Arts, culture & entertainment
Page 18
March 3, 2023
Patterns My Uncle Bob is an unusual person. At 90 years old, he is a fantastic driver. I feel completely at ease riding in the back of his nineteen-ninety-something Toyota Avalon—a car so old it has ashtrays in the armrests. Active and able, he can fix furniture, restore bicycles, and even repair machinery. In his 70s, he took up stained glass. To date, he has made hundreds of pieces and can still cut, grind, and solder with precision. On a visit out west last September, I was eager to see the massive Arts and Crafts building where he spends much of his time. I had wanted to make this trip for a while, not only to get to know my uncle better, but also to learn more about my family. My paternal ancestry has always felt like a queer, blank space in my identity. My father’s father died when I was very young, and his mother and sister both passed before I was born. My dad doesn’t like to talk about his parents, and I respect his choices. Nevertheless, I wanted insight into who my grandparents were and what their lives were like. The one person who could tell me was Uncle Bob. Our first day together was delightful. My uncle has a great sense of humor and a knack for storytelling. He painted a vivid picture of my grandparents, savvy designers and business people who worked for the erstwhile garment industry giant, Leslie Fay, and who also owned their own dress factory. Gaps in my knowledge began to knit together as we shuffled through photographs, including professional portraits of my grandmother taken in her prime. She was beautiful, stylish, and confident – not to mention smart. She managed the cutting room and was indispensable to the family business. After years of wondering, I finally had the information I craved. The following morning, we toured the Arts and Crafts
Jodi LaMarco
Uncle Bob demonstrating the proper way to cut glass
building. The number of studios it contains is staggering. There is a ceramics studio, a looming room – even a lapidary. My tour eventually concluded in the shop reserved for stained glass. As Uncle Bob presented me with a dove he had recently finished, a small epiphany bloomed in my mind. Maybe I too could learn this skill … someday. With no tools or prospective teachers on the East Coast, I tucked the thought in the back of my mind where I assumed it would remain.
Quite unexpectedly, I ended up in California again three months later. When I rang Uncle Bob to arrange another visit, my little epiphany of a few months back popped to the forefront of my brain. “Do you think you could teach me the basics of stained glass?” I asked. Of course, he agreed. I was ecstatic. In the workshop, I was enamored with the process. The scoring and snapping. The slow work of shaping each piece until it harmonizes with the whole. He also showed me how to approach the hiccups that invariably arise during a project. I paid attention to the way he tackled problems. If there wasn’t a tool for the job, he made one. If there was already a tool for the job, he came up with a better one. A month later, I came back to work on a more difficult composition – a feather. “Last time you went through steps A, B, and C. This time you’re skipping D through J and going right to K,” said Uncle Bob as he examined my plans. Rather than discourage me, he nodded and let me have at it. To my surprise, I pulled it off. That night, I went back to my hotel room and immediately began refining my template. An afternoon of slicing and honing had taught me much. A tighter design would mean less puttering on the grinding machine. I spent the evening contentedly tracing and snipping shapes out of oak tag until I was satisfied with my blueprint. My happiness was indescribable. On the long drive home, I realized something. My grandfather had been a pattern-maker. My father and uncle had been pattern-makers, taking their own turn at Leslie Fay in the 1970s. I understood then why I love creating designs and solving puzzles. Why I enjoy working with my hands. The craft of stained glass has allowed me to participate in a shared tradition of sorts. It has given me a new sense of place – a context for who I am. They were pattern-makers. And so am I. Thanks, Uncle Bob.
Marches past in the Rondout Valley March 7, 1856 – The People’s Press [Kingston] The Difference. While all true Americans have been celebrating Washington’s birth-day, and made it a legal holiday, the Catholic Irish reserve their rejoicings for St. Patrick’s Day, thus keeping up their distinctive nationality, and belying all their professions of becoming American citizens. The reason is plain; the priests can govern them better as distinctive Irish than as American citizens. March 31, 1870 – New-Paltz Independent Jacob Stoll has sold his property at Rock Lock for $3,000. The cement companies there intend buying all the groceries in that vicinity. They have suffered quite enough from their effects. B.F. Hardenbergh intends erecting more tenement houses there this spring. They are needed. The cement mills have started. March 24, 1887 – The Kingston Weekly Freeman and Journal To Improve the Canals. The Assembly passed a bill yesterday to appropriate $550,000 for the improvement of the canals ….
The bill is sure of a safe passage through the Senate and of the Governor’s approval. The work of improvement to which the money is to be chiefly devoted is the doubling of the length of the locks. The vote proves that the state is not yet ready to abandon the canals, which would be the almost certain result if the appropriation had been withheld. The canals are not now in condition to compete successfully with the railroads. Nor is it likely that $550,000 will put them in condition to accommodate the immense and rapidly increasing grain traffic to the West. But it will suffice, probably, to convince Congress of the value of the canals of New York as national waterways. The easy passage of the appropriation is due in large measure to the growing confidence that Congress will in a few years take the work of maintaining and improving the canals of New York.
March 25, 1898 – New-Patz Independent While John C. Oliver was tearing down the old Brodhead homestead in the town of Marbletown, on the site of which he is having a handsome new residence erected, he found an old andiron, which is believed to be over 200 years old, as the Brodheads were among the earliest settlers in that section. Mr. Oliver expects to recover the
other andiron of the pair, when he will present them to John N. Cordts [Kingston politician].
March 24, 1899 – New-Paltz Independent Farm property now sells for about one-third the selling price 25 years ago. On the other side of the mountain the condition of affairs must be still worse, now that the canal has been abandoned. The canal afforded quite a home market to the farmers of Rochester and Wawarsing.
From the archives
Linda March 16, 1922 – New Paltz Independent and Times Tantillo Hot lunches for Out-of-Town Pupils. At Ellenville the Parent-Teachers Association has taken up the matter of noonday lunch for out-of-town pupils and is serving hot cocoa at cost to all who wish it. If there is sufficient interest shown, it is planned to offer other articles of food for lunch.
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