Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Rock Cages being moved, forklift stuck in mud!



Rufus Grider Painted Rocks-copyright Manzi 1996

WELL, it seemed we needed a little humor yesterday and so we asked to have the two
sections of cage which have not been covered moved into place near our work station
outside of Adirondack Studios in Argyle, where all preparatory work has been done on
the project.  The three minute video shows what fun we had when the forklift got stuck in



the mud.  Actually I have to apologize because I was so shaken by the attempt to rock the forklift with cage suspended out of the rut, I turned off the camera for awhile. Stars of yesterday's video are Max and Kevin, movers extraordinaire, with Max at the wheel and Tyler Needham lending a hand.  Included is a little footage of me cutting and shaping the metal lath that will hold the concrete.  Joel is on camera.  We have discovered that Joel has a real feeling for this sort of thing! In his spare time he is working side by side with me applying the lath.

Sorry, ...it seems there is a problem uploading my video.  You can go to 
http://gallery.me.com/manzi/100049
This is my mobile me account.
I will continue to try to upload.  Sorry for the inconvenience.

Alice


I DO HOPE that those of you who are following the project can see the relationship of the cages to the original rock and model.  I will soon have time to post more info, and I hope to be more clear about where we are going.  

PS VERY INTERESTING;  I went to the Rufus Grider exhibit at the Arkell Museum in Canajoharie Sunday and was able to see one of the five (known) existing watercolors the artist did of the Painted Rocks of Amsterdam.  This version is huge in comparison to the one in his notebooks which I am using for the images- possibly 20 by 30 inches.  It is very vibrant and shows some of the Native people carrying bows and arrows. I think you would all enjoy seeing some of Grider's work- all on the subject of the Mohawk Valley.

So....do visit the Arkell Museum, just off the Thruway at Exit 29.  Also check out the website of Adirondack Studios at www.adkstudios.com.  Some very out of the box stuff which has been installed all over the world.


  

Monday, June 27, 2011

Painted Rocks site being prepared!!

Here is a short video showing my drive by at Riverlink Park yesterday, June 26.

Ground prep at Painted Rocks site June 26!

Hello all,
     Drove over the bridge yesterday, Sunday june 26 and saw the fill being added to the site for the painted rocks.  This is getting very exciting!
     One more Amsterdam grad reached me, Yomar Galarza, offering help of any kind.  Now have 11 of the original group.  Everyone is trying to reach others who were involved.  Please save any news clippings, posts to other blogs, etc. for our "archives" of this historic project.  We will all get together in Amsterdam soon to plan strategy for our project.
     Many thanks to all!
Alice

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Ground Broken for Painted Rocks!

     We were fortunate last week to have Jessica Maher of the Amsterdam Recorder interview Mayor Thane and myself for what is a very nice article on Riverlink Park Phase Two. (Recorder June 14) The article ramped up our search for Amsterdam High students from 1997 who helped with the original project all those years ago.  I have received calls and e-mails and we now have the contact info for 10 of the original team!!


Andrea Escobar Melendez
Eddy Melendez
Shannon Batease
Chad Cszwarnowicz
Courtney Patterson
Yomar Galarza
Sara Milonovich
Patty McClumpha
Tom DiCaprio
Michelle Demitraszek
     I will remain in touch with the group and hope that we will eventually reach everyone on our list.  Mrs. Van Wormer, Amsterdam art teacher on the original project, has been helping me every step of the way. We hope to get he group involved as soon as we can and in any way we can.  Right now we are hoping everyone will get the word out about the project to all family and friends. 
 Facebooking is now encouraged, so please feel free!!
This week we began the application of metal lath to the superstructure completed one and a half weeks ago.  The difference you will see in the photos is that the steel structure and superstructure have been sandblasted and rustproofed.  The piece is now virtually the color of this text, or almost the same color as the Native American figures that will be on the Painted Rocks.


     Today, Wed., we had too much rain to be able to work outside.  Shortly before it began the moving team at Adirondack Studios drove up with the forklift and moved the first of the smaller ledge sections inside. Thank you to Max, Kevin and Akim for the save!


Photo of the piece prior to sandblasting.





                     Photo today of the beginning of the lath material on the piece.  In the rain.




This is inside the studio today.  The back of the piece; rear view shapes go over the top and become the ledge.  Please, everyone, pray for clear skies both now and when we get to the park which is scheduled to be August 5!!
More very soon.  Please share the blog!! Pray for no rain!!


Thank you Jessica Maher!
Pray for no rain!!


PS: to everyone; Mayor Ann Thane has a great blog at upstreamzine.wordpress.com
Also, the website for Amsterdam is really amazing-  www.amsterdamny.gov




Alice









Ground Broken for Painted Rocks!

     We were fortunate last week to have Jessica Maher of the Amsterdam Recorder interview Mayor Thane and myself for what is a very nice article on Riverlink Park Phase Two. (Recorder June 14) The article ramped up our search for Amsterdam High students from 1997 who helped with the original project all those years ago.  I have received calls and e-mails and we now have the contact info for 10 of the original team!!


Andrea Escobar Melendez
Eddy Melendez
Shannon Batease
Chad Cszwarnowicz
Courtney Patterson
Yomar Galarza
Sara Milonovich
Patty McClumpha
Tom DiCaprio
Michelle Demitraszek
     I will remain in touch with the group and hope that we will eventually reach everyone on our list.  Mrs. Van Wormer, Amsterdam art teacher on the original project, has been helping me every step of the way. We hope to get he group involved as soon as we can and in any way we can.  Right now we are hoping everyone will get the word out about the project to all family and friends. 
 Facebooking is now encouraged, so please feel free!!
This week we began the application of metal lath to the superstructure completed one and a half weeks ago.  The difference you will see in the photos is that the steel structure and superstructure have been sandblasted and rustproofed.  The piece is not virtually the color of this text, or almost the same color as the Native American figures that will be on the Painted Rocks.


     Today, Wed., we had too much rain to be able to work outside.  Shortly before it began the moving team at Adirondack Studios drove up with the forklift and moved the first of the smaller ledge sections inside. Thank you to Max, Kevin and Akim for the save!


Photo of the piece prior to sandblasting.





                     Photo today of the beginning of the lath material on the piece.  In the rain.




This is inside the studio today.  The back of the piece; rear view shapes go over the top and become the ledge.  Please, everyone, pray for clear skies both now and when we get to the park which is scheduled to be August 5!!
More very soon.  Please share the blog!! Pray for no rain!!


Thank you Jessica Maher!
Pray for no rain!!


PS: to everyone; Mayor Ann Thane has a great blog at upstreamzine.wordpress.com
Also, the website for Amsterdam is really amazing-  www.amsterdamny.gov






Alice


Alice



Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Painted Rocks, some history

Hello to All!
     The excitement this week has been to find some of the former Amsterdam High School students who worked on the original project with me in 1997. There was an article in the Amsterdam Recorder June 14, 2011, yesterday, and it prompted a call from two of the graduates who went on the marry each other and settle in Amsterdam.  Wow. The grads will assist us with the project from now until unveiling and appear at the unveiling ceremony in Riverlink Park. We have old pictures of them and I hope they don't mind our using them.

My purpose today is to give some background and history of this project as well as history on the original Painted Rocks feature.

     To make a very long story short, I met then Assemblyman Paul Tonko at a Hospice fundraiser in 1996.  Mr. Tonko hired me shortly after to design a sculptural focal point for what would become Riverlink Park.  I was at a loss as to what to recommend, and as is my practice, I went to the Schenectady Library and spent lots of time looking at books. I was into Katherine Strobeck's book "Mohawk Valley Happenings" when I turned a page and saw for the first time an image of the Painted Rocks of Amsterdam. The author's photo was at the back of the book and I called information and was able to reach her that day. I met with Katherine, former Montgomery County Historian, and gained a great deal of knowledge about the Painted Rocks.  I owe a great debt to Katherine Strobeck, who passed away in 2002. It seemed it would be necessary for me to spend some hours (many) at the New York State archives in Albany.

     I have all research here in my office from months at the NYS archives in Albany, meetings with the State archaeologist, site visits at high and low water times, and on and on.
     Phil Lord was state archaeologist when I was introduced to the project, helped me immensely, and before he retired he wrote up his info for their website.  Here is the link to that info. www.nysm.nysed.gov/research_collections/research/history/paintedrocks
I was on the phone one day with Mr. Lord after he had been kind enough to give me copies of photos of his site visits to the original rocks when he said "Alice, I don't think you realize that the rocks are just 200 feet from the park"  We were all amazed at this discovery.
 
In short, the Painted Rocks of Amsterdam was a Mohawk Indian rock painting dating back to at least 1750.  From Gov. DeWitt Clinton's journal on a boat trip up the Mohawk river in 1810:
 
     ..."About 16 miles from Schenectady on the North shore of the river we came upon a curious specimen of Indian painting....it had been there upwards of half a century".
 
I have copies here of eye witness accounts
I have copies here of eye witness accounts of the paintings and the rock formation, which was known to all in the area and  can be seen from the border of Riverlink Park. I also have info that the painting had at one time a canoe with seven warriors in it, which is not the version we are making. That account said that it had been a war party of which seven warriors did not return.  Our version believes it was a hunting party going west.
 
The image I am working from, which I have secured the copyright to, is a watercolor from 1836 by Mohawk Valley artist Rufus Grider.
The Rufus Grider manuscripts are hand written and lushly illustrated volumes of material produced by Grider. A recent small folio of Grider's images appeared on Antiques Road Show and was valued at I think $15,000.  His work is tremendously interesting.
     While photographing Grider's work on the rocks which is stored in the archives I was invited to a private home, one of three oldest in the valley, to photograph the owner's Grider watercolor of the Painted Rocks.  What a find!
 
The Indians often made artwork on trees and rocks to note expeditions, events, battles, etc.


Sorry about that placement of me at the site taking a rubber mold of the rock texture.


The original rock now is under the river 99% of the year.  The top ledge was sheared off for the railroad bed years ago.  You can walk right up to it once a year when they have the dams in the right position- I went in April and was able to take molds from the orig. rock.  What luck, have pics of all. No paint is visible, of course, now.
 
     This is so much more of a story than the above.  I do think it will become a serious tourist attraction for the state.  After all, the cave paintings at Lascaux, France were reproduced next to the original site because foot traffic was destroying the art.  So there is a precedent for what we are doing.
Much much more to tell.  I will attach the watercolor and the shot of my model.  We have this 36 feet long in the studio now awaiting sandblasting in prep for applic. of cement.
     We are making it of manufactured rock, essentially a cement like coating over steel structure.  Delivery of structure to Riverlink Park in Amsterdam is set for August 5. as of this week.  We will have at least several days onsite to apply cement, imbed rock textures and figures, and paint and seal.  Unveiling will be a big event.  Both the Mayor (Ann Thane) and the NYS Congressman Paul Tonko, will surely be present.  Paul and I conceived the original project in 1997 and it was unanimously approved by the City Council only to have the project halted when digging exposed toxic coal tar.  So it is so much a feel good story-
a Brownfield made into a big plus for the City!
 
Thank you to everyone who is following our journey.
Model for large re-creation.
                                                                                               Copyright Manzi 1996
And a special thank you to Andrea Escobar Melendez and Eddy Melendez for being in touch.
More soon! Write me at Manzisculpture@aol.com
 

Thursday, June 9, 2011

The Painted Rocks of Amsterdam
           watercolor by Rufus Grider
                      (copyright 1997 Manzi)

Steel photos

Attached you will see a photo of the 2" steel tubing structure and also one of me tack welding the superstructure- 5/16 inch steel rod which will hold the metal lath to support the cement surface of the rock.


Alice Manzi

rocks Phase two steel

Dear Friends,
     On Wed. June 8 the second phase in the fabrication of the Painted Rocks was complete!! I will attach photos, etc. as we go along.
     I met with Mayor Ann Thane on Friday and she has asked that I continue to add content to this blog as we move through fabrication of this very exciting project for the City of Amsterdam.  Mayor Thane is very much committed to the revitalization of the City, and is quite enthusiastic about our progress so far.

     These postings will be a little abbreviated in order to bring everyone up to speed on the who, what, when, where and how of the Painted Rocks re-creation project. It will be a few days until I can feel that the background info has been sufficient so that I can continue to post actual weekly progress reports.  At that time I will be including the photos I have taken in the studio, which I hope you will find of interest.

Please know that I am new to blogging, and will at times have trouble, as right now, in attaching images, etc.  More soon!!!

Alice Manzi
www.Manzisculpture.com website
Manzisculpture@aol.com e-mail