Inching Along

Today I received a very nice call from Mike Johnson, VP of Alumni Affairs at UNC.

In the hope that my goal of resurrecting the tradition of Totem Teddy on the UNC campus may be viable, I told him that I was still hoping to do an installation somewhere on campus.

We'll see.

Attached is my current installation in the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in Barnsdall Park in Hollywood. It's a prototype for the project that I hope to install in Greeley.

Glad Tidings

Totem Teddy may, indeed, still live!!

A few days ago, I got a very nice call from Mike Johnson, the now VP of Alumni Affairs for the UNC Foundation. Mike had been very helpful in 2005 when I installed the Ghost Memory Totem in the University Center in Greeley.

As I've mentioned here, Jerrold DeWitt, the former VP of Alumni Affairs, denied me access to the campus and effectively prevented the installation of my artwork in 2008. With his departure, I was fortunate to receive an official apology from Virgil Scott, president of the UNC Foundation, last August. He has now left his post at the Foundation, leaving an opening. So... if you know fund raisers / administrators who may be effective for working with the Foundation, have them contact the Judy Farr Center and help them out!

Mike Johnson is a cordial and concerned guy. I liked him when I met him. I was impressed that he took time to call and have an actual chat about Tradition at UNC. I've pledged to help.

Whether or not we get much activity here may be telling. School Spirit at my alma mater has been marginal. Rousing the students and alumni to support the idea of alma mater is the goal. All I have to offer is my time and energy. Hopefully, I'll be able to offer an installation that will at least bring attention to Totem Teddy and, if fortunate, get dialogue happening to promote art and respect for the past at the University of Northern Colorado.

Finally, one of the inspirations for my artwork, Jeanne-Claude, passed away recently. She and Christo have made works of art that have inspired millions and changed the hearts of some who have, at first, opposed their works of art. Currently, there is what may be characterized as a smear campaign to defame the Over The River Project for the Arkansas River between Salida and Canon City, Colorado. I encourage all Colorado residents to inform themselves about the Project and support it any way you can.

Please stop by this blog from time to time and leave comments: pro or con.. regarding the importance of Heritage and Tradition at UNC, as well as ideas for Totem Teddy.

Today is Winter Solstice. Celebrate the Light. The Season.. your own traditions..

Michael

Welcome Native American UNC Students

Having just joined the UNC Native American Student Services on Facebook, I thought I'd welcome those of you who may head this way to check out my blog.

In a nutshell, I want very much to make a donation to my alma mater. I began my education on campus in 1946. I met Totem Teddy that year and have had a relationship with the Bear Totem ever since. For those of you with time and patience, my history with Greeley and the totem is pretty much chronicled here.

I'm open to suggestions for the next installation which, I would hope, will be a permanent one. Essentially, I want to build a column of blocks stacked to 13 1/2 feet in height, the same height as the original totem.

I'm not seeking funding, but would love support and physical assistance if and when the university agrees to allow this tradition to continue. Of course, this is a 19th Century art piece attempting to reincarnate in the 21st Century. Maybe no one at UNC really cares about tradition? But, I know three great kids who helped me in 2008 and would hope that we might get this project cooking again without endangering anyone's scholastic standing or getting arrested or something!

Traditions come from the spirit of any group. Will the Native American folks on the UNC campus step up? Solomon Little Owl? Where are you?

Please leave comments here or find me on Facebook.

Does Totem Teddy live?

Michael Sheehan

Time heals...

It has been almost a year since my angry entry regarding the Lundvall's trophy donation to UNC. A couple of weeks ago I went to the UC and saw the bear in the plastic case with two plexiglas signs that credited the donors. The bear is small. It's a beautifully mounted specimen that would look nice in a natural diorama.

I understand that Jerrold DeWitt was very proud of this gift to the university. There's no accounting for taste. Evidently, Mr. DeWitt is no longer employed by the UNC Foundation for reasons that should probably be left unmentioned in this public forum. At once I find myself coming up with the line "what goes around, comes around." And, am a little embarrassed at the same time for the Foundation and DeWitt.

The upside is that I met with Virgil Scott, the President of the UNC Foundation when I was in Greeley in August and accepted his apology for DeWitt's negative words about me. Mr. Scott was sincere and seems like a genuine person to me. I am grateful for the meeting.

Whether or not I'll be able to begin again to create the ReInCairnation (thanks to Lynn Karowsky for that title) to install my work in the University Center in Greeley remains to be seen. Mr. Scott took my proposal to Dr. Randy Haack at the university and after a brief phone call with Dr. Haack, I'm hoping to receive a positive response from him and the support of both the University and the UNC Foundation to do the installation.

It's been pointed out to me that tastes in art differ and, perhaps, my ideas are too much of a challenge for Greeley. Of course, I feel that any art that requires thought and attention as well as critical thinking is vital to our society. Recently, I was treated to a tour of the new Denver Museum of Contemporary Art where Damien Hirst's interpretation of the Martyrdom of St. Sebastian is on display. It's a shocking piece that instantly sent one of my friends out of the gallery. The importance of Hirst and his incredibly raw approach to art is obvious. If an artist can break new ground and be recognized by the arts community, then Art moves.. not necessarily forward.. but it moves.

Seeing the Hirst and admiring the sheer fortitude of the piece put me in an ethical dilemma. I have been critical of the stuffed bear in the University Center and at once admire the dead calf that Hirst is making waves with in the Arts Community. How does one dead animal trump another?

It is precisely this conundrum that makes me hope that I'll be invited by my alma mater to do another installation that calls up the memory of Totem Teddy. One person in this blog stated some time ago that students don't have time to stand in front of an artwork and try to figure it out. Those are the minds, it seems to me, that need the challenge most.

Why pierce the body of a dead calf with dozens of arrows and hang it by a cable in a huge vitrine? Why stuff a bear and put it in a plexiglas box? These questions are vital to our growth as intelligent human beings. If all we get are pat answers to any question we may come up with, then, all we have is rote learning ... Critical thinking, by its very nature, must take us beyond the simplicity of getting an answer right and moving on.

So. Why should the University of Northern Colorado honor its roots in remembering a hundred year old totem pole? Why should tradition be an integral part of our education? Why should we examine our aesthetics and our personal ethics? Simply, I believe, we need challenges in our lives which enable us to grow in more than just a linear pattern which puts us into society to do a job.

I'll never compare my artwork to Damien Hirst's. Whether his stuff is important or not has been taken up by the Arts Community around the world. I find it at once startling and wonderful. Disturbing. All I want my work, at least on the UNC campus, to do is garner a little attention and have students, alumni, faculty, administration and staff aware that the Bear Tradition blossomed from one basic seed. If we take our tradition to heart and have a good feeling about it, I've done my job.

Of course, getting anyone else to care is the challenge. All I want from my alma mater is cooperation. Actual support would be nice. Funding would be wonderful.

Ideas?

DEAD BEAR ON CAMPUS?

Upon learning that the Lundvall's 'gift' to UNC was unveiled last week this is a letter I've sent to the editor of The Mirror. It is upsetting to see money become the arbiter of taste at my alma mater. Very. This is my response to the news that a stuffed bear carcass may take space in the University Center. Shameful.

To the Editor:

A slight correction. I am a 1963 graduate of Colorado State College.

My deep concern for alma mater and tradition has been dismissed and ignored by Jerrold DeWitt because he has deemed me unlikely to donate CA$H to the university. He knows nothing of my financial situation and rudely dismissed me in email to a number of UNC recipients last spring. He believed dismissing my idea to create a 13 foot cairn to commerate Totem Teddy would have no "fallout" because he noted that I'd only donated my "art" (sic) to UNC. Sad and embarrassing for me to say the least.

How a dead bear on campus reflects Bear Spirit is beyond me. What DeWitt and the well meaning Lundvalls (who will reap a large tax deduction!) don't seem to understand is that the SPIRIT of the Bear Totem is what inspired students in 1914 to choose the bear, fondly known as Totem Teddy, for its symbolic energy. Symbols, of course have nothing to do with an actual woodland creature, especially an animal who was hunted down and slaughtered to satisfy the ego of the hunter. Did the Lundvalls kill it from a plane? Did they sustain on bear meat for a season?

This taxidermy specimen belongs in a Natural History Museum, NOT on display anywhere on the UNC campus, let alone a "prominent place."

The sad thing I've observed over the years when visiting the Greeley campus, especially last spring, is that campus morale is at a sorry ebb and few may give enough of a damn to let it be known that this sort of embarrassment is simply unacceptable.

It seems to me that DeWitt and others who have approved the acceptance of this trophy know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

This shame will probably be shrugged off by those who really should be ashamed of themselves. Are there any students, faculty or staff with enough genuine Bear Pride to call this for what it really is? It is an inappropriate hunter's trophy that has absolutely nothing to do with the Bear Spirit of the University of Northern Colorado!

Michael Sheehan
CSC '63

Anger Management?

It’s been over a month since departing Greeley and I am still pretty pissed off that DeWitt and the Alumni Office gauges the desire to help an alum by his supposed intention of a donation. Of course, it’s been pointed out to me over and over again by folks who are more practical than I, that this guy’s job is to wring all the dough that he can out of alumni in the name of Alma Mater. I wonder how much he’s donated to UNC since his graduation in ’77? Anyone?

The ReIncairnation Project went up and came down, I understand fairly quickly.

Can’t remember if I reported this, but it was 462 individual 2 x 6 x 1 1/2 inch wooden blocks, stacked in seven block tiers to a height of 99 inches. It weighed about 700 pounds and was valued at $5,000.00. It took about three hours to construct.

I wonder if the UNC Police just dumped it into that big old dumpster next to the entrance to Frasier Hall?

My whole point with an attempt at Tradition with the ReinCairnation, I think, was just too obscure for the powers that be at UNC to understand. Kay Norton remained and remains silent. My take is that she doesn’t give a tinker’s damn about tradition from her ivory tower. She’s got her hands full trying to get enrollment up and maybe even care enough to field the obvious ennui that is growing in the faculty and the student body. Ennui is, like depression, a silent killer. We go along and feel crappy about where we are, but must trudge through the muck to make a living or get a degree and just hope the whole thing’s over soon. I especially pity the faculty. Each teacher might be interested in actually teaching and caring about the kids, but always looking over his shoulder in fear of being disciplined for some slight. I suspect that Academic Freedom is a joke on the UNC campus. The spirit that is necessary for a living breathing center for education is just missing in Greeley. The feeling of this is palpable on the campus. At least to me.

I may be repeating myself. Not having made an entry for weeks and making an attempt to stop stewing over the ignorance of a few, I’m just hoping that my anecdotal take on things may just be wrong.

And, I may have lost my lucky crescent wrench in the UC on 4/25!! Sheesh. Well, it wasn’t really ‘lucky’ but I’ve had it a long time and liked it a lot. Anyone seen it? It has my name on it.

Here’s what the final installation looked like. The bear turned out hard to see. My experiments made me think it would ‘pop’ a little better. If you spent some time with it, I’m sure you could see the image of Totem Teddy, though. But, as TP, the former wag here pointed out, students just have too much to do that precludes taking time to figure out abstract art!! Right!

This blog will fade. I know that there are few who are interested or care. To the one guy who might have my wrench.. please hang on to it. It’s a good one. It's the traditional installing/ dismantling of the Ghost Memory Totem now and forever crescent wrench.
Amen..

May 17, 1968

Forty years ago today, the Berrigan Brothers and seven colleagues made a statement about the Viet Nam War. Backed by thousands of Catholics and others who rallied to their call to Stop The War, these dedicated human beings performed an act of conscience. They destroyed Draft Records in Catonsville, Maryland.

I certainly cannot claim to have the dedication that these people had, but in a way, my passion for the Bear Totem runs at least a parallel course. If people in power don't support the traditions of my alma mater and the students simply have not been exposed to what traditions mean, then, I may be a voice in the wilderness, but, at least, I am a voice.

That VOR and TP basically come down shy of really much caring about tradition is probably representative of not only UNC, but Greeley and maybe even Colorado as a whole. This is a harsh judgment and if there are those who may care, even a little bit, then my apologies to you. If you do care, even a little bit, what would it take to awaken those who may be close to you? What would it take for you to speak up and establish little clots of people who, simply by their meeting together, might begin to create that 'heart' of UNC of which I've spoken?

It doesn't matter if it's a ceremony at the big bronze bear to tie ribbons round his snout or create a great big bear hug for a photo opportunity.

Why do I care? As my experiences in Greeley take on some perspective, I honestly don't know. I'm sure that TP and VOR and their kind would be happy if I just shut up. That the administration of UNC remains silent is typical, isn't it?

For what it's worth, I called the CCTHITA and if they have been in touch with anyone at UNC regarding any of this totem business, they didn't say so. Thus, the reports that the Tlingit may have any interest in my artwork seem unlikely.

In the spirit of the Catonsville Nine, I encourage each of you who may have an inkling of spirit for UNC tradition to simply say so. If you don't carry at least a candle, if not a torch, who will?