On my watch: Au Revoir to Donald Landsman, His Red Men, Art, and Humor
By Anne W. Semmes
Ever since I came upon my “dancing” stick on a walk in my neighborhood I have had the artist/craftsman Donald Landsman in mind, because I see that dancing stick standing in a wooden basket of collected pieces of nature. I sent Donald a photo of that dancing stick a few years ago and his response was, “I keep telling them to stay on my workbench, but they keep wandering off before they are finished.” Donald became a master of making art with sticks. Those Red Men sticks he created were his masterworks. So, it was a shock when an obit appeared online in FaceBook, and I saw he had died back on June 10 when I was visiting family in Barcelona.
Donald died at age 92. His obit mentions how he had started his art career taking welding classes from a blacksmith-artist in the 1970’s at the Greenwich Art Barn. Privileged to have visited Donald, having written about him before, I have seen his andirons, his many metal table lamps, his dog sculptures – he loved dogs. He was a bicyclist and could make art out of bicycle wheels. There is a fine two-minute video taken of him in his workshop, filmed when he was 80, that profiles that welding artist: https://vimeo.com/65764346. And surely many have seen his giant blue-wire bunny overlooking Butternut Hollow Road.
But, the obit also reads, “Later in his career, he turned to wood, often using windfall and other found objects.” It was those sticks he found that he pieced together into endless poses, then painted with red paint that began those memorable Red Men years. It is written of his creative process, “The sticks inform me what they want to be.” And surely painting them red made them standouts.
Those playful Red Men began to be found in odd and sundry places around town. By an entrance to the Merritt Parkway, a Red Man appeared to be waving. At one time along Lake Avenue, there were numerous Red Men climbing telephone poles. The Red Men never grew overlarge – never over four feet, with some small enough to be packed!
Yes, those Red Men, when sold, would travel. Donald would request of the buyer that his Red Men be taken on travels and photographed placed in their destinations. So, the Red Men would travel the world, to dozens and dozens of countries, in their varied poses, of dancing, kicking, doing the splits.
Donald’s creative humor would bring forth a myth of the origin of the Red Men for buyers to carry with them in their travels. The myth kicks off in Delphi, Greece, when in a forest near Mount Olympus, “At the end of one of the branches of a large tree grew a twig, quite happy, feeling the sun and rain, and enjoying each of the seasons. He delighted in his ability to bend and move in the wind. He enjoyed listening to the birds singing in the tree and hear them tell stories of the places they had been on their yearly migrations. He thought he would like to travel like that.”
A “terrible” storm snaps off the branch “on which the twig lived…In seconds he was on the ground… His power to bend and dance was gone. He was stiff, broken and separated from his mother tree. He was frightened.” More fear came being gathered as firewood. “He feared his life would end, and he would soon be ashes.” But the next morning, “He felt himself lifted from the pile and taken to a workbench…The man held him and turned him and peered into him to see what he wanted to become. With bits of wire, glue and other sticks, the man transformed him into a new shape. Instead of leaves, he was clothed with red paint. And when the paint dried, he looked at himself and saw himself reborn as the dancer he always wanted to be. The man’s friends took him on trips to faraway places just like the places the birds spoke of in the tree.”
Surely this story would make a charming book for young children!
But Donald’s humor – and his thoughtfulness wasn’t spent. Glancing through the many emails I received a few years back that brought images of new sculptures in far off places, and there was also things humorous, like that self-portrait of a frowning Van Gogh with a Covid mask half off. Another email brought the apologetic, “Due to the virus pandemic, the sculptures have been unable to travel.” But then his very last email received brought a more serious apology – for the Red Men.
It begins, “Considering the various efforts by many groups to change names so as not to offend a person or group, the name of the red sculptures known as ‘Red Men’ will be changed.” After meeting with “the direct descendants of Chief Red Cloud, Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, Geronimo and their spouses,” he writes, “it has been mutually agreed to change the name of the sculptures to La Homme Rouge or La Femme Rouge depending upon anatomy. LBGT groups were contacted but were unable to agree on a name. The sculptures will remain painted red until the maker’s red paint supply is exhausted…”
This sculptor was indeed thoughtful and caring to the end. Thank you, Donald Landsman, for your many magical gifts.
