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Fall 2012 V. 3 Issue 1
port main James Madison University’s Student Magazine
Taking the stage
A vocal performance major finds his spotlight after fighting cancer at 13.
all about the algers
Get an inside look at the presidential family, their home and their goals for JMU.
Capturing Alaska
The Sawhill Gallery director braves hypothermia and volcanoes — and has a photo gallery and book to prove it.
An experimental past
A Staunton housing complex develops near an abandoned insane asylum.
professors’
WACKY SPACES
Faculty members fill their offices with unusual collections, including DC Comics figurines like The Flash.
*Some restrictions apply, see store for details. Offer lasts until the end of the 2012-2013 school year.
540.908.2812 NORTH38APTS.COM
1190 Meridian Circle Harrisonburg, VA
Letter from the Editor Dear reader, It was time for Port & Main to get an attitude adjustment. After overseeing two issues now, I’m happy to say Port & Main is finally starting to take the direction I’ve wanted it to. I’ve always hoped the magazine could be an outlet for stories — stories about people who are on our campus, like students and professors, as well as people around Harrisonburg. I think you’ll notice this theme throughout the magazine, and it’s one I plan on continuing throughout my time as editor. My hope is that you’ll read these stories and somehow learn from them, whether they inspire you to take on a new hobby or goal, to grow in overcoming life’s obstacles, to appreciate the unique and interesting around campus and Harrisonburg, or however else you choose to. I’m very much interested in your feedback, and so I strongly encourage you to “like” Port & Main on Facebook, where you can voice your thoughts, or to send me an email with comments or suggestions. I also welcome anyone who’s interested to talk to me about getting involved. For now, though, enjoy the first issue of the year!
TORIE FOSTER Editor-in-Chief
Anne Elsea, copy editor Anne is a junior media arts and design major and sociology minor. She enjoys reading, exploring new cities and watching Audrey Hepburn movies. She’s also the copy editor for The Breeze and is excited to be a part of Port & Main. Anne would love to work at a major city newspaper, but is enjoying every second at JMU before going out into the real world.
Sam McDonald, art editor Sam is a fifth-year graphic design major. She loves to paint, read, watch movies and spend time with her family. Eventually, Sam wants to work with layout and design for a magazine after graduating or possibly own her own studio. A cool fact about Sam is that her initials spell “S-A-M,” short for Samantha Ann McDonald.
TELL US WHAT YOU THINK.
& staff
port main Editor-in-Chief Torie Foster Copy Editor Anne Elsea art editor Sam McDonald
Contributing Writers Sarah Lockwood Alison Parker Laura Weeks Contributing Photographers Sean Cassidy Griffin Harrington Brian Prescott Matt Schmachtenberg Laura Weeks Ads Staff Will Bungarden Caleb Dessalgne Rachel Ferrell Mat Lesiv Ethan Miller Laura Russo Brianna Therkelsen Michael Wallace WANT TO GET INVOLVED? Breezeeditor@gmail.com Interested in advertising? 540-568-6127 portads@gmail.com
‘Like’ Port & Main on Facebook. P&M, Fall 2012
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“ music” he found himself in
He was 13 when he learned he had a tumor. Six years later, he’s a vocal performance major with a full head of hair to remember the cancer he beat. by Alison Parker | photos by Brian Prescott & Matt Schmachtenberg
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acob Warner is the student you may see singing in the Music Building — the one with the wavy blonde hair that hangs all the way down to the small of his back. Some mistake the sophomore vocal performance major for a hippie. But there’s more behind why his hair is so long and even more meaning to why he sings. Jacob, who’s now taking 21 credits almost every semester to complete the 126-hour vocal performance program, was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma at age 13. This malignant bone tumor accounts for only 1 percent of childhood cancer patients. If caught early, it can be treated in 50 percent to 75 percent of all cases. Jacob was only in eighth grade when he found out. He’s been growing his hair ever since he ended treatment and plans to donate it once he works up the courage to enter the barbershop. “I’ve always set a date, and it hasn’t happened,” Jacob said. “That’s happened
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several times. It sort of has become an integral part of me.”
‘You have a tumor’ He had pain in his left shoulder for about two years before he found out — a throbbing pain he could never quite pinpoint. It got to the point where he was almost completely unable to move his arm, maybe just an inch or two. His mother, Amy, made an appointment with a chiropractor in their hometown, Gloucester, Va. The chiropractor examined his arm and said it was simply growing pains. He suggested Jacob exercise and work his arm out more. Two months passed, and Jacob’s shoulder flared again. He went to the emergency room to get it checked out. “He said, ‘Oh, you have tendonitis,’ ” Jacob said. “He just poked and prodded for a few minutes, no X-rays or CT scans or anything.” The doctor then prescribed a muscle relaxer. But about a week later, Jacob’s
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You’ve sort of lived and made life-or-death decisions. Once I had been through all of that, I had to find people who could accept this 40 year-old trapped in a 16 year-old’s body. Jacob Warner
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shoulder was bothering him again. Amy took her son to an orthopedic doctor. He immediately X-rayed it. “That was the first time someone actually said, ‘You have a tumor,’ ” Jacob said. “I felt strangely unemotional at the time. I think it was a little bit of shock.” Though a nurse herself, Amy felt completely helpless. “When I saw the results of the MRI, I thought, ‘I’m a nurse. I should have known this all along,’ ” Amy said. “I felt like I let him down because I didn’t catch it earlier. It took a long time to get over that feeling.” Amy scheduled a biopsy and a week after the procedure, a doctor confirmed Jacob had Ewing’s sarcoma. His next step was getting through chemotherapy. Jacob was in the hospital every other week for a total of 14 treatments. “Fatigue is the first word that comes to mind,” Jacob said. “It could be the Sunday before I started the five-day treatment, and you still feel like you haven’t slept in two or three days. It’s a different sort of tired than anything I’ve ever felt.” Waking up in the mornings after treatment was physically a chore, as he’d struggle to sit up and put his feet on the ground. “Cancer survivors, years down the road ... when they get sick, it’s nothing,” Jacob said. Jacob had to withdraw from his eighth grade classes for the rest of the year. Three weeks into treatments, Jacob started losing his hair. “I didn’t want people to see me as sickly or weak,” Jacob said. “Once it started to happen, I remember being in the bathroom pulling my own hair out.” Family members and others shaved their heads to show support, including his best friend, Stephen Sigmon. “It was hard,” Stephen said. “I knew he was in pain, and I couldn’t do anything to help him except be there for him like that.” Jacob didn’t share much with those around him, except for one person: Sally Demuth, his sixth grade math teacher. She, too, was going through chemotherapy at the same time. “She wrote me a letter, saying, ‘Good luck, I know how you feel, these are some things you can expect to happen, these are things people will start assuming about you,’ ” Jacob said. They sent emails to each other while he was in the hospital and became close over the next four years. But in her third battle against cancer, she didn’t survive. “It was very hard for me and my whole family,” Jacob said. “She was the nicest woman. My family came to love her, too.” But Jacob still holds on to one of his most
valuable memories of her: a quilt she handstitched for him to bring during chemo, which usually makes patients feel very cold. “One of my treatments made me very hot, but I still brought it with me,” he said. “To this day, it’s probably the one material possession that’s the most important to me.” Nearly six treatments in, Jacob underwent surgery to remove the tumor. In January 2007, a doctor cut out the bone from his shoulder all the way to just above his elbow. After recovering from surgery, he had the last eight chemo treatments before having 28 radiation therapies to get rid of any cancerous bone cells left behind.
NOVEMBER 2006 Jacob’s friend Stephen Sigmon (left) shaved his head in support.
Post-treatment On June 21, 2007, Jacob was officially cancerfree. His next challenge began: high school. “I had to come back to a new school, at the bottom of the totem pole,” Jacob said. In middle school, Jacob had played trumpet in band. To play in the high school’s band, the director required students to participate in marching band. But after Jacob’s shoulder surgery, he couldn’t hold his trumpet in position. “He found himself in music,” Amy said. “When that was taken away from him in high school, he was afraid he’d lose himself.” He grew apart from most of his friends and spent freshman year trying to find his place. “Jake’s entire life, he wanted to be an architect,” Amy said. “All of a sudden he came to me saying, ‘I think this is what I want to do. I think I want to go to college and sing.’ I knew he had this voice, and it made me happy that the world was going to hear it.” At JMU, Jacob, a tenor, was accepted into the vocal performance program. “He is a deep thinker, a hard worker and not afraid of a challenge,” said Brenda Witmer, Jacob’s voice studio professor. “I think the thing I love the most about Jacob is his integrity. Whether he is performing or giving his thoughts about his songs, vocal technique or his life, he is always supremely honest.” Since he’s been here, he’s found his direction. “I used to use the term ‘loss of innocence,’ ” Jacob said. “You’ve sort of lived and made life-ordeath decisions. Once I had been through all of that, I had to find people who could accept this 40 year-old trapped in a 16 year-old’s body.” Amy chooses to look at her son’s fight as a challenge they’ve overcome and learned from. “Do I wish my child never had cancer? Yes, I do,” Amy said. “But I also look at the other things that came out of it. It was a blessing in disguise. As a family, we grew because of it. It taught us about ourselves, our family and our faith.” n
MAY 2007 Sally Demuth, Jacob’s teacher, died of cancer after beating it twice before.
may 2007 Sally hand-stitched this quilt for Jacob to use during chemotherapy.
APRIL 2010 Post-cancer, Jacob spends some time with his mother Amy, a nurse.
SEPTEMBER 2010 Jacob’s sister Isabella is now 7. Jacob is the third of eight kids. COURTESY OF JACOB WARNER
h
Alger meet the
family by TORIE FOSTER | photos by SEAN CASSIDY & GRIFFIN HARRINGTON
He’s a singer, she plays piano, and their daughter’s involved in her 14th stage production. During a tour of their home, the JMU presidential family discusses their personal interests and family history. Together, they hope to model a tight-knit community on campus.
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t took two geese in the back of Mary Ann Alger’s car to get her and her husband to finally start dating. President Jon Alger and his wife were friends for years after they met through the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., in 1989. It wasn’t until December 1994 during a trip with some friends to Deep Creek Lake in Maryland that the romance began. “We were skiing and kind of got the twinkle in the eye,” Mary Ann said. “I was really hoping Jon would ask me out.” January came and Jon still hadn’t asked. After Mary Ann stayed at a friend’s goosehunting lodge for a weekend on the Eastern Shore in Maryland, she was driving home with two dead geese the host had given her in her trunk — with no idea what to do with them. “I thought, ‘Well, maybe I’ll call Jon Alger and have him come over for dinner,’ ” she said. “I knew he was going to ask me out any minute, so I decided just to make it happen.” When he agreed, Mary Ann called a friend who worked at the Watergate Hotel to figure out how to prepare the geese. After the dinner — a meal Jon now deems “OK” — the two started dating. He proposed almost two years later on Dec. 3, 1996: Mary Ann’s birthday. Jon picked her up in a limo. “She kind of had a clue,” Jon said, chuckling.
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Before they went to dinner, Jon, who used to sing with an internationally touring choral group, got down on one knee, sang Steven Curtis Chapman’s “I Will Be Here” and proposed to Mary Ann. After she said yes, they went to the Cheesecake Factory, one of their favorite restaurants, in Friendship Heights in the Maryland/D.C. area. “I wanted to get the proposal out of the way first so we could go to the Cheesecake Factory and enjoy ourselves,” Jon said jokingly. The restaurant would later cater their wedding dessert in May 1997. The newlyweds then moved to Arlington. Their daughter Eleanor was born in 1998, and in 2000, the family moved to Ann Arbor when Jon received the assistant general counsel position at the University of Michigan. Jon later became vice president and general counsel at Rutgers in New Jersey. Coming to JMU, this is the first time Mary Ann hasn’t had a paid position since she was about 12. Mary Ann, who grew up in Florida, double majored in international business and Spanish at Auburn University. After graduation, she received a Master of Business Administration at the University of Miami with a concentration in international finance. Throughout her life, she’s worked in several positions, including banking as well as consultation for start-up companies. She’s also had her own consultation practice. Now, she spends about 20-30 hours a week
volunteering on campus. One activity she’s involved in is working to connect the College of Business, Center for Entrepreneurship, the Office of Technology Transfer and the Shenandoah Valley Small Business Development Center. “I’m still developing what I want to do and what my role at the university might be,” she said. “That’s going to be an ongoing process.” She also makes time for Eleanor’s school, coordinating the parent volunteers for the Skyline Middle School musical “Alice in Wonderland.” Eleanor, 13, plays the Queen of Hearts, which she will perform on her 14th birthday on Nov. 17. “I can’t think of a better way to spend my birthday,” said Eleanor, who’s been involved in 14 productions now. The eighth-grader takes after her musical father. As a member of the Shenandoah Valley Children’s Choir, a group of grades 3-12, she will perform internationally. Eleanor, who has been singing in church and school choirs for most of her life, was in her first stage production in fourth grade. “There’s just something about words that I really love, whether I’m speaking them or reading them or writing them,” Eleanor said. She says she taught herself to read at age 4 and also hopes to publish a book before she finishes high school. She’s already written two and is working on a third, although they’re not yet published. Ridley Pearson and
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The whole family does participate. When you have a job like this, 24/7, you’re always at events — nights and weekends and all the time. president jon alger Dave Barry’s “Bridge to Neverland” ranks as one of her favorite books, though she also loves classics like “Little Women” and “Little House on the Prairie.” “She’s always got either a book or a pen or both everywhere we go,” said her father, who added that the two read together almost every night. The Andrew Lloyd Webber revue (one of her favorite composers) had Eleanor excited to visit the Forbes Center for the Performing Arts earlier this month. Music and artistry is a passion of the whole family. Mary Ann, who has played piano since she was 3, tries to make time to play each week — though she’s not playing the two-to-four hours a day she used to. “For all my life, I’ve loved words and music,” Eleanor said. “And that definitely comes as an influence from them because both my parents are musicians. I’d be the odd one out if I wasn’t involved in music.” It’s a bit early for Eleanor to decide whether she’ll one day enroll at JMU, but she’s thinking about it. Until then, being a presidential family is a constant job for all of them. All three of the Algers attend JMU events — sports games, concerts, plays and club functions — almost every night. Even Eleanor stays present on campus, introducing a women’s swim and dive scrimmage in early October and looking forward to attending women’s
TOP LEFT At their home, Oakview, the Algers hosted a pool party for OPAs in September. TOP RIGHT Mary Ann often uses the university-owned piano in Oakview. She’s been playing since she was 3. BOTTOM The Algers hold both formal and informal meetings in the dining room, where photos of JMU landmarks decorate the walls.
basketball games. “The whole family does participate,” Jon said. “When you have a job like this, 24/7, you’re always at events — nights and weekends and all the time.” While they try to have family dinners a few times a week, it’s a challenge. There’s no such thing as a typical night for the Algers, and it’s rare that Jon, who leaves by 7:30 a.m. for work every day, gets home before dark. But it’s a
lifestyle they value. “As a family, we really try to send that signal to the university that we very much want to be a part of the community,” Jon said. Eleanor, who says she’s a “people person,” especially wants to connect with students. “I really hope people take that step and not treat us like a family on a pedestal,” Eleanor said, “but really treat us like they’re a part of our family, too.” n P&M, Fall 2012
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>>>> MY
WORKSPACE by SARAH LOCKWOOD | photos by GRIFFIN HARRINGTON & LAURA WEEKS
For some professors, their rooms are more than just offices. They’re a display of their passions and accomplishments.
Graphic Design Montpelier 368 14th year at JMU Pratt Institute GRADuate
RICH HILLIARD It took 40 moving boxes and two pickup trucks to move Rich Hilliard into Montpelier Hall. Hilliard made the move before the spring 2012 semester, opting out of the university’s moving service. He had precious cargo. Figurines of characters from “Star Wars,” Batman, Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman and astronauts fill the room. Hilliard stuffed every corner of the office and still left a third of his collection in storage. He has more than 50 “Star Wars” figurines. Hilliard has illustrated five children’s books, four of which he wrote. Some of his original paintings from these illustrations hang on the
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wall. His office also houses toys he’s designed — some of which are approaching 50 years old, such as a game he got in 1964. “I get accused of being an overgrown child sometimes, and I’m actually really OK with that,” said Hilliard, who rearranges the office based on phases. Currently, Hilliard’s favorite decoration is a lifesize bust of The Joker, an anniversary present from his wife. “The students love it,” he said. “They kind of know that I’m tuned in to pop culture, and that keeps me current.” n
Craig Abrahamson
Psychology Miller 1155 21st YEAR AT JMU Western Washington University GRADuate
It’s the 62 framed photographs you notice first: a South African woman dying of AIDS, rich landscapes, Desmond Tutu, Bob Dylan. He took them all. Craig Abrahamson has been an avid photographer since he was 10. Most photos show scenes from his global research trips. He first traveled to Vietnam for research in 1991. Since then, he has studied societies in Northern China, Central America, South America, Africa, India and Myanmar. Some of his research subjects include people who have been tortured, refugees in new lands and the terminally ill. Next to his desk, which displays classic model cars, a wooden bust sits on a mini-fridge; behind the door, a totem pole. A church pew offers seating under one of the walls of photographs. “This office is like my sanctuary,” he said. His totem poles especially represent his passion for different cultures. “I fell in love with the whole mystic of indigenous healing, indigenous art,” Abrahamson said. “I really believe that the indigenous population is something that we can learn a great deal from.” Abrahamson’s favorite object in his office is a carved Dodo bird he got in Mauritius, off the southeast coast of Africa. The painted yellow bird has bright blue feet and red, green and blue designs, reminding Abrahamson of his youngest daughter, whom he calls “Bird.” n
APRIL ROTH gulotta “This is kind of an explosion of pop culture,” said April Roth Gulotta as she looked around her office. Pink, her favorite color, gives a warm atmosphere to her diverse collection: stuffed animals of E.T., the Muppets and pink flamingos, a boxed “Twilight” Edward doll and pictures of everyone from students to Jay-Z and Kristin Chenoweth. “I guess it’s just all things that make me happy,” Roth Gulotta said. “So I feel like if my students come in here, it will make them happy, too.” Her office displays posters for “Rent,” “Tupac,” “Dirty Dancing” and The Grateful Dead. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s zombie campaign poster reflects one project she just finished examining zombie culture. A cardboard cutout of James Dean leans against the wall. She’s had it since she was 15 and used to find it in her bed or in her shower, an ongoing practical joke of her brother’s. A set of photo booth strips, which hangs on her wall, is also special to Roth Gulotta. The first is a copy of a strip Andy Warhol took of himself. There are two more strips of herself, which she took in the same booth as Warhol, one of her favorite artists. “It looks like a little bit of a junk yard, but it’s actually kind of a museum,” Roth Gulotta said. “I think that we can do a lot of learning about ourselves both and inside and outside of the classroom, and that’s what I want people to do when they come in here.” n
Communication studies Harrison 1124 11th year at JMU auburn university GRADuate
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alaska & back
to
by LAURA WEEKS | photo courtesy of JT THOMAS
Gary Freeburg, director of JMU’s Sawhill Art Gallery, has explored volcanic regions across Alaska, most notably the Valley of 10,000 Smokes. With the photos he brings back and a recent book release, he hopes to inspire students to see ‘beauty within desolation.’
In Alaska, Gary Freeburg, 63, faces hypothermia, five active volcanoes, 35 mph wind, volcanic ash that falls like “powdered sugar” and the threat of bears. But carefully treading along glaciers and crevasses, equipped with whistles and bear spray, his expeditions are a time of solitude and reflection, an escape from his busy life on campus. Gary, the director for JMU’s Sawhill Art Gallery, photographs volcanic regions in Alaska, particularly the Valley of 10,000 Smokes — a 44-square mile landscape of volcanic ash and pumice buried 1,000 feet deep. From the formation of this new earth surface, created by wind, erosion and emerging rock, Gary sees balance, a site of shapes, shadows and textures. “The photographs give you an indication of what the place may look like, and the drawings will tell you more about how it feels,” Gary says. He’s made five expeditions to the Valley. In June, he took one to the Aniakchak National Preserve, another volcanic region in Alaska. During the first few days of an expedition, he ventures the landscape without a camera to observe, absorb and adapt. Abandoning outside communication, he sketches and writes about his surroundings and what it’s like to be there alone. Gary has been a landscape photographer for 40 years and has worked with legendary photographers like Ansel Adams, Oliver Gagliani and John Schultz. He directed the art program at Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula College, where he managed art classes, faculty and instilled a love of art into a community where
the fine arts played little to no role in daily life. He left in 2002 before coming to JMU. Back in Alaska, Celia Anderson is in charge of Kenai Peninsula College’s gallery, which she named the Gary L. Freeburg Art Gallery. Anderson has known Gary since 1990, when she moved to the peninsula from Anchorage. “We would solve the world’s problems over a cup of coffee, and it usually made both of us feel better,” says Anderson, who worked with Gary to develop Kenai’s art program. “We both wanted the same thing for our little corner of the world. We wanted it to be a very high-quality art program.” The 1912 eruption of the Valley — the largest in the 20th century — celebrated its centennial anniversary June 6. Gary’s book, “The Valley of 10,000 Smokes: Revisiting the Alaskan Sublime,” released Oct. 15. Bridgewater College featured 20 of Gary’s images in an exhibition in September, when he gave a lecture to more than 200 people and signed advanced copies of his book. Gary discovered the region when Sitka National Historic Park superintendent Ernie Suazo in Sitka, Alaska, looked at Gary’s images of the state’s coastline, noticing remarkable similarities between those photographs and some he’d seen from park service rangers in the Valley of 10,000 Smokes. “The story is a connection I have to the wilderness and how important the wilderness is to me,” Gary says. “To live within it, to observe and adapt to it changes your life. It makes you feel good about what you have.”
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After receiving a Master of Fine Arts degree in photography from the University of Iowa, he spent six years in the navy. “Twenty-two months, four days and 11 hours of that was in Vietnam,” says Gary, who also earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and a Master of Arts degree in both photography and drawing from Minnesota State University Mankato. At the height of the Vietnam War in 1971, Gary found a Buddhist rock garden while on military leave to Japan. He would visit the garden every day, each time struck by the way the white sand shifted, while the stones — some the size of humans — remained stationary. “As I sat there, I didn’t think about the war,” Gary says. “I didn’t think about what was going on around me. This garden absorbed so much of my attention.” It was at this moment, isolated within the serenity of the garden as war raged around him that Gary realized, “In desolation, there is beauty,” an idea that’s helped him develop a mental and physical process for surviving in these remote regions. “He’s able to see the big picture,” says Kathy Schwartz, Gary’s wife and director of JMU’s Art Education Center. “In the wilderness, he can scan the landscape quickly and not just see it, but feel it so that he’s in tune with his environment.” Though Schwartz hasn’t accompanied her husband on these expeditions, she understands the landscape through his drawings. “When you see the photographs, you get a feeling of isolation in the wilderness, but when you see the drawings, you see the extreme explosive power of nature,” Schwartz says. George Johnson, a media arts and design professor at JMU, com-
pleted a documentary of Gary’s work in 2010 as a supplement to Gary’s book. Johnson, who also studied for a time under Ansel Adams, flew to Alaska with Gary for an expedition in 2008. “When you do something like that, you’ve got to be in sync with the person,” says Johnson, who considers Gary a “kindred spirit.”
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progressing or proceeding or going anywhere. The moment I enter until the moment I leave is like one long moment,” he says. After adapting to his new surroundings, Gary begins to photograph — a soothing and methodical process. He first uses a small pocket camera as a sketchbook before shooting with a bigger, “more serious” camera. “I don’t want to work fast,” says Gary, who’s used to carrying around bulky equipment, including a 4-by-5 inch camera, a tripod and light meter. “You’re not going to be photographing with speed, which suits my personality.” Gary, who hikes up to 22 miles a day during an expedition, allows his expectations of the images and of the place to dictate the type of camera equipment he’ll take. The dust in volcanic regions calls for the simplest gear possible, like his Fuji 6-by-9 centimeter film camera. “I’m mired in the drama of black and white,” Gary says. Black and white photography, according to Gary, abstracts nature. Taking color out of an image allows the photographer to bring back values and texture. “The blue skies up [in Alaska] are so bright that it overwhelms the rest of the photograph. It takes away too much of the focus of the image.” But photographing landscapes isn’t without challenges, explains Gary. His hand gestures are mirrored in his sleek, black desk, like a landscape reflected upon a still lake — much like the framed black and white photograph of the Valley of 10,000 Smokes that hangs on the wall across from him. “You can never reproduce what you see,” Gary says. “When I go into the landscape, I look at it as perfection, especially the wilderness. The biggest frustration is that it’s very difficult to bring back what you see. So often, you go out there and you
I see enough destruction in our day-to-day news that if my art isn’t helpful, I’m not interested in doing it.
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Gary freeburg The pair spent two weeks hiking, collecting and purifying their own water and sleeping on plywood boards in makeshift shelters. The film, which took three years to finalize and is the only high-definition video of the valley, “is the journey of a photographer, the journey of a nature lover and a spiritual journey of how he started tying things together in his life,” Johnson explains. For Johnson, the trip was one of the highlights of his life. “If I weren’t married, and if I didn’t have children, that’s the life I would lead,” Johnson says. “He’s lived a life that I haven’t.” That life, as Gary explains, involves adapting to the rhythm of nature, rather than to a man-made culture — a message Gary translates by presenting friends and colleagues with barometers upon their retirement, rather than gold watches. “It’s the barometer that should be dictating your life, rather than the clock,” Gary says. “Who cares about time?” During an expedition, time becomes “cyclical,” he explains. In fact, it’s rarely something that crosses his mind. “It doesn’t feel like your life is
courtesy of Gary Freeburg
In his photos of Alaska, Gary Freeburg tends to avoid color photography because he believes it takes away from the texture and the beauty of the nature he tries to document. “I’m mired in the drama of black and white,” he says.
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Gary Freeburg takes down his photos featured in a Sept. 24 exhibit at Bridgewater College and discusses his new book, “The Valley of 10,000 Smokes: Revisiting the Alaskan Sublime.�
photos by laura weeks
try to bring back the images, and what you see is disappointment.” Still, Gary hopes his art will tell a story and inspire people to visit these places. Gary’s work is recognized for its aesthetic value by science communities in Alaska, including volcanologists, anthropologists and archaeologists. His images and introductory essay about the Valley of 10,000 Smokes have been featured in the Alaska Park Science Journal. “I see enough destruction in our dayto-day news that if my art isn’t helpful, I’m not interested in doing it,” Gary says. “If nothing else, I want it to create a sense that the wilderness is important and needs to be taken care of and cherished, not manipulated.” Recently, Gary’s focus has extended beyond the Valley of 10,000 Smokes into the remote region of Aniakchak.
With only 50 visitors recorded since 2007, it’s one of the least visited areas of the Alaska National Park. Aniakchak features a six-mile wide, 2,500-foot deep caldera (a cauldronlike volcanic feature) formed during a massive eruption 3,500 years ago. It also has one of the most active Kodiak bear populations in Alaska. Armed with a 7-pound, 12-gauge shotgun, an emergency locator and a bear fence surrounding his tent at night, Gary trekked the region this summer, capturing 416 photos in eight days using two digital cameras. Although he saw fresh tracks, he never encountered any bears. Like his expeditions to the Valley of 10,000 Smokes, Gary was drawn to Aniakchak’s dramatic craters and mountains. “The air turns to clouds, and it just
pours like milk over the sides of the crater,” says Gary, who braced wind, snow and 30-degree temperatures to climb to the top of Vent Mountain, the volcano’s 2,000-foot main attraction. “I could see the whole entire crater rim,” Gary says. “You could truly see the distance from there to back to where my camp was, which was about two miles.” His images from Aniakchak, along with more than 2,000 negatives and several hundred digital images from his trips to the Valley of 10,000 Smokes might be used for a second book, Gary explains. “His work is a very important part of our family’s life,” Schwartz says. “Anybody who spends a little bit of time with Gary’s work can feel what it might be like to be out there — you can actually begin to feel the wind.” n
haunting HISTORY by ALISON PARKER | photo by BRIAN PRESCOTT
24 P&M, P&M,Fall Spring 22 20122012
A n a ba n don e d i nsa ne asylum-t u r ne d con d o mi ni um co mp l e x i n Staunton h as a past fi l l e d w i t h me d i ca l e x p e r i me nts a n d u nsta bl e pat i e nts
hat’s now a place people call home in Staunton used to hold more than 3,000 people deemed mentally insane. Construction for the Villages at Staunton began in 2007 to convert an old insane asylum into condos. Scattered among the renovated condos are dilapidated buildings: an infirmary, a dining hall, asylum staff offices and living quarters. The insides of the structures are dusted with asbestos, drafty even on a humid day and streaked with red markings. Hundreds of nameless headstones make up a cemetery behind the condos. Western State Hospital opened for its first patients in 1828. The original buildings now house the sales and administration offices for the Village. Women lived on one side in the administration building, men lived on the other, and staff stayed in the middle. The first patient admitted to the institution was for “religious excitement,” according to Jerry Austin, the current property manager. Many other patients were kept for alcohol-related reasons and some for what may be considered today as ADD or ADHD. In a separate building, staff kept people who couldn’t room with everyone else: the loud, violent patients. More buildings were added in 1838, now known as the Bindery Condominiums and the South buildings. The institution’s superintendent, Francis Stribling, used what was called “moral medicine.” He got rid of the chains and shackles and created a friendlier environment. “He thought a soothing environment like this was conducive to mental healing,” Austin said. “That’s why we had gardens, beautiful trees. [The patients] had the cupolas where they could look out. That was a big part of the healing process here.” Stribling continued this philosophy throughout the Civil War. He worked with Thomas Jefferson’s architect, Thomas Blackburn, to design new buildings with wings, columns and embellishments that made the buildings more visually appealing. This history attracted Fred and Nancy Kaspick to rent a condo in the Bindery complex, where they’ve lived there since July 1. “It was a little spooky before we moved here, only because of the history of it,” Nancy said. “But then, we’re both sort of history buffs, so we got really into it.”
The Kaspicks began researching deeper into the roots of their new home, especially about how patients were treated. “It was really impressive in what it started out to be,” Nancy said. The asylum “wanted to rehabilitate people and then send them out into the community with some skill that they could do to be independent.” But that changed in the early 1900s when Joseph DeJarnette became superintendent. He had a different philosophy for treating patients: eugenics, a practice infamously used by Nazi-Germany. A form of “racial hygiene,” it was used to cleanse undesirable genes or traits from a particular group of people. Sterilizing certain mental patients became the most common practice under DeJarnette’s direction. Lobotomy, a neurosurgical procedure in which doctors “probe” the brain, was also performed on many patients. It was a common operation between the 1920s and 1960s but is now considered illegal and inhumane because of dangerous side effects. Plans to remodel the entire campus are in effect — a project predicted to take about 20 years and almost $3.5 million, according to Austin. The Villages at Staunton has an agreement with the city to develop one building a year, and the project is right on schedule, he said. The Historic Staunton Foundation is overseeing the changes to make sure the original building is preserved. There are also plans to build a Blackburn Inn that includes a three-story spa within the condo complex. Another addition, through an agreement with the American Shakespeare Center, is to build a replica of the Globe Theatre. But Austin dismisses the possibility of the area being haunted. He’s worked on the grounds for four years and has yet to see a ghost — not even near the cemetery. “I’ve slept upstairs in the bedrooms in my office building,” Austin said. “I think it might excite some people here, but we don’t consider it haunted.” Fred said people always ask if he knows what he got himself into. “When people find out where you live, the first question they ask, and they usually pull you aside, is, ‘Do you know if the people who live there know that it used to be?’ ” Fred said. “We get such a kick out of it. We weren’t afraid of it, not even the ghosts.” Fred said since they’ve lived there, they haven’t seen anything — but they secretly wish they would. n
P&M, 201223 7 P&M,Spring Fall 2012
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