| |
Monday, May 5, 2008
9:39:24 PM EDT
Washington DC, 30 Years Ago
RFK Stadium, Art'78
IN ANOTHER LIFE I used to fly an aerobatic biplane trailing smoke through a series of maneuvers to create four-dimensional performances in the sky. I called these events, which were sometimes accompanied by music and dancers on the ground, “Aerial Theater.” In May of 1978, I did a performance in Washington DC, as part of an international art festival held at the Washington Armory.
To obtain permission to fly this event was quite difficult back then, and I am sure would be impossible today. At that time my performance was only seen as a hazard to air traffic, now I am sure it would be suspected as some kind of terrorist plot.
As these performances included what are called “aerobatic maneuvers” it was necessary to obtain a waiver from the FAA before I could do them, otherwise I would be in violation of too many Federal Air Regulations to mention here. My first application for the Washington performance was denied. I planned to fly over the Anacostia River, abeam RFK Stadium. The artsy spectators would be bused from the armory to the parking lot of the stadium to watch. The poor folks on the wrong side of the river could sit on their stoops, or rooftops, and just look up. The reason for me being over the river was that it is illegal to perform aerobatic maneuvers over occupied buildings. If I should crash it would be only me that would be harmed.
The FAA initially denied my waiver on the grounds that therewould be “too much commercial air traffic in the area” at the time of day I had requested. Not to be deterred, I hopped into my other airplane, a real going-places thing not a stunt plane, and flew down to DC. Arriving over the section of the river I planned to use I called National approach control and informed then I would be circling in the area taking pictures, and asked them to call out any traffic. Now I was taking photos, which I used to design the pieces I was to perform, and which you can see here. But I had another motive.
I circled at the same time of day that my rejected application had applied for, remaining in the airspace for over thirty minutes. I was creating a record on their radar. During all that time there was only one movement through my area, and that was a military helicopter, not a scheduled airliner. Armed with that information, I resubmitted my application and it was approved.
Looking at the poster for the festival above, which lists all the artists who performed, and which was designed in that odd size to fit into slots on all the DC buses and subways, it says I was scheduled to do two performances. Nevertheless, I can only remember doing one, maybe one was rained out, but then that was thirty years ago. I do recall that there was a nice article about my event, or events, in the Washington Post, which might clear things up, but I can’t find the clipping anywhere among my papers.
The next summer I did a performance in Manhattan, over the East River abeam Pier 92, for another art festival. At that time the East River was a Visual Flight Rules corridor and no permissions of any kind were required. In the blog entry below you can see photos of me flying past the former World Trade Center buildings trailing smoke. I have no doubt that if I flew an airplane trailing smoke up the East River today I would probably be shot down, with my demise quickly appearing onYouTube in a dozen out of focus versions.
Stephen Poleskie, Ithaca, NY, 28 April 2008
Drawings for the Washington Performance
Close-up of drawing number 2
all of the above drawings a 8"x10" and are colored pencil on photocopies
************************************************************
Thank you for logging on. I will have four of my early prints in a group Exhibition at the Terrain Gallery, 141Greene Street, New York City which opens on May 10, and runs until July. For more information the gallery phone number is 212.777.4490. You can contact me, Steve Poleskie, by posting a comment below, or by e-mail at SPoleskie@aol.com.
***********************************************************
I have a new book coming out on May 16. Some of the details are below. I shall be publishing some excerpts from this book on our sister blog: OE (a literary blog) available in the sidebar at your right.
The Third Candidate
by Stephen Poleskie
ISBN: 978-1-60047-209-1
Paperback (5.5x8.5): 204 pgs.
When an unemployed actor answers an ad for a rent-fee apartment, he finds himself involved in a bizarre scheme to rig an election. He is run for congress as a spoiler. Not supposed to win, the third candidate begins to climb in the polls when TV stations start showing reruns of a short-lived soap opera he appeared in. On election night, his victory is announced, but he has mysteriously disappeared.
Stephen Poleskie is an artist and writer. His artworks are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Tate Gallery in London, among others. Currently a professor emeritus at Cornell University, he has been a visiting lecturer at twenty-six other colleges and art schools in the United States and abroad. He has also been a champion aerobatic pilot. Poleskie’s short stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines, in the United States, Italy, and Australia. His novel, The Balloonist, the Story of T. S. C. Lowe, Inventor, Scientist, Magician, and Father of the U. S. Air Force, was published by Frederic C. Beil, in 2007.
$16.95
| This product will be in stock on Friday 16 May, 2008. |
You can find this book at www.wastelandbooksonline.com/shop/index.php
Written by spoleskie
Permalink
| Blog about this entry
|  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this
This entry has comments: Add your own
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
9:04:03 PM EDT
WSKG Radio Interview
A 19th century inventor, magician and founder
of the U.S. Air Force
"The Balloonist"
by Stephen Poleskie
on WSKG Radio's OFF THE PAGE
L I V E Tuesday, August 7th at 1:00 PM
(Rebroadcast at 7:00 PM)
|
|
In the long history of warfare an essential rule has always been, "hold the high ground". From watchtowers to spy satellites, high-altitude surveillance is a military necessity. During the Civil War, Union forces were offered assistance from an innovative technology: the balloon. Hovering a thousand feet above the troops and beyond the range of enemy fire, observers could provide real-time intelligence to their forces on enemy troop movements and materiel. During the initial years of the Civil War the pre-eminent "aeronaut" was Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe.
Directing fire during an attack by the enemy to save the day was how he had imagined it. But the Confederate soldiers he was about to rain death down upon were probably having breakfast, or perhaps still peacefully asleep in some battle-scarred meadow. Lowe knew that the main purpose of war was to kill your enemy, but somehow he had always thought of his role in a more abstract way, as if he were solving some scientific problem. This was the first time he had been faced with the reality that his mission was about destroying human life, not saving it.
-- from The Balloonist
The new book "The Balloonist" by Stephen Poleskie begins with an early history of ballooning, the work of the Montgolfier brothers in France and Napoleon's interest in the balloon as an instrument of war. But the book is essentially the biography of T.S.C. Lowe, an inquisitive New Hampshire native who set out as a youth to learn the basics of science. Dubbing himself "Professor" Lowe (a title he never gave up) he was a
|
A portion of your purchase, made through the link above,
supports WSKG |
colorful lecturer on scientific principles, a showman and magician and, above all, an experimenter with gas-filled (not hot air) balloons.
Lowe's most daring scheme was a balloon flight across the Atlantic Ocean. But he was persuaded to first attempt a long flight over land and in 1861 took off from Cincinnati for the east coast. He came down 800 miles later in the back woods of South Carolina, a Yankee dropping out of the sky in the South just a short time after the firing on Fort Sumter. Lucky to return to the safety of the North - and motivated in part by the sorry fate of relatives of his French-born wife during the recent uprising in France - Lowe volunteered his services and his equipment to the Union cause. The backing of Joseph Henry, the nation's leading scientist and secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, gained Lowe the personal attention and support of President Lincoln.
The value of Lowe's observations was obvious, but the Balloon Corps lacked official status and Lowe himself never received a military appointment. Poleskie's book graphically details the battlefield action and political disputes that led to the Balloon Corps being disbanded two years before the conclusion of hostilities. Lowe was disappointed but also disgusted by what he had seen and was suffering from malaria.
After the war he continued his balloon exhibitions but also branched out into other fields of science and technology. He invented improved methods of gas lighting and refrigeration. Thaddeus and Leontine Lowe also had ten children, and in 1888 they moved to California, where the former balloonist became interested in the development of an incline railway and other attractions in the mountains east of Los Angeles. The project was an engineering success (though eventually a financial failure) and the site is named Mount Lowe in his honor.
Stephen Poleskie is professor emeritus of art at Cornell University. He was well established as a painter when he decided to become an aviator and, trailing colored smoke from his biplane, traveled the world creating abstract drawings in the sky as "aerial theater". That interest has now given way to literary pursuits. "The Balloonist: the Story of T.S.C. Lowe - Inventor, Scientist, Magician and Father of the U.S. Air Force" is his first book.
Stephen Poleskie joins Bill Jaker to tell about the attraction of ballooning and the life of Thaddeus Lowe (a couple of days after Binghamton's annual Spiedie Fest and Balloon Rally draws dozens of Lowe's successors to the skies above the Southern Tier). To join in the discussion call during the 1:00 PM broadcast to 888/359-9754 or post your comments to WSKG.Radio@Gmail.com.
*******************************************************************
Thank you for logging on. This interview aired last August on WSKG Binghamton. Several people have recently commented on it so I thought I would put it up again for those who have not heard it. I will be reading from THE BALLOONIST, along with my wife Jeanne Mackin, on Thursday, May 8th, at 7 p.m. at the Greene Public Library in Greene, NY.
************************************************************
A Photo of Me Taken Last Summer at My Book Reading in Perry, NY
|
|
|
Written by spoleskie
Permalink
| Blog about this entry
| Add to del.icio.us | digg this
This entry has comments: Add your own
Monday, January 28, 2008
10:08:51 PM EST
THE BALLOONIST: Two Reviews
Gas Bag of Courage
(The Balloonist, 8/13/07)
By Nicholas Nicastro
The Balloonist. By Stephen Poleskie
(338 pp., Frederic C. Beil Publishers, $24.95)
It is often said that journalists write the first draft of history. Thaddeus Lowe, the pioneering inventor and aviator, was perhaps the first notable exception to this rule. Rising in his silk balloon over the killing fields of the Civil War, Lowe instantly got a breadth of perspective—a sense of who, what, and where on a grand scale—that was previously limited to scholars of great and tragic events. "To the right could be seen the York River, following which the eye could rest of Chesapeake Bay. On the left, and at about the same distance, flowed the James River..." wrote one of Lowe's most notorious passengers, George Armstrong Custer. "Between these two extended a most beautiful landscape, and no less interesting than beautiful; it being made a theatre of operations of armies larger and more formidable than had ever confronted each other on his continent before..."
With The Balloonist: The Story of T.S.C. Lowe—Inventor, Scientist, Magician, and Father of the US Air Force, Ithaca-based writer Stephen Poleskie offers up what is perhaps the most gratifying kind of biography—one that convinces us that its subject is so manifestly significant that the absence of previous books about him seems downright mystifying. As hinted in the subtitle, Lowe (1832-1913) was something of an industrial alchemist, a restless polymath who contrived innovations in fields as disparate as chemistry, engineering, meteorology, espionage, and roadshow razzmatazz. His antebellum "magic" shows, staged under the assumed title of "Professor" Lowe, were more scientific lecture/demonstrations than the kind of portentous dinner theatre practiced by his modern descendants. Yet they were also very popular, making him not only a pioneering inventor but the Science Guy of his times.
Lowe's lifetime passion, however, was the delicate craft of ballooning. Conceiving the then-outrageous plan to cross the Atlantic by air, he worked steadily to improve the technology and public profile of lighter-than-air aviation. The advent of the Civil War undercut public support for such adventures, but not Lowe's enthusiasm: if balloons could cross oceans, they certainly could be used to erase the front lines between armies. Along with a handful of rivals, Lowe labored hard to get Union generals to appreciate the potential of hydrogen balloons for intelligence-gathering.
It took the intercession of Lincoln himself to finally get the US Army Balloon Corps off the ground. Rising above the battlefields of Virginia, Lowe became a unique witness to some of the most momentous battles in the war, including George McClellan's ill-fated Peninsula campaign. He became the first to supply real-time intelligence from the air when he conceived the notion of stringing a telegraph wire from his gondola. As his custom-built observation balloon floated above the trees, he also became the most shot-at man in the war, as Confederate sharpshooters and gunners attempted to erase the Union intelligence advantage by blasting him out of the sky. That Lowe exposed himself to such danger for more than two years as a civilian contractor, without commission or regular salary, is not the least of his miracles.
Poleskie tells his story with a rare combination of practical expertise (the author is an aviator himself), empathy, and poetic vividness. Describing Lowe's lingering horror at the carnage he witnessed, Poleskie writes "A violent spasm twitched his body. Once again he heard the boundless roar of cannon; saw the shattered bodies and the collapsing bridges; listened to the clumsy, gasping cries of drowning men; and the agonizing shriek of the wounded. Riderless horses wallowed in the mud along the banks snorting flames from their nostrils. Corpses, swollen to twice their size, ground out curses and blasphemies from their bloated mouths as they floated on the spume. Summoned by he did not know what, the whole ghastly parade assembled around him, marching skyward, a relentless invasion of his senses."
The Balloonist is full of similar, fictionalized passages, many of which are quite fine. Indeed, Poleskie is not alone in mixing the roles of historian and novelist—the bookstore shelves are lately full of similar hybrids. More literal-minded readers may chaff at this approach, however: it is occasionally nice to know which fine reflection or turn-of-phrase originates with the author, and which from Lowe's own memoirs (published only in 2004). Other strange omissions, such as a single likeness of Lowe, or an index (though Poleskie does provide a bibliography) may also frustrate the conventional reader.
Compelling as Lowe's story is, the notion that balloon reconnaissance alone could have shortened the Civil War is arguably wishful thinking. Though Lowe did work wonders in that brief time before bureaucratic infighting finally drove him away, one senses that the skein of determined stupidity enveloping the Union general staff would have squandered any advantage. Indeed, one of the unanticipated dividends of Poleskie's book is to put the current trail of miscues in Iraq in historical perspective. If anything is as perennial as war itself, it's the quality of the foolishness it seems to attract.
©2007 Nicholas Nicastro
*******************************************************************
**********************************************************
The following review of THE BALLOONIST appeared in the November 2007 issue of CHOICE
Poleskie (emer., Cornell Univ.) offers a detailed, informative picture of the life of Thaddeus Sobieski Coulincourt Lowe (1832-1913). One of the first to see the strategic benefits of aviation, Lowe hovered above many battlefields in the American Civil War in his balloon. Poleskie writes in an engaging and fascinating style and does an excellent job of telling the story and discussing "the most shot at man of the Civil War." Lowe's life if detailed, and specifics of the dedicated scientist and leader of the Civil War Army of the Potomac's Balloon Corps are given. Lowe's life differs from that of many inventors and scientists who are written about, as many of his inventions and accomplishments were cut short or never came to fruition due to politics or technology before its time. The book is well researched and very detailed, but lacks analysis. Also discussed are the politics surrounding Lowe's contributions and what came from his efforts. Summing Up: Recommended. E.J. Barton, Michigan State University.
***********************************************************
Written by spoleskie
Permalink
| Blog about this entry
| Add to del.icio.us | digg this
This entry has comments: Add your own
Thursday, December 27, 2007
8:59:22 PM EST
Before 9/11
HERE ARE TWO photos of me flying my Pitts Special biplane over the Hudson River in front of the former World Trade Center towers for a performance I did in 1980. An article about my Aerial Theater performances, from the ITHACA TIMES, appears in the previous entry below. These photos can also be accessed from this article, but I have posted them here as news photos do not stay up too long on the Internet.
Photo Copyright 2007 Steve Poleskie
Photo Copyright 2007 Steve Poleskie
There is some interest in my Sky Art events again, and a book may eventually come out of it. If you have ever witnessed one of these events, in New York or anywhere else, please let me know. I would especially be interested to hear from people who have photographs. You can post a comment below, or e-mail me at SPoleskie@aol.com.
Steve Poleskie
***********************************************************
Several people have sent in questions about the above photographs. One of the questions is "Are these photos real?" The answer is definately, Yes.
In the 1980's I did a number of performances over US cities, including New York City, Richmond, Toledo, and San Francisco using my Pitts Special aerobatic biplane, which is pictured with me below. These events were viewed by a wide audience. Strange as it may seem, at my event in Sonoma, California a UFO even appeared. An article about this sighting from the Berkeley Gazette can be found on the web or in the archives of this blog. It is also mentioned in Jeffery Mishlove's book The PK Man.
I also did a number of performances using my twin engine airplane, a Piper Apache, which I was also able to take passengers up in with me. An article about this, and a photograph of the airplane also are below.
Steve Poleskie with his aerobatic biplane, Ithaca, NY, ca. 1983
****************************************************************
APOGEE AIRWAY
THE MAY 1986 ISSUE OF ART NOW/NEW YORK GALLERY GUIDE carried this profile of APOGEE AIRWAY. The French art critic Pierre Restany is shown with me in front of my Piper Apache just prior to taking a flight from Teterboro Airport on May 14, 1984. Restany was just one of several art critics to fly with me, others included Peter Frank and Donald Kuspit.
*****************************************************
Thank you for logging on please come back again. You might also want to check the archives, available by hitting the word in the upper right hand corner at the top, for things you may have missed.
********************************************************
NEW FEATURE: When you get to the bottom entry you will find a new feature. If you click on << Older Entries, you can keep scrolling through previous postings without resorting to searching the archives. Try it, it works well, and I won't have to keep recycling entries that I think people should see, but don't have the patience to hunt up in the files.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Steve Poleskie
Written by spoleskie
Permalink
| Blog about this entry
| Add to del.icio.us | digg this
This entry has comments: Add your own
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
4:22:49 PM EST
A New Look At My Old Art
Flying High
By: Wylie Schwartz
11/20/2007
Upon emigrating to the U.S. after the second world war, Marcel Duchamp declared that if this is what art would lead to then he wasn't going to make any more. Wondering if Steve Poleskie's seemingly abrupt departure from the art world might have been enacted under similar sentiments, I decided to visit him at his Ithaca residence to try to uncover what motivated him to stop making art - or at the very least, to find out what he has been up to since.
For those unfamiliar with his work, Poleskie is perhaps best known for his Aerial Sky Performances, a type of performance art involving flying an aerobatic bi-plane with trailing smoke through a series of maneuvers to create a four-dimensional design in the sky. Musicians, dancers, and parachutists often accompanied the pieces, making his art in many ways closer to dance than say, painting or sculpture. The French art critic Pierre Restany called it 'Planetary Art,' and described it thus: "It escapes the exhibition room to conquer nature, its infinite and elemental spaces."
In a 1983 performance, Poleskie flew his plane around the World Trade Towers. Today, viewing the pictures taken during the performance encourages the type of visceral reaction that really good art is capable of evoking. Says Poleskie: "You used to be able to fly around and make art - if someone tried to do this now we would think it was the second coming of Jihad."
Though the performances, as well as the drawings and collage that accompany each piece, may appear difficult to understand, seen within the context of art made at the time - when artists were either taking it out into the landscape or exploring the possibilities of performance art - the Sky Performances incorporated elements of both, while working within the framework of a previously unexplored format: the fourth dimension of time.
Sky Art proved especially popular in Europe, where an emphasis on conceptual art was the focus of many dealers, curators and critics during the 1970s and '80s. So popular in fact, that works on paper from this period are found in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London's Tate Gallery, the Castlevecchio in Italy, and the State Museum in Poland.
However, as the story goes, in 2000, Poleskie set out to destroy a vast number of his early works, and, withdrawing the rest from the market, stopped making art. "You just get tired of them, or you think the work wasn't so good anyway, so off they go. Then later you remember you pitched it out one day in a frenzy of cleaning and wish you hadn't. I remember living on 76th St. and throwing some of my sculptures down the air vent because I didn't know how else to get rid of them. "
While it is not unusual for an artist to destroy pieces or even entire collections of work, it is usually not so common for a successful artist who has managed to make a career out of it to stop. Nevertheless, that's what happened. Selling both of his airplanes, and taking early retirement from Cornell, because "it's kind of hard to teach art when you don't care about it anymore," he turned his attention to writing.
His most recent achievement being The Balloonist, a biographical novel on the Civil War aeronaut Thaddeus S. C. Lowe which, after taking four years to complete, was published earlier this year. "I figured I had exhausted the potential for Sky Art to go where it was going. Very few people understood what I was doing anyway - I think I had more influence at air show flyers than on art - so I decided to retire and stop making these events that no one cared about anyway. No sense pestering people."
Though, for the record, the evidence - the vast amount of work that is in some of the top art institutions of the world - would indicate that this is not entirely the case. Not to mention that in terms of art's influence over future generations of artmaking, it is often simply too soon to tell.
As a visual artist, Poleskie's roots are traceable to around 1958, when as an economics major at Wilkes College, he signed up for an art elective. After graduating, he moved around for a few years, traveling and working at various jobs ranging from party designer to high school teacher, and focused on his painting.
His earlier work, small, often oddly-shaped abstract landscapes, reveal his Minimalist origins, and examples can be found in collections of the Metropolitan Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum, and the National Collection in Washington, D.C.
Inevitably, Poleskie decided it was time to go to the center of Western art's leading edge. Renting an empty storefront at E. 11th St., he opened a silkscreen workshop called Chiron Press, employing the young painter Brice Marden as one of his first printers. Being New York's first commercial press of its kind, Chiron was wildly successful, and soon had to relocate to larger quarters.
The new site was based at 76 Jefferson St., a five-minute walk from Max's Kansas City, the favorite hangout of the Abstract Expressionist crew, who it seems, at one point or another, all deployed Chiron's services. During the five years that Poleskie ran the operation, Chiron made prints for artists such as Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, James Rosenquist, Robert Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler.
With an increasing feeling that working in two dimensions was too restrictive, he expanded into the third by making sculpture. His work during the time was a kind of sculpture/painting hybrid, not entirely unlike the Minimalist 'specific objects' infiltrating the artworld at the time.
In 1968, Poleskie sold Chiron and accepted a teaching position at Cornell. It was after moving to Ithaca that he met his wife, author Jeanne Mackin. It was also when he became a pilot. "I was making these huge landscape paintings and no one would exhibit them, so I decided to learn to fly."
Whilst he has devoted a large chunk of the past four years focused on writing - he is currently wrapping up his latest novel, a fictional story centered around a political election scandal - there is evidence to suggest that he hasn't completely lost the urge to create art.
Somehow, in the process of teaching himself to operate his new digital camera, he inadvertently created a new series of images, a collection of colorful compositions featuring handsome arrangements of fruit, flowers and other pretty things, inspired by 16th Century Dutch still life paintings.
Poleskie commented that he is surprised to find the pictures 'selling like hotcakes' at the Terrain Gallery in New York. Perhaps this boost in confidence is just what he needed to reinvigorate his faith in art, and in his ability as a creator - though, it may be too soon to tell. Local residents can see one in the forthcoming group show at the Upstairs Gallery, opening on Nov. 27.
©Ithaca Times 2007
This article appears in the November 21 issue of the Ithaca Times. Check out the Photo Gallery for two interesting photos of me flying my biplane in front of the former World Trade Center towers. For more information on my Aerial Theater please check the ARCHIVES which you can access through an icon just above the top entry. Please feel free to post a comment below.
Steve Poleskie
Written by spoleskie
Permalink
| Blog about this entry
| Add to del.icio.us | digg this
This entry has comments: Add your own
Monday, November 12, 2007
8:32:35 PM EST
From the Ithaca Journal
Here is my response to a survey. This was published recently in the Ithaca Journal.
Article published Nov 10, 2007
Literary Inspiration: Meet Stephen Poleskie
Where is your favorite place to write? In my studio at home.
Has Ithaca influenced your writing in any way? Yes,by knowing and being able to associate with all the fine writers who live in this town.
When do you get most of your writing done? In the evening, when all my other work is finished. Writing for me is a recreation. If no one wants to read what I have written at least I have had the joy of doing it. I have written 103 short stories, and published eight, and six novels and published one.
Name two books that have inspired your writing? “The Street of the Crocodiles” by Bruno Schulz, and “Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass” by Bruno Schulz
Who is your favorite author?
Bruno Schulz
What's your favorite font? Helvetica
What do you want readers to take away from your book(s)? A sense of understanding about what I have written, and how it relates to their own lives.
What do you love most about being an author? I am not adding to the large inventory of stuff I already have stored in the attic, garage, and barn left over from the years when I was a visual artist.
What are you working on? I have just finished a novel about deceit and corruption in the American political process.
If you could have dinner with any three fictional characters, which would you choose? Mrs. Marple, Sir Lancelot, and Rip van Winkle.
************************************************************
 A review of THE BALLOONIST
|
On the bookshelf: IT TAKES ONE TO KNOW ONE
By Betsy Rider
What I read: “The Balloonist: the Story of T.S.C. Lowe, Inventor,Scientist, Magician, and Father of the U.S. Air Force” is a new book by Stephen Poleskie, who will sign his book from 5 to 8 p.m. this First Friday at Otto Book Store.
In the book, Poleskie follows his hero’s exploits through a whole passel of professions — farmhand, cobbler, showman, manufacturer of hot air balloons and volunteer surveillance balloonist during the Civil War. He takes you into living rooms, labs and workshops; into the elegant drawing rooms and the inelegant army camps — eveninto Lincoln’s White House to chronicle the life of this 19th-century man of many talents.
Poleskie’s biographer, if there is one, will have as daunting a task following his many paths in life as Poleskie had with Lowe’s life. Steve has filled many shoes in his 69 years. He has made his name in the art world, beginning with various forms through the representational, the abstract, the landscape, figure and screen prints.
His work is on display (through July) at the Terrain Gallery in New York City. He has owned and managed a screen print company. He has been a racer of motorcycles and has won the Canadian Open Aerobatic Championship. He has taken his art to the sky with his unique form of “aerial theater.”
This involves flying his biplane through loops, trailing white smoke in artistic designs in three dimensions, many times with music broadcast from the ground. It was on one of these aerial demonstrations that he spotted a UFO, which also was seen from the ground.
He has taught at Cornell and taught in Rome in the Cornell College of Art and Architecture Summer Abroad program.
He has displayed his photographs in art shows and has lectured since retiring from Cornell. He now has researched and published a historical novel, bringing Lowe to the place in our country’s history that he deserves.
Poleskie’s book paints the whole 19th century science and social experience with enough detail to make you feel you know what it was like to be there.
His appearance Friday at Otto’s, coming on the heels of his signing at the National Space and Air Museum last month, should be very exciting.
Rider is proprietor of Otto Book Store, 107 W. Fourth Street, Williamsport, PA
From the WILLIAMSPORT SUN-GAZETTE, 7/5/2007
********************************************************** |
Thank you for logging on. THE BALLOONIST can be found at your local bookstore or ordered online at numerous providers, including Amazon.com.
Written by spoleskie
Permalink
| Blog about this entry
| Add to del.icio.us | digg this
This entry has comments: Add your own
Friday, October 12, 2007
8:53:39 PM EDT
T. S. C. LOWE MARKERS
|
Taylor’s Tavern
|
| |
|
|
By Craig Swain, September 12, 2007 |
| |
|
| 1. Taylor's Tavern Marker |
| | Inscription. Professor Lowe's Balloons
At the beginning of the war, Union commanders were uncertain of Confederate intentions and military capabilities. On June 22, 1861, civilian balloonist Thaddeus S.C. Lowe inflated his racing balloon Enterprise at the Washington Gas Company to demonstrate its potential in obtaining military information about Confederate troop movements. With the assistance of a 15-man army detachment, he walked the balloon to Taylor's Tavern at the edge of Union territory on the Falls Church heights. On June 24-25, Lowe made several tethered ascents, the first areal reconnaissance in American military history.
Over a 34-day period in late summer, Lowe made 23 flights from Fort Corcoran and Ball's Cross Roads (present-day Ballston). These ascents drew the first rifled artillery fire at a balloon from Confederate positions. In September, he implemented another first when he used signal flags to direct artillery fire from a balloon at the area of Falls Church where Confederate J.E.B. Stuart's troops were celebrating their commander's promotion to Brigadier General. On September 29, the Confederates withdrew to the south and west.
Appointed Chief of the newly formed U.S. Army Aeronautical Corps, Lowe commanded seven balloons, eight aeronauts and 12 portable generators used to inflate the balloons.
| |
|
|
By Craig Swain, September 12, 2007 |
| |
|
| 2. Marker inside Fort Taylor Park |
| | Lowe was replaced in May 1863 and the Corps rapidly disintegrated.
Erected by Virginia Civil War Trails.
Location. 38° 52′ 29.53″ N, 77° 9′ 30.96″ W. Marker is in Falls Church, Virginia. Marker can be reached from the intersection of North Roosevelt Street and East Broad Street (State Highway 7), on the right when traveling east on North Roosevelt Street. Click for map. Located inside Fort Taylor Park, and reached by a short, but in places steep, walking trail around the high ground at the east corner between North Roosevelt and East Broad Streets. Marker is in this post office area: Falls Church VA 22046, United States of America.
Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within walking distance of this marker. Falls Church (within shouting distance of this marker); a different marker also named Taylor’s Tavern (about 300 feet away, in a direct line); Fairfax Chapel (about 500 feet away); Tallwood (about 500 feet away); Dulin Methodist Church (approx. 0.3 miles away); Wren’s Tavern (approx. 0.4 miles away); Turnpike Tollgate (approx. 0.5 miles away); The Birch House (approx. 0.5 miles away). Click for a list of all markers in Falls Church.
More about this marker. Three pictures help the marker interpret the site. On the upper left is a photograph of Taylor's Tavern from 1862. The center-right of the marker is a drawing of "Professor Lowe's balloon reconnaissance of the enemy's position near Fairfax, Va." June 24, 1861, from The New York Illustrated News, July 12, 1861. The drawing is complemented by an illustration, based on a 1995 postage stamp, of "Thaddeus Sobieski Coulincourt Lowe, August 20, 1832 - January 16, 1913, Chief, U.S. Balloon Corps, August 1861 - May 1863."
| |
|
|
By Craig Swain, September 12, 2007 |
| |
|
| 3. Seven Corners Today |
| This busy Northern Virginia intersection is the site of Professor Lowe's balloon reconnaissance. During the Civil War roads from Arlington, Alexandria, Centreville, and Leesburg converged here forming a strategic intersection. Federals needed to know details of Confederate troop concentrations here and nearby Bailey's Crossroads in order to plan the first movements down the Orange and Alexandria Railroad towards Manassas Junction. The movement lead to the First Battle of Manassas in July 1861. |
| |
Also see . . .
1. Balloons in the Civil War. U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission. (Submitted on October 8, 2007, by Craig Swain of Leesburg, Virginia.)
2. Lowe's Civil War Balloons. Detailed history of Lowe's operations, and a guide to building your own paper model of the balloons! (Submitted on October 8, 2007, by Craig Swain of Leesburg, Virginia.)
3. The Balloons With The Army Of The Potomac. Report filed by Professor Lowe later in the war, detailing balloon operations around Richmond in 1862. (Submitted on October 8, 2007, by Craig Swain of Leesburg, Virginia.)
4. War of the Aeronauts: The History of Ballooning in the Civil War. by Allan W. Howey, Air & Space Power Journal, Fall, 2003 (Submitted on October 8, 2007, by Craig Swain of Leesburg, Virginia.)
5. Civil War Aeronauts. (PDF) Discussion of the balloon operations around Falls Church. (Submitted on October 8, 2007, by Craig Swain of Leesburg, Virginia.)
Additional comments.
1. Civil War Innovations
The American Civil War is noted by many historians as introducing many new technologies to military practice. Interesting is the rapid countermeasures and follow on innovation of the balloon. As noted on the marker, shortly after the first balloon assents, the first "anti-balloon" cannons attempted to shoot down the areonauts, as the first anti-aircraft weapons of war. Furthermore, once the advantage of height of the balloon was realized, the platform was used to instruct artillery gunners how to fire upon targets they could not directly see, presaging modern indirect fire methods. Lastly, not mentioned on the marker, Confederates in the area adoptedtactics to conceal and mask movements using decoy troop formations, generated dust clouds, or simply moving by night. Similar tactics are still employed today to avoid observation from above.
— Submitted October 8, 2007, by Craig Swain of Leesburg, Virginia.
|
Taylor’s Tavern II
|
| |
|
|
By Craig Swain, September 12, 2007 |
| |
|
| 1. Front Side of Marker |
| | Inscription. Two-story building with verandahs stood on 56 acres bought in 1856 by Wm. Taylor (part of 1731 271-acre T. Harrison grant). Tavern faced Alexandria-Leesburg Pike west of Junction with Georgetown Road (Wilson Blvd.). Near here on June 24, 1861, balloonist Thaddeus Lowe conducted first aerial reconnaissance in U.S. military history. In August-September CSA Col. J.E.B. Stuart's troops fortified Upton's & Munson's Hills. By October 1861 Union troops had reoccupied hills and added forts Taylor, Buffalo, and Ramsay as a separate group 4-5 miles west of main ring of Washington defenses.
Erected by City of Falls Church.
Location. 38° 52′ 31.37″ N, 77° 9′ 28.41″ W. Marker is in Falls Church, Virginia. Marker is on North Roosevelt Street, on the right when traveling east. Click for map. Located just before the entrance to Oakwood Cemetery, at a pull off for the Fort Taylor Park. Marker is in this post office area: Falls Church VA 22046, United States of America.
|
******************************************************************
There are several Civil War Monuments that referr to T. S. C. Lowe's activities with the Balloon Corps during the Civil War located in Virginia. This entry is courtesy of The Historical Marker Database, www.hmdb.org.
******************************************************************
Lofty View of the Past
By: Pamela Goddard
07/02/2007 Ithaca Times
"The Balloonist: The Story of T.S.C. Lowe - Inventor, Scientist, Magician, and Father of the US Air Force" by Stephen Poleskie. Published by Frederic C. Beil, Savannah, Georgia, May 2007.
"It could be argued that the balloon was the most significant of mankind's achievements. For the first time ever, a human being was able to leave the surface of the earth and travel in the skies."
Stephen Poleskie has published his first book and it is no coincidence that its subject is a man whose innovations contributed to the start of American aviation. Poleskie's creative career is closely tied to his creative adventures in the sky. From 1968 into the 1990s, this Ithaca-based artist and author created abstract drawings in the air by flying a biplane trailing smoke. Poleskie's "aerial theater" performance pieces were staged across Europe and the United States, sometimes accompanied by musicians and dancers on the ground.
Some wondered whether Poleskie was creating high art or simply a public spectacle. At the time, he maintained that "the view from the cockpit, the vast sense of space, compelled me to attempt to recreate the experience [of realist painting]. I stopped painting entirely and devoted myself to exploring the use of the airplane as a tool for making art."
Similarly, the story of inventor Thaddeus Sobieski Constantine Lowe is one of a man who blurred the boundaries between serious science and dramatic showmanship. During the 1860s, only a very few took his scientific theories seriously. Balloonists were on a par with magicians and carnival showmen. Thrilling entertainment, but not to be taken seriously.
Lowe was a visionary who accurately saw the value of aviation. His balloon innovations sprung from a curious, inventive mind. Poleskie begins his book with stories of how Lowe, fascinated by air currents as a child, watched the clouds float overhead and did more than daydream.
He began to see that different levels of the atmosphere travel in different directions. As an adult, Lowe used air currents to direct balloon flights in specific directions.
During the early 1860s, Lowe was preparing for a grand balloon trip across the Atlantic. The Civil War changed everything. With a desire to serve his country and to prove his theories at the same time, Lowe convinced President Lincoln of the value of a balloon Air Corps.
"The Balloonist" is filled with almost surreal scenes of Civil War battles as seen from above. Floating above encampments and battlefields, Lowe's balloon sent unprecedented information to earthbound generals. The sight of his balloon was a frequent annoyance to Confederate troops, making Lowe one of the most shot-at men in the Civil War.
Poleskie carefully details the vexing incompetence of officers who had no understanding of how balloon surveillance could be used to advantage, to change the course of thewar. At the end of the Civil War, this shortsighted perspective was summed up when Secretary of War Stanton said that, "he could not see any 'practical utility' for the airship as the idea of using air power for military purposes was 'too remote.'"
Lowe, on the other hand, prophesied that, "The aircraft of the future will have nothing to do with balloons, but will be a kind of flying sled that can ride the air like a bird."
"The Balloonist" is difficult to categorize. Poleskie's book is somewhere between narrative story, documentary history, and biography. Poleskie uses personal experience and empathy to flesh out the story of this forgotten hero. Scientist, showman, family man, inventor, and humanist all contribute to Poleskie's portrayal of Lowe. Although this is not a glorified portrait, it's clear that Poleskie's sympathies are with Lowe. A reader might wonder, how much is fact and how much is fiction? Where does the historical record leave off and Poleskie's informed imagination begin?
While balloons float above everything, Poleskie maintains a close view of his subject. "The Balloonist" has a lot of detail, with minimal perspective or analysis. The reader can enjoy every real and imagined aspect of Lowe's ballooning experiences in the Civil War, but learns little about how this history fits into the bigger picture of aviation.
There are treasures in these details, and not the least is Poleskie's effort to uncover this fantastic story of a fantastic time. Like Lowe, Poleskie likes to push the envelope, explore what can be done, and create something new.
******************************************************************
| |
