An Afternoon at the Middletown Arts Center
In a recent trip to Middletown, I stumbled on the Middletown Art Center, just off Highway 29. It's an art museum devoted to promote the arts in Lake County.
What first caught my eye is the sculpture garden, directly adjacent to the center. In it was an arresting sculpture of an adult who was following a child. The child, points forward, beckoning the adult toward some goal. The adult, with an lost expression on his face, looks toward the child to lead the way. I spoke to Lisa Kaplan, the artist who said the piece was titled “Who Will Be Our Leaders.”
She said, “I believe that the children are smarter than us. Desperate adults are mired in their own lives. Kids are watching us be stressed out. Children’s brilliance is not mired in the same crap that ours is.”
Kaplan said that the inspiration for the piece was the courageous demonstrations the students at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida made after the shooting there in February.
She went on to say the piece is especially relevant to those in Lake County because of the Valley Fire that devastated the area in 2015. It was the children that gave people hope, whose innocence and purity lead the way for the adults to deal with the crisis.
The other artists at the center are not afraid of making controversy. “National Healthcare Kiosk” by Terry Church is a grandfather clock tower with a hammer as a pendulum. Inside the the clock are rusty nails whose points surround an old tin of medicated bandages. Above the window looking into the clock are the words are “Break in case of emergency” which is why there is a hammer as a pendulum. It’s a comment on how our healthcare system seems to do more harm than good. In case of emergency, you break the glass. Then, when you attempt to get at the thing that may help you, you may get injured by a rusty nail. And the tin of bandages is very old, resembling how outdated our healthcare system is. Indeed, one may be injured trying to get the thing that one needs, and that thing may not even help in the first place.
Another artist named Roy Kriken made these poignant bronze helmets in the style of the Vikings or Ancient Greeks. They stand alone, on impossibly thin poles. They are tarnished a dark green and look time worn, like they’ve been through many battles. Kaplan said that Kriken is Vietnam War veteran who comments on the horrors of war. The helmets stand like the ghosts of soldiers who have long sacrificed themselves, but for an unknown purpose.
The center recently published a chapbook call “Resilience” which is a direct response to the Lake County wildfires. In it, artists were asked to write poems and printmakers did the visuals meditating on what it means to be resilient in the face of adversity. The chapbook is for sale in the art center.
Kaplan then took me to the back of the gallery where there was an art class going on. Young children sat around tables with colored pens and pencils expressing their creativity. This is a continuation of Kaplan’s sculpture where children are the people who lead the adults to salvation.
It's clear that the artistic community is alive and well in Middletown. Its population is less than 1,500 but with the Middletown Arts Center, artists have a venue to exhibit their art, making it available to the wider community, which makes the community a richer, more dynamic place to live.
