Like the mythical bird fabled to live 500 years, then burying itself on a funeral pyre to rise from its ashes, Friends of PHOENIX aims to give a new, renovated and healthy life cycle to this third millennium
By:Ilene Dube
The story goes that, several years ago, 50 to 75 people would show up at the Princeton Avenue home of artist Michel Mockers, bearing delectable dishes, and stay until two in the morning. Many were artists and writers, and they would talk about art, philosophy and social change.
Then, Mr. Mockers, a native of France, decided these affairs had become too social and discontinued them (although he still says, upon meeting people, “Ring my doorbell whenever you like.“).
These were the humble beginnings of Friends of PHOENIX, a non-profit organization formed several months ago in Princeton. “It is an organization that does nothing,” says founder Michel Mockers. “It has no membership and no leadership.”
On Sunday, this leaderless, memberless organization will hold a concert and art sale at the Suzanne Patterson Center in Princeton to let others know about Phoenix and its philosophy.
“We don’t want any organization or administration,” continues Mr. Mockers. “It seems Utopian, but it’s not Utopian. I don’t want to be the leader; I want it to lead itself. It seems nebulous, but it is not. Finally, it is very political — but we do not want to create another political party,” he clarifies.
“Marx never became the leader of a political party, just his ideas did.” With a French accent that charms his listeners, Mr. Mockers adds that he is not a Marxist, but a capitalist who can’t stand the excesses of capitalism.
At 78, the Frenchman is full of energy. He runs up and down the stairs with gusto to answer his three phone lines, which seem to ring constantly. Living alone with his paintings, computer and a 19th century lithographic press — his wife has spent the past two years in France caring for her mother — he loves to create rich tarts and cream sauces in his kitchen. One recent morning, he was expecting lunch guests — a group of people from a church in Hillsborough who had bought one of his paintings — and had begun preparations at 6 a.m., this after being up until 2 a.m. publishing his bimonthly magazine, PHOENIX.
He had made a reduction of shallots, white wine and butter, which he planned to serve over tilapia alongside asparagus and carrot fries, and a lemon tart for dessert. Mr. Mockers is also the author of a cookbook, “Yankee at the Court of the Duke of Burgundy.”
“It is a cookbook but is not a cookbook,” he says. “It is a book of stories — half history, half literature — with recipes, published under my mother’s maiden name, Elizabeth Piprot.” The 33 chapters will be published as articles in upcoming editions of PHOENIX magazine.
Mr. Mockers, a self-professed Renaissance man — artist, philosopher, journalist, historian, writer, teacher, sculptor, cook, master printer, freedom fighter — becomes very animated when asked for the lemon tart recipe, writing it down from memory.
“I have a terrible memory,” says Mr. Mockers. He can remember what book a particular passage comes from, but not where the book is. He says one of his daughters has the same funny kind of memory. He cannot remember what year he did something in his illustrious career, but he can remember minute details which he describes in the war stories he loves to tell.
Born in 1922 in Nantes, he attended college in St. Nazaire, then served in the French army and later the British army to help the French underground. During that time, he was curator of drawings transferred from the Louvre for safekeeping in the castle of Valencay, Indre. He was later director of a weekly war-time weekly newspaper, and in 1947 published a history of the French underground.
“I hated the war,” he said. Mr. Mockers always knew he wanted to be an artist.
“I know what it’s like to starve,” said the raconteur, telling about his first Christmas after the war. He and three friends were given a bag of noodles. “We had no butter, no salt, and no gas to cook them with.” So the friends cooked the noodles in the fireplace, using a telephone directory and three kitchen chairs in the absence of firewood. He laughs in the telling of it, and his amusement is infectious.
Mr. Mockers went to Paris to pursue his artistic dreams. He worked in a factory in a suburb from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m., then returned to Paris where he painted from live models for three or four hours.
He and his friends would go to listen to jazz on the cheap in St. Germain des Pres. “It was just like in ‘La Boheme,’” said Mr. Mockers, who later assisted his father directing operas and operettas at the Theatre of the Casino Municipal in Cannes. “I know what it’s like to go three days without eating.”
His big break came in 1968, when National French Television produced a TV movie on his paintings. Shortly after that, he started receiving big commissions from churches, was invited to have a one-man show in Rockefeller Center, and moved to the United States with his family.
“No other century saw more war, genocide, famine, murder, rape and ecological destruction than the 20th century,” Mr. Mockers writes in his “Phoenix Manifesto.”
“Repeating history instead of learning from it, our civilization is destroying itself like all previous civilizations did and for the same reasons … Art is the only human story that can be told practically without interruption since its very first manifestations. Art survived the disappearance of civilizations because, from one civilization to the next, it uses the same method of creation that was already practiced by the cave people some 35,000 years ago.”
To that end, Mr. Mockers has established Friends of Phoenix.
Sunday’s concert, conceived and directed by John Burkhalter, Marvin Rosen and Sylvie Webb, will feature music from the Baroque to the contemporary.
Mr. Burkhalter studied the performance of early music at the New England Conservatory of Music with Daniel Pinkham, and Baroque performance at Harvard University with recorder virtuoso Frans Brueggen. He has prepared music for films produced by the Public Broadcasting System and the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Mr. Burkhalter has also served as a musical consultant for the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C., and is known for his expertise in the field of pre-Columbian music and other very early cultures. Mr. Rosen earned a doctorate degree in music education from Teachers’ College, Columbia University. He has given many recitals, lectures and radio performances, nationally and internationally. He has recorded two CDs of Alan Hovhaness’ piano music for Koch International Classics, and hosts a weekly radio program on WPRB (103.3 FM). He is currently on the staffs of the Westminster Conservatory and the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia. Ms. Webb, a French pianist, is on the faculty of Westminster Conservatory and runs a private teaching studio while performing in the tri-state area as a soloist and chamber musician. She was a first prize winner of the 1966 Hauts-de-Seine Piano Competition and holds a Prix d’Excellence and a Gold Medal from the National Conservatory of St. Germain-en-Laye in France.
There will also be a sale of artwork by Friends of Phoenix.
Tickets are $15 per person, with family prices available. The concert will be followed by a reception for the artists and the audience. For more information or to purchase tickets, call The Friends of Phoenix at (800) 435-1502 or e-mail: [email protected].
Related story: From the mind of Michel Mockers