ASHFORD HOLLOW
Sculptor fashions storms’ debris into natural art for Griffis Park
Before Latvian Laura Feldberg arrived at Griffis Sculpture Park to spend a month as artist in residence this summer, she had no idea what sort of work she would create for the venue, spread over two picturesque hilltops near Ashford Hollow.
Mother Nature, in the form of torrential rains and flooding that devastated northern Cattaraugus and Chautauqua counties Aug. 9 and 10, became her accidental muse.
Overlooked in the aftermath of heavy damage to the villages of Gowanda and Silver Creek and to outlying properties along Cattaraugus Creek and its tributaries, was the toll on the nation’s first sculpture park, whose roads and trails were obliterated by the overflow from streams running through the Mill Valley Road and Rohr Road properties.
Even with volunteers shouldering most of the burden, using donated equipment, it cost $50,000 to clear away stones that had washed up from the creek beds and to grade the paths, said Simon Griffis, executive director of the Ashford Hollow Foundation. The nonprofit organization operates both the 43-year-old park and Essex Street Art Center on Buffalo’s West Side.
A fundraiser to help offset the cleanup cost, featuring the legendary Jamestown rockers 10,000 Maniacs, will be held at 7 p. m. Saturday in the city art center, 28 Essex St. Admission will be a $40 donation, which also includes beer and wine. The John R. Oishei Foundation agreed to match the first $10,000 raised by the event, Griffis said.
Red Widow and Potters Field will open for the Maniacs, who played a memorable benefit concert for Ashford Hollow Foundation at the sculpture park in 1999.
Feldberg, whose visit to the United States was funded by an international competitive grant won by the foundation, was initially stunned by the ruin all around her, Griffis said.
But observing the rebuilding process for several days brought a project to mind.
“She’s an installation artist,” Griffis said. “She saw how the rocks were displaced, how people came out to help. She wanted to make something as a tribute to the park and those people.”
The result was “Flood,” a monumental piece that makes ample use of what the storms left behind.
“She took a negative and turned it into a positive,” Griffis marveled.
The central form is an arch consisting of three oblong boulders that resembles the Greek letter pi. Strewn around the base at the 2,100-foot summit of South Hill, on the Mill Valley Road site, are many of the very same rocks — eight tons worth, in fact — that blocked the trails after the floods.
Feldberg completed the sculpture in late August. It was dedicated Sept. 22 in a ceremony atop South Hill, in what Southern Tier residents call the Enchanted Mountains, with musical accompaniment by Red Widow.
“It was a gorgeous day,” Griffis recalled. “There was beautiful sunshine and some fall colors had already started.”
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