Isle of View in winter.
Isle of View in spring.
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Artful passage
Friends of the Fine Arts Center benefit to honor and restore a campus landmark.
It’s just an itty-bitty island, with a handful of trees, at the feet of the monolithic Fine Arts Center. Joined to the mainland by two bridges, near the south end of the campus pond, it’s more of a way station than destination. On weekdays, when the world’s not iced over, a steady stream of students make their way across, going back and forth between classrooms and residence halls. On weekends, families come with children to see the ducks.
The little island has a name, “Isle of View,” and a history. In 1981 the artist George Trakas designed the bridges, shaped and groomed the island, and added a terrace by the water’s edge. Over the years, he has revisited and worked on Isle—he has a studio in Amherst—to the extent of sanding the walkway in winter. But popularity and New England weather have taken their toll. The tramp of feet has damaged the trees’ roots. The wooden bulkhead on one side of the island has rotted. Save Outdoor Sculpture (SOS), a joint project of American Heritage Preservation and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, has listed Isle among important artworks needing repair.
Now the Friends of the Fine Arts Center are coming to Isle’s assistance, pledging the proceeds from their seventeenth annual gala benefit and auction toward the artwork’s restoration. On February 4, The Fine Arts Center’s Gala
Puttin’ on the Ritz: A Salute to Hollywood,will honor Trakas as its Artist of the Year. Guests will stroll “Hollywood Boulevard,” complete with red carpet, fans, and paparazzi, as they make their way through the lower concourse of the Campus Center on their way to the ballroom.
A more meditative experience awaits visitors to Isle of View. Taken not as a shortcut but as a work of art, the metaphors come to the fore: island/isolation, bridge/connection. The western bridge is a remarkable single plank of Chester Blue granite, 32 feet long and 32 inches wide, from a local quarry. The other, 40-foot bridge of five steel platforms stepping up from the island to the eastern side, is also just wide enough for one person—or two if, as Trakas puts it, “they do a do-si-do.” Like the artfully arranged stepping stones of a Japanese garden, Isle’s design influences your pace—slows you down a bit. Being just a few feet from “shore” is enough to put you at a small remove. For a moment, you step out of the hubbub of the campus and into nature.
“I wanted to create a journey, a mythic trip, a natural lifeline from one half of the campus to the other,” he says about how Isle came to be. “In contrast to all of the right angles, this path would be an undulating line connecting two halves of campus. The island itself becomes a podium, a sanctuary, a place of momentary exile, even. From the time we put in the temporary bridge, students were crossing over to the island.”
Isle is an emblematic Trakas work. Such notable museums as the Guggenheim, The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and The San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art have exhibited his art, but its scope extends far beyond four walls. Trakas’s environmental installations lead people to water and let them drink in its beauty, liveliness, history, and wildness. In “Sword Bridge” in Thiers, France, “Curach and Bollard,” in lower Manhattan, and “Shoreline Nature Walkway” in Brooklyn, Trakas has brought waterways within reach. A work in progress, the 14-acre “Beacon Point Project” is transforming a former abandoned industrial site near the prestigious Dia: Beacon Museum into an artwork/park, with a boardwalk, terraces, stairs, and ramps that let people get close again to the Hudson.
“Isle is a focal point, a major work by a major, internationally acclaimed artist, at the heart of the campus, “says University Gallery director Loretta Yarlow, who initiated the restoration effort. “It’s art, it’s functional and environmental—it really covers so much ground.”
“After restoration, we envision it being used for poetry readings, music and dance performances,” she continues. “We want to incorporate the site into public, self-guided tours of the campus’s ‘museum without walls,’ the art and sculptures around the campus, and to see it integrated into the art history curriculum. Even the restoration itself will be a transparent activity, one that allows students and everyone on campus to witness and learn about the process.”
In previous years, the Friends of the Fine Arts Center galas have raised thousands of dollars for various arts-related programs. To benefit the restoration,Trakas is donating a limited edition of a drypoint print, as well as a larger work. UMass Amherst Chief Photographer Ben Barnhart’s image of Isle is also being sold in a limited edition for the cause. Yarlow says that they are pursuing additional sources of funding to reach their goal of $160,000, a portion of which will be set aside for Isle’s future maintenance.
more: Friends of Fine Arts Center Gala