Showing posts with label Bro. Erik. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bro. Erik. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 10, 2021

‘Wednesday arts update’

    
Six items for you in tonight’s arts update.

  • Bro. Ryan recently put the finishing touch on his greatly anticipated portrait of Bro. Prince Hall.


If you have been following his progress on this via social media, you could feel justifiably amazed by his balance of creativity and respect for his subject. There is no way to know exactly what Hall looked like, so Ryan instead rendered contextual elements to tell the story. Items depicted in the foreground and background and, of course, Hall’s regalia and gavel tell a remarkable life story with a veracity you can count on.

Prints are available for purchase now. Click here.


  • Bro. Erik LaMarca, of Kosciuszko Lodge 1085 and Shakespeare 750, is the subject of the recent Craftsmen Online, one of a number of digital magazines serving New York Freemasonry.

LaMarca’s photography will be on exhibit next month at Solas Studio in a show titled “Revelation: Sight Through Symetry.” Click here to enjoy a look at a few pieces.


  • Bro. Scott J. Watson’s latest venture into art history conducts us to a lodge in eighteenth century Vienna. Mozart’s lodge, specifically.

I’m sure we’ve all seen the painting showing the great composer seated in lodge. I’ve used it here on The Magpie Mason a number of times over the years.


Watson explains what goes on in the image, and one thing particularly zapped me. Watson has us cast our eyes to the East, where hangs a painting I somehow never before thought about.

Let Royal Ark Mariners who have ears hear. And click here. Sign up for his newsletter too.


  • There is a mural decorating downtown Mt. Vernon, Ohio that will make every Mystic Prophet smile:

Courtesy Marty Trent

Unveiled (See what I did there?) in November 2017, but brought to the Prophets’ attention a few days ago in social media, It is painted on the side of the former Masonic hall in the neighborhood, and is a tribute to the groups that contributed to the local social scene. The nearly 3,000-square-foot piece was painted by John Donnelly, an art professor at Mount Vernon Nazarene University.


  • I had intended to post something about this last year, but when I saw the Wall Street Journal had beaten me to it, I kind of forgot about it.  Rothko Chapel, the landmark ecumenical spiritual space in Houston, has reopened, following a $30 million renovation that took almost a year.

The rehabilitation was mostly structural in nature, with the building being bolstered to withstand the hurricanes the region receives. Mark Rothko’s 14 paintings arrayed throughout the chapel now benefit from a new central skylight and modern interior lighting. On the grounds without the chapel, the landscape has been stripped of all sights except for Barnett Newman’s Broken Obelisk, the crystal-shaped shaft perched atop a pyramid that arises from a reflecting pool. Dedicated to Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1971, the artwork symbolizes the chapel’s purpose as a human rights locus.

Rothko Chapel marks its fiftieth anniversary this year. Click here for photos.


  • And, finally—I can’t do this all night, you know—is the latest from Piecework magazine, which contains a brief article on aprons.

“Unfortunately for historians, makers of aprons did not sign their work,” writes Deborah Dwyer. “Newspapers of the period advertised professional embroiderers specializing in military and Masonic regalia; sign painters offered painted aprons, and stationers supplied engraved ones. Undoubtedly, family members made some aprons as gifts.”

Read all about it here.
     

Friday, January 21, 2011

‘Lauding a Peasant Prince’

    

Bro. Erik at the podium.
Kosciuszko Lodge No. 1085 met Wednesday night for the visit of the DDGM and to hear Bro. Erik speak on the life and times of Tadeusz Kosciuszko. A genuinely fascinating man! And not a Freemason either.

Kosciuszko is a familiar name to us in the New York area, thanks largely to the bridge named for him that connects Brooklyn and Queens, which is invoked every rush hour in traffic reports. The truth is there are many monuments to this man; America and the world are indebted to him. Hugely.

I didn’t take notes, but what I learned includes:

  • Kosciuszko gave his soldier’s salary from the American Revolution to Thomas Jefferson for the purpose of buying slaves – to free them.
  • Kosciuszko built West Point. He also devised the plan that led to victory at the Battle of Saratoga.
  • In Poland, he tried to free the serfs and obtain civil rights for peasants and Jews, going as far as establishing an all Jewish cavalry to fight the Russian army – the first Jewish fighting force since biblical days.
  • His name is quite the shibboleth. It actually is not pronounced the New York way (Kos-Key-YOOS-Ko), but is pronounced correctly in a manner I cannot frame.

He is a giant in human history, and it was a real pleasure to hear him memorialized in this unique lodge.

Bro. Erik’s primary source material is the biography The Peasant Prince by Alex Storozynski, a text evidently held in great esteem by a number of the lodge brethren. As if I need something more in my To Read list, I’ll get to this one some day.



Worshipful Master Derrick presents the DDGM a bronze likeness
of Kosciuszko Lodge's namesake.