Flo McGarrell
Contents
The News from Haiti
Facebook is a wonderful example of communication in our brand new, shiny, speedy Information Age. From all around the globe we can connect, immediately, with anyone else who happens to be sitting in front of a computer screen.
On Tuesday we all gathered around our little glowing boxes to learn the latest news from Haiti. By Thursday a bunch of us learned that a talented artist, our friend, our colleague, our son, our daughter, our brother, or sister Flo McGarrell had been crushed in a horrific earthquake in Jacmel.
Sometimes you don't necessarily like the news that the information age drops in your lap(top).
The first time i saw Flo McGarrell he wandered into the Museum for our Hobo Symposium.
Memorial at the Main Street Museum
In January, 2010 we established an altar to Flo McGarrell at the Main Street Museum.
Altar at the Main Street Museum
Haitian Rum It is a pan-Caribbean custom to pour rum on the ground for the departed. (But not too much—it’d be shame to waste good liquor)
So, please feel free to pour some drops on the ground Please have a sip, a nip and pour some drops on the ground. For the babies, the boys, girls, the old people, the men the women, the friends the artists, nurses, teachers the priests the followers, the extraordinary and the ordinary people, the people we know and the people we never met who have been taken from us by the shifting of the rocks under our feet.
The predominant color used in Haitian funerals is white, which symbolizes purity. So this table is decorated with white cloth and white candles.
Spicy food is always appreciated by the dead, so have some “pico de gallo” on the opposite table.
And the departed also love music. It was very appropriate to have lively dancing music in the Museum the night we set up the altar.
In Amatam Memoriam Flores McGarrell (1975–2010)
“A Magical, Deliberately Un-defined, All-encompassing Personality"
The first time I saw Flo McGarrell he wandered into the Museum for our Hobo Symposium. He was a quiet, impeccably dressed figure wearing a Western shirt with mother of pearl snaps. He started talking about hopping freight cars, about his show at the AVA art center, about Haiti. We bonded.
About two months later I heard him lecture about installation art, about color coordinated recycling bins and grey water and seed collection stations. And about compost. An installation artist that worked with compost—right on! There were sunflowers coming into bloom all over the front of the art center where he spoke. He had planted their seeds in a “guerrilla action” months earlier. They were gorgeous. There are some types of people with which I can discuss the History of Museums; or Italian politics and food—”high culture.” And with others I know I can talk about punk rock, or freight hoppers (the “crust lords”) and Compost (as a radicalpoliticalstatement)—but Flo merged all these. Merged them and then travelled through them and made them his own.
Everything he touched he made his own. It really was magical. He had a magical, deliberately undefined—all-encompassing personality. He loved both low-tech and high. He loved the quirkiness, the dust and the general 19th century inspired dinge of the Museum that I direct. He was a fan of “Knitta”—artists who take back our streets by “guerrilla knitting” and “yarn bombing” in unexpected public areas. He designed websites and was dedicated to opensource, “Creative Commons” licensing of intellectual property. There are not a lot of people like Flo in the Upper Valley of New Hampshire and Vermont. There are not a lot of people like Flo—anywhere.
I only knew him for nine months. And so, I have been thinking during this difficult, difficult week that my grief is a kind of mirror—an opposite, of his parents. His parents experience that special, outrageously painful, unnatural grief of a parent that has lost a child. They remember everything about her from her childhood, and they walk past his room in their house and see all his things. They remember the way her feet sounded as an adolescent as she tromped downstairs on the creaky, 18th century staircase in their lovely old Vermont home. They are literally surrounded by little, and not so little, reminders of him—and her. But from my perspective, the accumulation of nine months of memories is indelible (of course, remember who we are talking about after all) but materially slim. He gave me some of his hair. We have quite a lot of hair here in the Museum, from Warren G. Harding’s to Richard Nixon’s. So, we figured we needed some McGarrell hair. And he gave me some freight train hopping artifacts and a favorite shirt from Ivy. He photographed her as the Virgin Mary. He emailed me the picture after he had given me the shirt. Its a shirt from a train-hopper. So it goes in the freight-train-hopping reliquary/collection here. And now we have an altar. An altar with some dried flowers. Some Haitian coffee. And a bottle of rum. I had grandparents who ended up in Antigua, and I’ve had a few friends from Puerto Rico, so I know that there is a pan-Caribbean tradition of drinking rum and putting rum on the ground at funerals. And I bought some (Haitian) rum for the Museum the day I found out about Flo’s death and we all consumed it, and splashed some on the floor at a live music event here. It was good. The bottle was empty by the end of the night.
I found out about my—about all of our—loss of Flo through facebook. Which is very appropriate for Flo—the wireless loving, web-designer Flo. My first thought, on reading that facebook page was, “What, an earthquake? You’re not supposed to die from earthquakes in the Caribbean. Hurricanes, yes, but earthquakes, wtf!”
And then there was the realization, from the Washington Post, or 7 Days, that he had started to run out of the building, but had gone back for his laptop. For His Laptop—that’s very in character—very Flo! I can so see him doing that. And found myself laughing and crying and reading all at the same time. “O Flo! Don’t stop for your laptop, Don’t!” I’ll bet I’m not the only one through all this who has cried really hard, and laughed really hard all at the same time. Flo would understand.
So, now begins the challenge of Going on Without Flo.
And I know we can. We have to, whether we want to or not.
For my small part, I was writing four grants to get those Haitian artists and performers up here. I was planning on visiting the island, the FOSAJ art center and Flo in March to do the first bit of a curatorial project there—to collect little, cast-off bits of Jacmel and the coffee growing infrastructure at FOSAJ and then bring them to this odd little Museum here in Vermont. The art center was/is housed in an old coffee warehouse. Several days ago I awoke to my radio and a story about that warehouse, the NPR reporter was describing the building I would have lived in for several weeks next month, collapsed in on itself. Its an odd feeling. I guess the Goddess has other plans for me. I know Haitians never give up and so I’m not giving up either. I’ve facebooked two of Flo’s friends, but have not heard back yet. There are so many fundraisers going on now that there is a glare of attention. But Americans get distracted fast and the stream donated money will dry up sooner rather than later. So perhaps by the Fall we can find some funding for Haitian artists in 2011 and 2012. I’m sure it will still be needed.
Curating objects from anywhere both define our perceptions of those Anywheres and establish an investment (ownership) in the cultures being collected. The traditional museum systems of the Old world evoke the diabolical systems of Colonialism, the Main Street Museum seems has the ability to flip all that right on its head. I am determined that we (both Haitians and Vermonters) still can study these objects, organize them and tell their stories with interest and with love. For if any country in the world deserves study and interest and love, it is Haiti.
In New Orleans, in three weeks, I have the opportunity to be in the Krewe of Saint Anne on Mardi Gras Day. St. Ann’s Krewe is a parade of artists led by a traditional jazz band that winds its way down Royal Street—for the most part—and ends up in the French Quarter. It ends with a jazz funeral as krewe members drop mementos or actual ashes of the loved ones into the Mississippi River from the levee.
I’ve made a fetish to drop in the river at Mardi Gras. It’s made of white satin shaped like a skull. (In Haiti white if the color of funerals.) It has a small bit of the lock of Flo’s hair in it and some of the really rich Haitian ground coffee beans that Flo brought to me over the Holidays. Its perhaps comforting to know that a small representative sample of the wonderful, incongruous being that we knew as Flores McGarrell will meet the filthy waters of the Mississippi river on Fat Tuesday and enter the Gulf of Mexico shortly afterward. (Maybe the fetish, or parts of it will get to the Caribbean that he loved so much.) As well as celebrations in New Orleans, the fetish will be carried around to some memorials here in Vermont too. Like the “Anarchist Knitters” memorial to Flo on Saturday night in Montpelier. Pictures of the fetish, as well as the bottle of rum, nestled in dried flowers, will always be in the Museum collection.
I love you, Flo.
—David Fairbanks Ford, White River Junction, Vermont, 2010.
Flo's Brother's Testimonial
http://wearegoingwithflo.blogspot.com/
Baltimore Sun
Jacques Kelly, January 20, 2010 "Flores McGarrell, Former MICA student and teacher was leading a Haitian arts center when he was killed in last week's earthquake, The Baltimore Sun, http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/obituaries/bal-md.ob.mcgarrell20jan20,0,3615156.story
Friends recall Flores McGarrell as an unforgettable artistic force. A performer at numerous Artscape events, he helped create a live memorial drama after the 1995 burning of the Clipper Mill in Woodberry. His teachers said he was one of the most recognized students at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where he studied and taught for nearly a decade.
The former Baltimorean, who was leading a Haitian arts center, died Tuesday when he dashed into a collapsing hotel during the earthquake to retrieve a computer that stored his records and artistic concepts. Friends sifted through the rubble for nearly a week to find his body in the coastal town of Jacmel, southwest of Port-au-Prince. He was 35.
"Flo was fearless, a rare mix of art and life," said Patrick Wright, chair of MICA's video and film arts department. "He was also curious, very industrious and a very good teacher as well. Flo invigorated the campus. Flo embodied what we strive for as a school."
Mr. McGarrell was a co-founder of Little Big Bang, a nonprofit performance group that appeared at the Baltimore Museum of Art, Visionary Art Museum and the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington. His group created a skit about the moon being made up of blue cheese, work recalled as being social commentary yet always comical.
A transgender, he was born Flora McGarrell in Rome to a painter, James McGarrell, and a writer and translator, Anna McGarrell. He lived in Italy until he was 8 and then moved to St. Louis. As a teen, he studied metalworking and the Italian language. He came to Baltimore in 1993 as a MICA freshman.
"I remember Flo for his generosity, always sharing with other artists," said Annet Couwenberg, a MICA faculty member and friend. "His first performance was in my class. He did the 'Snow Queen,' and it was one of the events where I realized I was dealing with a student who was bold and always trying to move the edges of what it means to be an artist. He climbed over the staircase balustrade and performed on a tiny platform. It was dangerous and incredibly inventive."
Friends said he adopted the city and lived on St. Paul Street near Penn Station and in a West Baltimore Street loft, where a fire destroyed many of his works several years ago.
He created inflatable pieces of tough nylon, including an oversize television with interior projectors, which he transported to arts events and neighborhood festivals. He also was fascinated by Airstream trailers.
"MICA gave him a tremendous work ethic," said his mother. "The period he lived in Baltimore was the happiest in his life."
He earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts and remained in Baltimore another few years to get a master's degree. He also taught at the college in 2001 and 2002, and taught video at the Baltimore School for the Arts.
"Flo loved sharing creative impulses," said the School for the Art's Donald Hicken. "Flo was infectious with ideas. We were all captivated by that energy."
Friends said that he began mixing sculpture, fiber and digital craft to create large-scale inflatable sculptures. After leaving Baltimore in 2002, he studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he earned a master of fine arts degree in art and technology studies. He attended an artist-in-residence program in Roswell, N.M., and was art director of the film "Maggots and Men," described as an experimental retelling of the story of the 1921 uprising of the Kronstadt sailors in post-revolutionary Russia.
He then moved to Haiti. A sketch of his life from MICA said he made "agrisculptures" and used "found objects" to create "home-scale food production systems, making statements about sustainability and food consumption."
At his death, he was director of FOSAJ, Foundation Sant D'A Jakmel, a nonprofit arts center in Jacmel. His foundation was "dedicated to empowering the Haitian people through art and culture," according to the foundation's Web site.
"I have a few guiding principles, which I think must propel me toward this artistic freedom you speak about: Don't hide, don't lie. Do that which scares me. Resist the urge to settle. Be as many things as possible in this lifetime," Mr. McGarrell said in an interview last year in Art: 21.
He said that where he was living, Jacmel, "is the de facto cultural center of Haiti. Not only do many visual artists find their niche there, but there are many actors, poets, dancers, musicians and a lot of people who are doing all of the above. That is a big reason I settled in Jacmel."
A life celebration will be held at 7 p.m. today at MICA's Mount Royal Station, 1400 Cathedral St.
In addition to his parents, who live in Newbury, Vt., survivors include his brother, Andrew McGarrell of St. Joseph, Mo.
The Washington Post Article
A last act of kindness, Woman shepherds her best friend, who died in Haiti's earthquake, home to U.S., Thursday, January 21, 2010
Sue Frame sat on a blanket at the side of the runway Wednesday morning with a bandanna pulled up over her mouth and nose and a white body bag at her side. Inside the bag was her best friend, and she was waiting for a U.S. military helicopter to take him back to the United States, where his parents were waiting.
Frame opened her friend's dusty passport to show his photo: Flora Raven McGarrell, a 35-year-old artist with dark hair and intense eyes. They met 16 years ago at the Maryland Institute College of Art. They were in the Baltimore performance art group Little Big Bang together, lived together, survived a fire together, lost everything, found it.
McGarrell had run a nonprofit art center in Jacmel for the past couple of years. Frame came to Jacmel two weeks ago, and they went to a new hotel, the Peace of Mind, on Jan. 12.
They got papaya smoothies, ham-and-cheese sandwiches and checked their e-mail at one of the few places in town with a wireless connection. They were eating, and all of sudden, "the building looked like water," Frame said.
She yelled, and they started running. She looked back and saw him hesitate and turn back. The building, opened just weeks ago, collapsed.
On Tuesday night, she and a friend found a body bag and brought her best friend to the airport. On Wednesday, all she had to do was wait and get him home.
—Susan Kinzie in Jacmel
Epistle to be Left in the Earth, by Archibald MacLeish.
Read Flo McGarrell's CV here.
References
- Interview by Georgia Kotretsos, "Inside the Artist's Studio: Flo McGarrell"
- Zagria blogspot.com
- McGarrell's CV
- Dan Simmons, Chicago artist survives earthquake but friend is killed trying to escape hotel, Chicago Tribune, 17 January, 2010.
- "Posthaiti" Blog. January, 2010.
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/20/AR2010012004641.html?sub=AR
