Facilitated by Jerilea Zempel

FACILITATOR BIOGRAPHY

Jerilea Zempel is a visual artist, art activist, art historian, art curator, and art professor. She has won grants from The National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation, the Middle Atlantic Arts Foundation, CEC Arts Link, and the Gunk Foundation. Her public art projects have been exhibited nationally and internationally. Her artwork has landed her on the Colbert Report.

SET THE TONE

Jerilea requested the mix of new and returning participants orient their chairs toward the John Brown Monument and A Memorial Field during the discussion. The purpose was to allow participants to look at the two installations during the discussion, instead of relying on memory.

She introduced herself and highlighted the importance of questioning the context of artworks. To help the group move from looking to understanding, she reminded participants that the meaning of art is constructed via discourse and interpretation. Jerilea shared basic ground rules for the conversation: don’t interrupt, don’t speak over each other, and keep comments short.

ACTIVITY

A questionnaire was distributed. Participants were invited to walk around the John Brown Monument and A Memorial Field for fifteen minutes while reflecting on a series of questions centered on the visual elements of the John Brown statue without judging or engaging emotions.

Worksheet 1: The John Brown Monument, 1935
What do you see?
Describe each figure.
How are they dressed?
What are they doing?
How are they interacting?
How old do you think each figure is?
Assign 3 adjectives to each figure.
Assign 3 adjectives to their relationship.
Do you see a hierarchy between them? If so, how would you describe it?
What moment in time (in the lives of the figures or in history) do you think is being depicted in the monument?
Do you think they are ideal or real?
If you think they are ideal, what do you think they symbolize?
If you think they are real, what event do you think they are enacting?

Worksheet 2: A Memorial Field, mixed media, 2020–2023
What do you see?
How many memorials are there?
What does each have in common with the others?
How would you describe the language?
Where might you hear that kind of language?
How are they arranged?
Does the arrangement remind you of anything?
Can you assign 5 adjectives to the entire field?
Do you think the field is symbolic?
If so, what does it symbolize?
Because they are of your own era, what do they refer to in your experience?
List the first 5 words that come into your head after viewing and thinking about what you see in A Memorial Field.
How does A Memorial Field relate to the John Brown Monument? (List the first five words that come into your head after viewing and thinking about the relationship between the two artworks.)

LESSONS AND DISCUSSION POINTS

Information on the John Brown Monument: the sculptor, Joseph Pollia, was born in Italy in 1894. He died in New York City in 1954. A group of Black Philadelphians formed the John Brown Memorial Association (JBMA) and made annual pilgrimages to lay a wreath on John Brown’s grave from May 1920 into the late 1980s. In 1935, the JBMA commissioned the bronze statue. Installed in 1935, the commissioners expected it to be placed on top of the big boulder next to John Brown’s grave. The group was said to be disappointed when it was installed on the small stone pedestal on which it stands at the John Brown Farm today. Pollia’s subsequent commission was of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson.

PART 1 of 2: JOHN BROWN MEMORIAL STATUE
A critical discourse about the statue followed, starting with, “What do you see?” The comments below are observations from participants in the circle:

  • Man and boy
  • John Brown and an anonymous boy…a former slave?
  • Looking at each other
  • Boy is in tattered clothes, barefoot, John Brown is fully dressed in work clothes and boots
  • Boy has backpack, he’s going somewhere
  • JB is pointing… to the future?
  • Large hands, large feet
  • Young/Old, paternalistic presence, authoritative dynamic
  • Who was this statue made for?
  • Why isn’t a tall, competent Black man leading the young boy?
  • John Brown as White savior, liberator
  • Racialized dynamic
  • Infantilization of the boy
  • Boy as apprehensive, quizzical, confused/concerned, may not be used to or trust this paternal guide
  • Unclear relationship between the two
  • John Brown’s expression shows compassion for the boy
  • Is John Brown guiding the boy to freedom?
  • Is the boy malnourished? Has he not had enough to grow?
  • Is the child symbolic of when John Brown saw the young enslaved boy mistreated during his own childhood?
  • The John Brown figure is reminiscent of Moses leading people to the promised land
  • Can we guess the age of the child? 10–11?

Jerilea called to attention the classical proportions that an Italian sculptor like Pollia would have used in this time period. In the case of this monument, the sculptor gave the boy the proportions of an adult, not a child, as is evidenced by the size and proportion of his head. Yet the boy stands several heads shorter than the John Brown figure, accentuating the fact that John Brown is larger than life while the Black person has become a child. Jerilea shared that it is unclear what moment in time the statue depicts.

The group reflected on the following questions and teachings points:

  • The John Brown Memorial Association existed inside of White power structures and systems. Why did the John Brown Memorial Association, a group of Black Abolitionists who wanted to honor John Brown, choose a White artist? This statue was commissioned during the Harlem Renaissance, when many Black sculptors were gaining recognition. Is the artist’s vision true to what his clients wanted to see?
  • Can we ever know what the artist intended and what his patrons asked him to do?
  • What can we learn from the sculptor’s background?
  • Monuments reflect shared values within a Eurocentric set of cultural values. Does the monument reflect racialized attitudes of its time that interpreted John Brown as a White Savior and the Black race as a child needing guidance? How might the depiction change if an artist made this sculpture today? How might this monument be different if it was created by a Black artist in 1935? By a Black artist in 2023? Does this 1935 monument need historical context to be understood today?

One participant observed that perhaps the depiction of John Brown as the White Savior of a Black man-child was as much as the predominantly White population of Lake Placid could accept. To give the Black figure more power or agency would have been threatening and an invitation to vandalism. In fact, the monument has been untouched for years. Another participant described how she uses a teaching tool called visual thinking strategies (VTS) to engage students who visit the site. When they meet around the statue, she finds that it is invaluable to contextualize the monument in the culture of the time, to open space for discussion, and to facilitate group learning. She described how her perspective has changed over the last 24 years based on feedback and social context: “A statue depicting a White man supporting and standing in solidarity with a young Black boy can be used as an affirmative example of masculinity for young White men in these divisive times.” The facilitator noted that although that is a legitimate response to today’s crisis of White masculinity, it can also be problematic, as it focuses its attention on a White audience and overlooks the sensitivities of Black viewers. She asked, how can the Black boy be better humanized, and his story shared?

The group was then asked, what additional information about the John Brown memorial could be presented here by the statue? What can be done today to show that pursuing equity is a group effort, one of solidarity? Responses included:
A plaque.
A brochure with thought-provoking questions for visitors.
Add statues of all 22 raiders, at least the ten buried at the John Brown Farm.
Introduce other allies and activists.
Open space for critical conversations; critical thinking allows us to move forward.

Jerilea reminded the group that no single monument can tell the whole truth. Growth comes from listening to how we each interpret these monuments. Jerilea shared from Frederick Douglass’s remarks at the 1876 unveiling of the Emancipation statue, which exposed Lincoln’s legacy: “Truth compels me to admit, even here in the presence of the monument we have erected to his memory. Abraham Lincoln was not, in the fullest sense of the word, either our man or our model.”

Facilitator Notes on Reimagined Versions of the John Brown Monument:

  • The original figure grouping with John Brown as the larger, better dressed powerful figure guiding a smaller Black figure, dressed in ragged clothing, supposedly a boy, but with strangely adult proportions.
  • Figures reversed to exaggerate the power relationship between John Brown and the Black boy in the original monument.
  • Boy becomes a man, equal in size to John Brown, but still dressed in ragged clothing that emphasizes their economic differences.
  • Figures reversed with John Brown in ragged clothing to emphasize the previous point.
  • Pollia’s original figure of a powerful, fatherly John Brown guiding a small, poor (helpless), Black child has a pathos and drama that the other renditions lack. Pathos and drama were central requirements in Neoclassical monuments of Pollia’s time.
  • Presenting a White and a Black figure together in a dramatic power imbalance can be seen as representing the racialized idea that formerly enslaved people were poor, undeveloped children needing guidance from a paternal White hero. Though this may have been a widely accepted idea to many Whites in the 1930s, it rings hollow today.
  • What is missing above is a rendition of the two figures, equal size and dressed in similar clothing. Would both figures, equal in stature and dress, better satisfy today’s shared values and aspirations for racial equality and justice?
  • Why a group of Black civic leaders would sponsor a racialized interpretation remains a mystery except to say that the monument was installed in a predominantly White community that was expected to respect and protect it. Any monument that challenged commonly held opinions could become a target for racism and vandalism.
  • In fact, there was a resurgence of Klan activity including cross burnings in the North Country in the decade preceding the installation of the John Brown monument. The North country Ku Klux Klan targeted Catholics, Jews and immigrants, among others.
  • Was it possible that the Black sponsors of the John Brown monument shared the idea that they needed to be saved? Or was Pollia’s monument an accommodation to commonly held ideas of race in the United States and even Lake Placid in the 1920’s and 30’s?
  • For the monument to remain as it is and be understood in terms of contemporary ideas of racial justice, a panel explaining its context or a QR code link to an explanation of its history would be helpful to today’s visitor who might take offense at its imagery.

PART 2 of 2: A Memorial Field

  1. Jerilea switched gears to A Memorial Field and asked for feedback from participants on the installation, detailed below:
  2. One participant noted the absence of twisted language on the memorials – they are matter-of-fact and devoid of euphemism.
  3. The theme of White violence against Black people is very clear.
  4. Too many deaths. Is more, more here? Or is more too much? Visceral reactions – the number of memorials demonstrates the urgency of the issue.
  5. One participant asked, “What was it like to make this? I’d like to see all of this information in one place in multiple forms of data analysis: spreadsheets, maps, the location by blocks…”
  6. Another was glad to see a public art piece in an historic site that adds a contemporary voice to the John Brown statue and story.
  7. What is a Black person’s experience in A Memorial Field? In the Adirondacks?
  8. Who is A Memorial Field for? What does it feel like to relive these stories?
  9. There’s beauty in the installation, even if visitors leave here feeling disturbed, they become motivated. It will be missed if it goes away.
  10. If A Memorial Field is made permanent, it would lose the importance of its evolving nature over time. What is the benefit of it continuing to change?
  11. A Memorial Field prompts us to consider: What is progress? What is regression? What White myths are challenged by A Memorial Field?
  12. How does A Memorial Field contextualize the John Brown Statue?

READING LIST