Backbone > Lucid Dreaming
The Spirit of Giving ...from within
by Beth Elaine Wilson

Yes, it’s true that Gandhi once said something like, “if you want to change the world, start within yourself.” Unfortunately, legions of well-meaning people have taken that charge as a mandate to enter into meditation, various Eastern religions, exercises to balance their chi, and generalized New Age navel-gazing, from which they never entirely emerge. The self becomes a never-ending home improvement project from which one rarely emerges, and the occasional outward-directed, compassionate impulse becomes evidence of being on a “bodhisattva path.”

And then there are those whose lives embody the best of what the panoply of new age practices point to, and who apply their energies and their time to places in the world where there is real pain and real damage to other people. Instead of demanding some sort of self-perfection before going out and doing something meaningful for other people (or working on that goal to the exclusion of acting in the world), they understand the relative position of emotional or economic advantage that they have, and without question spontaneously do what they can to assist those who don’t have such advantages. And they don’t use the word “bodhisattva” to describe what they do.

The exhibition opening on December 7 at Gabriel’s Kitchen in Kingston commemorates the photographic career of Maggie Sherwood, a New York City photographer who in many ways expanded the meaning and significance of that occupational description. The images themselves, mostly color giclée prints based on Sherwood’s hand-painted photographs, tell only part of the story. Innovative, rule-breaking, and imaginative, many of them manage to distill the essence of the city: views of Central Park or Coney Island, fragments of a man feeding pigeons, and the Empire Diner. The painted passages complete the atmospheric union of time and place, elevating the city to the substance of myth, of timeless legend.

But Sherwood’s essential work extended far beyond her own photography—in fact, she usually downplayed her own photographs in favor of exhibiting and encouraging others. Back in the late 1960s there was little appreciation of photography as an art (the valiant attempts of the Museum of Modern Art’s curators Beaumont Newhall and John Szarkowski notwithstanding). Photographers functioned as an extension of the commercial market, with the best of them ultimately finding an outlet for their pictures in mass-circulation magazines like Life. As a student of David Vestal (who literally wrote the book on black-and-white printing), Sherwood’s circle of friends included W. Eugene Smith, Lisette Model, Lilo Raymond, and a host of other gifted photographers.

In 1969 chance brought her the opportunity to buy a houseboat, which she renovated by adding a second story gallery space, a place where she could stage photography shows—there were very few other places that “art photography” could be seen on a regular basis—and she founded a regular program of group shows that began to receive critical attention. She painted the now-towering boat purple, which certainly drew attention to it on the water. When she tried to rent a mooring at the 79 Street boat basin, Sherwood was told she’d have to paint it white, as it would literally stop traffic on the West Side Highway. Her response was to call Mayor Lindsay’s office, complaining about “color discrimination”—and magically, within a few days the boat basin management relented.

The gallery on the boat functioned on a mostly philanthropic basis, rarely if ever collecting a percentage of sales made—and by today’s standards, there were many bargains to be had. The photography market had not yet taken off, so it was possible to buy an original Gene Smith print, for instance, for $35. More importantly, with its darkroom and integrated exhibition space, the boat served as a unique place for photographers to meet, exhibit, and discuss their work. The Floating Foundation of Photography, as it came to be called, was born.

Sherwood’s interests extended beyond just the art/photography world, however. In short order, she and her son Steve Schoen began finding ways to bring the gospel of photography to the world. They began working with institutionalized mental patients from Bellevue, and ultimately towed the boat to Wards Island to work with the patients there. Photography was an easily learned, accessible medium for the institutionalized to come to creative grips with their lives, and to share the way they saw the world.

In the spring of 1971, Schoen was granted permission by the warden of Sing Sing prison to begin a photography program for the inmates there. Over 200 men signed up to take the course, which began with simple Polaroids, and step by step moved up to using “real” cameras, and developing and printing their own film. Photography was a means for those men, otherwise shut out from society and rendered voiceless, to say something about their lives. In addition, it was an eminently practical vehicle for learning basic chemistry, mathematical skills, and responsibility. Amazingly, the warden (who was very progressive) allowed the inmates to photograph freely within the prison. A number of the resulting images, with an incredible text about the reality of life behind bars by prisoner John Conroy, was published as Sing Sing: The View From Within. The book prompted an exhibition on the boat, still tethered on the West Side, and ironically the opening happened the day the Attica riots broke out. Sherwood and Schoen feared that the riots would bring their prison work to an end; however, they wound up extending the program to include Riker’s Island, Green Haven, Bedford Hills, and a number of other prisons as well.

In 1976, the purple houseboat sank in a hurricane. Raised from the bottom of the boat basin, it sat in dry-dock on Staten Island for two years while funds were raised for its restoration, although the prison and mental hospital programs continued apace without it. Eventually, someone gave the Floating Foundation a 36’ x 150’ barge. The houseboat was lifted onto the barge in its entirety, and a deck was constructed across the remainder of the barge to provide additional usable outdoor space, which hosted musical festivals and other events in addition to the gallery activities. Moored at Pier 40, Sherwood encouraged women coming out of her prison classes to come to the barge when they were released. A number of them were given jobs working for the foundation, which then functioned as a sort of halfway house to help integrate its former student/inmates back into society.

In a parting gesture, Sherwood crated up selections of her late work, with individual boxes left to each of her surviving children. After her death in 1984, Steve Schoen and his wife Jone Miller sold the barge and moved to Rosendale (although they’ve remained active working with disadvantaged communities via photography). Schoen couldn’t bring himself to open his crate until recently, however. Inside he found Maggie’s treasures, including a spookily prescient combination print of the World Trade Center with camels in the foreground, hand painted in a way that can be read as flames coming from the windows. This and the other contents of Sherwood’s “gift” box provide the material for a fitting memorial exhibition to a woman and an engaged artist worth knowing about, and to a spirit of giving that should give us all pause for reflection during this most commercialized of seasons.

“Free as a Bird,” photographs by Maggie Sherwood, on view December 7, 2002 through January 29, 2003 at Gabriel’s Kitchen,
50 John Street, Kingston. 338-7161.