Where is Stephen (Steve) Poleskie Now?

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  

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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. The announcement is below. 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.

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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

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