Have you ever had the experience of handling an object and feeling
almost as though it would like to talk to you, if it could? Do you think
that objects, even though they’re inanimate, have stories they can tell?
This happened to me as I was packing a box of five videotapes to send to
an art supply store in Kentucky—thousands of miles from their origin, where the artist who made
the tape lives.
She is the artist Lisel Salzer, now 97 years old and, even though her vision is almost
gone, still paints . She called me the other
night (a coincidence - I had just received a mail order for five
more of her tapes!). She wanted to know what to tell people if they wanted
to buy her tapes, what would be the price, and would I fill the orders.
I told her Yes, I can do that. “By the way, Thompson Enamel ordered
five more tapes today,” I added.
“That’s good,” she said, “How
many years has it been?”
“Since 1986, about 17 years,” I replied.
“That’s good,” she repeated. Then she told me she’s having a
show in Austria at a museum specializing in pre-war art movements in
that region. Lisel is a part of the history of Austrian painting in the
early years of as the last century. She was “discovered” on the
Internet (my site, probably) because of the videotape she made.
As I wrapped the tapes, making them ready to send to Kentucky, they
seemed to talk to me about the making of the tape. I thought about who was involved, and
what Lisel’s objective was when she made it.
I thought, “If these
tapes could talk, the story would be interesting. It might also teach
people something more than only about Lisel’s art. It might be a
lesson worth learning. But how, I thought to myself, since this box of tapes cannot
‘talk’?”
The lesson is especially important to me. Lisel and I are alike in
some ways, although I am thirty years younger. We are both artists and we
have been teachers for part of our lifetime.
We both think we have something to
offer that can be recorded on, for example, on videotape. I’m equipped to
take the idea further because, over time, I learned computer
skills and bought equipment to develop those skills. The part I played in her vision
is to fulfill the mail orders when they come - the role of videotape
distributor.
But if the whole story were to be told, I was
involved in another way: I was the teacher who started the two video producers
who made the original recording and edited it. Pathways, then, are what this story is about: How I started
on my pathway to use video, and how Lisel’s pathway (when she decided to
use video to record her art and techniques) intersected mine.
I guess the
story began in the 1930s, when Lisel was a young artist. Her story is
interesting, how she studied in Paris and returned to Austria to pursue
her painting career. She was one of a group of “modern” artists. The
war intervened, however, and she moved to the USA, married, and later
moved to Seattle. There are four players who enter in this story in the
mid-eighties: Lisel and myself, and the Mark
Leonard and Izumi Kuroiwa team, the two who created the videotape.
Lisel gathered a following of patrons and students. She painted
landscapes, animals, portraits and, at one point, resurrected the dying
art of Limoges Enamel. She likes to call her method fused glass painting. They
were very popular and sometimes she sold more enamels than she did oil
paintings. She also created etchings.
In her 80s she knew she’d accomplished something. People came to
take lessons from her in all the aspects of her art—the drawing,
painting, printmaking and enamel work. So she decided it was worth making
a permanent record and she paid Mark and
Izumi to create the video. It was a considerable investment for Lisel, but Mark and
Izumi were just starting out in the business. They gave her a good deal.
No one ever made a profit.
Profit was not the first priority. The primary reason was
to capture Lisel’s art and technique while she could still do it. It
took months to complete, and when it was time to start selling it, they
came to me. I became her distributor and
consultant on distribution. At one point Lisel was also interested in the Internet as another venue for her work and I made a Web
page for her.
In addition I include her videotape in my own listing on the Web, plus
(as is my general practice) the transcript of the tape. Mark and Izumi have since moved on to other specialties
in video, and I moved on to produce Digital Game-Based Learning products.
I wonder, Could I use the Salzer experience and her tape as a learning
game for myself?
If those videotapes could talk, what would they advise me to do?
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Bill H. Ritchie, Jr. is an Itinerate Professor
based in Seattle. He taught college (UW) and after promotion to full
professor of printmaking and media arts, he resigned at 43. He then
launched several teaching, research and practice companies. In 1992 he
discovered Emeralda, a fantasy region accessible only by computer. He
invented the rules-of-play and created an operating system for online
interactivity for himself.
He writes for the benefit of discipline,
using a PDA when he's wandering around and a desktop PC to organize his
essays. He has a thousand or more saved, which you can see listed on the
ten "islands" on the Web. An example is www.seanet.com/~ritchie/spzine.html,
on the island of RIISMA in the Emeralda Region.
For further information contact Bill H Ritchie
via e-mail at ritchie@seanet.com.
His professional Web site is at www.seanet.com/~ritchie.
The company name is Emeralda Works, 500 Aloha, Seattle, WA 98109. He can
be reached by telephone at (206) 285-0658. Statistics: 1032 Words. 4755 Characters. 2 Pages. isp30521
Tracing An Artists Way - Lisel Salzer. ©2002 Bill H Ritchie, Jr.
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