Church: Alright we're ready to get started back.
Our first presenter after the break is Marilyn Oshman.
Marilyn's father opened Oshman's Sporting Goods in the 1930's, and she herself was closely
involved in the business but art has been her real passion.
Since the early 70's she's been involved in art and she's been one of the staunch supporters
of the Orange Show Center for Visionary Arts.
We're going to welcome Marilyn today to talk about, she's the first of three presenters
that are going to talk about the Orange Show in Houston.
Marilyn.
Oshman: Well, good morning everybody.
I do not have a note, and I am not sure what our group is going to flash on the screen
but I hope it's the Orange Show.
We, I, came today because I was the founder for the Orange Show Foundation for Visionary
Arts, and I'm really excited to say that we run two beautiful sites that are within...oh
something's wrong, Jason?
Is it too loud?
Oh...is that better?
So I was just saying that I'm very excited to say that the Orange Show Foundation for
Visionary Arts from Houston, Texas, operates two gorgeous sites that are inside the loop
of Houston, the country's 4th largest city.
They are open to the public and they are active and they have active programming that involves
our community.
When I think about all the sites that are being discussed here today, and I look back
on the long history of how all this happened, I realize that I'm really happy I live in
Houston.
We have a remarkable city that really responded to two environments which were the Orange
Show itself, which is one site on the east side of Houston, and the Beer Can House.
Two men working at approximately the same time, neither of them knew each other, each
of them worked for approximately 25 years to complete their work and we have been able
to purchase them, restore them, and get them up and operating and attracting a large part
of the community.
A lot of people have asked me how and why this happened.
We started with the Orange Show and I think that part of it is because I had an art, my
introduction to the Orange Show site and to the...hello?
the picture?
oh where...excuse me...ok, the Beer Can House.
I don't know where the rest of them are.
This is the Beer Can House.
This is John Malkovich.
Can we leave the lights on please?
This is Jeff McKissack and this is the Orange Show, a little sliver of it.
Anyway, the director of a museum that I was very involved with took me to see what he
said was the best work of art in the city of Houston.
He took me to meet Jeff McKissack and to see the Orange Show for the first time.
Jeff McKissack had been working on the Orange Show for about 20 years at the time that I
met him, so it was four- fifths finished but the first part he had started 20 years before
so it already was in what we would call, in need of attention but he was excited to complete
the last portion of it.
He did finish it.
He ultimately opened it to the public in 1978 in what he thought was a proper condition.
Unfortunately he died within six months of its opening.
When he died he, I used to go and visit him a lot, whenever, I was very involved with
the museum, so whenever visitors came to Houston, every time I would, my job was to take people
to visit Jeff McKissack and see this really unusual site in Houston.
So people were getting to know it, and that was a very important part of the reason we
were able to save it and have it, have the, the history that it's had.
Anyway after his death, he never married, he was a man who lived alone, never married,
never had any children, was very friendly, you can kind of see from the smile on his
face and more than anything he loved the Orange Show.
So every time we would take a person there it was like he was taking them through it
for the very first time.
That's part of his own love affair with the property.
It's part of what I think was his great gift in communicating that to the people who came
there.
Now I'm going to do something...ok...this is a little piece of the Orange Show, by the
way, this is a little piece of, that we'll talk about in a minute.
Anyway he left the Orange Show at his death to his only surviving relative which was a
son, a nephew, of a sister of his.
The nephew was 75 years old when he inherited the Orange Show and had no idea what it was.
I would like to show you a picture of the whole Orange Show, but I don't know where
it is.
So we'll have to see it in a few minutes.
It's not the one that I thought it was.
But anyway when the man came, his nephew, Alex Hearst, he was an ex-FBI agent.
I think the last thing he expected to inherit was a structure like the Orange Show.
It had a small museum in it, a labyrinth, a pond, a steamship, it's a typical environment
which I think, I think that Conservative Solutions, Joe and Brice will show you when it's their
turn.
Anyway, the nephew didn't know what to do with this and so he didn't know if he should
sell it, should he tear it down, should he just, you know, sell the property?
But anyway, he was going through his uncle's things and on the top of his uncle's desk
there was a note and it said, "Dear Alex, if you don't know what to do with the Orange
Show call Marilyn Rebuctkin" (that was my name then) and it had my phone number.
He had been dead at this point for three or four months, and this man called me and he
said, "My uncle said that you could tell me what to do with the Orange Show.
" I had no idea what he should do with it, but I loved the Orange Show and so I went
to meet with him and after a year of, that was difficult, trying to figure out, I think
he thought that he could make a lot of money by turning it into a food stand.
I heard somebody refer to that a little while ago from another structure.
But anyway he finally decided that he would give it, he would sell it, to us.
So I put together a group that included two of the most powerful women in Houston who
were much older.
I took everybody I could out there to see it and to say do you think this is worth saving?
And they all said, this is fabulous, you can't let this go.
To start with, for the people (lady) who asked me how do you do this?
I think you have to you have to build a constituency who has the same passion for it and people
who are respected in your community who can help you communicate the message to a larger
group.
Anyway, we did buy it.
Twenty-six people bought it, We paid $10,000 for it and we contributed [it] all to a foundation
so that everybody, all 26 people had put in, actually $500.
When you stop to think about what the Orange Show has become and what it's given the city
of Houston, it's like a great investment.
It takes up a lot of time and energy to keep it going.
Anyway, so we opened it up, we restored it, we didn't really know what restoration meant
then.
I wish I had done this before that, and I didn't, and I didn't know about all this,
but we did the best we could.
We thought we did a great job, and we had some local architects who were really, loved
what they did.
They fixed it up and we've been operating it ever since.
The reason I wanted to speak today was to talk for a minute about the importance of,
we've won a wonderful grant from the NEA, and we are working now with SWCA Environmental
Consultants and Conservation Solutions, Jo and Price.
The questions that it has brought to mind are what I wanted to present to this group,
which [ ? ] the fine line between doing the most sophisticated products from Dow that
this gentleman spoke of (I don't know what the name of it is) and matching that with
the ethos of the place and the great marvelousness, charm, magic, that emanates from these environments
from the hand, and to somehow integrate into the engineering solution, something that will
reflect something of the artist as well as doing the most to stabilize it for the future.
A lot of these people, Jeff McKissack did not think, he did not think for one minute,
about how long is this going to last?
He only thought about what is this look like, what does it feel like, and am I going to
get finished before I die?
I guess that's what he thought, although he thought he would live forever.
As soon as it was over, he actually did pass away.
I thought I would bring out the question about the ethos, about the engineer and the artist
putting them together with this photograph.
This is inside of the museum at the Orange Show and it demonstrates the problem perfectly.
This model has her head under a deer head...can everybody...is it clear?
Okay and if you notice that left eye, if you kind of concentrate on the left eye for a
second, you'll notice that it isn't really an eye, well we've always thought it was a
ping pong ball because the real eye had fallen out of the deer.
So he didn't have the money to go buy a new deer head so he simply painted a ping pong
ball and stuck it and pasted it into the eye of the deer.
The other eye was there and then you'll also notice, it's hard to see, that he tied the
horns of the deer.
They're just tied on with a string.
Now he knew this wasn't perfect, because he knew, but he needed to get it finished.
So when you redo this, the question is, now that the skin and the hair of the deer is
shrinking up, it's been there for 30 years now, should we get a new deer head?
Is that what we're supposed to do when you stabilize these places?
Should we put in another ping pong ball?
What's the deal?
We don't really know but maybe somebody here has an answer, and that would be really great.
There's a whole lot more I can tell you, I don't know, I didn't make any notes as you
can see.
I'm talking right off the top of my head.
I don't really know what else to say except that what it takes to do this and keep it
going for thirty years, is to develop a program that involves the community.
Without the community and the neighborhood support, I don't think there's any way these
things can have a real life.
I can't, it's very good timing that we're following Watts Towers, because my first trip
when I decided I was going to make a real effort, when Mrs. [?] says as she thinks this
is good now and go do it, I knew I was going to do it.
The first thing I did was to come out to see the Watts Towers, this was in 1978 or 1979,
and I visited with a man named Seymour Rosen, who gave me a plan and said get a petition,
go to the neighbors and make the neighbors sign it.
And so we just went for three square blocks and we had a petition and we took people,
we asked them, "Do you think that the Orange Show is worth keeping?
Would you like to have it in your neighborhood?
Do you mind having it in your neighborhood?"
and everybody signed it, so that was the beginning and that developed a relationship with our
community that has lasted all these thirty years because the kids get invited to things,
whether it's art classes, we'll have a barbeque once a year for the neighbors.
Anyway, that's kind of part of how you get it done.
Then after that, we did develop something called the Art Car Parade which has become
a Houston favorite and now attracts about 250,000 to 300,000 people a year which really
comes from the energy of these sites.
Trying to explain this to people is very hard, but I'm here, and I hope that you guys will
understand it.
Anyway, I don't have anything else to say, please feel free to ask me questions.