She
discovered painting in her late 60s, helped found a cooperative art
gallery in her late 70s, and began earning money from her work just
last year at the ripe age of 80. Mary Dunning Harper '40 is living
proof that it's never too late to devote your life to art.
Harper began painting while living on a boat in Marathon, Fla. (about 50 miles from Key West) with her husband, Chandler, after they moved from their home near West Chester, Pa., in 1984. Oil paints proved too cumbersome aboard a boat--even a very comfortable, 50-foot power boat--so she took up watercolors. For several years, she has studied with a local artist, attended workshops with nationally known teachers, and been an active member of the Florida Keys Art Guild.
Her interest in art dates back much further, however. At Swarthmore in the late '30s, her notebooks were covered with drawings, and she took the only studio art course the College offered then. "It was not much of a course," Harper recalls. After that, she just scribbled, sending out hand-drawn Christmas cards every year. "I had a busy life," she says now. "I always said, 'When I have time, I'm going to paint.'"
Two years ago, she and two friends approached the local art guild with the idea of starting a cooperative art gallery. "They didn't really take it up, so a group of us got together--about five or six to begin with--and kicked it around."
A goldsmith (now a member of the coop) offered to rent them the building she had been using as a studio, and they moved right in. "It worked beautifully," Harper says. "We redid the whole downstairs to accommodate us, scrubbing and painting. It's an old house with a wonderful porch covered with bougainvillea, and it's right on the main drag of Marathon."
Unlike the tourist center of Key West, about 50 miles away, Marathon offers little in the way of art for sale, which makes the gallery something of a novelty. There are now 23 artists in the coop--one goldsmith, one potter, and the rest painters who work in watercolor, oil, and acrylic. The gallery is open seven days a week year-round; artists take turns working one-day shifts, running the store and chatting with customers. Although she describes herself as "the old babe in the group," Harper insists on serving her shifts like everyone else.
Her husband, Chandler, a Penn graduate and retired manager for Scott Paper Co., has proven a worthy patron of the arts. "Bless his heart. Everything has to be matted and framed, you know, and he does all that," his wife reports.
The Harpers took a break from gallery work this fall to wait out Florida's hurricane season in Gallup, N.M., where Mary had the chance to try her hand at scenes of red cliffs and turquoise skies. "In the Keys, we almost have to paint what people want to buy: water and sand--and palm trees, which are very hard to paint," she says. "I also do portraits, and I'm pretty good at it. I'll do them anytime somebody asks."
Cooperative art galleries are an excellent way to make the work of amateur artists accessible to the public, Harper says, and the art market accessible to them. "Commercial galleries take up to 50 percent of the sale price, which means prices have to be so high--too high for my caliber of work," she explains. "This way, we artists keep everything, except for taxes. We're not big yet, but we're one of only two galleries in town. And people are coming in. They like the way it looks, which is gratifying. And they buy--not a lot, but they buy."
Every now and then, they buy her paintings. "I'm not sure I've made my rent. My prices aren't terribly high," she says. "But it's very satisfying to sell something. It tells you that you're doing pretty well."
--Cathleen McCarthy
Jane
Lang '67 found inspiration in the law and attended the University of
Pennsylvania, where she received her degree in 1970. Today, she and
her husband Paul Sprenger are successful Washington, D.C., litigators
and operate the firm of Sprenger & Lang, which specializes in
class action discrimination lawsuits.
In 1993, Lang found new inspiration in the paintings of Jacob Lawrence and has turned her attention to the world of the theater and the "class actions" of African Americans.
Leaving the Summer Land, which premiered in June, is the first play with music produced by Lang, through, Tribute Productions, a division of the Sprenger Lang Foundation. The play was inspired by a series of 60 Lawrence paintings collectively titled The Migration Series, which chronicle the 20th-century exodus of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North.
"The message in Lawrence's paintings is about struggle, about people willing to leave everything they know to find something better," Lang says. "But he also felt the migration wasn't just an African-American story but a story of freedom and the story of the growth of America. He called The Migration Series an American story."
The story behind the paintings is what moved Lang. Having learned little of the black migration as a student, she was determined not to have others miss this important American story.
Lawrence's paintings are grounded in everyday living and its struggles, according to Lang.
"He believed in striving for something fully that completes you as a person. Often that was found through work. The element of work is a common denominator in his paintings. He believed people should strive to experience life's dimensions and see its richness around them," she says.
Lang says the play would not have been possible without Lawrence's permission to use his paintings as part of the set design. She and Sprenger met him in March at his home in Seattle, where they "received his blessing," says Lang. The play, directed by Seret Scott, opened on June 8 at the DC Jewish Community Center's Cecile Goldman Theater. Lawrence died June 9 at the age of 82.
"That he lived long enough to give his blessing is, in retrospect, quite remarkable," says Lang. "To me, it says it was meant to be."
Written by Karen L.B. Evans, Leaving the Summer Land follows one fictional family's move from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago in 1917. It provides audiences with insight into the racism, family, and financial issues that African Americans encountered during the northward migration.
To date, the foundation, funded by Lang and Sprenger, has spent more than $200,000 on the full-length production. She was advised on the production by her brother, actor Stephen Lang '73. Since its premiere, parts of the script are being reworked, and she says plans are being made to perform the play in several cities where major retrospectives of Lawrence's work will be displayed, including Washington, D.C., next summer; New York in November 2001; and Los Angeles in June 2001.
"This was not a commercial venture. This play is about art and education. My objective was to bring this story to a wider audience. Not just an African-American audience but anyone. This is a gift," she says.
Lang says her father, Eugene Lang '38, who founded the "I Have a Dream" inner-city student mentoring program, and mother, Theresa, both taught her the importance of giving: "It's just something one does. We never expected to make our money back. I love the theater. I think it's the most powerful forum for communication."
--Audree Penner
Twelve-year-old
Jessica Redmon was in the health food store buying her favorite
granola. Peering into the granola, the salesman said, "Oh, there's a
bug in there." "Yes," said Jessica, "but it's alive. So there's
nothing in there that can hurt me either."
Jessica, the daughter of Margaret Thomas Redmon '79, isn't spooked at all by bugs in her cereal--as long as they're alive. As her mother says: "If an apple has a worm hole in it, or the corn has a worm in its end, and you want to control your intake of chemicals and pesticides, those are the ones to buy." And she should know. After taking over her family's farm, east of Louisville, Ky., to save it from auction, Redmon--along with husband Steve and other help--has spent the last eight years proving that sustainable and organic agriculture will produce, if not a cheaper product, then certainly a better one. The fruit of her labors is a reputation for raising cattle whose beef is sought after by top Louisville restaurants because of its legendary quality and taste.
Redmon's success didn't come easily. After learning to read soil tests and the fine print on seed, feed, fungicide, and pesticide packages and to research the impact of chemicals on soil and humans, she came to a conclusion: "It's a Quaker precept that we are supposed to leave whatever we care for in better condition than we found it, and I became convinced that conventional farming doesn't do that." When it proved difficult to find competent managers who subscribed to the Redmon philosophy, the Redmons were faced with extensive hands-on work themselves. "But I am really convinced that we need to save our family farms," Redmon says. "Parents want to pass a farm in good condition on to their children. Corporations don't care."
The Redmon farm covers 3,500 acres, about 60 percent of which is woodland. On the remaining 1,200 acres, their pastures include a mix of a warm-season grass, a cool-season grass, a legume, and plants such as black-eyed Susans and wild flowers. Crops are scrupulously rotated to control weeds and pests. Last year, their having multispecies grasslands saved the cattle during a statewide fescue toxemia outbreak because the Redmon pastures contained a much smaller proportion of fescue than most.
From the beginning, the Redmons eschewed the routine use of antibiotics and growth hormones for the animals, giving antibiotics only to sick ones. Although, without the hormones and antibiotics, achieving market weight costs a little more and takes a little longer, and the animals have to be more closely observed for signs of illness, infection, or injury, Redmon says it's worth it. They don't use electric cattle prods either, which traumatize the animals. A stressed cow will not produce choice beef.
With a herd of 150 cows and 3 or 4 bulls, Redmon pays close attention to the animals' diet and ensures that calves that are fed out for beef have sufficient feeding space. Their diet consists of hay, silage made from corn or another grain, added protein such as toasted soy beans, and vitamin and mineral supplements. Redmon has various recipes for mixing fiber and grain to achieve the ideal nutritional blend. "A lot of the mixes I use go back to long before commercial supplements and vitamin packs were available," she says. Some of her greatest resources are elderly farm hands from before World War II, before the existence of chemical-driven farming.
The farm sells beef under its own label, Honey Locust valley Farms. One restaurant buys all the Redmon tenderloin it can get, even if it costs $13.75 a pound. "It's a quality issue," Redmon says. "Between low stress, lack of hormones and antibiotics, healthy diet, and postslaughter treatment, we have some of the best beef in the country." Steve can immediately recognize whether beef being served under the Redmon label in a restaurant is or isn't theirs. "We have to protect our trademark," says Redmon, who ironically cannot eat beef or pork.
"Business practices that ascribe to a high level of integrity and concern for the welfare of others can be very successful, provided you pay attention to the bottom line," Redmon says. "Many people will pay more for a better product and compensate by being careful to avoid waste. Every farmer in Kentucky could do exactly what we do and sell their beef because it's better beef. And if we don't have idealists in business, we're in trouble."
--Carol Brévart-Demm
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