Architecture, Art and Liepaja

Monday, September 20, 2010
Liepaja Art Noveau Tour
Early on Monday morning we went on an extraordinary walking tour of Liepaja’s art noveau district. The architecture is splendid and incredibly distinctive. It features Latvian wood architecture versions of the Art Noveau style. Built in the early 20th century, the district is only a few minutes walk from the center of the town and the Liepaja Beach. The city park areas adjacent to the district were developed in the 1860’s when Liepaja became a popular stopping off place for merchants traveling up the Baltic coast. Today, a number of the buildings are decaying but there is evidence of repair work and restoration of the historical privately owned structures.

Now I really understand why my dad loved this city so much and adopted Liepaja as his “home town.” The city has all of the maritime flavors that he always loved. The open beach and dunes combined with the neighboring civic architecture can seldom be seen in such a concentrated way. Even the modern post-Soviet era city, despite its financial hardships, has incorporated new bikeways and other amenities in the parks to complement the old traditional design elements that are spread throughout the streetscapes of Liepaja.


A Special Appointment at the City Museum
At 1:00 PM Vilks, Vid and I arrived at the Liepaja City Museum for my scheduled meeting with Dace Karkle, the museum’s director. She received us at the main entrance of the museum which is itself an historical delight. The museum maintains its original early 20th-century historical interior and we were ushered into a beautiful period sun room. Although it was raining outside, inside the atmosphere was warm and welcoming. A table had been set for us with beautiful china, exquisite looking baked goods and a coffee pot. We were invited to sit down and introduced to members of the staff which included the collections manager and the museum’s archivist. Also in the room was the head of the Liepaja branch of the National Library who knew Andris Vilks.

Dace Karkle then asked me to tell my story and explain my goals for the 100th anniversary show I was planning for my father. I made my introductory remarks and explained why I went to film Lejas Kurzeme (southern Kurzeme), its vernacular architecture and the local landscape. I also explained why I was honoring my father’s request not to break up his collection of works that I inherited in 1990. I offered to donate my collection and archives to the museum and inquired if the museum would be able to provide an appropriate collections storage facility. Dace Karkle said that the museum would be honored to accept my offer and offered their exhibition gallery (about 220 square meters or roughly 2,100 square feet) for a special anniversary exhibition in 2014. I think the space would be perfectly adequate for what I envision want to display at the anniversary show. The space is scheduled to be renovated within the next two years and new lighting system is also included as part of the improvements. Thus, the timing is very good.

So, in sum, it was agreed that on or about May 28, 2014 we would have an opening for the Evalds Dajevskis’ 100th anniversary show. For me it’s going to be a birthday party like no other. It turns out that the museum owns about 7 paintings by my dad from his early Liepaja years. Apparently he documented the bombing of Liepaja and one of the works has been reproduced in a recently published book. I had no idea that these works existed, but was delighted that the early years of my dad’s career can be displayed along with the works that I have. There are of course a number of other works from this time period in several Riga museums which can be incorporated into the show. Therefore, this means that we can present a relatively balance exhibit displaying his work from the war torn years in Liepaja through post war Germany and on into the New York years that audiences are much more familiar with in the US.

With regard to collection storage, the news turned out to be surprisingly good. The museum rents modern air conditioned space in a handsome public building (actually privately managed) which includes the Liepaja children library on the top floor with a view of the downtown area. We went up to the Children’s’ library which serves as a contemporary training center for teaching internet skills and software education to small kids. Any US school or city branch library would be proud of this facility. Thanks to Andris Vilks’ vision and Bill Gates money this facility is a reality today. And the multi-media center is a great space for art education to boot.

We discussed that the city museum and the library would partner to host kid oriented programming that would center around my dad’s work (with a nice exhibit area) plus offer opportunities for using internet based research to explore related topics on art history, theater etc. The art storage facility will be able to absorb the Dajevskis collection without difficulty and I was delighted to hear that my dad’s collection will reside in a modern air conditioned space. This has been an overriding concern of mine.

With regard to curating of the exhibit, the museum welcomed my concept for the Dajevskis show: A Scenographers Art and Life in Three acts. Not only did it seem compelling to staff but after doing a quick run-through of my slide show, Dace Karkle mentioned how moving it was for her to learn about the life of the artist they really did not know much about after his departure from Liepaja. We finally discussed the need for a catalog/book and agreed to start working out the details soon. I am thrilled that this long awaited personal journey to find a home for Evalds Dajevskis’ works is finally moving toward fruition.

On the Road in Latvia

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Back in Riga

The flight from JFK to Riga went through to Helsinki like clockwork.  The Finnair staff, as always, worked with gracious restraint and extreme courtesy.  They still practice the “old school” of passenger care and show a great sense of attentiveness.  The food and the Finnish beer were just what were needed to get things off to a good start.   At the halfway mark to Helsinki, somewhere near Iceland, I adjusted my watch 7 hours ahead and I began to focus my thoughts on our arrival in northern Europe.   The pleasant sounding but undecipherable Finnish language announcements were ever so familiar as I have traveled this route so many times before when I worked on the National Library of Latvia new building project which started in 1993.  The breakfast announcement in Finnish reminded me of our friend Hilda Ursteins from the American Latvian Theater who speaks Estonian.  The Finno Ugric linguistic similarities are so familiar.  There is something wonderful about the rhythm of the language and I always find the 98+ syllable count words they use so remarkable.

As I flew over the Gulf of Finland it was covered with clouds, but upon the approach to Riga, the sun emerged and I could see the delta of the Daugava River.  It looked just like the physical geology maps that I used for my geography lessons back at the Latvian School in Yonkers, NY when my kids were small and I taught the middle schoolers for a while.  I never quite realized how incredibly snake-like and massive the river is when it flows into the Gulf of Riga, though I’ve studied the map many times. The urban development and suburban growth that has come to the city of Riga since I was there last three years ago was striking. The changes in the suburban land use are quite visible from the air as you approach the runway. But I learned subsequently that many of the houses that have built in recent years have not been completed due to the current economic crisis.  Many are only unfinished shells.  For rent and for sale signs are everywhere as you travel around the city; this is Latvia’s version of the collapsed California and Nevada housing market that we see on TV these days back in the States.   People are really hurting and over extended from assuming too much debt. 

The View from the Vanshu Bridge

From the airport we crossed the Vanshu Bridge that leads to

Valdemara Street

which takes you into Old Riga. The modernistic suspension bridge, with its cables running down like an upside down “V” from one central tower, is a much large version and early predecessor of a similar bridge crossing the canal on Delaware’s Route 1 south of Wilmington.  The US bridge has received many awards – and justifiably so – but few in the US are aware that Riga’s bridge was designed during the Soviet era and was probably one of the first of this type of bridge in the world. I think it is one of the few public infrastructure design successes of the Soviet occupation era.  As my taxi approached the bridge and moved slowly across in Riga’s heavy traffic, I saw the familiar medieval cityscape of old city Riga featured on all of the tourist post cards.  Then I began anticipating the view of the river's left bank as I looked across my right shoulder.   I was seeking out the new National Library of Latvia building which I knew was rising on the river banks near the Stone Bridge (Akmens tilts). 

While I was intellectually prepared for the view of the new architectural element on the skyline, it was startling to actually see it in 3-dimensional form.  I’ve been anticipating completion of this project for 17 years; the development of the Gunnar Birkerts’ design was now becoming reality and the slope of the legendary Glass Mountain is well defined. After all the delays and frustrations associated with the development and marketing of the project, I didn’t expect how comforting it was going to be to see that Gunnar Birkerts’ vision was now becoming a tangible reality.   Even without the Belgian glass cladding that Birkerts has selected for the exterior of the building and is now being installed on the first floor, the building already looks like it really belongs there.  As I crossed the bridget, it invoked for me the symbolic promise of a more stable democratic future and a remerging sense of national identity for the people of Latvia who seem right now to be drained by the contemporary political climate.  Perhaps the building will stand as a reminder of what joint commitment and persistence can eventually achieve.   The adage that "you’ve got to believe" really rings true here.  The new building is Birkerts’ metaphoric expression of ancient Latvian legends.  With anticipation I now await how the people of the nation will actually view this structure; will the ancient roots of Latvian tradition, as symbolized by this building, empower them to surmount the challenges and achieve new heights for their nation or will pragmatism prevail as it seems to be doing right now.  Will this extraordinary structure become a catalyst for national renewal like Bilbao achieved for northern Spain? Will this project be a new foundation for promoting growth and advancement by new generations?

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

A Great Discovery

One of my quests on this trip was to find documentation and visual references about artists who influenced and shaped my father’s artistic “oeuvre,” particularly with regard to his distinctive interpretation of traditional folklore and the iconic use of architectonic elements in his fantastic recreations of ancient cultural landscapes.  After completing his formal art education studies in Liepaja in the 1930s, my father studied under the noted Latvian artist Ansis Cirulis who introduced Latvian ethnographic and other traditional elements into contemporary art forms. During the first half of the 20^th century, he developed a rather stylized and idiomatic way of using Latvian decorative art styles in his paintings and worked with great creatively to incorporate folk elements into ceramic, textile and wood media. He was also highly regarded for his interior design work.  My father studied under Ansis Cirulis and he said that his work was a primary source of his artistic inspiration as he applied rich decorative arts traditions and elements of Latvian folklore to many of his theatrical designs during the 30’s and 40’s.  Later in the United States he developed this style in his set designs for the American Latvian Theater during the early immigration years of the 50’s and then on in the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. 

During the Soviet regime Cirulis’ work was suppressed, as he adamantly stood up for the right of artists and all Latvians to express their native traditions in art and encouraged Latvians to maintain pride in their national cultural identity. For his activism he paid dearly.  His public statements resulted in his art being dismissed.  Apparently significant amounts of his work were destroyed by the Soviet authorities since he did not subscribe to Soviet ideology and he was unwilling to accept the tenets of social realism as advocated by the regime. While I knew of Cirulis’ significance from my father’s autobiographical writings, I had no access to reference materials that would help me understand this aspect of early-20^th century art history in Latvia.

To my great surprise and joy, my friend Maruta Jurjane referred me to a new book/catalog published about Ansis Cirulis.  Released just last year and written by Alida Kreslina, the Director of the Decorative Arts Museum in Riga, her work contains many significant examples of Cirulis’ art from variety of sources.  The book was written for an exhibition organized about Cirulis and is called In the Gardens of the Sun (Saules Pagalmos in Latvian).

His legacy has managed to survive and has been documented in a handsome book published by the Neputns publishing house in Riga.  I purchased the book at Valters and Rapa bookstore – always a great place to visit in downtown Riga.  The volume contains good quality graphic reproductions -- something that locally printed art books up to now have not been known for in Latvia.  I purchased the book and can’t wait to dig in.  From a cursory examination I can already see the strong impact that Cirulis' art did indeed have upon Ev. Dajevskis’ work.  What a break for my project!  Cultural institutions that have Cirulis art work in their collections have been referenced and this will simplify my work as I begin making detailed plans for my father’s 100^th anniversary exhibition.

The Latvian Emigration Story

On Wednesday morning, I stopped briefly at the administrative offices of the Latvians Abroad Museum (Latviesi Pasaule in Latvian) which is planning to develop a new museum in the city of Liepaja on the Baltic Sea coastline.  The museum’s exhibitions will tell the story of multiple Latvian emigrations over the centuries.  My interest of course was prompted by the story of my own parents who left Latvia as a result of the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Latvia in the 1940s.  My mother and her sister and her family thought they were going to evade the clash of the German and Soviet armies which occurred at her family’s farmstead in Dzukste during 1944.  They thought they would return after a few months after things settled down, but actually ended up immigrating along with 100,000 other Latvians to the United States.  My father was forcibly conscripted by the Nazis to dig trenches and potatoes in eastern Pomeranian where Germany’s border meets up with Poland.  He too sought refuge and escaped from the clutches of the German labor camp and luckily was able to find safety with the British forces based in Lubeck, Germany who gave him safe haven and where he was nursed back to health in an Army hospital.    

The emigration story is a very powerful one and I have been working in an advisory capacity for the Latvians Abroad planning group to assist the board with planning their exhibition and building feasibility studies as they seek out an appropriate museum site and funding.  It was very informative to meet the Riga museum staff in Riga to learn about their perspectives on the development of the new museum in Liepaja, Latvia.  I also met with a team of Riga based architects who I had recommended for an evaluation of an 1890’s era building in Liepaja that is currently under consideration for the emigration museum.   The principal of RDS Architects (Rudolfs Dainis Smits) is a University of Illinois graduate in architecture.  I know Dainis from his work for the Latvian National Library project.  I had suggested to the museum board that they involve Dainis’ firm because of his great expertise with complex institutional projects and I also thought that he would have a special commitment to the project since his family emigrated to the US after WW II.  Dainis moved to Latvia in the early 1990s to start up his architectural practice. He was one of the first émigré Latvians to go to Latvia to seek his fortune when Latvia was still spinning from the trauma of Soviet rule and was seeking new direction.  His office along with those of two other local architectural firms has partnered to prepare the shop drawings for the National Library of Latvia project under Gunnar Birkerts general leadership.  They also work with the builders and the construction manager, Hill International, who I represented during the programming phase of the project.

I went over to Dainis’ office which is a short 10 minute bus ride outside of the central city district. This trip was a bit of an adventure as the location of the office is a bit off the beaten path.  Normally I ask questions when seeking directions, but I find that people on the street in Riga tend to be surprised by visitors who request directions. They are rather withdrawn and do not like interacting with foreigners generally speaking; I suspect this is still a a left over attitude from the Soviet era when communicating with strangers was not considered a very prudent activity.  I can understand that but it sure is an annoyance for the modern visitor.  But an older man did come to my rescue and guided me and made sure that I got off at the right stop and then made sure that I headed down the right street.   As I got off the city bus near the old VEF factory on

Union Street

(where the world’s first miniature camera – the Minox -- was invented by Latvian engineers in the 1930s), it began to rain quite hard.  As I walked down

Union Street

(Unijas iela) over to Dainis’ office, I passed through a decaying streetscape that was visually rich with great old factory buildings and the empty carcasses of the VEF buildings. These old factory buildings were still busy during the Soviet era producing Soviet style appliances.  But as soon as Latvia regained its independence and joined western markets, products from that era were no longer in demand. They were replaced by imported western goods and the outdated manufacturing spaces closed down.  Thus, today

Union Street

has many abandoned structures along the way – including many wonderful wood buildings that date from the 19^th century.  These still are great buildings and represent the urban fabric of the city from another era but are now in desperate need of repair and paint. 

I hope that the current financial crisis will ease up very soon so that these places can still be saved. 

Eventually, I reached Union Center a bit soggy but having enjoyed a corner of Riga that I had never seen before.  Suddenly, after passing the old buildings I was surprised by a modern professional and retail building complex built around a courtyard -- the facades were all stark white – kind of incongruous given the generally dark earth tones of the old industrial district.  Unfortunately management at the Union Center had not installed signage to help visitors locate the offices in the complex.  This kind of thing is quite prevalent in Latvia and annoying for visitors from the outside.  Apparently, you are just supposed to intuitively find what you need.  At that point it began to rain so hard that I ran into a liquor store to seek refuge – a good place to ride out the storm I thought.  To my surprise the clerk was able to point out that Dainis’ office was directly above us on the second floor of that very building.  What a break!   I met with Ivo, one of the project architects and some of his dedicated associates.  Plans were made to meet with them in Liepaja the following Monday to photographically document the building on

Dzelcelnieku street

near the main train station.   The architects seemed ready to do whatever is necessary to prepare a proposal for the European Union’s Central Baltic division.  Their “can-do” spirit was very encouraging.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Museum Planning Seminar for the National Library

I ran a thematic planning seminar for the National Library of Latvia’s on Thursday morning.  Along with my associate for interpretive technology and media, Vid Mednis, our goal was to help NLL’s exhibit staff address thematic planning and development issues for the new museum exhibition space that the Library will be creating at their new Birkerts building going up on the left bank. Their exhibition focus right now is the history of Latvian publishing spanning several centuries.  My approach was to introduce them to different interpretive experiences that we helped develop for the National Park Services back in the United States.  We focused on seemingly unrelated sites such as the Lava Beds National Monument in California and the Frederick Douglass National Historic site in Washington DC to make the point that the NLL’s stories need to connect with diverse publics that may know very little about Latvia and its history.  We tried to draw parallels with the challenges that Latvian exhibition developers are facing at institutions around the world. 

After the session, the library’s director, Andris Vilks and the NLL’s exhibit staff expressed their interest in furthering the interpretive planning process that I had presented to the group. It was gratifying to see such interest from staff, since generally speaking Latvian cultural institutions are quite conservative and take a very traditional approach in exhibit development.  Many feel that their sole obligation to the public is simply to preserve and document material culture and archives for posterity.  The kind of interpretive education programming and teaching objectives that we stress in the United States has not been typical of cultural institutions in Latvia until very recently.  The kind of interpretation that we encourage is generally poorly understood and often dismissed by some professionals as “not the way things are done here.”  Andris Vilks on the other hand is trying to push his organization into new directions that will bring his institution into step with modern practices.  He briefly described to the group of about 27 staff who attended the seminar how powerful his visitor experience had been to the East Side Tenement Museum in New York a couple of years ago.  He and I had gone to see the Irish immigrant section of the Tenement Museum which had just opened.  The exhibit tells the story of the Irish families of the 1890s and how one family that actually lived on Orchard Street on the lower East Side of Manhattan surmounted the dramatically poor housing conditions and health problems that plagued New York City in the 1890s. The story of the overcrowded tenement buildings, where immigrant families settled, came alive for him at the this museum.  The imaginative use of Irish traditional music combined with period lyrics about New York City along with commentary on the times resonated with Vilks.  He sees applications of this type of interpretation to the Latvian experience as expressed through the country's literature.  For instance, he would like to see the NLL interpret the social history of the changes that Latvian peasants experienced during the "National Awakening" period of the late 19^th century in order to connect with the multiple audiences that are expected to visit the new National Library museum when it opens in 2012.  It was great to see strong staff engagement on this topic.

Climbing the Glass Mountain

After the seminar, Vid and I were invited to walk over the stone bridge to the other side of the Daugava to see the new Library building.  Vid and I took innumerable pictures. 

We arrived at the construction site where we signed in at the security check point which required tight security precautions including Passport control; this was great to see.  The site was busy with 180 laborers working on it. During the foundation building phase there were about 250 workers.   

Friday, September 17, 2010

Encounter with the “Village of the Living Dead”

Around 5:00 PM per our plans, I rented a car from Hertz and Vid and I left from Riga for Liepaja -- about a 3 hr ride.  The drive across the flatlands of Zemgale and Kurzeme was great as we passed by mom's mom’s village, Dzukste. We also drove along the edge of Vid’s parents’ home town, Saldus. I’ve been through this region several times and am beginning to recognize the local landscape.  A stunning rainbow provided us with spectacular special effects as we headed westward toward the Baltic seacoast.  The Friday night driving habits of some of the locals that we witnessed were quite remarkable, especially drivers of BMW’s with dark tinted glass who invariably pass cars on a two lane against hilltops with no visibility ahead.  Apparently BMW drivers are immune to head-on crashes.  That part of driving behavior in Latvia is still beyond my comprehension.

We also encountered some incomprehensible road detours on the main highway leadign to Liepaja. About 5 km outside of Liepaja.  we encountered a major highway construction project but absolutely no detour guidance was posted by the highway department. We were on our own to navigate past the construction zone.  So on this rainy night, we suddenly ended up on a muddy road with no sense of where to go next. As we sat on the roadside scratching our heads, near a railroad crossing. Suddenly a large locomotive passed us. Thank goodness for the engineer’s loud blast of the locomogive horn as no audible RR crossing signaling device was evident.  We clearly needed directions to get us out of our predicament. So we decided to follow a local bus that was approaching us.  We figured that we would ask questions at one of the bus stops.  Very shortly we ended up at the last stop of the bus line in a small village called “Cimdenieki” which means glove makers in Latvian.  Vid asked a woman who was getting off the bus for directions to Liepaja, but she found our questioning suspicious and stared at us wide eyed.  In the glare of the car lights with wiper blades splashing water across the our windshield, she looked pale and ghostlike.  It was a rather surreal scene as the rain pouring down.  Due to the woman’s reluctance or inability to speak to us (later we suspected that she only spoke Russian), Vid dubbed this palce the Village of the Living Dead.  Ultimately we simply used our horse sense and navigated around the work zone and rerouted ourselves through the northern sections of the city. Eventually made it back to the central section of town where we were going to spend the night.  We found our very nice hotel, the Europa City Amrita, near the Industrial Canal near the center of Liepaja.  Friendly Latvian waitresses there served us our dinner and we drank Lacaplesis beer (named after “Beartearer” – the legendary folk hero).  This evened out our road trip excitements and we made it to our rooms satisfied and ready to begin our Liepaja adventures the next morning. 

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Visit to Liepaja’s Harbor and WWII Emigration Site

It was windy and blustery on Saturday morning with occasional spells of rain, but basically it was a good day for touring. According to locals, this is typical Baltic Sea influenced maritime weather.  The day started with a short trip to the industrial canal which is really the old harbor of Liepaja. Also known as Libau, the city was founded in 1625 and until 1914 one of the main ports of the Russian empire.  Until 10 years ago it was inaccessible to the public because this was where the former Soviet military operations were located.  Russian nuclear weapons here were pointed toward the Nike missiles in North Dakota which in turn were pointing toward Liepaja.  With the Soviets gone, the Cold War over and the travel restrictions removed, today Liepaja has refurbished its waterfront area and has created a wonderful public promenade.  Evidence is everywhere that  the city is trying to revitalize its haror and is doing so with considerable vision.  Along with the revitalized waterfront, modern bike trails are visible the city seems to have a “green” orientation toward public spaces. This was refreshing to see.

For me the most startling thing was that I immediately recognized the city's docks and warehouses from old family photos. This is the place where in 1944 my mom and her sister Irene and Irene’s little girl Ieva joined the mass exodus from Latvia as the frontlines of the Soviet army engaged with the German army in the province of Zemgale.   For our family this is particularly significance, as the clash occurred at the village of Dzukste in the vicinity of my mom’s farmstead.  The village church still stands bombed out from those horrible days in 1944.

My impression from some accounts had been that the embarkation to the ships took place outside of the central city in the area of giant military fortifications built in the 1880s during the period of Tsarist rule in Latvia.  Yet when I saw the docks along the old industrial canal, adjacent to the downtown section of Liepaja, I intuitively knew that this is where my mom’s and aunt’s 1944 emigration had happened.  So this is where Helga, Irene and my cousin Ieva had boarded the ship for Germany to escape the bombing – not to return for over 50 years.  I immediately recalled photo images of ships docked along the canal’s edge.  The distinctive port of Liepaja and the waterfront area had been apparently deeply embedded within me since I heard those stories during my childhood days. 

But I had to verify my impressions – did I really get this right?  Later that day, my intuition about the site of the WWII emigration was confirmed.  Vid and I met up with Gunars Silakatins who had been referred to us by our good friends in Riga.  Silakaktins  was the former “inspector” of local historical monuments for the government.  We soon realized that he is the equivalent of a state historic preservation officer back in the US.  Silakaktins turned out to be an extraordinary local historian but now works as local tour guide and offers custom tours of the historical city.  He had been laid off last year from his “SHPO” job by the government due to the nation’s financial crisis.  He ended up taking early retirement.  What a terrible loss of talent and specialized expertise for the country and the city.

During our conversations he confirmed that indeed I was correct about the point of embarkation.  He pointed out that there were other locations along the coastline where the mass evacuation of civilians took place.  But the loading of farm animals, which was a dramatic part of my mother's and aunt's experience, would have had to take place at the industrial canal docks. This is where the appropriate hoists were in place for loading supplies and animals.  My mom and her sister lost one of their two horses on the docks when it fell accidentally from a ship's hoist when the rigging failed for some reason during the lift.  The poor beast fell to its death on the pier in front of the ship at the very time my mom was boarding. I can’t imagine how horrible that moment must have been for her.

As our conversation with Silakaktins continued over incredibly delicious fish soup, mixed with tomato sauce and vodka, I realized that this man had an extraordinary sensibility for "place based" interpretation.  The conversation turned to the location of the new emigration museum that I was documenting.  He suggested that we also take a look at a city owned property, the former custom house built by the Russian Czar in 1882. He felt that this building would be ideal for telling the emigration story of Liepaja over the centuries.  The former custom house, now empty, is located only meters away from where the WW2 emigration occurred.  It would also be the perfect venue for many other critical maritime stories that Silakaktins described for me over dinner.  The custom house building is available and has already been under consideration by the city as part of an effort to create a new maritime museum.  Apparently the Liepaja City Museum has an extensive maritime collection but has no room to properly display it.  The building is very large and thus would be very costly to rehabilitate as a modern museum but is certainly deserves consideration.  Partnerships with a number of other institutions would be necessary to make the project a reality and given the dismal economy the chances of finding financial support would be a huge challenge.   I was impressed with the place based connection that Silakaktins sees for the custom house site.  Along with the wonderful promenade that the city is restoring at the waterfront, this indeed would be an ideal site for telling a whole host of stories about the historical and extraordinary events that have taken place in this wonderful harbor – including, of course, the story of the WWII emigration of Latvians.  Silakaktins, is recognized by many as a leading scholar on Liepaja history; he us a natural interpreter and I hope that the board and staff of Latvians Abroad will confer with him about telling Liepaja’s maritime stories.  The opportunities in Liepaja could create a world class tourism destination if done right.

A Trip to the Theater

We also toured the Liepaja Theater with Silakaktins and were able to see the public areas along with the back stage areas where my father worked in the late 30s and early 40s.  We were able to shoot great contextual photos to use as part of the video we are creating about my father’s story.  I loved viewing the orchestra pit, the old gear box machinery below the stage as well as the old stage technology for lifting drops, etc.  Silakaktins also took us to the Liepaja decorative arts school where my father studied. It was like witnessing his early professional life history in a whirlwind.  Pictures were taken and video film was shot like it was going out of style.

Later around 11:30 PM I picked up Andris Vilks at the bus station.  On Sunday he was going to take us on a tour of the coastal hinterlands of southern Kurzeme province in search of traditional vernacular architecture that my father loved so much.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Excursion to Lejas Kurzeme (southern Kurzeme)

Our trip to southern Kurzeme was quite astonishing.  We discovered that the wood architecture that my father cherished so much is basically gone.  In the village of Rucava about 10 kilometers north of the Lithuanian border I found an 18th century house that was built in the style depicted in my dad’s painting but was in bad shape.  On the positive side, it was intact and through the windows I could see traditional textiles and furniture.  It appears that the house is in private hands and someone cares, but has no money to do anything about restoring it.  There was one more hope and I knew that Andris Vilks had something up his sleeve as he urged us to move on to the a remote village in the area of Papes dabas parks (Papes Nature Park). This nature preserve is gorgeous and has great salt marshes and access to the Baltic Sea.  The great surprise for me was that support for the park had been provided by the World Wildlife Fund.  The Fund’s familiar panda logo was painted on the side of a modern new education building that had been erected along with an interpretive kiosk both in Latvian and English.  But it did not seem to be open for visitors.  Also, a very nice bird watching station has been built in the salt marsh as this coastal area is well known for its rich variety of shore birds.  The idea behind the WWF investment in the park was to create demonstration project that would encourage local volunteer support for the nature park and to encourage local participation.  Unfortunately, this does not seem to be the case right now as the economy has people worrying about meeting their day to day needs.

We did run into a period house within the preserve. Located not more than a 1/2 km from the sea, a very nice woman and her husband let us prowl around their farmstead to take pictures.  The house and its associated buildings was clearly at some point the kind of building complex that my father would have painted but today it was modernized and substantially changed.  It did have the characteristic reed roof which was delightful. But for my purposes this property was not going to give the traditional vernacular building references I was seeking.   The changes to the buildings in this area is a problem that Andris Vilks mentioned. The problem today in southern Kurzeme is that nearby Lithuanians are buying property along the Latvian coastline due to the very limited coastline available in their own country.  They renovate the old Latvian houses but paint them yellow in keeping with Lithuanian traditional colors.  The dilemma is that the yellow color is not consistent with the Latvian traditional palette; Latvians have traditionally used natural wood coloration schene. So the best of neighbors are transforming the traditional landscape.  This phenomenon was surprising and a curious challenge for Baltic relations.

Finally, Vilks took us to one final property that he wanted to show us. To my great relief we found a genuine farmstead that is now preserved by the Latvian Open Air Museum based in Riga.  It is managed as a national landmark and is called the Vitolini (willow) farmstead.  It was the real McCoy and just may be the very last such farmstead in existence at its original in situ location.  Other farmsteads have been moved to the Open Air Museum.  It was hard to imagine that the cultural landscape that my dad cherished and painted so extensively is now basically gone.  Thank God for the preservationists on this score.  My goal of finding an authentic Latvian “seta” or farmstead representing the Dajevskis idealized landscape vision does exist on its own anymore it seems.  We documented the historic site extensively and spoke to the site manager. 

To top it all off, the day was very windy and the Baltic Sea was roaring.  Vid braved the heavy gusts of off-shore winds and even pellets of hail that were coming off the surf.  This was perfect material for creating a video portrait of the sea. Vid took extensive photographs of this dramatic coastline and his images and video footage should be perfect for the ancient times section of my video project.  The remoteness of this place, combined with the dynamic contrasts of sea and clouds, was so expressive and connected me with the ancient seafaring peoples of Kurland.  Now I really understood the source of my father’s inspiration for the clouds and seascapes in his paintings.

A search for my father’s artistic roots

September 12, 2010


A biographical film about a visual artist that has had a truly lasting effect on me is MY ARCHITECT [http://www.myarchitectfilm.com/]. This film about the great American architect Louis Kahn is a highly personal journey produced by his son, Nathaniel Kahn, to discover his dad who he did not ever get to know. The tone and approach of the film is wonderfully done and something that I would like to try to emulate, at least philosophically, for my own biographical project about my father. The DVD project is called Evalds Dajevskis: A Scenographer’s Life in Three Acts. Ironically, in my case, the story is about a father that a son knew very well.

I know the last act of my story the best. Act 3 is about my dad’s life in the United States after he immigrated in 1951 to New York along with my mother, the Latvian actress Helga Gobzine. I arrived with them on a U.S. Navy troop carrier, the General Blatchford. I was born in a British military hospital and was two and a half years old when I first set foot on the west side of Manhatten near 42nd Street. Over the last half of the 20th century I was witness to my father’s life as a scenographer, painter and a scenic artist working for studios that produced sets for the Broadway stage and Lincoln Center. This was a world I knew quite well because I often shuttled my father to work and back and met up with his colleagues or encountered some of the celebrities that would come to the major New York scenery studios. I also assisted him with many of the Latvian ethnic theater production that he designed during that era.

But Act 2 is less clear. From family stories I have gleaned a pretty good sense of what life in the immigrant camps of post-war Germany was like, especially from accounts of the “USO type” traveling theater that operated out of the town of Meerbeck, one of the places where the British Army of the Rhine placed post-war Baltic refugees that were stranded in the northern reaches of Germany. I was quite familiar with the Renault diesel Red Cross truck that had been obtained from the British military authorities to enable the Latvian Traveling Theater to visit DP camps all over northern Germany. My father redesigned it to create space for transporting the actors including traveling sets and props. The truck was christened the Dreadnaught after the powerful class of British naval ships of World War I during the early 20th century. These powerful vessels with their huge advances in naval technology eventually caused Germany to surrender. The Latvian Theater’s version of the Dreadnought visited DP camps scattered throughout northern Germany for a period of about 5 years. For refugees, this unlikely heavy truck loaded with theater supplies and professional actors became a symbol of strength, victory and spiritual recovery for many after the losses experienced during WWII. This story is the subject matter of Act 2.

I was spurred to capture the details of this story after my father’s picture suddenly appeared in the New York Times on August 7, 2007 as part of a story about the International Tracing Service (ITS) which had just opened its doors to the public to allow families archival access to refugee documents. I traveled to Bad-Arolsen, Germany with my daughter Erika to look at the incredible WWII refugee archives that covered acres of ground. Remarkably, my father’s art was a part of that archive. Along with the archives, we visited the places where my father and mother lived and where Evalds Dajevskis painted his post war landscapes and produced numerous set designs for theater and opera between 1945 and 1951. We traveled to the former camps and ventured along some of the same highways that the Meerbeck Theater Company’s Dreadnought traveled. We thought about the significance of the mission of that courageous group back in the 40’s.

Tomorrow I am returning to Latvia to capture insights about parts of the story that I know the least. This trip will be about discovering the ancient land that Act 1 will be grounded in. I will be visiting the city of Liepaja which my father considered his home town, although he was not born there. Yet he felt a close allegiance to that old maritime city, its harbor and the nearby Baltic Sea. It was at Liepaja’s School of Decorative Arts that he received his formal training as a scenographer. Later, he advanced his professional career and gained attention among audiences when he worked at the Liepaja Opera, Drama and Ballet Theater. That ended in 1945 when he was conscripted against his will by the German army to dig trenches and pick potatoes in the Pomeranian region of eastern Germany.

From Liepaja, I will be traveling into the hinterlands south of Liepaja toward Lithuania and along the coastline of the Baltic Sea to discover the landscapes and traditional architecture that influenced his art so profoundly. My guide will be my good friend Andris Vilks who is the director of the National Library of Latvia. He knows the folkways and architectural heritage of this section of Latvia so very well. Accompanying me will be Vid Mednis who will photograph this journey.