- Welcome to our place, our time, the cultural magazine of Hampton Roads.

We're going to visit a historic church where they're installing a king of musical instruments.

We'll have music for you by Bach, and we'll look at public art, what have we and what's happening.

Your host is by Vianne Webb.

- We are glad to have you with us in our place, our time.

We're going to consider the subject of public art in Hampton Roads, in statues and memorials, in murals and landscape designs, in billboards and signs, we reflect our ideals, our dreams, and our hopes As a people, we've been thinking about the art that in our comings and goings we all see and too often pass by.

Without ever taking a look, Kim Simon is going to help us.

Look, we wanted first to take stock of our public art.

What are our assets and deficiencies?

What are we doing to assure the preservation and creation of public art, of lasting value?

Kim Simon posed the questions and gives us this report.

- I imagine that public art is probably one of the oldest form, if not the oldest form of art expression.

I would imagine it went back to the caveman days when they fashioned deities out of clay and prosper worship them inside of a cave.

- If one goes back to antiquity, to look at the use of of public art was basically to celebrate heroes, celebrate gods, or to commemorate major battles, major victories, - Whether intended to glorify gods, to immortalize memories of heroic men and women, or simply to enhance cityscapes.

Society has relied on public art forms to depict its hopes and aspirations, its own very personal character.

They are the voices of civilizations past and present.

Artful works that celebrate and transcribe our passages through time.

Traditionally, memorial and statuary art forms were the unspoken oracles of the past.

There aren't many statues being commissioned today, though it isn't for lack of heroic deeds nor historic events.

Hampton Roads, despite its rich heritage, has relatively few reminders of its historic past, - The - Importance of having memorials as public art.

Wes, the modern art.

I think we get an appreciation or give our future generations an appreciation of what's happened before to get what we have now.

- I think there should be more memorials because I think it represents, it represents what the people fought for.

They fought for something they really believed in.

- Such literal translations of the past, however, are giving way to new modes of expression.

Today, art forms speak with a new figurative vocabulary that not only aesthetically pleases, but challenges viewers' perceptions.

Dr. David Steadman, director of the Chrysler Museum - In the 20th century, with the change of style, with change of subject matter necessarily, the kind of public art changed as well.

We do not live in the society of 1880, and we live in the society of, of 1980, and as a result, our art hopefully will reflect our own contemporary environment.

And I think as well some of the issues of public art as far as the relationship with, with its sight, have indeed changed - This sculptural tribute of man and woman conception and birth pertains to no one person or event, but to a broader conceptual ideal.

Glo.

Byron, president Larry Mednick is the sculptor of this piece.

On exhibit in the lobby of this Virginia Beach Commerce Bank building, Mednick emphasizes the importance of art for art's sake.

In the built environment, - I would probably define public art as an attempt on the part of the artist and the so-called manufacturer of someone that is involved in bringing this to elevate artistic awareness and consciousness of anyone that might be passing by in any given situation.

Not to have to go into a museum or a particular building, but bring a creative self-expression and the awareness of what art can do for people's sensibilities in full view, full blown view of everyone that might happen to pass by.

- And what does the public think about public art?

- You know, having people walking around and seeing a piece of art, you know, it kind of takes your mind away from, you know, the hustle and bustle of the city.

You know, you get to see a nice piece of art and look at it, you know, it gives you something to look into instead of just the, the regular surroundings around the city.

- Oh, gee, I don't know.

I'm not much of a wound for modern sculpture.

- I think it gives you space that you can use to whatever you, you know, you wanna use it for in terms of creativity.

You know, whether you wanna just sit here and eat your lunch or just sit out here and talk, you know, get a little peace of mind away from the office, that type of thing.

- Public art concerns space and its relationship with its chosen site.

How well a form works within its architectural setting distinguishes its success.

Too often contends architect Emilio Sosa.

Public art has little to do with its architectural framing - In the traditional sense.

You see, you got in the traditional sense of art, art, art objects being a, a painting, being an sculpture or being a piece of architecture, it cannot be considered as an isolated object anymore.

Once that makes a transition into public art, it has to be considered with the context of its ever changing environment, which both of the time is as important and significant as the piece itself.

- As a partner for site and organization for sculpture in the environment, Sosa worked on a project, the ghost parking lot, - For example.

In this particular case, the major elements in the situation are the massive asphalt parking lot, and the cars and doves.

Those two elements, that's what we use our word, raw material.

And by combining those two mundane elements in a, in a different or in a different way, you can see the results of the final object.

- In the last 20, 30 years, a lot of public art has been created with the same kind of approach that studio, gallery and museum art has been.

And the attitude of many sculptors to the public is, I do what I want, I do my, my work and to you and my work.

I, I try and do things that will be of an imagery that people on the street, people who use the public spaces will be able to get something from and understand.

- Working out of Hampton University, Los Angeles sculptor, Adam Leventhal is busy completing one of Hampton Road's most recent public sculptures.

A 53 foot tall geometrically structured fishermen reeling in a 17 foot long fish, weighing in at 6,000 pounds.

Like salsa, Leventhal believes art has a responsibility to its environment, imbibing it as art should with life.

- This sculpture is specific to the site of Newport Square Shopping Center, in that the site of the shopping center itself has gotta be amongst the dollar at least.

Interesting.

A visual space is imaginable, a bunch of monochrome low buildings, a huge parking lot.

And the specificity of it is that the sculpture, the idea of the sculpture is to enliven that entire space and to bring with it a sense of humor and a drama and a beauty, none of which exists there at all.

Without it - Casting a glance about Hampton Roads, a number of commissioned works are cropping up along the horizon.

The Bernard Vinay sculpture pedestal outside the World Trade Center, the pagoda Observation tower, a gift from the Taiwanese government, currently under construction on downtown Norfolk Waterfront, local sculptor Vic Pickett's, proposed Holocaust Memorial, a combination sculpture and garden resting on a world map comprised of 6 million river rocks.

Its site, the Jewish Community Center, another memorial commemorating area of veterans is nearing completion adjacent to the beach pavilion.

- Well, I think there's been a, a very large, to a very large degree, a an accumulation of capital and with an accumulation of capital we end up with, with disposable income that can be directed toward art.

I mean, we haven't had generations of metes here in Tad water, and we're, we're just beginning to see people who have accumulated capital, who are prepared to make those kinds of commitments and a public awareness as well.

- This light diffraction grid patented by New Orleans architect and engineer Dale Eldrid, to be placed in the beach pavilion.

Courtyard is one of two works selected by the city's 1% for the arts program, chaired by Andrew Fine, which allocates 1% of the city capital expenditures to art and public places, places like the Virginia Beach Central Library, which is the setting for this kinetic work by Kansas City sculptor Lynn Emery.

Inspiring, inviting, at times, humorous at other times.

Intensely sobering.

Public art is about life as all good art should be.

Creating a charged dialogue within its setting.

- Public art is art that we all live with, and therefore is a subject we need continually to ask questions about.

Thank you Kim Simon, for opening the dialogue for us.

In a moment, we're going to visit one of our areas, historical churches, which will soon be celebrating with a new joyful noise.

We'll catch up first with our weekly listing of important events coming soon in Hampton Roads.

Abingdon Church.

Abingdon Church in White Marsh near Gloucester is one of the oldest churches in Hampton Roads.

It was built in 1755.

Two years ago, the church was restored to an appearance, more like that of its colonial origin.

And now the congregation is installing a new and magnificent pipe organ.

Tim Morton went to Abingdon Church to watch the organ being installed and to hear its music.

- Now this is a very, very special day for us.

It probably is as much fun for me as, as the dedication of the, of the building when, when we celebrated our restoration, because this in a sense is the completion of, of the church.

- In fact, I'll be honest and say a few people of congregation would link God, but this was my first dream.

I wanted the organ before anything else because I knew that it would make a wonderful difference in the way we sing and worship, that it would really lift us up and, and that's what it's for, primarily to lift us up and worship.

And I knew that it would do that.

- We started work on this organ four months ago from design stage through to factory assembly and completion.

We then dismantled the organ, packed it into the container, and shipped over to America.

We'll assemble the organ.

This will take us a week, then the voices will come out and they'll voice the organ to suit the church.

The organ has been specifically designed and custom built to, to suit this church.

- It's like Christmas.

I think every church needs an organ to help the people that come to worship, to sing.

Singing has always been the most important part of worship in the church.

- Abington is an old and historic church.

There were two churches before this building.

Thomas Jefferson attended services here while visiting his college.

Chum John Page of Rosewell Washington came to church here during the revolution.

This was a Tory stronghold.

The rector Thomas Price was Lord Cornwall's chaplain at Yorktown.

Robert E. Lee attended services here after the Civil War when it had served as a stable and hospital.

There are names on the church registered today that go back to the early days.

Names like Paige Warner, Sinclair, and Robbins, who came here from Abingdon, England once.

This was the largest church in Colonial Virginia.

And one of the most ornately, beautiful at the heart of Abington's worship is its communion silverware.

This chalice and plate have been in continuous use since 1650.

They were made by an American woman, silversmith name unknown.

These two pieces made in London date from 1702 Jefferson Sinclair, now 80 years old, is a descendant of the family that gave the land for Abingdon.

Mr. Sinclair, you grew up in this church.

What was it like then?

- It was quite different and much less ornate and very bare.

It was heated with wood stoves, one stove in each aisle, three stoves in the wintertime.

And of course we opened the doors and raised the windows in summertime, no air conditioning.

- What has the change, the restoration to the church meant to you and and do you think other members of the congregation?

- Well, it's a revived church because in my early days it had gotten down to very few people came 25 would be a very big crowd on Sunday, and now the church is full on Sunday.

So that's quite a difference.

- I came here at the invitation of the church, at the congregation.

I spent a year starting in 1982, researching the building, found the evolu or as much of the evolution of the building as I could, included such things as different floor plans since it's construction.

In 1755, - Joseph Ndro was the architect who researched and designed the restoration at Abingdon.

- Had a wonderful day here, crawling in the crawl space and discovering a, an entuned section of the crawl space that had within it, the original base of one of the columns, the only one that was left from 1755.

The stones were original, found several of them in their untouched position beneath the raised floor.

In fact, they're very interesting here at Abingdon in that it's a regular two by two pattern at several other colonial churches.

The stones are in random patterns.

The pulpit in six years ago when our work began was a small affair that sat maybe three steps higher than the chance floor and was of a very different configuration.

What we see now, piecing together the paint analysis and then markings on the pulpit, we were able to determine that indeed the pulpit was raised, was a part of the corner where we see it now.

We had markings within the plaster wall of its original position.

So consequently we restored those panels into the pulpit as you see it today.

- For years before I talked about what the building certainly looked like, I would point out marks in the plaster where the pulpit was and kind of conditioned them to dreaming a little bit.

And I think dreams help more than than anything.

Any group of folk that want to do something, if they believe in it, can do it.

And I think this is a proof of faith when you see this, that if you put your faith and trust together, you know, miracles happen and - Alright, it might calm down.

Just soften it down a bit.

- Okay, let's try that first.

- Voicing basically is creating the sound of the instrument.

The pipes, when they are worked on in, in our workshops back in England, are generally made to sound or speak as we call it, and in a rather erratic way, they just, they just sound and that's it.

They don't make the correct sound, they just make a noise.

And that's about as much as we can undertake away from the, the site where the organ's gonna be installed, mainly because of the acoustic of every room tends to be quite different.

The acoustic of this church is fairly live.

There's about two, two and a half seconds reverberation, which is very good for organ sound.

It enhances organ sound.

- What we were looking for was, was an instrument that could provide three things.

The most important was to support congregational singing and participation in, in the liturgy.

Then also one which could accompany a choir in anthems and things like that.

This is a very typical Anglican need for, for music.

And finally, of course, it was good to have an instrument which we could do recitals with - Dr. David Evans, a native of England vest and choir member led the effort to obtain the new organ.

- An interesting thing too, the, the week before this organ arrived, we had to borrow a, an electronic device and a number of people were quite rude about it, and yet for a long time we'd, we'd had an electronic machine before.

So I think even those who are don't consider themselves to be musically inclined will will notice the, the, the perfection of, of this ACH instrument.

- Aptly named Carol Manuel is Abington's organist and choir master.

- Well, we have a a two manual organ with, of course, with the pedal and we have 19 stops.

And actually, if you count at every rank of pipes, you would come up with 23 ranks of pipes.

So it's, it's a very substantial organ for this building.

And, and we think it's going to be just what we need.

- What's this going to mean to the congregation here?

- It compliments everything else that's here and that it will help us to focus on the altar in, in our worship and of God.

And that in some sense, it, it balances the, the pulpit area where the word of God is preached and heard.

And here the music plays and all of it helps us to, to our praise of God and worship.

- The people of Abingdon Church are making a joyful noise they've put to music, the work and contributions they've made toward restoring this beautiful old church.

It's past lives, its future will live in the spirit of praise.

- Alan Alan Schaefer plays a harpsichord of uncommon beauty.

I hope you can get a close look at it on your screen.

It was lovingly handcrafted by Martin of Pennsylvania.

It's been hand painted and it reveals ornamental details not usually seen in instruments today.

And he brings to his playing an interpretive sensibility that does justice to this fine harpsichord here is Dr. Alan Schafer.

It is indeed a beautiful instrument that Alan Schafer plays.

Thank you, Alan, for sharing it and box music with us.

Our place our time will return in two weeks when we'll take you out to the ball game.

We'll profile the general manager of one of the most successful baseball operations.

Dave Rosenfield of the Tidewater Tides and jazz singer, Connie Parker will be with us.

My name is Vianne Webb.

Until next time for our place our time.