Written by Amy Broderick | 17 June 2010

“Every so often, a painter has to destroy painting,” Willem DeKooning said of his fellow abstract expressionist, Jackson Pollock. “He busted our idea of a picture all to hell. Then there could be new paintings again.” In the same way, William Kentridge has revolutionized the practice of drawing.

Using charcoal on paper, repeatedly erased and redrawn, as the vehicle for animation, Kentridge has revolutionized the form and brought it to a new level of regard, as an ambitious and respectable end-in-itself in the contemporary visual arts. In the process, the South African artist has emerged as one of the world's most prominent and relevant visual artists.

The intense physicality of Kentridge's work, in which his building up and breaking down of the surface, and his methodical rearrangement of elements, are clearly visible, mirrors the intensity of the content. The stories that unfold within his drawings, films, objects and performances explore complicated social struggles and national histories, as well as the efforts of individuals to locate themselves within these trying circumstances.

A major exhibition of Kentridge's work, William Kentridge: Five Themes, curated by Mark Rosenthal, adjunct curator of contemporary art at the Norton Museum of Art, is now touring the United States. The exhibit debuted in San Francisco and traveled to West Palm Beach, where it coincided with Art Basel: Miami Beach. It closed May 17 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Artist and professor Amy Broderick recently spoke by phone with Kentridge, who was at work in his Johannesburg studio. Intelligent and quietly pensive, he shared his thoughts about the risks and rewards of drawing without a plan, and how looking helps us to piece together who we are.

Amy Broderick: Drawing is so often seen as being something personal and intimate, really done by artists for themselves. In making your drawings for projection, were you consciously trying to shift the practice of drawing into a different, more public role?

William Kentridge: No, I think I was drawing because that's all I could do. I was no good as a painter, so it's got to be drawing or nothing. But the drawings for projection, those are drawings to be filmed, so they simply had to be of the right scale that I could work with. If they're too small, then all the lines become too crude. And because there is a lot of erasure in the drawings, the minimum thickness of the line was given by the thickness of an eraser.

So in other words, if I didn't want there to be a huge white line or huge expanse on a sheet of paper, it had to be a large sheet of paper, so it could register as a relatively fine line. So that it was a coming to terms with the fact that the drawings were about 4 foot-by-5 foot, rather than designed necessarily to work on that scale. But it also changes — when you're working with your knuckles or your wrist or your arm — the scale of a drawing. If you work really small, then you may be drawing with your knuckles, and that’s when you get very uninteresting.

Broderick: Given the fact that your drawings are so physical and so grand in scale that way, and it seems as if you draw with your whole body, I'm wondering how your theatrical training has influenced the way you use your body when you're drawing.

Kentridge: Well, I think it does, in the sense that it's very clear that when the drawings really happen, there are some gestures which are actually the sweep from your waist outwards, and there are some which originate more with your elbow, and some which do happen just in the wrist or the knuckles. But generally speaking, it's at its best when there is a much less conscious connection between your body and the charcoal, and you take it on trust that somehow your range of muscles is going to get the charcoal to move in the right way, rather than knowing a predetermined path and programming your muscles to move the charcoal along that path. Relaying that somewhere between your eye and the hand, there's a different intelligence at work.

Broderick: That makes me wonder that when you're at the paper working, how is your drawing mind different from your everyday mind? How does your frame of mind change when you're actually in the process of making?

Kentridge: It changes a lot. For example, if I have to sit and work at my desk, sitting at the desk like I'm sitting now, there is a very limited range of ideas that come to me, and all ideas that come are ones that I've already had. Some people are able to sit at a table, writers for example, and construct new images and new worlds through their activity of internal contemplation. For me, that's something that might happen through the physical activity both of drawing at the paper, but particularly with the films with the stalking of the drawing — the walking backwards and forwards, walking around the studio, the approaching the paper, the walking back to the camera, reapproaching the paper — that somewhere in that walk is a generation of ideas.

And secondly, very much from the actual marks on the paper, new ideas suggest themselves, sometimes connected to the drawing that you're working on, sometimes absolutely connected to a drawing that may come much later in the film, or may not be in the film at all.

Broderick: The way you talk about the physical activity that happens in between the marks that you make, I often think about your drawings, your sheets of paper, the way printmakers think of plates. The way you work them and build them up and break them down.

Kentridge: There is a similarity between printmaking and this kind of drawing. Obviously, with an eraser it's easier to alter a drawing than it is with a burnisher and scraper to alter an etching, but it's not essentially different. Both of them are about a built-in provisionality. The image is provisional through quite a late stage in its process. Now, etching requires an interesting division between the drawing and the print, between what you're are drawing on the plate and what comes back on the print. And there it goes through kind of a strange alchemy of pressure on the etching press. With these drawings for film, you have got the strange alchemy of the drawing, and then the filmic mode, whether it's captured digitally or captured on celluloid, and then its projection. So in each of them is kind of a distancing that happens between the drawing and the finished object, film in one case, the print in the other. That's an important kind of syllogism.

Broderick: Thinking about the provisionality and the way these drawings exist to be looked at, I'm struck by how you employ a lot of machines for looking — the camera, the stereoscope, the telescope — and how making animations seems very democratic, since these films can essentially be viewed by vast numbers of people all at once. But on the other hand, when a person looks through one of these machines like a telescope or stereoscope, the view is only available to one person at a time.

Kentridge: That's an interesting thing you say that the telescope is only there for one person at a time. It is. There's a strange — not anomaly, because it's not anomalous at all; it's the way the world is — the strange separation between objectivity and subjectivity in all, the whole category, of sight. For example, you have one image which people are looking at. That single image is in fact radiating out from itself thousands or an infinite number of possible images for reception, because when your eyes look at an image, that's one particular viewpoint picking up that image. So it is an individual solo viewing, but as you said, it can be viewed by thousands of people.

And in the same way, the binocular is a very particular viewing instrument that one person looks through. But it's used as an object when it's drawn as a metaphor for that gap between the individuality of looking — that is your particular retinas that are picking up the image that is only there for that very specific angle. But everyone around, in other words, has their own unique view which is waiting to be received. Now, for example, it's a little bit like you've got the cloud of the Internet above, and you've got your particular screen on which you are looking at it.

I did a project once which involved a projection on a ceiling in Holland, and all the viewers sitting on the floor 20 meters below the ceiling had small mirrors. Now you could either look up to the ceiling, lean your head back, and you'd all be seeing exactly the same image on the ceiling, and it seems like everybody looking at the same thing. Or, everybody could turn inwards to their own particular viewing device, which was the small postcard-sized mirror on which they could see the whole ceiling as well, reduced to the scale of that postcard mirror. So you had both this mixture of a communal looking up into the ceiling and the individualized looking down below.

So, I think the different viewing devices which are present in the work do refer to that, the activity of looking, the kind of the energy you put into looking individually, as well as it obviously being all this democratic emanation of film or an image of the world outwards to everyone.

Broderick: And the way you present your imagery — not just in the mirrored piece that you mentioned, but also in the anamorphic drawings, where you draw a distortion that is made right in reflection — you seem to be asking the viewer to straighten things out for themselves. You seem to trust the viewer.

Kentridge: Well, it's not just a question about trusting it, because you can't resist it. That's a secondary question to what I've just been describing, and that has to do with understanding the agency we have with looking. Looking becomes natural. Let's assume it's a natural activity — the world is there, it gets received by our eyes, and that's it. What the anamorphic drawings and the stereoscopic drawings similarly do, is give you a direct anomaly. The stereoscopic drawings are in one way clearer. You know you're looking at two flat images, which are either drawings or photographs, in my case drawings, and you understand your left retina is seeing one, and your right retina is seeing the other. You know you're looking at flat drawings. Your brain constructs these two drawings into a three-dimensional image.

Now, when you normally look at the three-dimensional world, it doesn't seem like your brain is doing anything because it is a three-dimensional world, and you're seeing it as three-dimensional. But in fact, what your brain is always doing is taking a flat image from your left eye and a flat image from your right eye and constructing this illusion of depth, which does seem to correspond to the way the world is made. So when you do that in a drawing, what you're bringing attention to is that activity that we do as viewers. In this case it's in a kind of heightened activity, because we're aware of the difference between the two- and three-dimensionality between what we are looking at and what our brain is seeing, but it's decidedly a heightened example of what we do when we look anywhere.

And it's about making sense of clues that we get visually from our retina. We get a number of different images and clues, but the sense of the world that we get from it, we are constructing continuously. That's what the anamorphic drawing is about. I mean on the one hand, it's a trick, it's a game. You look at the image on the flat table as it's projected, and it's completely distorted. In the mirror it looks corrected, and we believe the mirror more than we can believe the table.

Broderick: All this seems to suggest that the world does not necessarily provide us with the true facts, but that we have to create truth in our own mind as we live.

Kentridge: Well, that's definitely what we do when we're looking at anything, taking different fragments and constructing possible coherences from them. [We go] backwards in history to understand our story, and in the very moment where we take clues that we've got and try to understand what people are saying or what we are looking at, [we anticipate] the future. So I think that is a central thing that I'm interested in.

Broderick: Given the fact that these fragments and memory and loss and our relationship to history, that these are prominent themes in your work, it also seems that the way you make your work with individual marks or fragments of paper becomes a powerful metaphor for that. Even the way ghost images are left on the page when you erase.

Kentridge: The ghost images and those things are sort of a fortunate, I mean, they're central, but they were in a sense fortunate byproducts. They weren't things I decided or chose; they were what was left when the work was done. But I certainly think they obviously do carry with them various associations, thematic associations, and then these do become part of the work as well. So at the moment, I'm working a lot with fragmented images constructed out of different pieces put together of ink wash drawings.

I'm not sure yet what the difference is between drawing these on all these different sheets of paper, which I'm doing, or if I simply drew them as one large sheet of paper, but they do feel different. But at the end of the process, maybe it will become clear what the difference is. I am not trying to first work out what the meaning is before the work is done.

Broderick: That's an interesting approach that you take. I often try to convince my students to enter the process of art making without knowing what’s going to happen. Is that ever a difficult point of view for you to maintain, this idea of entering the work without a plan?

Kentridge: It can be, because sometimes you arrive with rubbish at the end; it doesn't always turn into sense. Sometimes it does, but sometimes you realize you're not going anywhere, or the idea of the strategy is stronger than what actually comes out of it. But it certainly for me is an essential strategy to have, to find ways of working in which you cannot anticipate all the elements.

Broderick: Is that part of what prompted you to be an artist, that it is a line of work where that uncertainty is permissible?

Kentridge: Yes. I think it's a line of work in which uncertainty is permissible, where making up the world or constructing the world is a virtue rather than a vice. If you were, say, a historical scholar, or a lawyer, in both cases one would be thrown out of the profession if one worked as an artist does, which is to allow us all to invent things, to fill in gaps and have a healthy disregard for the authenticity of impulses and sources.

Broderick: And yet do you see any connections between your sense of purpose as an artist and say, your parents' sense of purpose as lawyers and advocates?

Kentridge: There may be. At the end of the day, it may come down to the somewhat different ways of approaching ideas of truth or knowledge, the one that's kind of subject to rational dispute at the end, and another way that kind of goes around questions of rational dispute. It’s a question also of saying that without that program of rational reflection and checking, can one still arrive at knowledge? That's kind of the big open-ended question of all these years of work.

Broderick: In conjunction with that big question, what do you think are the primary ethical or social or even creative responsibilities of visual artists?

Kentridge: The essential responsibility is to work well, and hard, and a lot, and look at the work once it's made. In the end, the work shows who you are, and you can fool it for a certain time, but if you are a shallow or a pretentious or a vain person, that comes through in the work. If there are other elements to you, then those also come through in the work.

But to try to set the program in advance — to say, this will be my moral program, and this will be the ethical program, this will be the political program — in the end, the bad faith comes through.

Amy Broderick is an artist and writer who currently is associate professor of drawing and painting at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton. She regularly exhibits and delivers lectures about her work locally and nationally. Visit her at www.amybroderick.com.

Written by Gretel Sarmiento | 01 April 2010

A couple of weeks separate the Norton Museum from its new chief: Hope Alswang, a New York City native with a first name that sounds like a promise.

This is who the museum's board of trustees chose as director and chief executive officer after conducting a national search that begun soon after Christina Orr-Cahall left in May of last year. The announcement came last month.

Come April 15, Alswang's official start day, her job won't be so much rescuing an institution in bad shape but rather increasing the numbers, or maintaining them at the very least. The Norton actually had a decent 2009 fiscal year, according to its annual report. There were no layoffs and attendance went up 27 percent compared to 2008.

Any director who manages to maintain the numbers or increase them is bound to make museum officials happy. But that rule doesn't apply here. With Alswang, the expectations are higher.

She is coming from the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design Museum, where she worked from 2005 until August 2009, when she left abruptly with the ever-so-diplomatic line "to pursue other opportunities." The move triggered all kinds of speculations, which to this day she doesn't really acknowledge and people can't stop elaborating on.

What it's known for sure is that during her tenure she oversaw a significant museum expansion, helped raise more than $20 million and is credited with having increased the number of visitors big-time. The RISD museum still hasn't replaced her.

Alswang holds a bachelor’s degree in American history from Goddard College and was an Electra Havemeyer Webb Fellow at the Shelburne Museum. From 1987 to 1992, she was the director of the museum program for the New York State Council on the Arts. From 1992 to 1997, she was executive director of the New Jersey Historical Society.

From 1997 to 2005 she was president and chief executive officer of The Shelburne Museum, the largest museum in Northern New England. She has two grown children with her husband, Henry Joyce.

She is sharp, direct, comfortable with herself -- comfortable enough to answer questions while crushing a piece of toast during a one-hour luncheon interview. She begins the interview by asking if I mind her answering with her mouth full. (I don't.)

Other than an interruption here and there to acknowledge the dessert and her search for a home in Palm Beach, our session goes smoothly. She is a strong woman with strong opinions who is not afraid to state them. For better or worse it is this combination of bluntness and humor that has earned her job after job until placing her right here, in Palm Beach County, in charge of the 122,500-square-foot space known as the Norton Museum.

Sarmiento: How did you hear of this position? How did this come about?

Alswang: I was told Tina [Orr-Cahall] was leaving the Norton and that they were conducting a national search and was I interested in the job. I think that was back in July or something like that. And so I said that I would love to be considered and then there was a series of interviews over six months.

I knew about the Norton because I'd been coming down here to see board members from other organizations for years. Every year I would come down to Palm Beach and stay for several days and I would always come to the Norton several times.

Also when I was at the Shelburne Museum we did an exhibition on quilts which the Norton borrowed. It was a summer show maybe about five years ago.

Sarmiento: On a scale of 1 to 10, how surprised were you to be selected? Part of you must have been expecting it. After all, you applied because you were confident enough.

Alswang: No, no. I was confident, but you know there are a lot of great directors out there. So I won't say surprised but I was thrilled. I think it's always the case that it's better to be cautious, emotionally, because you don't want to get disappointed. And I was so in love with the Norton that I didn't want to be rejected.

So when they invited me down for the final weekend and they told me I had the job it was like such a great feeling. I really was elated. Actually, they took me out to lunch and they said, “We would like to offer you the job.” I actually wanted to jump up and down and scream but I kept thinking, “Be discreet.” We were at the Sailfish Club. I was really, really pleased. It was great to be told I had the job because they had a lot of excellent people.

Sarmiento: What makes you the right person to lead this museum, which as you know, is well-known for its permanent collection as well as its traveling exhibitions?

Alswang: I think it's the interjection of the Norton's concerns and my own concerns. The Norton is really committed to interpreting and building a collection of art of the highest quality, which of course is a great interest of mine. They are also interested in how that art should be made available to the public in the most dynamic ways possible through their programming and activities. And that's what I'm really interested in. And I think it's a really good fit.

Institutions come with very different psychologies and I feel very drawn to this one. I think my strengths are a good fit for what the Norton wants to accomplish, which I think is just to continue to grow in the way that it has and enhance its national reputation.

Sarmiento: When you mention reaching the public in “dynamic ways,” can you be more specific?

Alswang: I think the Norton is very flexible and interested in a multiplicity of ways to reach the public. I don't know if you have taken the cell phone tours; that is just one example.

I think the fact is that they want to make the collections available in every imaginable way that is safe and appropriate for a public institution. And I really love that. You know, there is school activities, internships, lecture series, Thursday nights open to the public, which is really saying that we are a public institution really deeply dedicated to try to making ourselves an exciting and fun part of the community. I think that's really wonderful.

Sarmiento: I assume you already met other museum staff and department heads, including Roger Ward, who was just promoted from chief curator to deputy director. What was your first impression?

Alswang: I think there is a very cohesive and great work ethic here. People really get things done.
This is a really welcoming museum. When I came here, when I was sort of incognito, over the last few years ... you get a sense of the culture of an institution. Everything, from the guards to the people who work the admission desk to the people at the gift shop, I would say this is an inherently friendly museum.

Museums can be intimidating and they can put people off. I think this museum works very hard to make itself a friendly place.

Sarmiento: It hasn't been a year yet since you shocked everyone by leaving your position as director of the Rhode Island School of Design Museum. That led to all sorts of speculation, including one that had you forced out instead of leaving on your own and another theory that said you left because of heated arguments with John Maeda, RISD president. Can you finally clarify what that was all about?

Alswang: I'm not going to clarify. No. (Laughs) I'd just say that obviously I had four great years at the RISD.

There are times in your career that you can feel that you've been very effective. And it's best to leave when you feel you have accomplished something significant and not work when you feel, you, yourself, are going to be less productive. And that's all I'm prepared to say.

Sarmiento: How long do you think you'll be on this job?

Alswang: I think it takes two or three years before you have a sense of what you are really capable. You get a lot done but it's more like gaining momentum. And it's probably five years before you really start to reap the benefit of whatever those initiatives are.

Every museum has its own psychology, its own voice. Part of my responsibility is not to change the Norton but to find out what kind of “person” it is and give it as much opportunity within the framework of its own psychology. And that's a very exciting process.

Sarmiento: So it isn't so much about you injecting your own personality into it but rather...

Alswang: No. Obviously, I think the board chose me because I'm interested in the audience and in great art. I like to believe that I'm the kind of person who helps find the inculcated vision of everyone around me.

But yeah, there is a real psychology to the Norton and it's not my job to suppress that. It is my job to listen and find out what that is. And if I can, make it stronger, better, whatever. But we are not going to turn it into an institution that is very different from the institution that it is now.

Sarmiento: Following your departure from RISD many commented on your abilities and talent and were sad to lose you. Others' comments suggest they thought you rude and temperamental. What do you think of this?

Alswang: I don't think I'm rude. I think I'm forthright. I don't think of myself as a rude person. In fact, I take manners pretty seriously.

In an academic environment there's always people who don't like you. People will say all kinds of things. I'm extremely straightforward. I have very strong opinions. I state them. I'm not subject to bad moods. I'm the kind of person who basically says it like it is.

I don't always agree with everything, but I think I'm persuaded by a strong argument in a lot of cases by my subordinates. You could talk to my staff at the museum at RISD. I don't think they'd say I'm temperamental. They might say I'm a little intense.

Sarmiento: Do you see “enemies” as an inevitable part of the job as a director of any museum? In other words, is it possible to have this job and make everyone happy?

Alswang: No. I won't say “enemies” because that's a strong word. There is such diverse expectations you absolutely are never going to be capable. Remember, there is limited staff and limited money. Part of my job is to make sure that we maximize our effectiveness within our resources.

The only way in which we can go forward is to understand what initiatives are sensible for us and what aren't. And if something stands outside from what we agreed upon with our staff and board, you can't do it. You'll run yourself too thin. You have to stay on track with a few ideas that moves us forward, because it's an effective and finely trained staff, but they can only accomplish so much in any given year.

I expect in six to eight months I'll have a clear idea of two or three initiatives that would be important to us.

Sarmiento: I understand the RISD museum is more than 100 years old. How different do you anticipate it will be to lead a much younger museum such as the Norton, founded in 1941?

Alswang: That's one of the reasons I was really attracted, because I know that the contributions that were made over the last 131 years at RISD changed the course of that museum. And wouldn't it be great if in 50 years people look back at Roger and me and the curators?

The next 20, 25 years are absolutely critical in terms of what we acquire. Because it's such an exciting time. There are so many active collectors in the Palm Beach area. There is a real understanding of how crucial it is that philanthropy builds museums.

People here have great collections. So we have an opportunity to work with them to say: Look, we want to be one of the best museums in America. We are right here and we are going to make it happen.

Sarmiento: Besides being a museum official, you, as any fan of the arts, must have some preference or personal taste. Care to share your personal favorite art movement or style or artist?

Alswang: I have to say mid-20th century American art. It's always had an emotional resonance for me. But I'm also deeply moved by almost all art. There isn't anything I can't be interested in visually.

Sarmiento: I can't really imagine a museum director who is not a visual person.

Alswang: You are right. I mean, we are all very visual. But I think I have ... my taste is enormously eclectic. I can be really attracted to a lot of different visuals.

The thing that is most compelling here is the quality of the collection is just superb. There really is something about looking at a great picture. The quality of the paintings here is so outstanding.

Sarmiento: Any specific ideas, exhibits you already have in mind and want to implement?

Alswang: I think we need to have a balance between stuff that is very popular that would bring in certain types of audiences and you know, contemporary, traditional European art, and also probably explore more Chinese. It's going to be interesting to see what is the best balance in relation to the audience.

The great thing is that we have five curatorial departments, all of them with fascinating possibilities, and it's [about] how we make sure that we get each of those curators having an opportunity to express their concerns. That's why we have them. Curators are really the lifeblood of the activities here.

Sarmiento: In your opinion, how important is it to get along with your chief curator?

Alswang: It's really important to get along. Being the director of a museum is not unlike being the conductor of an orchestra and my job is to make sure that there is harmony between the string section and the horn section and the wind section. Being the conductor means getting the very best out of each performer. It doesn't mean a solo activity.

The curators are really the orchestra here and we have to give them the resources so that the Norton has a strong artistic voice. And so even if the shows are very diverse and extremely from different perspectives, people will start to think "Oh, this is a very Norton-like endeavor because they do things that are very popular for certain audiences."

And people will start to understand that curators offer different things and that the whole year cycle of exhibitions offers a kind of insight into what our concerns are for different aspects of our audience.

Sarmiento: While at the RISD you helped raised millions of dollars and oversaw a huge expansion. So let's talk about the big F word: Fundraising. In your opinion, what is the key to a successful fundraising campaign?

Alswang: The key is knowing what you want and knowing your donors so you are asking the right people for the right thing. And not being afraid. Just can't be afraid.

I mean, people have the right to turn you down to save money. You have the right to ask them for money. They have the right to turn you down. You can't take it personally. There are many generous people who want to support some things and won't support other things.

It's the hardest and most successful museum model in the world, which is deeply dependent on private philanthropy and very donor-driven. If you don't like it, you shouldn't be in the business.

Sarmiento: All types of organizations have been struggling in this economy. And it's no secret that art is always one of the first things that suffers and becomes the last priority. Suddenly, people can't afford to visit or donate or become members. Do you have any ideas as to how attract potential donors and keep the community interested?

Alswang: Art is always under fire in this country. Even when the economy is good. It's very bleak. No doubt about it. But I think there is still money out there.

Sarmiento: Are there any circumstances under which you would ever consider selling artwork from the museum collection?

Alswang: I would sell only for curational purposes, which is to acquire other works of art. But I would never do it to pay for general operating services. No. Never.

Sarmiento: What's your first order of business?

Alswang: Get to know the community, my staff and my board of trustees. Another thing I want to do is get around and see the other cultural leaders. Also, getting to know Florida, which I don't know at all.

The weather is spectacular. It had no influence on me taking the job, but the whole ambience of a subtropical climate is really seductive to this old Northeastern Puritan.

Gretel Sarmiento is a freelance writer based in South Florida.

Written by Chauncey Mabe | 01 March 2010

By Chauncey Mabe

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a historian with a great sense of timing.

Already a Pulitzer Prize winner for No Ordinary Time, her 1995 dual biography of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, Goodwin was basking in the fading glow of her 2005 Abraham Lincoln book, Team of Rivals, when she received a call from an upstart presidential candidate named Barack Obama.

“He said, ‘I’ve just read ‘Team of Rivals,’ and we have to talk,” Goodwin recalls. “Hillary was still way ahead. He was not thinking about putting his cabinet together but about the qualities Lincoln had as a person.”

Of course, Obama went on to unseat front-runner Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination and then easily defeat Republican challenger John McCain to become the first African-American president -- and “team of rivals” became a phrase closely associated with the new administration.

“Lincoln crosses a wide swatch of the political spectrum,” Goodwin says. “George Bush looked up to Lincoln, and Sarah Palin has said 'Team of Rivals' is her favorite book, too. Ida Tarbell said in 1900 so many people write about Lincoln because he’s so companionable.”

Born in Brooklyn, educated at Harvard, where she earned a Ph.D. in government in 1968, Goodwin was only 23 when Lyndon Johnson offered her a job in his White House. After Johnson left office, she helped him prepare his memoirs, leading directly to her first book, Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream (1977).

Goodwin’s other books include The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys (1987), and the baseball memoir Wait Till Next Year (1997). She’s married to Richard Goodwin, the playwright and former presidential speechwriter portrayed by actor Rob Morrow in the 1994 film, Quiz Show.

Goodwin, who now winters in Palm Beach County, will appear at the Festival of the Arts Boca –- which opens Friday -- both alone and with Richard. She sat down with Chauncey Mabe recently to talk about Lincoln, Obama, baseball, and the art and craft of biography.

Mabe: Thanks in part to Obama’s appreciation of your book, the president has been compared to Lincoln. How do you think he’s fared over the first year?

Goodwin: When I comment on contemporary affairs, I like to come with a historical perspective. There is always something history can tell you. For example, JFK’s first year was considered a disaster. Obama faced many more challenges, without so many disasters, but his approval rating has inevitably slipped.

One thing you do learn after one year is the temperament of the new leader that will be there in years two, three and four. We’ve learned some positive things. He’s very steady in a crisis, admits his mistakes, he’s very articulate at explaining things. He may have learned he has to deal with Congress in a different way, really exert leadership over Congress.

Mabe: How does that compare with Lincoln’s first year?

Goodwin: With Lincoln we have 200 years of hindsight to see what an extraordinary figure he was. But after the first year no one believed that. He had lost the first battle of Bull Run, the country had split apart, the war was not going well. But the kind of person he was did win out. It takes time for any leader to grow into the role. The extent to which Obama looks up to Lincoln is a good thing. Why not have as mentor our greatest president?

Mabe: Speaking of perspective, what are your thoughts on LBJ now, more than 30 years after your first book?

Goodwin: I think as the years go by, LBJ’s place in history will grow. When he died [in 1973], the Vietnam War was still a scar on his legacy, and it will remain one, but when we look at what LBJ accomplished in domestic politics, there’s been nothing like him since. Civil rights legislation, voting rights, Medicare, beautification, the War on Poverty. What he did will be given its rightful place despite the war.

Mabe: Which is harder – writing the biography of a figure you knew, or that of someone in the distant past?

Goodwin: In some ways, the deader they are, the easier it is. In my first book, I knew LBJ so well, and he was such a vibrant figure, the problem becomes ho w to remove yourself sufficiently so you can criticize as well as applaud. On the other hand, as you go back in time there are fewer and fewer witnesses to interview. Even when writing about the Roosevelts, I found people still alive with wonderful stories.

As you go back in time, you become more dependent on diaries, handwritten letters. In some ways that’s the most treasured source. I worry about how diaries and letters are not written today. What will future historians do? At least there are e-mails and blogs, which makes up for the period when people mostly talked on the phone.

Mabe: What makes your books so popular with readers?

Goodwin: History is a series of stories about people that lived in another time. When people say they hated history, they mean the memorization of dates and facts. Part of what allows you to reach a larger audience is if you can tell a story. My skill is bringing character to life. [Historian] Arthur Schlesinger has the talent to write big sweeping historical books. I could not do that. I start with characters and go outward.

Mabe: So you chose to write about Lincoln, possibly the most written-about figure in history, because of the characters surrounding him?

Goodwin: At the beginning, I was attracted to Lincoln precisely because so much had been written about him. Ida Tarbell said in 1900 so many people wrote about Lincoln because he’s so companionable. It takes me a long time to write a history, years. I could not wake up every morning, knowing I was going to spend the day with Hitler or Stalin.

After the Roosevelt book and World War II, the only thing as big was the Civil War, which was scary, as I had not studied the 19^th century. I told myself I was writing to learn. Originally I thought I’d write about Abe and Mary, but Mary couldn’t carry the public side of the story in the ways Eleanor Roosevelt could. I realized he was spending more time with his Cabinet than with his wife. I saw I could use these characters to reflect back on Lincoln.

Mabe: Why have you settled on Boca as your winter home? You could live anywhere, right?

Goodwin: We’ve lived in Mizner Park since January. It’s great. It’s been a brutal winter in Boston. We went to L.A. one winter and it was wonderful, but it’s so much farther. We have grandchildren now. We’ve spent time in Naples, too. We’re huge baseball fans. When the Dodgers left Brooklyn I was so devastated I couldn’t follow baseball for a few years. Then we moved to Boston and found a team like the Dodgers, with a small park and rabid fans.

Mabe: This is your second time at the Boca Festival of the Arts. What are you going to talk about?

Goodwin: I’d like to be able to look back over the course of a long career writing biographies, telling the stories of people I’ve lived with. It takes a long time to write my books. It took longer to write the Roosevelt biography than it took to win World War II. I really do feel like I know the people I write about.

The festival is wonderful. They have music, movies, as well as literature. I’m going to interview Richard on Saturday. He has fabulous stories about the Kennedys and LBJ. He wrote LBJ’s civil rights speech, one of the great speeches of the 20^th century. He was with Bobby Kennedy when he died. My husband was also the investigator in the quiz show scandals, played by Rob Morrow in the Robert Redford film.

His achievements are extraordinary. Most recently he wrote a play about Galileo and Pope Urban [The Hinge of the World]. He’s an amazing writer. It will be fun to have a conversation. Richard went to Harvard, first in his class, president of the Law Review, clerk for Justice Frankfurter. And he never practiced law a day in his life. He found a life of public service instead.

Mabe: I understand your son volunteered for the Army after 9/11?

Goodwin: We’re proud. Yes, our youngest son [Joseph] had just graduated from Harvard and was set to go to law school, but he volunteered for the Army. He served as a platoon leader in Iraq. And then he was working for NBC when he was called up for service in Afghanistan. That became his 20s. An experience he would not otherwise have seen, coming from affluent Concord and Harvard, if he had not volunteered.

Doris Kearns Goodwin appearances

Doris Kearns Goodwin at Festival of the Arts Boca: Monday, March 8, at 7 p.m. The Art and Craft of Biography: Living with Johnson, Kennedy, Roosevelt and Lincoln. At the Schmidt Family Centre for the Arts, Mizner Park, downtown Boca Raton. Tickets: $25-50.

Doris Kearns Goodwin and Richard Goodwin: an Interview: Saturday, March 13, 4 p.m. Inside the White House with JFK, Jackie, Bobby and LBJ. Cultural Arts Center, second floor. Mizner Park, downtown Boca Raton. Tickets: $25-50.

For more information, visit the festival site at www.festivaloftheartsboca.org.

Written by Sharon McDaniel | 09 February 2010

Ballet Florida canceled the remainder of its season in March 2009. Wrecked by severe cash flow problems and long-term debt, the company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation in July.

Yet for 23 years, Ballet Florida was the resident contemporary and classical ballet company of West Palm Beach. Its fine balance of the new and the traditional made it a one-of-a-kind.

Now, all that remains are its former studio on Fern Street (just purchased by Palm Beach Atlantic University) and an enormous vacuum in the dance community. Once a company – a family, really -- of 23, Ballet Florida has left dancers widely scattered, many still performing, many more teaching, choreographing and freelancing.

You would think that would be the end of Marie Hale, the company’s artistic director and founder. You would be wrong. Talking with Hale in the deep-red Fern Street domain that she can still call her office, you would find her still a bit nostalgic, but looking forward with the determination.

Although in her 70s, Hale has decided to begin again – from scratch. She closed the company and school in July. But she promptly reopened a new school, Dance Florida Academy, on Sept. 18 (enrollment: 180 students). Hale begins as she did more than three decades ago: teaching aspiring young dancers and giving them opportunities to perform in public.

Still with her is the company’s core artistic team, as master teachers: Lynda Swiadon, Hale’s colleague for 44 years; Claudia Cravey; Steven Hoff; and as director/administrator, Joseph J. Bucheck III. Aside from teaching, they’re doubling up on job duties, doing whatever it takes to help the new venture survive.

As Ballet Florida began its long, slow decline, there were some wrenching near-misses and chilling ironies -- and some urban legends that Hale wants to dispel.

On a cool, gray, raining and equally depressing December morning, we sit down to chat. The first thing you notice is the unnatural stillness, emptiness and quiet in the Fern Street building. Just six months ago, it was an ever-bustling stage: home to aspiring youngsters, but especially, headquarters of a remarkable company and its inspiring dancers.

McDaniel: So, where is everybody? Where have the dancers gone?

Hale: Everybody else – besides me and Lynda and Joey and Claudia and Steve – they’re all over the place. Tina Martin and Heather Lescaille (wife of retired company dancer-turned-firefighter Alfredo Lescaille), who taught in the (Ballet Florida) school, opened their own school down on South Dixie Highway. (The Florida Dance Conservatory opened in June.)

Jean-Hughes Féray actually had planned for a while that when he retired, he wanted to open a school way north. So he’s up in Abacoa.

Rogelio Corrales’ wife has had a school in Port St. Lucie (St. Lucie Ballet) for a long time. So Rogelio is helping her (along with company dancers Tracy Mozingo and Lorena Jimenez, and choreographer Jerry Opdenaker).

And who knows, maybe next year, in 2010 -- or maybe the next year -- I’ll get some students from Jean-Hughes and Rogelio and we’ll do a Nutcracker and bring in some professional dancers. But not at the Kravis. It amazes me that I could have the Kennedy Center for what I pay at Kravis.

[Note: Other company dancers, including Yomelia Garcia, now a principal dancer with The Joffrey Ballet, and Deborah Marquez will return to West Palm Beach as guest teachers of Hale’s new academy. Choreographers Ben Stevenson of Texas Ballet Theatre and Mauricio Wainrot of Ballet Contemporaneo del Teatro San Martin of Buenos Aires will be on the guest-teaching schedule as well.]

McDaniel: How long did you go through the agony of shutting down?

Hale: Four years! It was four years ago last March that a couple members of the board first suggested that we might have to go under. So if anyone’s blaming it on the economy, that’s not true. We’ve always had problems. But then it just got to be worse and worse. In the last four years, I would wake up in the night worried.

I had the budget I was planning for 2009-10 -- which is now. (But trying to keep the company afloat), I straightaway cut $1 million. And just before we closed, I cut even more. I said, “OK, we’ll cut fall performances and come back in November, just in time to present the Nutcracker, and we’ll finish the season early, at the end of March [2010].” So I was planning already to cut back even drastically more. But then, we closed.

McDaniel: After you had already cut back so much, what pushed you over the edge? What was the last straw?

Hale: I guess the last straw was that we couldn’t make payroll. Ed (Sandall, Hale’s husband) had given and given and given, you know, and we just couldn’t make the payroll. And it was March, and we had performed Cinderella, and we couldn’t pay the crew. And we couldn’t pay the Kravis; we owe them money. We still owe the dancers two-and-a-half paychecks for five weeks’ work.

McDaniel: How were the ticket sales?

Hale: Ticket sales were doing pretty good, pretty good.

And Juan (Escalante, company executive director) did work this out: the city was going to buy the [Ballet Florida] building and pay us so much money, and we could stay here for five years, for $1 a year. But before (we declared bankruptcy), the attorney on our board said, “I think we have to sell the building.” So she gave it to a broker. We told the broker that we wanted to sell it, but we would have to have quite a few months’ notice. We need to spend the rest of the season here and we can’t just move 400 students at the drop of a hat.

The broker brought one client here to see the building, and this client said, “I’m interested but they’re gonna have to get out in two weeks.” And so we said no.

And then, when the city was going to buy it, this broker sent us a bill for $180,000 as his commission. So then the city and the commissioners and the mayor said they were not interested in $180,000 of city money going to this man. And so they refused to buy it. So that lawsuit is still going on.

McDaniel: But what created all the previous deficits, the past debts?

Hale: The attitude is out there that we overspent. And we didn’t. We were so frugal. Al Mathers (production manager) would sit up all night to save $5 over at the Kravis Center. Since 1986, productions came in under budget. Every expense for every ballet was accounted for: every plane ticket, every hotel room, every costume.

But the office staff would say, “We can get this fabulous copier that prints in color and does this and that and only costs $1,000-plus!” That was never in the budget. It was the board and the administration that overspent.

And then, too, you remember that last season we did Cleopatra [a full-length Ben Stevenson ballet]. Well, the production itself was built by Houston Ballet, Boston Ballet and Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre – they shared the production costs of $2 million. So (the staff) advertised that we were doing a $2 million production -- as if we were paying $2 million dollars. I rented it from Houston for $25,000!

There’s a big difference: $25,000 versus $2 million!

And I heard that someone that said, “My God, no wonder they went bankrupt! What did she spend $2 million on this one ballet for?” And you just want to scream!

McDaniel: What is your biggest wish right now?

Hale: Right now, it’s getting a location that’s big enough to do what we need to do, and cheap enough that we can pay for it. Because we need a lot of room, you know. (As a dance school,) we need high ceilings. It’s hard to find an open space that doesn’t have supporting posts.

McDaniel: Do you have any regrets?

Hale: Regrets? Not really. I don’t know how it would be possible to do a better job choosing the dancers or the ballets. (The dancers and I) got along really well and I was always so good to them. And I don’t know how I could have done anything different that would have made it better.

It just looked like everywhere I turned -- at the Eissey Theatre in March, I walked off the stage – into the pit. I literally fell off the stage into the pit! But do you know I was not hurt at all? I was shocked, yes, I was very surprised. But I didn’t even break a fingernail -- nothing! And I think that was a premonition of what was coming, because Claudia said, you know, every time Marie tries to get up, something else knocks her down.

McDaniel: Had you considered retiring?

Hale: No, not at all. What would I do? As of August, I’ve been teaching for 56 years. I know so much! I feel obligated to pass it on.

Dance Florida Academy, currently at 500 Fern St. in West Palm Beach, provides classes in ballet, tap, jazz, hip-hop, Zumba, voice and piano to children and adults. Call (561)832-8941 or visit www.dancefloridaacademy.com.

Written by Hap Erstein | 06 January 2010

On Nov. 30, Florida Stage and the Kravis Center announced a partnership agreement in which the Manalapan theater company that specializes in developing new plays would move its operation to the Rinker Playhouse, a flexible “black box” performance space within the West Palm Beach complex, beginning in July 2010.

In mid-December, Palm Beach ArtsPaper’s Hap Erstein sat down with Florida Stage’s producing director Louis Tyrrell to discuss the ramification of such a move.

Erstein: How did this Florida Stage-Kravis Center partnership begin?

Tyrrell: We talk all the time, (Kravis CEO) Judy Mitchell and I. We’re really common spirits. We’ve been talking since we did Shakespeare together, the year we moved here (to Manalapan).

They began thinking about how they could maximize their revenue in this economy, in the face of everybody being hurt and donations being affected -- for us as well -- so all of us were thinking out of the box.

Erstein: Hadn’t you put the idea of moving on hold because of the economy?

Tyrrell: Well, we had certainly put the idea of moving into our own 5, 10, 20-million-dollar facility on hold. We put it in the deep freeze. It didn’t make financial sense. But what did make sense was the kind of collaboration that this partnership represents, a perfect example of how you can circle your wagons, reduce your costs and upgrade the art and the audience experience.

Erstein: Were you starting to have difficulties with the management of Plaza del Mar?

Tyrrell: Increased rent is difficult in this environment to absorb. The reality of any tenant in a commercial property is if you’re there 19-20 years -- this is our 19th season here -- the small incremental increases of, say, 3 percent add up considerably. We started by paying $100,000 a year, our rent here is now $330,000 a year.

Yeah, you can add a dollar or two every so often (to the ticket price), but you get to the point where you’ve hit that ceiling and it has to come from contributed income. And if you are all of a sudden in an environment where contributed income is going down, you’ve got to be as creative about the budgeting as with what you hope to put on the stage.

Erstein: You had to be pretty creative to see the potential in the Rinker Playhouse space.

Tyrrell: I’m ecstatic with the outcome of what we’ve designed for it, because it gives us the potential for 25 to 50 additional seats and yet it doesn’t put the back row any further from the stage than we are here.

We will have 30 feet in height for the possibility of two-story sets and for expanded lighting designs, for special effects. In every way it improves our production values.

Erstein: What details of the move had to be ironed out?

Tyrrell: We had to make sure that the schedule that we needed was in the ball park of what is available. They’re still programming there. In this first year, the (Palm Beach) Opera will still be using it incrementally for rehearsals. And the Kravis Center still wanted to have several weeks where they could bring in shows, The Capital Steps or whatever.

The compromise that we made, at least initially, was that we’ll go back to four plays during the season (instead of five) and a summer musical that we’ll create. Three of the four productions will be five weeks apiece and the fourth will be six weeks, because it will be a new musical creation which typically plays to a wider audience.

The hope also is that we’ll have to add Tuesday night performances. That adds four performances, so a four-week run would only be cut by four performances.

Erstein: Did you poll your subscribers about the move?

Tyrrell: Anecdotally. Ninety-nine-point-nine percent of them are not only positive about it, but thrilled about it. We have encountered the two or three negative responses, people who say things like, “But I live across the street.…”

There are questions about the reconfiguration, which are natural. Y’know, “How will my seats look in the new space?” and those are all questions we’ll be answering in the days ahead.

Erstein: Did you do any market research about potential new audiences you might gain?

Tyrrell: The demographic research very clearly shows that the growth in Palm Beach County is west and north. As we know, Palm Beach Gardens has just exploded with people who are likely to want to come to our programs at the Kravis. As well as West Palm Beach itself. To be in the hub of the county, right in the middle of the community, with the kind of programming that we offer, we expect a tremendous response in the 30, 40, 50s-somethings community, because the work that we’re doing plays very centrally to a younger esthetic.

Erstein: Do you think your programming will change at the Kravis?

Tyrrell: No, not in terms of the type of play that we’re doing. It will simply give me a chance to consider material that I find difficult to consider here, from a technical perspective. Plays that require two stories. This will give me an opportunity, from a design perspective, to really bring those plays to life.

Erstein: What is the potential for gaining new donors?

Tyrrell: Very clearly the Kravis Center is world-class in their fund-raising operation. The community feels very comfortable contributing to programming in that building.. So we feel it will provide us enhanced opportunities for fund-raising.

Erstein: What about conflicts with the Kravis’s fund-raising efforts?

Tyrrell: We said to Judy (Mitchell), “How do we make sure we don’t step on your toes?” And she said, “I don’t have toes that are step-on-able.” She was very open in that regard. She said, “People should have the opportunity to support a menu of cultural offerings that we may be providing, you among them.” That’s so classy, so smart and so right.

We’ve been given a grant by the Addison Hines Charitable Trust, which is a perfect example of why we think it will be easier to raise money when we are at the Kravis Center. Because in their letter to us giving us the $50,000 grant to make the move, they said that Addison Hines would want to be remembered at the Kravis Center.

Erstein: Does Florida Stage have any formal fund-raising plans?

Tyrrell: For our 25th anniversary, the 2011-2012 season, we’ll be starting a capital campaign now, which will give us two and a half years to raise $2.5 million for our 25th anniversary. A million dollars for endowment, a million for cash reserve and $500,000 as a lead gift for the naming of the stage.

Erstein: Will you have your own separate box office?

Tyrell: Yes. We’re going to initially have our box office as we have had it. Change is hard for people. So at least initially, we want to provide people with the same level of service, the sane phone numbers they can call, the same people who they’re used to speaking to here. But the Kravis has a world class box office operation, so we are looking forward to making blocks of tickets available through their box office too.

Erstein: Separate marketing department?

Tyrrell: Well, we’ll have separate marketing, but we hope to benefit from a presence in the Kravis brochure every year and we’ll want to piggyback on their world-class marketing machine. They’re really good at what they do. Why would we not want to take advantage of that?

Erstein: You are renting the Rinker, and that means you will have to pay for reconfiguring it to your specifications?

Tyrrell: That’s right. But the reconfiguration, relative to building a new theater, is pocket change. It’s under $500,000.

Erstein: Will it be flexible enough to have different set-ups for various plays?

Tyrrell: Yeah, that potential is there. If we add another section of seats, it becomes an arena, a theater-in-the-round, should we ever want to do that.

Erstein: What will your rent be?

Tyrrell: I think it amounts to, including offices, something like $250,000 a year.. But that’s totally inclusive. It includes all the utilities, all the facility management and security issues. Out of the gate, for the use of the theater, it is $130,000 less (than Manalapan)and then utilities are about $120,000 a year saved. That’s if we didn’t ever have to replace a A/C unit. We have ten of them on the roof. Every year so far that we’ve been here, one‘s gone out at $30,000 a pop. So when you start adding in those things, you realize very quickly it is a cool $250,000 savings.

Erstein: Have you calculated what ticket prices in your first Kravis season will be?

Tyrrell: Having just last year raised our prices two or three dollars, we’re not looking at raising our tickets right away. We feel very strongly about remaining accessible from a cost perspective.

Erstein: Is this an interim move to get you past the rough economy, until you can afford your ideal theater?

Tyrrell: I see it as a permanent home. I love the idea of the implied collaboration. I love the idea that the Kravis Center will now have a complete cultural offering including a resident theater company with a mission like ours.

With the economic shift that’s happened over the last couple of years, it would be foolish to think that it is just a momentary glitch in the economic realities. This is the new normal.

Erstein: Haven’t you long wanted to have a second space for develop less accessible material?

Tyrrell: I think what is in the cards, and Judy, Lee Bell (Kravis senior director of programming) and I have talked about this, is a possible cabaret operation up in what they call a rehearsal hall. I call it a second black box, where there can be the sort of experimental work can be developed and produced.

Erstein: Will your sets still to be built in your existing scene shop in West Palm Beach?

Tyrell: Yes, which is much closer to the Kravis than it is to here.

Erstein: What about your rehearsal space and costume shop in Lantana?

Tyrrell: We’re not sure. The lease on our rehearsal space carries on for another year, which will give us a good opportunity to determine what we want to do. We figure it’s enough to move the theater and the offices for now. It may make sense later to look for space in West Palm Beach proper.

Erstein: What about housing for your out-of-town actors?

Tyrrell: It would be great to try to convince some of our donors to purchase the very affordable apartments that are in CityPlace or elsewhere in downtown West Palm Beach. For investment purposes, right now is the time to acquire the kind if space that a theater like ours would need for visiting artists. For donors that would want to make that kind of investment, it will probably only appreciate in the years to come. If they could then make a contribution to the theater through the use of those units or charge a nominal rent that we could afford, that would be ideal.

Erstein: What challenges loom ahead, as you see them?

Tyrrell: The challenges that I am now able to focus on as I approach my 60th birthday are kind of fun. For my 40th birthday, we moved here, so here we are 20 years later and I get to have the birthday present of moving to a new theater at the Kravis Center. I’m thinking in terms of the inauguration of a Florida cycle of plays. This will to be to establish a fund that will commission 20 and more plays on Florida stories.

I tried to think of some minuses and found it really difficult to come up with things. As I said, change is hard for people in general. But we think that’s going to be minimal here, because of the fact that virtually everybody who comes to Florida Stage has been to and goes regularly to the Kravis Center. And then there are tens of thousands of people who go there who don’t come here, so that’s a plus.

My drive to work will be longer.