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Features Veterans

Sculptor Hopes to Revive the Spirit of the Renaissance in America

Sculptor Sabin Howard sits with the maquette he created for "A Soldier's Journey," the sculptural component of the National World War I Memorial that was unveiled in Washington on Sept. 13, 2024. (Courtesy of Sabin Howard)

Stretching across 58 feet in Washington, D.C.’s Pershing Park is a bronze frieze that portrays “A Soldier’s Journey” through the demands and dangers of World War I. From left to right, 38 life-size human figures relate the experience of a single American soldier: his departure from home, the ordeal of battle and its aftermath, and his return. 

The massive work, unveiled in an illumination ceremony on September 13, was created by Italian American sculptor Sabin Howard, whose lifelong quest is to revive figurative sculpture in the great tradition of the Renaissance. The fact that he has made his case in a large-scale piece commemorating World War I is something Howard finds deeply ironic.

Howard analyzes his full size relief of “A Soldier’s Journey,” featuring 38 figures spread across 58 feet. The figures were cast in bronze for the installed memorial in Washington. (Courtesy of Sabin Howard)

“World War I marked the end of a philosophical thought process that the world is unified by a divine order. With the decimation of 22 million people, you move toward alienation and nihilism, the death of God and the beginning of the modern era,” Howard reflected. “That moment had a huge impact on art. The idea that the figurative is what art is all about was already starting to slide away. After World War I, the figure is no longer a part of the art world. The last moment that figure is paid attention is [during the] Art Deco [movement], and after that you move into abstract art.”

A hundred years later, Howard found himself commemorating in figurative sculpture those sacrifices made during the very event that led to the erasure of figurative art—ironic, indeed, yet somehow apt. “A Soldier’s Journey” is a powerful tribute to the Americans who fought in World War I, while its metaphysical reach “goes back to a previous age and speaks of our connection to the sacred,” Howard said. Its greatest potential: to spark what Howard calls “an American Renaissance revolution.”

Birth, Rebirth

When Howard was 19, he knew he wanted to become a sculptor. (Courtesy of Sabin Howard)

Sabin Howard the man was born in 1963 in New York. But Sabin Howard the sculptor was born precisely at 4 p.m. on October 22, 1982.

“That was the moment I decided to become an artist. I was working in a cabinet-making shop, and I called my dad and told him. He said, ‘How long is this going to last?’ So far, it’s lasted 42 years.” Then 19, Howard did not know how to draw and was unfamiliar with the procedures of the art world. He called an art school to ask about requirements. “They said I needed a portfolio, but I didn’t know what a portfolio was,” he recalled.

All the same, Howard knew what he wanted. He persisted, earning degrees from the Philadelphia College of Art and the New York Academy of Art, and used what he learned in school to build upon what he had already experienced of the great masterpieces of Western art. Because his mother is Italian, he spent many formative years in Italy. There, “I was exposed to the great artists of the Renaissance, and I thought that’s what art is. I decided to make art like the Renaissance masters, especially Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo [da Vinci].” He chose sculpture because in the Renaissance, “everything—drawing, painting, everything—was guided by the three-dimensional energy of sculpture, which has such presence.” 

The Aesthetic of the Figure

Howard sculpts from a live model for his World War I memorial. He recruited combat veterans to be his models. (Superhuman Film Productions)

With his dedication to the Renaissance and figurative art came certain core values. “There are values that govern what art is,” Howard explained. “Art comes from experience, and experience is driven by the divine nature of how the universe is assembled. The artist takes something that stems from that sacred element and that shows something representative of our potential as human beings.”

Howard’s earliest works were sculptures of ancient deities such as Hermes and Aphrodite. In 2011 came the work Howard was convinced would bring him to the art world’s attention. “It was called ‘Apollo,’ a male nude that took 3,500 hours and two models. I thought I had made something comparable to the works of the Italian Renaissance.”

Howard’s “Apollo” was unveiled in a gallery in New York’s Chelsea district, “a huge space with huge glass windows floor-to-ceiling and light pouring out of the windows.” About 300 people showed up for the unveiling. And then, “Nothing. Nothing happened.”

Sabin Howard’s plaster cast “Head of Apollo” for his final bronze statue. (Courtesy of Sabin Howard)

It was a watershed moment in the artist’s life. He decided, “I had to do something different after the ‘Apollo’ because I was really down on myself. I’d worked so hard all those years, and nothing was breaking through.”

Change of Direction

In 2014 came a call from the commission of the National World War I Memorial in Washington, D.C., for proposals by architect-sculptor teams to create a park, incorporating a sculpture, that would commemorate the Americans who fought and died in World War I. In 2015, Howard, then 52, was chosen and teamed up with then-25-year-old architect-in-training Joseph Weishaar. Together, they conceived of a 58-foot-wide frieze that would be placed on a deck raised above a water feature.

Howard began work on the sculpture in January 2016, completing it eight and a half years later. 

Howard sculpts the maquette of “A Soldier’s Journey” at Weta Workshop, New Zealand, in November 2017. (Courtesy of Sabin Howard)

“Those years were dedicated to meetings with the commission and to 25 different iterations of the sculpture. Then came a 10-foot maquette and then another 5-foot version which became the final, green-lighted project. It was a battle,” he said.

One member of the commission suggested that Howard look at Henry Shrady’s bronze statue of Ulysses S. Grant, unveiled in 1924, located at the base of Capitol Hill. “I saw it and liked it and thought, ‘That’s a template I could follow,’” Howard recalled.

But not all figurative sculpture is alike, and Howard faced having to reshape his style. “I had to change from an esoteric, quiet classical style to one that is very vibrant and human and expressive and dramatic and kinetic. That’s a great challenge for an artist.”

Howard spent roughly 75,000 hours to create the figures in the World War I memorial. (Superhuman Film Productions)

Challenging in a different way were the “tortuous and difficult” meetings with the commission as the work progressed through its 25 iterations. “But in the end, it was worth it. It was almost like I had created something that tasted so good but so condensed, like French food. The flavor is very powerful and satiating, too,” he said.

Sculpture for Everyone

Howard sculpting a detail of a soldier’s pants in clay. (Superhuman Film Productions)

Howard called “A Soldier’s Journey” “a break from making sculpture for elites and governments.” His intention was for anyone to be able to connect with it. “An eighth grader with no interest in art will be fascinated by this movie-in-bronze that unfolds as you walk from left to right.” 

At the start, we see a man saying goodbye to his wife and daughter as the daughter hands him his helmet. We move to the right and see him engaged in fierce combat, while men around him are killed, wounded, and gassed. We then see the solemn aftermath of battle, and the return home to wife and daughter.

Details of Sabin’s maquette for “A Soldier’s Journey” displaying the soldier’s farewell. (Courtesy of Sabin Howard)

As the action moves from left to right, the face of the protagonist changes to reflect the different races and ethnic groups that contributed to the war effort. 

Howard’s wife, novelist Traci Slatton Howard, pointed out to him that the implied story of the sculpture parallels the “hero’s journey” story that is universal to the human experience.

Howard compares completing the enormous sculpture after nearly a decade of continuous work to “traveling at 90 miles an hour and then suddenly coming to a stop.” When he finished, he didn’t know what to do next, so he wrote a 750-page book about the experience. 

Details of Sabin’s maquette for “A Soldier’s Journey” displaying the soldier’s return. (Courtesy of Sabin Howard)

He sees “A Soldier’s Journey” as the spear-tip of a potential shift from abstract to figurative sculpture and is not reticent to make his position clear: “Schools, art critics, galleries, and museums are arrogant and ignorant of what art is.” 

To correct that, Howard believes we must re-connect with the divine that is inherent in human nature.

From Nov. Issue, Volume IV

Categories
Features Lifestyle

Mountain Scout Survival School: Be Prepared to Handle Everything from Wilderness Survival to Urban Emergencies

Hobel’s Native American heritage has greatly influenced him. What most people view as ‘‘survival skills’’ are simply ancestral skills in his eyes. (Samira Bouaou)

When disaster strikes, Shane Hobel is the guy you want by your side—or better yet, the guy you want to have taught you how to deal with it.

A former stuntman, bouncer, and motorcycle instructor, Hobel has carved out an interesting route to running Mountain Scout Survival School in upstate New York. Two influences have shaped him since an early age: nature and martial arts. His reverence for nature was instilled by his family and Native American heritage, as well as many elders along the way. He also holds a fifth-degree black belt in traditional Okinawan karate.

He is one of five elite trackers in a nonprofit national tracking team founded by Tom Brown Jr. to find missing persons, including lost children, disoriented hunters, and fugitives. (Once, he tracked down a black panther on the loose in the Palisades, New York.) With no hesitation to crawl and wade through any environment, he’s also the man people hire to look for breaches in their home security; he has also been called on to consult for the U.S. military.

Hobel started teaching survival skills to children in after-school programs, then expanded to adults. Successive waves of interest came from “macho” types, outdoor enthusiasts, survivalists, and families. But the largest growing demographic over the last four or five years has been women.

Hobel considers it his duty to preserve, protect, and pass on the skills he teaches to the next generation. (Samira Bouaou)

Driven by a mama bear instinct, women have grown unsettled by a world that seems anything but predictable, Hobel says, and are taking the initiative on behalf of friends and family. “One woman said, ‘Can you take my husband for 30 days?’” he remembers.

“There’s a quiet desperation of people wanting these skills. They don’t want to be labeled as doomsday preppers or conspiracy theorists—they just know there’s a simple phrase: ‘Being prepared is being responsible.’ Somewhere deep down, there’s a feeling that ‘you can’t expect anybody to come and save you. You just have to take it upon yourself to do these skills,’” he said.

Don’t Panic

It can be easy to feel panic-stricken at the thought of emergency preparedness. But as Hobel points out, those who have adopted a proactive approach toward preparation are already on the way to a healthier mindset.

“If something goes wrong, it’s not going to be a surprise, it’s an anticipated change. … With people who have skills, it becomes just a nice vacation, something that is not so terrifying. It doesn’t have to be extreme survival,” Hobel said.

When it comes to children, it’s especially important that “if something happens, this is not a crisis. This is an exciting adventure.” Be upbeat and positive, and you’ll see that your child is able to keep up with you. “But the moment the child realizes it’s a disaster, they’re not going to give you that energy.”

If you suspect a disaster is about to take place, “Jump in the car, go to Jersey, go to some Airbnb, go have some strawberry shortcake. If nothing happened, you took a day off, good for you. But if something did happen, you’re at an Airbnb with strawberry shortcake and you’re watching the world burn from a distance, but at least you’re smart enough to get out on the first wave.

“So your approach and how you go about it will be the attitude of success. If I start off as a victim, so I will become.”

Hobel shows how to make cordage using a double reverse wrap from found materials. (Samira Bouaou)

Survival Skills Are Ancestral Skills

Under a fall canopy of beeches and maples, Hobel muses about the current state of the world. His reference points: raccoons and squirrels.

In an era of distraction and modern conveniences, it’s easy to become passive, going about life immersed in technology but not necessarily connected to other people. Like raccoons, we are distracted by the newest and shiniest toys and gadgets.

Squirrels, however, think about the future. In the fall, “they’re making provisions now for something that is about to happen. Quite more often than not, they dig up somebody else’s nuts. It’s a symbiotic relationship, but their medicine is thinking forward. And making these provisions is why people are coming here,” he said.

Hobel is hopeful that people are bringing along friends and family. “It’s great support because you can’t do this by yourself.” Going alone would require a very high-level set of skills, he explained.

Mountain Scout Survival School covers typical survival school topics such as shelter, water, fire, and food, but it also teaches tracking, awareness, and movement. (There are legendary tales of men and women who could survive in the wild and move about undetected.)

The outdoor camp at the school shows some of the students’ work: strong lashings to make fishing spears, and tongs (“fancy chopsticks”) to move coals onto short stumps to form drinking cups. As they burn, they create a hollow that can be polished with a river stone. Scale it up and you can imagine how to make a canoe.

“Nature is the great equalizer—fire, cold, hunger, bears—none of those things [care] what your religious status is, your political status, your job title,” Hobel said.

The skills that Hobel feels are his duty to preserve, protect, and pass on are actually not survival skills at their core, but ancestral skills.

Shane Hobel runs Mountain Scout Survival School in Hopewell Junction, N.Y. (Samira Bouaou)

These skills were “extremely sophisticated,” though coming from “what we deem a very primitive time. We are living in a very sophisticated time but we are in fact quite primitive,” Hobel said.

Some Native American prophecies mention a time of upheaval on Earth, marked by food and water shortages, diseases, natural and man-made disasters, and war. After a period of chaos, humanity will find itself in a primitive place again, left to rely on these ancestral skills.

“I do this because I want people to be closer to the earth and live a beautiful, harmonious life. I don’t do this to prepare them for the Armageddon. But they’re empowered just in the event of.”

At his school, people have “a physical space by which they can come, be around the medicine fires, learn these empowering skills.”

 Traditional Knowledge

Ultimately, Hobel wants to pass on the knowledge of these ancestral skills to children, explaining, “I want to put this back in the elementary schools and junior high schools, where it belongs.”

Hobel, who works seven days a week, has no shortage of ideas and projects—though not enough help and funding to make it all happen. He also has a nonprofit, Arrows of Honor, for veterans and first responders, that aims to address PTSD. He envisions them coming around the fire, becoming instructors, and then going back to their hometowns to teach children and adults these skills—and be looked up to.

“They have to be returned to ceremony, back to fire, back to being a warrior again … to realize that all of that trauma is not theirs—it was theirs to experience but it’s not theirs to keep or hold on to.”

In the end, it’s a journey of self-discovery.

People come to Hobel’s school thinking they’ll just learn about shelter, water, and food. “But what they realize is, ‘this is a journey to myself’—because it’s you that has to make that fire and shelter. You have to get out of your own way to be successful.”

A backpack can either be conventional (pictured here) or tactical, though the latter might attract more attention. Another alternative is to wear a photographer-style vest with many mesh pockets for your items and wear a coat over it. (Samira Bouaou)

Getting Out of Dodge

Unusual for a survival school, Mountain Scout Survival School, in Hopewell Junction, New York, two hours from Manhattan, teaches both wilderness survival and urban emergency preparedness—a hot topic, given 70 percent of people currently live in urban areas.

“The subject matter is overwhelming,” admits Hobel, who consults for private groups as well. In quaint gatherings in brownstone apartments, small groups come together around food and wine, focused on developing a solid plan to get out safely should a disaster happen.

The skill set required in the city is different from being out in the wilderness. The bottom line is, there is no sustainability in the city; it is wholly dependent on supplies coming in. In case of danger, Hobel advises city dwellers to get out with the first wave of exodus. Though you can stay for a little while, “eventually you’re going to have to go. My suggestion would be to go with the waves and don’t go alone; if you’re a solo operator, you’re just a target. Remember that the most scary individual in the world is a hungry person.”

The topics include communication options and protocols, plans detailing meeting points and how to get there, resources along the way, safety, and the big subject of go-bags—emergency backpacks to take when you leave home.

In the aftermath of 9/11, Hobel saw many companies sell generic, sub-par go-bags. He still urges consumers to be wary and do their research, since these kits aren’t adapted for your personal circumstances.

Go-bags can range from a 24-hour bag designed to get you by with the bare minimum, to the 36- to 72-hour bag (the most common), to what Hobel calls a “sustainability bag,” which can sustain you indefinitely—as long as you have the skills.

You also need to consider the time of year, and know your plan: where you’re going, who’s going with you, how fast or slow you need to go to accommodate the slowest member of your party, and whether you can replenish items along the way. Make sure to have a couple of exit routes in mind, and know how you’re getting to your destination.

Every member of your group of family or friends should have a go-bag, “packed and identical.” Crucially, get out and practice with it.

And learn the skills: If you lose your go-bag, “your skills don’t go in the bag and they stay with you; for example, first aid and CPR—start with that. You can help yourself and then you can help others,” Hobel said.

From January Issue, Volume 3

Categories
National Parks The Great Outdoors

Niagara Falls: America’s First State Park

Niagara Falls. (Getty Images)

On the American side, Niagara Falls brings in about 9 million visitors each year, according to Western New York Connect. With more than 13 million visitors on the Canadian side, the combined total is roughly 22 million yearly visitors. The park offers a great deal: one-of-a-kind scenery, live entertainment, walking and hiking paths, boat tours, and more.

The area around Niagara Falls has a rich history, from the beginning of America to the industrial revolution. The Erie Canal, the first canal in the United States to be constructed with public financing, runs nearby, connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. Niagara Falls was the site where Nikola Tesla and Westinghouse Corporation in 1895 built and installed the first-ever alternating current hydroelectric generator.

“We have many a monument of past ages; we have the palaces and pyramids, the temples of the Greek and the cathedrals of Christendom. In them is exemplified the power of men, the greatness of nations, the love of art and religious devotion. But the monument at Niagara has something of its own, more in accord with our present thoughts and tendencies. It is a monument worthy of our scientific age, a true monument of enlightenment and of peace. It signifies the subjugation of natural forces to the service of man, the discontinuance of barbarous methods, the relieving of millions from want and suffering.”
—Nikola Tesla

Depending on how you travel to the falls, you might cross a small bridge from which you can see Bridal Veil Falls and American Falls. When you arrive at the main entrance, a short walk will take you to the highlight, Horseshoe Falls, and as you approach, you’ll begin to feel the mist created by the tremendous volume of water flowing over the precipice. On sunny days, you can always see rainbows there.

(Getty Images)

Geography

What we know today as Niagara Falls was formed by receding glaciers more than 16,000 years ago. Before that, ice sheets almost two miles thick covered the Niagara region. These glaciers carved out the Great Lakes and the area of the three waterfalls. Erosion over the past 12,000 years pushed the falls seven miles downriver, a process that continues at a rate of about one foot per year.

Niagara Falls consists of a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, between the state of New York and the Canadian province of Ontario. The largest of these, Horseshoe Falls, straddles the U.S.-Canada border and is the most powerful waterfall in the United States, followed by American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls, both of which are in U.S. territory.

(Getty Images)

Attractions

One of Niagara Falls State Park’s oldest attractions is the Maid of the Mist boat tour. Originally a border-crossing ferry christened in 1846, the vessel was the primary means of travel between Niagara Falls, New York, and Toronto, Canada. The modern-day tour begins with an elevator ride down the Prospect Point Observation Tower to the boat-loading and launch point. The boat takes riders past American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls before approaching Horseshoe Falls. As the boat nears the waterfall, the roaring sound gets louder, and a spray of mist picks up. The waterfalls have a combined maximum of more than 6 million cubic feet of water per minute flowing over the crest of their 167-foot drop. The boat travels close to the edge for a breathtaking face-to-face with the falls.

The park is open year-round and in addition to its water features, has a variety of attractions throughout the year.

Niagara Falls. (Getty Images)

Winter

The falls in winter are a sight to behold. With large swaths of the falls frozen, and the mist freezing on contact with anything near it, the scene becomes a winter wonderland. The falls don’t completely freeze during the winter, however, and visitors are still welcome, weather permitting, to see them shimmering with the mist-formed, fantasy-like glaze coating all around. There are also winter activities, including touring the snow-and-ice-covered Cave of the Winds, and even renting snowshoes to hike the snow-covered trails.

Spring

As soon as the snow melts in the spring, a number of activities open up: golf, fishing, day trips down the historic Erie Canal, visits to Old Fort Niagara, and regular Revolutionary War re-enactments. Goat Island, with almost 20 miles of trails of varying difficulty around the falls, offers strolling and hiking for all ages and skill levels. You can also take the kids to the Niagara Aquarium or embark on the Maid of the Mist boat tour.

Summer

Goat Island is a perfect place for summer picnics, for viewing Bridal Veil Falls or taking the Cave of the Winds tour. You can even zipline down the side of the falls or play a few rounds of golf. There are many other adventures to discover, as well as a casino with live entertainment in the city of Niagara Falls. There are wax museums, walking tours of the historic sites of the area, and jet boat tours on which you can explore Niagara Whirlpool and see other nearby sites.

Autumn

The entire Niagara region lights up as autumn approaches. Surrounded by a state park, Niagara in the autumn is simply beautiful, with burnt-orange, brown, and red spreading in all directions as fall colors take over the area. The man-made Dufferin Islands, abundant with nature trails and quietude, offer enjoyable autumn forest sights, sounds, and smells. A walk to Green Island and Luna Island, which sit between American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls, gives another vantage point of the smaller two waterfalls. Finally, the Rainbow Bridge provides a better view of the whole Niagara Gorge area.

Old Fort Niagara

A highlight of the region is Old Fort Niagara, with a history spanning more than 300 years. Built in 1726, and at various points controlled by the French, British, and American militaries, the fort today is a historic site that offers visitors Revolutionary War re-enactments, educational programs for local students, period-accurate cooking, and demonstrations of life on the frontier.

The re-enactments, which are based on historical documents, are as accurate as possible and involve hundreds of costumed participants, including adolescents playing drums and fifes, and would-be soldiers with cannons and muskets, all across the old battlefield. The galley, blacksmith’s shop, and other parts of the fort, which showcase the manner in which different jobs and tasks were historically carried out, are also open to the public. The barracks, in particular, give a glimpse into the provisions and daily life of the average soldier.

Niagara Falls State Park has something for everyone, at any time of the year. It is rich in history and culture, and there are activities for people of every age and level of ability (many attractions are accessible). There’s plenty to do outside the park as well. The Niagara area undoubtedly makes for a fun and memorable visit.

Categories
Arts & Letters Features

An Artistic Mission

Johanna Schwaiger met Celine Ma, an instructor of classical Chinese dance, who became her model for a sculpture. (Lux Aeterna Photography)

Growing up in Salzburg, Austria, Johanna Schwaiger was constantly surrounded by beautiful art—from the city’s Baroque architecture to majestic fountains and public gardens. “I always thought the masters of these works were of a distant past, … had magical skills, and I thought if I could only learn a little bit of what they knew, I would be so happy,” she said.

Her father, an art teacher, taught her basic drawing and sculpting techniques. Working in clay gave her true joy. “It became my world to retreat to, whenever I felt I needed to escape somewhere, like Alice entering her wonderland,” she said. Today, Schwaiger has not only achieved her childhood dream of becoming a sculptor but also seeks to inspire the next generation of artists to create the kind of art that so moved her.

She came to the United States in 2017 to work with New Masters Academy, a subscription-based online tutorial platform for people to learn fine arts techniques. To begin with, she was invited to teach a sculpture tutorial on video. Today, she is the academy’s program director. Similar to Netflix, people can stream videos of creative artists teaching their crafts from around the world. Even top art schools and entertainment studios, including the Walt Disney Animation Studios, Ringling College of Art and Design, and the National Sculpture Society, have signed up for courses.

A Journey

It would take some time before Schwaiger could fulfill her passion for arts education. At age 15, she enrolled in a local school for sculptors. But while the school taught wood and stone carving, she wanted to learn traditional figurative sculpture, like that of the Renaissance masters, together with training in ink drawing, clay sculpting, and bronze casting. After graduating from high school, Schwaiger searched ateliers and schools in Salzburg, Vienna, and other nearby European cities, but none taught these techniques.

Some in the arts world told Schwaiger that realism had become a thing of the past, so she decided to train herself by studying the works of old masters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Schwaiger also majored in art history at the University of Salzburg, and soon picked up commissions to paint portraits and sculpt figures for churches and graveyards, but she still felt a need for more schooling. At age 26, she discovered that the Florence Academy of Art in Italy taught the traditional curriculum. After completing her training there, she returned to her high school alma mater and began teaching a course in traditional figurative art.

Schwaiger was inspired by the grace and strength exhibited by artists of classical Chinese dance. (Lux Aeterna Photography)

Schwaiger has since made it her mission to continue the lineage of the classical art tradition, through New Masters Academy, education initiatives, and her private art studio. “I try to inspire the younger generation to hone their craft and really focus on the craft as much as possible—and make them understand that if you get strong in your craft, that’s how you become free in your expression,” she said in a recent interview held at Fei Tian College in Middletown, New York, where she taught a four-week summer sculpting class.

Now 38, Schwaiger taught her Fei Tian College students human anatomy and how to draw from a live model. To her, it’s about respecting the process pioneered by the great classical artists of the Western tradition. “You need to honor the past, what the ancestors learned and what they brought out. It’s basically taking the torch and bringing the torch further. That’s what I believe in,” said Schwaiger.

Inspired by the East

In her latest project, Schwaiger took inspiration from a different culture. Several years ago, she and her husband attended a performance by Shen Yun Performing Arts, the world’s premier classical Chinese dance company. Based in New York, the company seeks to revive the 5,000 years of Chinese civilization through dance and music. Classical Chinese dance, in particular, has a lineage tracing back to imperial courts and ancient plays. Schwaiger was touched not only by the storytelling but also by the technical prowess of the dancers. “I could see that this is the kind of excellence … that artists in the past were aiming for. And it’s really moving people’s hearts with beauty, and with excellent techniques,” she said.

Schwaiger thought of capturing through sculpture the grace and strength of the dancers she saw on stage. “What amazed me so much was the variety of dance poses that the dancers can do in sync, and so the whole choreography seems to be a language that is told on stage,” she said.

Through a mutual artist friend, Schwaiger recently met Celine Ma, a 22-year-old instructor of classical Chinese dance at Northern Academy of the Arts, a private middle and high school in Middletown, New York. Together, they thought of possible poses that the figure could take on, with Ma occasionally modeling the movements. At first, Schwaiger found it challenging to translate dance, a moving art form, into the still form of sculpture—especially conveying the light, airy movements of classical Chinese dancers. “It’s a moment in time that you’re capturing, and so the pose I picked is not a resting pose. It’s more like she’s like a flower blossoming into her pose,” said Schwaiger.

The Sculpture

One of the dancer’s legs is grounded, but the rest of her body is twisted toward the viewer. Meanwhile, her extended arm is gesturing toward the sky. “I was trying to think of how plants grow. That helped me to bring that grace into the piece … like how a flower opens its petals. That’s the image I tried to keep in mind as I was sculpting this,” said Schwaiger.

Schwaiger said that she envisioned a flower blossoming while making the sculpture. (Lux Aeterna Photography)

Ma said of the hand gesture: “It’s reaching high, like giving people hope and aiming for something brighter and higher.” She was not only impressed by Schwaiger’s dedication to artistry but also thrilled to see classical Chinese dance represented in another art form. “Dancers in the past—we don’t have a lot of documented footage, and a lot of techniques are lost because there’s no way that someone is passing [them] down through thousands of years,” Ma said, noting that it was thrilling to see “a sculpture that can be everlasting.”

Through working on the sculpture project, Ma also gained a newfound understanding of how Western and Eastern arts can complement each other. And through discussing the posture of the sculpture, she became more aware of the muscles she was using while dancing, and “the beauty of the human form.”

The Role of Art in Society

Ma trained in classical Chinese dance for seven years, learning the inner meanings behind the art form. She said that the training helped her to embody values that were appreciated in ancient Chinese culture, such as self-discipline, being willing to endure hardships, and having an optimistic outlook. To master the art form, “you really have to build these values within you, and it’s something that comes with your heart,” said Ma.

Schwaiger similarly believes that artists must cultivate good values in order to create something beautiful. “The artist very much has to immerse themself with the idea of beauty to communicate it to somebody else. And if the artist is thinking of the audience, wanting the audience to connect with that beauty, the person who is looking at the art is going to feel that. So that’s why I think art has such importance for society,” she said.

She also firmly believes that art has the power to elevate people. “If you’re looking at graceful things, powerful things, it’s naturally helping you to connect with these virtues. … It’s reminding people of these qualities that you should have in yourself,” she said. That’s why she hopes to one day create public art that can inspire through beauty—whether it’s sculpture in schools, hospitals, or public squares.

Schwaiger plans to cast her dancer sculpture in bronze next, using an ancient technique known as lost-wax casting, and she hopes the sculpture can be placed in a public setting one day. With art beautifying its surrounding environment, “you like to spend time there, you’d like to sit down and be there together with others, and you feel the other people that are present—and that’s very essential for our civilization,” she said.

Categories
History

New York’s Liberty Pole

Raising the Liberty Pole
"Raising the Liberty Pole." Painted by F.A. Chapman; engraved by John C. McRae, N.Y. (Library of Congress)

In the decade leading up to the American Revolutionary War, Boston wasn’t the only scene of intense friction between British soldiers and American colonials. Imperial troops had likewise been stationed in New York.

It’s a truism in history that occupying armies, whatever their original intentions, eventually breed resentment from the locals. While Boston had its Liberty Tree, here the Sons of Liberty had been erecting liberty poles—wooden poles mounted by a cap—since at least 1766, when the first was raised during celebrations of the repeal of the Stamp Act. That original pole, hoisted in “the Fields”—today’s City Hall Park in Manhattan, at the time located just outside the city but, not coincidentally, right in front of a British barracks—stood as a reminder to all of colonial rights.

Liberty poles invoked a well-known classical motif: the spear mounted by the cap of a freed slave, symbolizing the freedom of the Romans from the tyrant Julius Caesar. The same symbol had been used after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 on a commemorative medal struck for William III.

Joseph Allicocke—an influential merchant and one of the instigators of the raising of New York’s original Liberty Pole—described his motivations without mincing words: “to scourge the base Enemies of our Country and our greatest Darling LIBERTY.” Every day, a group of New Yorkers gathered at the Liberty Pole and performed drills, certainly meant to egg on watching British soldiers.

And it worked. As an object of protest and resistance, New York’s first Liberty Pole was torn down by those same British soldiers.

The colonists responded by raising it up again.

The soldiers once more tore it down, enraging many of New York’s inhabitants. Up it went again. Down, then up, then down.

During one demolition, a soldier fired into the disapproving crowd and wounded one of its members. Another Redcoat bayoneted a leading citizen of the colony. Though one of these soldiers was later punished with five hundred lashes for the crime of assaulting a civilian, tension between soldiery and citizenry remained high. Liberty poles kept going up, only to be torn down by ever-less-patient troops.

In response, New Yorkers raised a new sort of pole, its lower portions armored with iron plates, the pole itself driven so deep into the ground that it was nigh impossible to tear down the way previous poles had been. The British general on the scene, Thomas Gage, described the circumstances:

People seem distracted everywhere. It is now as common here to assemble on all occasions of public concern at the Liberty Pole and Coffee House as for the ancient Romans to repair to the Forum. And orators harangue on all sides.

Meanwhile, the New York assembly had been temporarily dissolved for failing to appropriate funds for the local garrison. When the assembly finally gave in to British demands for the appropriation in December 1769, the Sons of Liberty were furious, posting a broadside addressed “To the Betrayed Inhabitants of the City and Colony of New York.”

British soldiers, meanwhile, did what they had always done: they set out to chop down the Liberty Pole, though in this case, they used a charge of black powder to blow it up (when that didn’t work, they managed to chop it down the old-fashioned way). Then, to pour salt in the wound, they sawed the pole into pieces and dumped them in front of the above-mentioned, Sons-of-Liberty-frequented “Coffee House” before publishing their own broadside attacking the Sons of Liberty as “the real enemies of society.”

On Jan. 19, 1770—about a week after the (armored) Liberty Pole’s destruction—the deterioration of relations between soldiers and New Yorkers erupted into out-and-out fighting at the Fields. Three thousand New Yorkers, some armed with clubs or cutlasses, gathered at what was left of the pole (now a mere stump) and began to harass the soldiers.

Those soldiers now came pouring out of the barracks. The order to the troops: “Draw your bayonets and cut your way through them.”

The “battle” that resulted was actually more of a huge street brawl. From the Fields, it spilled into New York City’s streets, including one called Golden Hill (now Eden’s Alley in Manhattan). For two whole days, the city’s government collapsed, armed gangs of locals roaming the streets along with armed gangs of soldiers, all looking for a fight. Several Redcoats were injured (one seriously), and a few New Yorkers, too. The so-called Battle of Golden Hill ended when additional military forces finally managed to escort the roving soldiers back to their barracks.

Had things continued to spiral out of control, the situation might have devolved into a “Boston Massacre”-style event weeks before the actual Boston Massacre.

The regiment was eventually exiled by an appalled Gage to service in Florida. New York magistrates, similarly appalled at their own citizens’ behavior, refused to allow another Liberty Pole to be erected at the Fields.

But a leading Son of Liberty named Isaac Sears purchased the plot of land adjacent to the previous site—and proceeded to build a private liberty pole taller than any structure in New York. Fitted with metal plating, the pole was capped with the word “LIBERTY.”

It would stand until the outbreak of the Revolutionary War five years later.

W. Kesler Jackson, who teaches Western, Islamic, American, Asian, and World histories at the university level, is also known on YouTube as “The Nomadic Professor.” You can follow his work, including entire online history courses featuring his signature on-location videos filmed the world over, at his website (NomadicProfessor.com).