‘Hale Street Gang’ at Great Hall

Now on display at The Great Hall in downtown Springfield, the exhibit combines larger-than-life black and white portraits of a dozen Randolph-area residents who started writing their memoirs as part of a class at the local senior center.
http://rutlandherald.com/article/20140531/NEWS02/705319940

Sara Tucker of Randolph, a writer and editor, spoke May 24 at The Great Hall in downtown Springfield about The Hale Street Gang exhibit. Photo: PHOTO BY LEN EMERYPublished May 31, 2014 in the Rutland Herald ‘Hale Street Gang’ at Great Hall By SUSAN SMALLHEER Staff Writer SPRINGFIELD — “The Hale Street Gang: Portraits in Writing” proves the power of memory. Now on display at The Great Hall in downtown Springfield, the exhibit combines larger-than-life black and white portraits of a dozen Randolph-area residents who started writing their memoirs as part of a class at the local senior center. Bring your iPhone to the exhibit, as you can listen to the writers’ stories, often in their own voices, and study the author’s faces as they tell their stories about World War II, their parents and grandparents, life in Vermont before the advent of television, let alone that handy iPhone. The exhibit, which has been shown in other parts of Vermont over the past four years, is a joint effort of Sara Tucker of Randolph, a writer and editor, and photographer Jack Rowell of Braintree. Tucker, Rowell, and several of the elderly memoirists were in Springfield recently as Tucker described the collaboration that produced the show, which was funded in part by a Kickstarter campaign, as well as a grant from the Vermont Community Foundation. Tucker, an editor and writer with Conde Nast Traveler, returned to Vermont to care for her elderly mother in 2008, and she and her mother, Idora Tucker, then 87, took the six-week memoir writing class. The Tuckers were eventually joined by others in the writing class, finally reaching a total of 12. Many were teachers, Tucker said, there was a retired dairy farmer, and a nurse. “Almost everyone wrote about World War II,” said Tucker. When they started the class, she said, they had very modest expectations for writing down their memories. One woman told Tucker, “‘I want my daughter to have them.’” Storytelling came naturally to the group. “Storytelling makes us unique,” Tucker said. A lot of the stories the group wrote were about connections with other people, she said. The group of 12 elders became known as the Hale Street Gang named after the address of the senior center, Tucker said. “They had a good time,” Tucker said. “They have this joyous spirit that comes through, that kind of attitude you need for a big life.” After the writing, Tucker said, came Rowell’s involvement. Rowell was intrigued, he said, because he liked local history and he contrasted his memories of growing up in Randolph with the elders. Rowell called his friend, Greg Sharrow, at the Vermont Folklife Center, which he said was “famous for recording audio history.” Rowell then set up a studio at the Randolph Senior Center and started taking digital portraits of people, many of whom, he said, didn’t like having their picture taken. The addition of Rowell’s photographs, Tucker said, gave the memoir project a “much wider potential interest.” Rowell said he was thinking of “big pictures and audio,” and he and Tucker were told they would need $10,000 to carry out their idea. The project’s biggest contribution was $2,000 from the foundation, but money was raised in three months with typical contributions of $10, $20 or $50, Tucker said. Tucker had invited Rowell, whom she had known in high school, and asked if it would be something he would be interested in photographing. Rowell is probably best known for his photographs of Fred Tuttle, the Vermont iconic farmer, who was the star of “Man With A Plan,” and his photographs of the Tunbridge World’s Fair. Great Hall director of exhibitions Nina Jamison said the show came about because Rowell had photographed The Great Hall for a magazine article last summer. “Jack fell in love with the Great Hall, as many artists do, and thought the space would be perfect for ‘The Hale Street Gang,’” Jamison said. Jamison said ‘‘The Hale Street Gang’’ was being shown between two ‘‘official’’ shows, with the next big exhibit opening on Nov. 7, a New England Fiber Arts Invitational, “Fibrations.” “Usually for the between shows, an interested artist can hang work for the summer and they take care of PR, hanging, everything. But this show was so meaningful and had such a powerful message about graceful aging we decided to promote it and put more energy into it,” she said. In addition to ‘‘The Hale Street Gang’’ are the political cartoons and sculpture of Phil Godenschwager, also of Randolph. Godenschwager brought his whimsical miniature golf sculpture. “The addition of Jack’s friend, Phil Godenschwager’s political commentary in the form of interactive cartoon sculpture and drawings seemed to hit the right note in showcasing wildly colorful art and the oversized black and white portraits,” Jamison said. The Great Hall, located at One Hundred River Street, is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The show continues through Oct. 10.