Sculptural Ambassadors

‘Miles of Mules’ celebrates the historic and artistic wealth of Bucks County, Pa.

By: Amy Brummer

"image"


Staff photo by Frank Wojciechowski

Artist


Geraldine Knock-Paul with "Earl," part of the Miles of Mules sculpture
project.


      Back in the days when mules ruled, canal boats
would announce their arrival at locks with a blast from a conch shell.
   As Geraldine Knock-Paul tells it, when her grandfather, Earl,
and his brothers were schoolchildren in Washington Crossing, Pa., they fooled
the locktender by blowing their own shell, making it an old-fashioned game of
ring and run.
   Her cousin still has that shell, and the memories of Earl Adams
and his stories of growing up on the Delaware Canal still reverberate through
Ms. Knock-Paul’s life. The Dublin resident recently commemorated her grandfather
by naming her mule after him. Not some stubborn old mule that kicks and haws,
but a festive, fiberglass sculpture decked out with Pennsylvania German motifs
that reflect her family’s heritage.
   Ms. Knock-Paul’s mule is one member in a herd that is being
trotted out along the Delaware and Lehigh canal corridor this summer as a fund-raising
project for the Delaware & Lehigh National Heritage Corridor and State Heritage
Park. In partnering with the Michener Museum in Doylestown, the Banana Factory
in Bethlehem and the Cultural Council of Luzerne County, the agency has been successful
in raising funds for its mission of preserving open space, as well as local heritage
and the restoration of historic places.
   Based on a model from Zurich, Switzerland, that outfitted the
Alpine city with cows, the Miles of Mules project has brought artists,
businesses, cultural institutions, non-profits and schools together to contribute
to the arts, the environment and the community. The life-size, fiberglass mules
have distinct personalities, each ready to tell its own tale about artist and
sponsor.
   Ms. Knock-Paul wanted her mule, "Earl," to embody the memories
of her late grandfather and reflect her own style as an artist. Sponge painted
in dark blue and yellow ochre, it is appointed with winged angels, tulips and
hearts that draw on 18th- and 19th-century Pennsylvania German motifs gleaned
from the birth and baptismal certificates known as Fraktur.
   She was delighted to learn the business that chose to sponsor
her was Kelchner’s Horseradish on Route 313 in Dublin, a company that fit perfectly
with memories of eating apple butter or her grandfather frying up scrapple on
a Sunday morning.
   "’Earl’ has been so complete all the way around," says Ms. Knock-Paul,
"with the reference to my grandfather and the early Pennsylvania German work to
the sponsor. We’ve had Kelchner’s on our table for years — that is the only
horseradish."
   While "Earl" stands sentinel in front of the horseradish company
this summer, other mules will find their ways to downtown streets and canal trails.
In front of the Michener Museum in Doylestown, Joseph Dougherty’s "Inside Out
Mule" takes a distinctly different perspective, one that allows viewers to look
through the mule. The Pennington sculptor decided that instead of embellishing
the surface, he would use his strengths as a sculptor to reinterpret the form.
   He cut away areas of the torso and hindquarters and affixed
a rail to the exterior of the spine that accentuates the profile and gives the
work a contemporary, machine-like quality.
   "When I opened him up and saw all of the seams inside I wondered
if I should grind them down and make them smooth," says Mr. Dougherty, who has
always been fascinated by how things are built. "I thought, ‘No, I’ll leave that
there,’ because that is nice for children to look inside and see how he was made
and how he was pieced together. I thought that was pretty cool."
   Painted a flat, matte black on the inside, it has a smooth,
shiny, deep red that fades to black on the exterior. With the tough, glossy finish
of a brand new car or truck, "Inside Out Mule" is a modern reflection of the industrious
beast.
   The mule’s domain is mapped out in James Feehan’s "Illustrated
Canal Mule" that will sit in front of the Locktender’s House in New Hope. Sponsored
by Friends of the Delaware Canal, this mule is covered in a patchwork of people
and places that reflect a loose, collective history interpreted as an imagined
ideal.
   Mr. Feehan has derived these images from years of looking at
historical photographs, allowing them to creep into his subconscious and inform
his compositions.
   "I wanted to represent it as being a kind of a bird’s-eye view
of those times," Mr. Feehan says. "I wanted to fantasize the portrayal so it wouldn’t
have any specific references, per se. I was aiming for an overall impression of
the evocative lifestyle and pleasures of the canal and the people who lived around
the canal."
   On the New Jersey side of the river in Lambertville, Chalfont
resident Yvonne Love’s "Memory Mule" springs from a more personal inspiration,
although her intention is to let others grow from their own interaction with the
piece. It will be located in front of her sponsor, the In Rare Form Gallery on
Bridge Street in Lambertville.
   Her warm, peachy-yellow mule, studded with clear resin nubs,
is a reflection of her feelings and memories of her sister, who died of leukemia
when she was a child. Embedded in the resin are hairs, eggshells, needles and
pins, symbolic elements that signify strength, fragility, loss, and the ability
or inability to mend things. She does not expect or intend for others to take
away this same interpretation or meaning, but instead hopes viewers will make
connections to their personal narrative.
   As a sculptor who often does site-specific work or installations,
Ms. Love relishes the opportunity to take on a project that will contribute to
people’s daily lives.
   "It was the idea that it was a community project," Ms. Love
says, "that it would be seen out in the community and it would be another way
to make a connection to the community that appealed to me. Most of the time my
work is only seen by a small group of people. I liked the idea that it would be
seen by other people, not just people from the art world, and so it was sort of
a challenge to make a bridge between what I normally do and what people will take
away from it."
   As an arts educator, Ms. Love also believes the project is a
great way to raise awareness about the arts and is a great vehicle for learning.
The project has already been successful in that vein, with several school groups
participating in mule decoration.
   At Quarry Hill Elementary School in Yardley, students from the
third, fourth and fifth grades contributed to the creation of "Quacker Jack,"
sponsored by the Yardley Business Association. The mule, whose location in Yardley
Borough has not yet been announced, celebrates the ducks of Lake Afton and was
realized through the collective efforts of the young artists.
   According to Ruth Ann Schultz, art coordinator for the Pennsbury
School District, the students worked on the mule, a few at a time, during regular
art classes. Some painted the background, while others traced the birds and painted
on the beaks and feathers.
   "One of my goals," says Ms. Schultz, "was for each of them to
have a little part in the creation of the mule, and that little part was important
to the completion of the whole mule. I think that once they see it installed,
they will have a real ownership of being involved in a professional art project
and participating in something that will be viewed by the public."
   Another mule associated with a school project is the "RU Ready:
Expedition Leader," sponsored by the Russell Byers Charter School in Philadelphia.
Artist Diane Keller has been working with the school that is based on the expeditionary
teaching principles of Outward Bound, a program that promotes learning through
experience. The Philadelphia artist had been involved with the school’s mural
tile project and carried elements of that design over to the mule, slated to stand
in front of the visitors center in Washington Crossing State Park.
   Based on the idea of a computer circuit board as a map, which
the students use to explore and track down information, it is morphed with a layout
of the canal area across the saddle. The rest of the mule is done in a trompe
l’oeil style, giving it the appearance of a carousel creature.
   Other creative takes on design come from Judy Pearsall, whose
mule, "Newspapier ‘Mule’che," will be exhibited in front of her sponsor at Intercounty
Newspapers in Newtown, and Rosemary Tottoroto, whose "Mule Tales," will stand
in a location in Bristol.
   Both artists have used historical sources and text to communicate
stories and facts about life on the canal. Ms. Pearsall gleaned her information
from newspaper accounts of the area, transferred the text to fabric, and is using
a papier-maché technique to outfit her mule, which is a work in progress.
   Ms. Tottoroto, a Newtown resident, dove into the archives of
the Canal Museum in Easton to find her stories. She transferred the text onto
her mule with custom-made rubber stamps that recall 19th-century font styles.
She intended to create something that was interactive and could communicate the
facts and lore of mule-drawn barges. During research, she found immensely compelling
stories, revealing tidbits of the people who walked these paths many decades ago.
   "The one that struck me the most was about a woman who, when
she was about 6 or 7, was a mule driver," Ms. Tottoroto says. "She said that when
she got tired, she would climb up on the mule and fall asleep."
   With no expectations of the hard labor the mules put in during
the canal’s industrious history, unlocking the imagination and provoking curiosity
are the biggest burdens these beasts will have this summer.
   More than 60 mules will be roaming the Delaware Valley corridor
as ambassadors of community spirit and a celebration of the historic and artistic
wealth of the region. In the fall, the mules will be auctioned to raise further
funds and give people the opportunity to keep some of this canal-side heritage
running free in their own backyards.
Miles of Mules will be on exhibit throughout the summer in various locations.
For information, call the Michener Museum at (215) 340-9800. On the Web: www.milesofmules.org