.
I now think of the popular series on the Discovery Channel, Dirty Jobs. Apprentice to these difficult, and unpleasant jobs, Mike Rowe participates in these less than popular but very critical positions to empathize with them and show appreciation for what they do. Turned down by many networks, this program was perhaps too down in the trenches for many of the executives to buy into…but Discovery saw a REAL drama. The drama of real people doing real jobs that most people would shun – the jobs and the people who do them -sad, but true fact. And, many are unseen and therefore go unrecognized. Without these people taking these jobs we would be in dire straits just like the scenarios about if all the illegal Mexicans were vanquished over-night – we would be stopped in our tracks! We are guilty of encouraging that which we rally against all the time – floods of workers from other countries taking our jobs. Are we becoming so elitist that we cannot encourage and support, praise, and recognize all the important work done by every individual to make our society run smoothly? And educators seem to be missing the concept to really encourage students to find their niche among the myriad necessary positions and support their pursuit accordingly.
It’s like University Professors – they and their institutions benefit from their being published, so they skip class, leaving the teaching to the students while they commune with peers and bury themselves in self-important writings…what’s wrong with this picture?
Our high school educators, councilors and administrators are so concerned with the percentage of students entering college from their institutions, classrooms, programs, etc, that they have completely left the many individuals – too many – lost in the stream. And while losing those individuals in the stream of college bound, we are losing the valuable trades that built this country and the civilized world. Many of these students are lost without a sense of direction, purpose and worse – means of gratifying self-support.
Previously, I have blogged about the role of the AGC (Association of General Contractors), that they invest in something like regionally placed summer camps to introduce and teach kids the trades. It would certainly be in their best interest to have well-trained and enthusiastic newcomers to the field. They could and should also participate in a nationwide emphasis on the revitalization of vocational classes in public schools.
In this time of economical desperation – and even if it were NOT, it is time to redirect some of this educational energy toward encouraging and strengthening all of our citizens’ aptitudes and get them to work!