Bruce’s Hands
ALFRED STATION: The leaves are gold and red among pumpkins turning
orange but inside some hearts the world is blue. As Allegany Artisans dust off
their signs and clean their studios, many will pause to think of two long time
members, Charley Orlando and Bruce Green, who will not be adding their warmth
and welcome to the 27th Annual Studio Tour on October 18 & 19.
Much
has been written about both of these generous men. Both were treasured in their
families. Both were teachers whose voices wove permanently into the lives of
hundreds of students. Both created objects now found comfortably within
thousands of homes across the country, working into family traditions as well
as everyday life. Both helped to build their communities with a generosity that
is less and less common.
Susan
Greene spent some time with me in the home that she and Bruce filled with
memories and history as she described to me the hero of her life, her husband,
Bruce Greene.
Bruce
Robert Green was born in 1939 and worked pretty much ceaselessly until
September this year.
During 40 of those years his were the hands that created
Hillbottom Pottery in Alfred Station.
For 24
years he guided Alfred Almond’s high school students as they gained critical
thinking proficiency, planning skills, social behaviors, self expression
methods and the myriad lessons of math and science needed to employ various
mediums of art in their coursework.
Susan
said that she and Bruce were in concert in their beliefs and attitudes. Both
felt that much of the work they did was an act of worship. Bruce valued creating
things with his hands and worked with gratitude and respect. This generous, gentle man and his wife found
objects created by long-gone hands and brought them into their home to honor
the lines, the designs, the craftsmanship, the color, the utility and the labor
of their involved.
“These
look like things but they’re not. These are memories. They represent a place we
saw or they stand for a conversation Bruce and I shared.” Susan said while
showing the collection that she and Bruce gathered over decades.
How
does she most remember Bruce? As many
others, Susan remembers her husband as a teacher. Teaching was important to
him. Students were important people and they knew it. It’s why so many came to
celebrate his life at the memorial service at the Alfred Station Seventh Day
Baptist Church. It’s why several of them created a “Teacher Quilt” to warm him
in his last days at the Hart Comfort House.
It’s
why his voice still guides them in their lives and careers. Though their
careers are not art-centered, they are always Mr. Greene-assisted. One past
student became a ceramic engineer who feels that Mr. Greene put art into his
personal and high tech life. Another said that art is communication and so is
useful in all fields.
Bruce
and Susan both saw making art as a vulnerable act. She worked with elementary
students giving them background information and confidence to move toward creative
works. When they met Bruce in junior and senior high school, they felt secure
in making creative leaps. Art was part of life for students of all grade levels
at Alfred Almond Central.
As a
teacher, he was a gentle man but he had expectations and presented structure
with lots of room for exploration. His interactions with students gave them
room to find happiness and made them aware of their environment.
As a
potter he was pragmatic. He spoke, at times,of his love/hate thing with clay.
He’d get tired of a design or a process but he always pressed forward because
of the pride he knew with the making of attractive, appealing, appreciated
objects.
He felt
that he was given the role to bring beautiful, satisfying things into people’s
lives. He didn’t want a lot of “ballyhoo” about it but he enjoyed that sense
that so many potters have of being written into someone’s life by virtue of the
favorite mug or the morning cereal bowl.
In this
way, Bruce Greene continues in many lives. A mug handle connects him with a
person, a place, a time and his memory is honored by this.
Bruce
felt that there is good and God in handmade things. Artisans know that there is
beauty in a piece of wood, a silver wire, a ball of clay or an old can and as
they pass that material through their hands they bring out this beauty. This creative
act, the Greenes know, connects with the idea of creative people having been
themselves created.
During
his last months, Bruce’s brain was under assault and his body suffered from it
but he pushed himself to do things so that there would be greater room in
Susan’s life to finish the book she published in January. She didn’t know how
hard the struggle was for him until the spring because he didn’t complain. He
just helped. This she sees as heroic and typical. He was always ready to help
anyone.
His
studio still holds his clay tools and some of his last pots. The Allegany
Artisans have agreed to an exception in their policy to allow Susan Green to
sell this pottery during the hours of the 2014 Studio Tour on October 18 &
19, from 10 am to 5 pm.
There
will be 39 other studios open and hosted by 46 members of the Allegany Artisans
ready to show what their hands have created. You may want to establish a
connection in your life with something handmade and humbly presented.
Call
the Allegany County Office of Tourism at 1-800-836-1869 or write to AlleganyArtisans@gmail.com to
request a brochure listing all participants.
Wearable
Prints, 1760-1860, History, Materials, and Mechanics was published by
Susan W. Greene in January, 2014. It is
available on Amazon.
When I suffered a hip injury years ago, Bruce
Green taught me to throw standing up. Bruce stacked things on the floor to stand on and made measurements and sketches. Thus armed, Rick Hardman
did a bit of welding and carpentry to change a foot operated wheel into a hand
operated model. The modified machine has what Bruce called a “belly bar”. His
invention makes it possible to lean into the clay with steady pressure easing the stress on back and hip.
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