Washington D.C.
"In some ways it’s not a place at all, but rather a way station for transients and short-timers who have no roots here and no particular interest in the life of the city."
Frederick Hart's sculpture in doorway for National Cathedral
The Nation’s Capital is a strange place to call your hometown. In some ways it’s not a place at all, but rather a way station for transients and short-timers who have no roots here and no particular interest in the life of the city. Over the years it was rare for me to encounter another “native” who would call the city home.
The Washington I left as a youth for North Carolina was a very different city to which I returned in 1983 after three years in New York. It had become a far more interesting place, culturally and architecturally, (though it remained a one-horse town devoted to politics.) The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts became the epicenter for a cultural renaissance. Pennsylvania Avenue, once a hodgepodge of seedy liquor stores and sketchy flop-houses, was transformed into the grand thoroughfare it was originally intended to be as a splendid parade route for presidential inaugurations. The old Willard Hotel, meeting place for cabinet members and conspirators and writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne during the Civil War, had been vacant for more than 18 years. Now it was restored to old-fashioned glory as the pivot between the White House and the long stretch to the Capitol, and I was happy to write a celebratory article for the Washingtonian Magazine when it reopened with fanfare in 1986. The great gathering place of the Mall---I had been there for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ‘I have a dream’ speech in 1963 and the mobilization of 500,000 against the Vietnam War in 1969--- was improved with several significant new attractions, most especially the Vietnam Veterans memorial.
I approved mightily of the Vietnam Memorial, but I disapproved of the way the Vietnam veterans claimed it solely for their own. It should be the province of the entire Vietnam generation, I thought, not only those who served and but those who avoided service, for the choice to serve or not to serve was a morally repugnant and impossible dilemma, the bane of the generation. Efforts had long been made to divide the soldiers from the resisters, and to set them against one another. Returning soldiers were ostracized, treated as pariahs, just as the lucky objectors were scorned as malingerers. I wrote about that in the piece below called
At my country refuge at Fiery Run in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, I’d become friendly with the well-known sculptor, Frederick Hart, who lived down the country road from me. We had bonded in protest against the intrusion of commercial forces that were interrupting our solitude with noise and blinding light in the night sky. Of all the artists I’ve know, Rick Hart was the toughest. He was a skilled in-fighter who knew how to get his way. How else could he have succeeded, against considerable odds, in getting his famous three soldiers sculpture installed at the entrance to May Lin’s wall of names at the Vietnam Memorial? The competition between Maya Lin and Rick Hart is one of the more interesting conflicts over public art that has happened in Washington. (She derided his soldiers as the moustache on her memorial.) It fascinated me.
But Rick Hart’s ultimate battle came at the end of his life. His remarkable career began as a stone cutter at the Washington Cathedral….and it was to end there. His brilliant vision for the tympanum over the main entrance of the church had won the competition against more than 1000 other submissions. In Ex Nihilo, as he called it, the first human beings, a few men and women, emerge from the maw of nothingness. But in 1997 a set designer for a Hollywood movie called “Devil’s Advocate” had the bright idea to appropriate Rick’s sculpture as the backdrop for a sex scene. To his horror, Rick saw his sacred art at the cathedral turned into pornography on the silver screen, as the figures in the copy of his masterwork were made to come alive and grope toward one another lasciviously. I leapt to Rick’s defense with an op ed piece in the New York Times. Washington Cathedral joined with their artist in a lawsuit against Warner Brothers.
Two years later, Rick and the Cathedral won. But the day after Federal Court decided in his favor, Rick Hart had a stroke. He never sculpted again, and not long after that, he died.
The Washington I left as a youth for North Carolina was a very different city to which I returned in 1983 after three years in New York. It had become a far more interesting place, culturally and architecturally, (though it remained a one-horse town devoted to politics.) The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts became the epicenter for a cultural renaissance. Pennsylvania Avenue, once a hodgepodge of seedy liquor stores and sketchy flop-houses, was transformed into the grand thoroughfare it was originally intended to be as a splendid parade route for presidential inaugurations. The old Willard Hotel, meeting place for cabinet members and conspirators and writers like Nathaniel Hawthorne during the Civil War, had been vacant for more than 18 years. Now it was restored to old-fashioned glory as the pivot between the White House and the long stretch to the Capitol, and I was happy to write a celebratory article for the Washingtonian Magazine when it reopened with fanfare in 1986. The great gathering place of the Mall---I had been there for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ‘I have a dream’ speech in 1963 and the mobilization of 500,000 against the Vietnam War in 1969--- was improved with several significant new attractions, most especially the Vietnam Veterans memorial.
I approved mightily of the Vietnam Memorial, but I disapproved of the way the Vietnam veterans claimed it solely for their own. It should be the province of the entire Vietnam generation, I thought, not only those who served and but those who avoided service, for the choice to serve or not to serve was a morally repugnant and impossible dilemma, the bane of the generation. Efforts had long been made to divide the soldiers from the resisters, and to set them against one another. Returning soldiers were ostracized, treated as pariahs, just as the lucky objectors were scorned as malingerers. I wrote about that in the piece below called
At my country refuge at Fiery Run in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, I’d become friendly with the well-known sculptor, Frederick Hart, who lived down the country road from me. We had bonded in protest against the intrusion of commercial forces that were interrupting our solitude with noise and blinding light in the night sky. Of all the artists I’ve know, Rick Hart was the toughest. He was a skilled in-fighter who knew how to get his way. How else could he have succeeded, against considerable odds, in getting his famous three soldiers sculpture installed at the entrance to May Lin’s wall of names at the Vietnam Memorial? The competition between Maya Lin and Rick Hart is one of the more interesting conflicts over public art that has happened in Washington. (She derided his soldiers as the moustache on her memorial.) It fascinated me.
But Rick Hart’s ultimate battle came at the end of his life. His remarkable career began as a stone cutter at the Washington Cathedral….and it was to end there. His brilliant vision for the tympanum over the main entrance of the church had won the competition against more than 1000 other submissions. In Ex Nihilo, as he called it, the first human beings, a few men and women, emerge from the maw of nothingness. But in 1997 a set designer for a Hollywood movie called “Devil’s Advocate” had the bright idea to appropriate Rick’s sculpture as the backdrop for a sex scene. To his horror, Rick saw his sacred art at the cathedral turned into pornography on the silver screen, as the figures in the copy of his masterwork were made to come alive and grope toward one another lasciviously. I leapt to Rick’s defense with an op ed piece in the New York Times. Washington Cathedral joined with their artist in a lawsuit against Warner Brothers.
Two years later, Rick and the Cathedral won. But the day after Federal Court decided in his favor, Rick Hart had a stroke. He never sculpted again, and not long after that, he died.
Articles:
“Sacred and Demonic Art”
on Frederick Hart’s suit against Warner Brothers appeared in New York Times, date unknown view PDF
"A Wall Honoring Not Only Vietnam Veterans"
Appeared in the New York Times Nov 6, 1984 pg. A25 (found in ProQuest Historical Newspapers) view PDF
“Welcoming Back the Willard”
Appeared in Washingtonian, Feb. 1986 view PDF
“The Monument Glut”
Appeared in New York Times Magazine, Sept. 1995 view PDF; view manuscript PDF
on Frederick Hart’s suit against Warner Brothers appeared in New York Times, date unknown view PDF
"A Wall Honoring Not Only Vietnam Veterans"
Appeared in the New York Times Nov 6, 1984 pg. A25 (found in ProQuest Historical Newspapers) view PDF
“Welcoming Back the Willard”
Appeared in Washingtonian, Feb. 1986 view PDF
“The Monument Glut”
Appeared in New York Times Magazine, Sept. 1995 view PDF; view manuscript PDF