community

The Bench that Gives

Nurture Form Community Bench. Photography by Chris Hartlove

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve experienced a rapid reduction in access to vehicles. Last year I lost my car and relied totally on my motorcycle and sharing a vehicle with my girlfriend when it was raining or too icy to ride. This winter’s fury kept me off of the motorcycle for months. When there was a break in the weather, I hopped on to take her out, and for the first time she wouldn’t start. I fiddled and fussed, but nothing. A couple weeks ago the car we shared had a rapid decline. So I pumped up the tires on my bicycle which hadn’t seen the road for a couple years and off I went.

Thank SPIRIT that much of my time is spent at Gutierrez Studios where most of the gents who work there commute by bike, and for those who don’t, sweat is still a way of life. But not every meeting is appropriate for a sweaty, lycra-clad entry. So for those days, and days to rainy to ride, there is Baltimore’s public transportation “system”.

For anyone who has contempt for those who can’t keep a job, I recommend a couple weeks relying on the MTA. Example: I had to get to a place with wifi this morning to get some work done. My iPhone (incidentally, a very useful tool for public trans travel, but also unaccessible to those who can’t swing the buck-eighty per month nut to ATT) told me to walk the mile to get to the bus stop to catch the 33 which was due to pick me up at 10:54. I arrived at the bus stop with 10 minutes to spare, but waited until 11:25 for the next bus to arrive. This waiting is a regular experience for public transit riders. On “good” routes, the schedule tells you there is a half hour to the next bus. If that one doesn’t show, add over an hour to your travel time. I had to get downtown, for my next stop. This is a 7 minute car ride from the coffee shop. My phone informed me that it is a 44 minute bus trip, including one transfer. Now, if even one leg of that trip breaks, it could be an hour and 45 minutes for the three mile commute. My iPhone tells me it would only be a 59 minute walk. Interesting dilemma.

If I was traveling to a job just 10 miles away during rush hour, I would have to plan on a two- to four-hour trip. Simple odds tell you that I would be late at least a couple times a month. How many employers would care to hear my excuse after the second time? Add single parenting and getting kids to school into that mix, and welfare seems about the only viable option.

This morning, after my hour-and-fifteen-minute-long commute to the local coffee shop, I ran into a woman I know. “Oh, that was you walking down the hill. I wasn’t sure if it was you, so I didn’t stop so I wouldn’t have to give a ride to someone I didn’t know.” I wasn’t mad at her. I know that she didn’t know her 3 minute drive would translate to an hour of lost time for me. But I am mad at a system that doesn’t hold people who don’t have resources as a priority. I am mad at a system that has made it unsafe for a woman to see if it is her friend walking. I am mad at a system that doesn’t make it safe for anyone to add people they don’t know to their empty cars to enable them to have any prospect of keeping a job and having a decent life.

Several years ago, artist Samuel Christian Holmes produced ornate sculpted thrones for MTA Lightrail stops on Howard street. He told me that he made them so that when his people were waiting for trains they would at least have a moment of feeling like kings and queens. I know this image moved a little something in my soul. As it turns out that little something had a lot to do with the Nurture Form Community Bench that was recently born.

Since I was very young, I have adored beautiful things. Not flashy things ~ things that exude beauty. I love the craftsmanship of old tools, formed of wood and steel by hand. I love the exquisite lines of instruments whose curved shapes are made to hold, and to make room for the bow to travel. I love the action of the keys of a Steinway Grand, resulting from over 12,000 moving parts. And I love the beauty of a well crafted piece of furniture. I know that the privilege of my upbringing ~ with a Mom who would on occasion pull out her beautifully ancient violin, and who collected things made by hand, and pianist Aunt Elaine, who allowed me to play her Steinways, and older brother Mark, who spent endless hours coaxing historic automobiles to life and beauty ~ I know my experience is rare, particularly for a Black man in America.

Yesterday in preparation for her first photo shoot, I methodically followed the grain of the pink ipe wood, initially with sand paper to pull smooth the surface, then, with penetrating oil to release the rich, brown beauty of her grain. I realized that the little idea of the Nurture Form Community Bench was not only about bringing something of beauty to life. I knew then that what was being born was the sum of all the gifts my life has given me ~ the gift of loving things that were made to continue giving. Although the design for the bench literally came to me one morning in the magical space between dreaming and waking, so many hands have touched and shaped this gift, that it no longer belongs to me alone. From the moment I first learned of Sam’s thrones, to when I first saw a stunning “Guti” bench, to when I handed the drawing to John who smiled his approval as he passed it to Mo the virtual sculptor, to when Mo’s 3D drawings of the bench appeared in my inbox making it no longer just an idea, to when he turned those into shop drawings for craftsman Drew to heat and bend her to life ~ all of these touches created this strong and delicate object. Yesterday, when photographer Chris Hartlove set his lights and lens to share her with the world, I began to feel the true power and movement of this gift.

My Son Grayson, himself an artist ~ a writer ~ and I were musing on the future of art. He was feeling that we had run the full course of art’s current form. We began to imagine where it was headed. I believe that the future is an evolution of the old way. Art will pull free from the rarefied walls of museums and will reconnect with life. I believe art will return to its original collaborative form where many hands bring life to the work, then, bring the work to life. The evolution will drift away from anonymizing or individualizing who gets recognition for the work. The fact that many hands touched the work will no longer decrease its value. This process will create its value. This will become the sign of truly great works.

I am learning that the Community Bench is named for the community of individuals that are behind her inviting lines.  This bench is also gift to the community. She is a fine instrument ~ a Steinway, boiled down to its essence. She was not created to bless hallowed concert halls. She was designed to “give” ~ to yield ~ as she gently holds those who have not been held in the narrow band of esteem traditionally reserved for those of privilege. As we begin to produce the Nurture Form Community Bench, she will continue to give everyday people the skill and artistry to bend and form the steel and wood from which she is constructed. As we place her on the streets of forgotten and neglected communities, she will give hope to those who learn what her lineage represents. She will signal that we as a people no longer will we tolerate the maintenance of an underclass. She will give a people who have for 400 years served an owner, the chance to own their own. She will give those waiting for buses, and change, a loving place to rest. And she will call to others to join the evolution of a society that holds all her people as deserving of the best we have to give. She will become known as “The Bench that Gives“.

Photograph By Chris Hartlove Photograph By Chris Hartlove

Photograph by Chris Hartlove Photograph by Chris Hartlove

Join the Circle of hands who give in support the Community Wealth Generation Initiative

The Master’s Touch

Photograph by Julia Pearson

It was a cold night, three years ago. The fire pit was blazing, spinning and shooting orange embers into the sky, challenging the stars for a moment before they flickered and faded. There were a hundred people huddled close. Some baking the warmth into their clothes, others pressing together in groups in animated exuberance. John had offered his amazing space to yet another friend and admirer in celebration of her birth. Farrah shone, wrapped in her grandmother’s fur like it was the best birthday ever. It was always The Best if it had anything to do with John Kennedy Gutierrez.

The drinks flowed like honeywater, painting soft our consciousness and vision ~ blurring the edges of who we thought we were. I wandered from the outside into the Gutierrez Studio showroom filled with stunning objects, armoires of shining steel and zebrawood, tables and chairs with legs of rust and patina, hanging amber light fixtures, each more simple and elegant than the last. One object captured my imagination. It was an exquisite desk lamp, honed of fine steel, delicate and sturdy ~ a cylindrical counter weight at one end, offsetting a long thin rod tipped with a tiny light. The entire piece was balanced with a polished steel ball sandwiched, well, more like suspended, between to thick steel discs. It looked like something pulled straight out of my dreams ~ the perfect object. It was blue heron-like in its hue and elegance. Like a child in a museum, I couldn’t help but reaching out to touch it. But rather than the metal-on-metal resistance I expected, the weighted rod moved as if it was floating in air. So perfectly balanced was this being from another universe, it stayed, without settling, exactly where I moved it. It was breathtaking.

I wandered around the room in awe ~ then, was overwhelmed by a feeling of deep sadness. I work in the neglected communities of Baltimore. Most people who don’t venture there imagine the pain of poverty. I see the majesty of my people making magic out of nothing. I see my young black teenage brothers in the streets pushing twisted bicycles, front wheels spinning off-kilter like tacos, slack chains, twisted handlebars. A condition that is impossible to ride. Yet, they mount these broken machines and bend the forces of space and time, hoist the front wheel towards the heavens with exquisite ease, and ride impossible wheelies for endless blocks, one hand swinging behind their backs as if to cuss back at the impossibility ~ to say, this ain’t nuthin. I knew in my soul that they deserve vehicles engineered like that lamp, and will never have access. These objects were made for those who can afford the artistry with which they were crafted.

I ran out the door to meet the man who conjured the space that created this magic. As I emerged out of the door, there was a man who towered above my 6 feet of stature, thick as a tree. He looked over at me with, olive skin, brushy brows shading sharp eyes peering through the delicately wrought glasses of an architect. His face broke into an off-kilter, snaggled smile as dimples danced up his right cheek. He stuck out his hand, which swallowed mine as if I were a child. His booming voice announced, John!

“Is that your shit in there?”, unable to pause for formalities. “Yeah, this is my place.” I don’t remember if this is true, but the residue of my memory tells me I didn’t let go of his hand. I pulled him into the showroom directly over to the “heron lamp”.

“Did you make this?”

“It was made here ~ designed by one of the craftsmen at the shop.” He walked me across the room and took me into the darkened space of the shop. He reached to flip a switch that flickered the lights to attention, revealing the caverness, cathedraled ancient space filled with machines, metal, wood, and projects in various stages of completion. It was the first time since childhood that I experienced the feeling I long to feel when I walk into a church. Ludwig Mies van der Rohe reminds us, “God is in the details”.

I was standing there. I couldn’t move. “Let me run an idea by you…” I blurted in manic impatience. I sketched the image of the kids hittin wheelies on trashed bikes. I said, “What if we taught folk who can do that, to do this?” His mouth arched into that crooked smile ~ he let go a laugh and said, “Call me Monday.” That was the genesis of what will now be know as the John Kennedy Gutierrez Apprenticeship, the first project of the Community Wealth Generation Initiative.

Last week, three years later, we filmed the bending and welding of the prototype bench that will be the first product of the apprenticeship that will teach men and women in East Baltimore to do just that. The next day, I sat in the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center next to John as he labored to breathe. The next night, I stood in my living room watching the amazing footage of John’s youngest employee, Drew, heating, bending and welding the steel bench as John’s voice powered through the speakers of my stereo. I happened to record a conversation with John 6 months before. I was about to write the curriculum for the initial orientation for the apprenticeship. I asked “what do the folk we are training need to know”? John took the next 22 minutes and 40 seconds to explain what it means to be a craftsman and an entrepreneur.

As I was watching, the wind picked up outside, pushing its way through the still sticky sliding doors of my living room that John once instructed me how to fix when he was there. Moments later I received a text from John’s sister Diana that said simply, “John has left this world.”

If one is truly blessed, one is given a gift of someone with the power to bend time and space ~ to bend your life from something ordinary, into something exquisite. This is the gift that John gave to me. 500 people gathered this Monday, filling the cathedral he calls “The Shop”, that John Kennedy Gutierrez bent into being from the ashes of the Clipper Mill fire. As we pushed close to eachother around the fire pit, still blazing, spinning and shooting orange embers into the sky, challenging the stars before they flickered and faded; I knew that I was not alone.

A man who works with his hands is a laborer;
a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman;
but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.

Louis Nizer