The
Katonah Museum of Art, Westchester County NY
May 1- June
26, 2005
Over a four day period, nearly 400 participants assisted in the on
site assembly
of the five ton aluminum butterfly in the Sculpture Garden of the
Katonah Museum of Art.
Under Schrier’s direction, Museum docents, staff and volunteers
sensitively guided students
in placing waves of tab feathers, spreading WINGS of
WITNESS into a masterful form.
The combined energy of hundreds of onsite helpers provided a
metamorphosis
that was fluid and uplifting, touching many who participated,
deeply.
The forms, tones and textures of the asymmetrical masonry walls,
ascending pines and
gravel bed, provided a contemplative setting of tranquility
for the restive work.
The cage-like braided wire figure woven with strands of soda tabs into
the
center of the wings, served as a catalyst for visitor response and inquiry.
On May 5, Yom HaShoah, the Museum and the Westchester Holocaust Education
Center, staged a program involving Sel Hubert saved as a child through the
Kindertransport, museum staff, teachers, student speakers and Mr.
Schrier.
Eva Kor, survivor of Mengele, who was a source of inspiration for the
original soda tab collection, arrived from Terre Haute Indiana, and provided
moving remarks at the close of the program:
"In 1997 I received a phone call from Jeffrey
Schrier telling me that he had the pop tabs and that he was going to create this
sculpture called WINGS OF WITNESS. (As you can see from the WINGS
spread before us), we have come a long way from those days. As I stand here and
look at the glistening WINGS OF WITNESS outside, I must tell you about
RIPPLES. When I lecture to students I talk about preventing
hatred and prejudice, realizing that it is a difficult problem to solve, that
even I, Eva Mozes Kor, survivor of hatred and prejudice, I am prejudiced, and I
have to work at it. To help us all deal with it, I will take you all on an
imaginary trip. We are all going to carry a rock in our hands, stand on an
imaginary bridge overlooking a very quiet, imaginary, lake. I throw in my rock,
We see a ripple. All of you throw in your rocks, we will see ripple touching
ripple.
If we realize that everything we do in our lives is
like a ripple in the lake, it touches the lives of many people. So all I
have to think about is to treat my fellow human beings with fairness
and respect, and judge them on their actions and content of their character, and
we are making a difference in the world. That is a lot easier for me and for all of you to deal
with. The pop tabs collected in a small school in Illinois, many years ago,
touched the lives of many people, and continue to touch the lives of people just
like a ripple in the lake."
Spread in rippling layers of soda can tabs, WINGS of WITNESS remained on
view through June 26, coordinated with an exhibition in an interior gallery,
tracing the evolution of the project over its eight year development, through
photography, works of art, and participant responses.
As of August, 2005, it is estimated that more than 10,000 students will
still be needed to complete the transformation of the remaining tabs to
feathers, thus enlarging the Butterfly over the coming year and a half, until
complete.
The massive Wings of Witness Butterfly was spread in a meadow at the
Holocaust Memorial and Educational Center of Nassau County, NY for a Yom HaShoah
Commemoration April 29, 2003.
Aerial Photos: Courtesy, Holocaust
Memorial Center of Nassau County County
Formally the Pratt estate, the Memorial Center is located in the Welwyn
Preserve, 206 acres of parkland and hiking trails along Long Island's North
Shore.
The observance marked the dedication of the "Children's Memorial
Garden," reconstructed in memory of the one and a half million Jewish
Children, and all children destroyed by the Nazi regime in W. W. II.
Aerial Photos: Courtesy, Holocaust
Memorial Center of Nassau County County
The restored gardens have been planted with flowers and shrubs that attract
butterflies, a reference to the Pavel Friedmann poem, "The Butterfly,"
which also served as inspiration in artist Jeffrey Schrier's development of the
WINGS of WITNESS project.
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Aerial Photos: Courtesy, Holocaust
Memorial Center of Nassau County County
Under the direction of Schrier, assisted by Yonatan Koch, volunteers
carefully placed feathers into the developing mass, until the form emerged: a
four ton butterfly of aluminum wings, resembling the rippling waves along the
nearby Long Island Sound Shore.
Photo: Daniel Theodore
At the Nassau County site, the Wings At Welwyn butterfly
contained more than six million soda can tabs, laid out in over 10,000
feather structures by nearly 600 dedicated volunteers, mostly students, to
form the sculpture in progress.
Photo: Daniel Theodore
Volunteers from the Lycee Francais de NY, Manhattan, Gorton High School,
Yonkers, NY, Nassau County's Grand Avenue, Jericho, and Roslyn Middle
Schools, Harbour Hill and East Hills Schools, were bussed to the site and joined by many
other volunteers.
Photo: Daniel Theodore
In the months preceding the installation, several thousand area youth made
feathers that were unpacked an added into those already constructed by over
30,000 participants across the country.
Photo: Daniel Theodore
As Jeffrey made final adjustments to the sea of tabs, a brilliant red tab demanded
his attention. Its startling presence evoked the recollection of a letter sent
to Kevin Daugherty, Mahomet Illinois teacher, who with his students, amassed the
tab collection project 6 years earlier. The tab contributor wrote: “I
have enclosed 2,038 tabs. I thought it interesting that I came across only one
red tab. It reminded me of the beautiful little girl in the red coat, which
was the only spot of color in the brilliant black and white film, “Schindler's
List.”
Photo: Daniel Theodore
As of June 2003, it is estimated that more than 15,000 students will
still be needed to complete the transformation of the remaining tabs to
feathers, thus enlarging the Butterfly over the next year and a half, until
complete.
On Memorial Day 2001, approximately 10,000 soda tab feathers made for
WINGS OF WITNESS by 22,000 participants across the country during four years,
were shipped to Loudoun County Virginia. During it's presentation there, nearly
two thousand students, community members, church and synagogue
congregants, joined to build additional feathers for the memorial
sculpture. Many dedicated volunteers helped assemble the massive
work-in-progress in a meadow at Ida Lee Park in Leesburg Va.
Photo: Linda
Holtslander, Loudoun County
Public Library
At the opening day program, Leesburg resident Liane Sowa told of her memories
etched in fear, as a seven year old Jewish child in Stuttgart, November 8-9,
1938, Krystallnacht. The glass of a restaurant she was in shattered before
her, with the future. Rocks and stones thrown by Nazi gangs signaled the massive
pogrom, a government supported wave of terror and
destruction that became the Holocaust.
Leesburg Mayor B.J. Webb spoke, "This marvelous sculpture,
WINGS OF WITNESS...represents those whose lives were lost during the
Holocaust...How can we honor those who lost their lives and suffered at the
hands of the Nazis today? By striving to accept one another and to reach out to
those in need not after their country and community has been scarred by war, but
before - when the first words of intolerance are uttered - we ask that the
intolerant words be stopped. If we can learn to stop the intolerant words
perhaps we can stop the intolerant behavior." The
Speakers Bureau of The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC,
provided Nesse Godin as the keynote speaker to commemorate the
installation. With eloquence and deep emotion, Nesse related her struggles
surviving a ghetto in Lithuania and the Stuffhof Concentration Camp.
Photo: Sarah
Huntington, Loundon County Public Library
Nesse held up a photo of her in tact family, taken prior to the Nazi
destruction. She vividly recalled the voices of the imprisoned women around her
who did not survive, " If you live, don't let us be forgotten."
The massive 100 foot butterfly of nearly six million tabs representing destroyed
innocent lives, glistened in the Leesburg meadow through June 13. Work on the
sculpture will continue until all 11 million tabs are included.
Aerial Photo, courtesy Loudoun County
Library
The Virginia programs were coordinated by the Loudoun County Public
Library through The Irwin Uran Gift Fund, provided to the Library System for
programs that educate about the Holocaust. The Irwin Uran Gift Fund was created
through the generosity of Mr. Irwin Uran, who was a liberator of the Dachau
Concentration Camp at the end of WWII. Library staff and community
volunteers dedicated unending energy and resources, to insure the success of the
program and installation.
Photo: Linda
Holtslander, LCPL
Surrounding the massive Butterfly, the HMH prepared and installed enlarged
artfully printed photos documenting the ongoing development of WINGS. The Museum
docents trained by Schrier, ran workshops with nearly 3,600 area youth
during exhibition run. WINGS continues to grow through the process of
transforming the remaining tabs into "feathers" for the
"Butterfly."
Houston Area Teens Unpack Soda Can Feathers
Photo: Amy Duke
Students Make Feather Tracings and Place Feathers
Placing The Central Cage-Like Figure Onto WINGS
Photos: Amy Duke
Photo: Jesse De Martino for Holocaust Museum Houston
While not on exhibit, WINGS tabs and soda tab feathers are stored at Max Finkelstein, Inc.,
through their generosity.
The crew at Max Finkelstein, Inc., with the cartons
filled with feathers on massive pallets, ready for shipment to Houston
Photo: Jeanne Nesselroth-Schrier
As Wings of Witness grew in proportion to contain nearly six-million of
the 11 million tabs collected, the Brandeis-Bardin Institute provided a
mountain slope for the first outdoor presentation of the work, which spanned an
85 X 40 foot area.
"Like an insect emerging from cocoon, the glistening sculpture of a
butterfly has arisen on a Simi Valley hillside, memorializing the 11
million people killed in the Holocaust. Wings of Witness", a sculpture
composed of the pull tabs of 11 million aluminum cans, was assembled this
summer by counselors-in-training, their advisors, and staff at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute. "(Daily News, Saturday, August 5, 2000, by Krystn Shrieve Simi Valley,
California: click here for complete
news article)
Artist Jeffrey Schrier comments on his experience, directing the assembly of
the work at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute:
This project which embodies such overwhelming sadness and tragedy about our
history, was tempered by the enormous commitment of the young helpers here.
Their commitment transforms this statement of loss and tragedy, into one of
hope. It has been an extraordinary experience for me, to have the help of
so many, pushing on to insure the assembly of the work, even in the 110 degree
desert heat. When I arrived at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute from New York with
sculptor Wilfredo Morel, we drove to the site to see what preparations had
been made. As we ascended the slope an emotional wave drenched us as we
saw the cleared and compacted earth in the exact scale rendition of the
trapezoid sketch I had sent by fax, now formed into an earthen trapezoid 100 X
50 feet, perfectly hardened from the intense sun. Wilfredo and I were stunned
and galvanized for our work ahead.
Counselors in training, advisors and staff worked with Wilfredo and I into
the late hours at night, creating massive plastic drop cloths with drawing
indications of where the over 8,000 feathers of tabs, would be
placed.
In the morning as we ascended the slope we noticed that we
had protection from a pillar of cloud that seemed to be over our site,
shielding us from the intense heat. A cool breeze escalated into a strong
westward wind, and as we began to unfold the drop cloths, the air currents
lifted them and opened them westward. We held the opposite edges tightly, and
the massive plastic wings fully unfolded in the wind without our
effort.
Concerned about the possible sliding downward of the aluminum feathers on the
plastic covered slope, I noticed round rocks scattered outside the site,
of the kind used in the Institute stone walls. I expressed the idea of possibly
edging the butterfly with these small boulders as security to Carrie
Ungerman, Director
of Visual Arts, who had made such an enormous commitment of time and
energy to WINGS. We thought and discussed the significance of rocks to the work,
reflecting on the earliest human symbolic use of rocks, as a marker,
a memorial to a lost loved one. A truckload of hundreds of perfectly
smooth melon size rocks was delivered at the site within the hour, by
grounds crew who had so diligently prepared the land earlier. I was
astonished to have this incredible responsiveness, and asked the crew to be the
first to sign the participants sign in register.
Photo: Debbie Becker
I am enormously grateful to Carrie, the grounds crew, the
CITs and camp staff, and to Arthur Pinchev, Director of Camp
Alonim, for
seeing the potential of WINGS and helping it to be. I am especially
grateful sculptor Wilfredo Morel, who was sponsored by the Brandeis-Bardin
Institute in a co-artist residency with me, for his tireless help and
friendship in the complicated and demanding assembly of the work.
As part of our artist residencies in California the Brandeis-Bardin Institute arranged access
for us to create silk-screen monoprints at the well know East LA Atelier, " Self
Help Graphics". This very rich experience of producing
art in this setting afforded Wilfredo and me the opportunity of
creating art in settings related to each of our heritage. Self Help
is a Latino grass roots organization originally developed to foster interest in
the arts and supply a route of expression for emerging young artists of
the Chicano community. After the exhilarating experience of creating a body of
work there, we returned to our site at the Brandeis-Bardin Institute days later, to find
that under the direction of Carrie Ungerman, the assembly of WINGS was
nearly complete, requiring only a few hours of finishing touches. Enormously
dedicated helpers remained on the slope with us until all was made ready.
Wilfredo and I reassembled the central figure-like form we had constructed in
my summer studio, and set the tightly braided wire form into the
center of the butterfly.
Sculptor Wilfredo Morel assists Schrier in building a
central figure
by wrapping braided aluminum wire around mannequin forms
Photo: Jeanne Nesselroth-Schrier
Photo: Debbie Becker
This was the first time the work has been shown with this human
life-like form at the center. Previously the butterfly had a central
insect body. But I knew that as we approached the transformation of
6 million of the collected tabs into the sculpture, that it must
communicate the symbolism of lost life. We made the life like form by
braiding and twisting aluminum wire around female and male mannequins, removing
the wire forms and then joining together the forms from both, so
that the work would be egalitarian in its representation. We also
understood that by wrapping and twisting the wire to create a life like form
that actually is filled only with empty space, that the wire suggests the
presence of a figure, but in fact the wire itself is not a
figure. It may suggest entrapment, like barbed wire, it may suggest
the absence or to some, the presence of a human soul. It suggests life,
lost life, or lives not to be lost again. It is a life like form that
reminds us that each of the tiny tabs represents a loss, and the potential
future generations that may have emanated from that lost life.
Photo: Yoni
Boujo, taken from a helicopter
After remaining on the mountain slope for over a week, the massive
butterfly was disassembled and prepared for its transfer to Holocaust Museum
Houston, where it will rest from mid-September to mid-November.
To learn more about the Brandeis-Bardin institute, click here: The Brandeis-Bardin
Institute,
Prior to shipping WINGS to California, Croton Point Park provided Senasqua
Lodge to spread out plastic drop cloths to make drawings for feather placement.
In Atlanta, the WINGS contained one and a half million tabs, representing the
number of children who were tragically murdered during the Holocaust. The full
photo exhibit with Schrier's earlier works also accompanied the 36 foot
butterfly, that filled the main museum gallery, and was assembled
with Schrier by area youth (see photos on Home Page). Through the opening
week,which coordinated with Yom HaShoah, hundreds of area students came to
build feathers with Schrier, assisted by the knowledgeable and skilled museum
staff and docents.
In Atlanta the butterfly contained one and a half million
tabs, reflecting,
tragically, the number of Jewish Children murdered by
the Nazis
Photo: Courtesy, William Bremen Jewish
Heritage Museum, Atlanta
The Y.U. Museum presented the first full museum exhibition of WINGS. This
included a series of photos documenting the workshops in which students
build "feathers", as well as photos of students assembling the sculpture. Also
shown were youth poems and artwork in response, letters from contributors
of tabs, Schrier's early preparatory work, and other of his Holocaust
related works that predated the WINGS project. Hundreds of area students who had
built feathers at their respective schools, came to both install and disassemble
the WINGS at the Museum.
Students of the Holy Name School, New Rochelle NY help
place feathers into WINGS,
for it's first presentation in the form of a
butterfly
Photo: courtesy Yeshiva University Museum, Manhattan
When one million of the tabs had been transformed into "feathers"
for WINGS, Schrier brought the project to the school that originated the
collection, for it's first exhibition. The students that collected the tabs then
were able to both build feathers, and construct the first exhibit with
Schrier.
Other area schools and organizations participated and supported the project. The
public presentation was during the week that Yom HaShoah was commemorated
(Holocaust Remembrance Day).
Photo: Janet Probst
A single shopping bag contained about
22,000 tabs, the number that is representative
of the amount of people
murdered in one day by the Nazi's at the height of their systematic
extermination
Photo: Phil Greer, Chicago Tribune
Over a 5 month period,
students collected 11 million tabs
that
were sent from all 50 states and 8 countries
Photo:Jane Probst
At a Yom HaShoah commemoration in the
Mahomet-Seymour
JHS, students spilled 6 million tabs,
surrounding
them with bags containing the remaining 5 million
Photo: Steve Smedley, The Pantagraph
