simply a cautionary tale for those left behind
I have a small collection on a shelf—a wooden ear, a wooden finger, a wooden golf club, all the things that have come off my late husband’s left behind sculptures during my moves. Most of his sculptures were under two feet (though he did huge pieces for the sides of buildings too). I try so hard to move the sculptures carefully; I wrap them, box them, encase them in cloth or bubble wrap, lift them gently. And still . . . they break and now their glue is drying out and they disarticulate. Many of the works he left behind are complete and gorgeous, but even the whole ones need regular oiling to prevent cracking as they dry out. Another task.
These pieces survived the fourth move of 3000 miles.
I am lucky, though, that Bryce’s works tended to be small sculptures, and I think of an artist we knew who, at one point in his life, did huge oil paintings embedded with real rocks which were left behind for someone to deal with. And what of the leavings of artists who do monumental stone pieces? Or those who work in much less permanent materials?
I am also lucky that Bryce’s fourteen-piece sculpture series Local Myths was accepted by the Merrymeeting Arts Center (Bowdoinham, Maine) started in his honor. The Center also had an auction including other works we donated. My family and friends love the pieces they’ve been gifted. And a wonderful gallery took a few pieces for sale.
I have successfully donated several of his sculptures to major museums (see appendix) which means a tax write-off for my son and me. This also meant contacting and corresponding with the institutions (often with the help of a friend who has a connection), paying for a formal appraisal, and, after an official acceptance, filling out paperwork and having the sculptures physically transported to the institution, which often involves several car trips. One sculpture needed to be shipped 3000 miles, which a professional art shipping company estimated would cost $1,100. Instead, it was hand-carried by air by my son and daughter-in-law.
But there’s still more. Bryce’s photos and drawings and—new challenge of this age—his website. I pay the yearly website host fee willingly, but for how long?
And the raw materials that filled a workshop and shed and yard—chunks and planks and logs and burls of the 100+ types of wood he used (oak and maple and massaranduba and mahogany and lignum vitae and rosewood). I had to hire ($$!!) someone to vacuum his workshop for eight hours to clear the layers of sawdust that gave me allergy attacks before I could deal with its contents. I spent a month organizing and publicizing a wood lawn sale, $5 a chunk, $25 bags, even some $100 boards, aided by a wonderful luthier friend who helped me price things. A successful event, but tiring, and it didn’t clear out everything.
His tools, many bought secondhand and well used. Chisels and screwdrivers and calipers. And the powertools—saws and drills and bandsaw. I offered tools to friends and family members, especially those with children (a screwdriver is a screwdriver) and a school, and was astounded by an immigrant center that brushed me off since it “didn’t offer woodworking courses.” (Wait! Every household will need a hammer and screwdriver!) And still there was more.
The things an artist uses and partially uses and acquires and leaves behind. The raw materials for his/her work that are so difficult to afford when you’re starting off that you accumulate and house and must eventually dispose of. What’s the worth of a half tube of acrylic? A pile of unused assorted grades of sandpaper? Remember that Vincent van Gogh’s sunflowers apparently were partly the result of his having no money to buy all colors of oil paints, but he had yellow!
I contacted several antiques dealers. They came after agreeing to a time, roamed, and offered to buy an oddball collection of this and that (the twenty-four hour clock from Bryce’s navy stint, the few tools worth something).
Another box of journals.
And the drawers and cupboards and boxes of memorabilia—the letters to and from clients, reviews of shows he was in, photos of every piece he made during thirty-five years. His journals. And the things that an artist keeps near for inspiration and comfort: a pile of lovely beachrocks, sundry photographs, toy soldiers, candlesticks, many personal notebooks with drawings and ideas, favorite poems, diaries, thousands of negatives of the pieces he photographed.
Sometimes an artist’s studio (at least for those who have become famous in life) is preserved and even becomes a lucrative tourist destination: Winslow Homer and Georgia O’Keeffe come to mind. The Watts Towers. Giverny. Or the new Bernard Langlais home and sculpture garden in Cushing, Maine (his widow never sold it or moved things and the preservationists had a major task funding it and restoring the large wooden sculptures that had been outdoors in Maine weather for years).
Peggy Muir with Bryce Muir’s Shock and Awe (the artist’s reaction to the war in Iraq), now in the collections of the Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA.
Libraries and archives accept collections from some writers and poets. A local historical society will take some things too. I recently learned (in my new home near Seattle) that a Maine auction house just offered a collection of his pieces from a deceased patron.
Some of my husband’s works, broken or neglected, wound up at the town dump during his lifetime. He laughed. He said his job was just to make the work and he couldn’t be bothered with what happened to it. He wrote no will and left no instructions.
It becomes the job of those left behind. It is now almost twenty years since Bryce died. I have moved four times and sold our home, his studio. At some level, my work is done. There is an emotional disconnect and fatigue. I loved being part of his artistic journey and I am tired. Maybe I’ve done enough curating his memory.
It has definitely been an act of love.
Postscript
It would certainly help to have guides (a person or a brochure or a website) to help those dealing with an artist’s legacy! Are there any out there?
Note
The Maine Arts Journal would like to hear your story.
Appendix
Sculptures by Bryce Muir are owned by
- American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY.
- Merrymeeting Arts Center, Bowdoinham, ME.
- Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA.
- Portrait of George W. Bush as Elephant, gift for his 2001 inauguration from his Phillips Andover Class of 1964. Now in the White House Collection.
Image at top: Bryce Muir, c. 1981, with just completed portrait of Peggy’s aunt Margaret Mead. When strings are pulled on back, the figure spits wooden flames. Now in the collections of the American Museum of Natural History.