IRVING  FISKE HAD NO NET WORTH!

Some "Celebrity" sites claim that Irving had between $100,000 and $14 MILLION when he died. 
He did not own anything. He never owned the land at Quarry Hill, which first belonged to my mother, Barbara Hall Fiske, and then to a family corporation, Lyman Hall, Inc.

 He had benefits from the government (social security, etc) and managed on almost nothing-- he had learned to do so during the Great Depression and preferred it. 

 He grew up in a very conventional, well-off  family who worked and made a lot of money. Irving did not enjoy this life and became a Boheman in the Village during the 1930s.
He wrote freelance articles and worked for the WPA, writing and editing the WPA Guide to New York City, as it is now called. 

 Irv shopped at thrift stores and wore very simple clothing. He had cloth shoes because he was a vegetarian verging on veganism.
He did observe the stock market and would sometimes invest small sums in commodities trading. This was fun for him, as his father had also been an "armchair investor," but it NEVER made him any dough.

He liked things to be simple.
He was NOT wealthy when he died.
There appears to be no way to correct these places which claim huge sums of mone for Irv. I would not be sorry if they were right-- but they aren't.

Ladybelle

                    
AGAINST PUNISHMENT

We hope to keep the very concept of punishment alien to our children. --Irving Fiske, 1950s.

This is the core-premise of Quarry Hill. 

It is to us as self-evident as it was to Thomas Jefferson that "all men are created equal." 

All children are created aware, awake, filled with enthusiasm and joy-- and so immensely open that our actions toward them can help each to fulfill and retain her or his original delight. For while it may be true, as William Blake says, that the "soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd,"

it can be attacked, stunned, disenchanted, driven underground in a person's psyche, and at the worst, it can be hidden behind impenetrable curtains of hatred, sadism or masochism, and rage. Blake again: "The child that weeps the Rod Beneath writes Revenge in realms of Death."

It does not even have to be corporal punishment, though my parents thought, and we tried to act in the awareness that it was the very worst thing one can do to a child. While verbal insults, the calling of names, and the deprivation of freedom can be horrible too, nothing matches the trauma and shock of having pain inflicted on one's small body by a much larger person. Not only the pain but the loss of control over one's own inner dignity and wholeness, the humiliation, and so many other things-- but the worst is the pain, burning into a child that they are at the mercy of an insane giant, as Irving put it.

However, even depriving a kid of freedom or ordering her or him to spend time alone in a bedroom is a horrible thing to do. It makes the room seem a place of imprisonment, not a cozy place to rest. It makes the child feel an outcast when the best thing to do is to let the child have its own inner freedom. There are other ways of handling difficult behaviors  than punishment. 

It diminishes a child’s joy and inner liberty. to demonstrate one’s power over them.  It diminishes his or her sense of self and freedom. The person who did this ought to know better, having spent time at QH when a child.

With a small child, we can offer a distraction from any activity we would prefer they not engage in. With a slightly older child, we may say "We can't do that," and explain why. We can stand our ground that it can't happen that way. But we should not punish the child.

 They will only remember that they were deprived of something, and be angry and hurt-- and often turn this anger and hurt in upon themselves.

I am holding parents and caregivers to a VERY high standard, and I believe we all must do so, hold ourselves to a high standard. And of course, I was not, as a parent, always perfect. 

But I knew it was wrong-- I never used punishment, and I always apologized for any action of mine that was harsh or unpleasant. My husband and I did not always manage to control our annoyance with one another around the children and we did yell at one another sometimes in their presence. But I did not try to tell the kids that I was right and they were wrong... I told them it was a big mistake on my part when I was not as kind as I ought to be.

Why not try it? Humanity has tried so many things, but except in small pockets, it has never tried absolute openness to kids, utter acceptance, and the refusal to tell them they are bad (they aren't,) to to punish them. What right do we have to do that anyway? Who died and made us God?

If we knew that we already come here as God, or the Life Force, or the core of all things, the Light Within, we might not be so hasty to take out our nastiness on our kids. 

Of course, we have to keep them from hurting one another, or being too unkind, or destroying things, or harming animals. But teaching them patiently why these things are not good is so much better than a blind angry attack on them in the assumption that they are WRONG in some way.

I was a very jealous sister. I hated my younger brother (I was 3 1/2 when he was born, and there had been a lot of upheaval in the family beforehand), and I tried to hurt him, told him I hated him and so on. Now, of course, I wish I hadn't. But I think my mother, my parents, could have found better ways to keep the tensions from becoming so intense between us. For one thing, neither of us knew many other kids. We were always traveling. If we had been able to each have more companions of our own age, and had not been thrown together so much, I think we would have been less involved with one another and less inclined to attack (my brother once dug a pit with sharp stakes at the bottom and leaves over the top for me to fall into). 

We can do better, and we must. Give up the traditional weaponry of parenthood, and open the gate to a more loving and peaceful life--even if at times it isn't as simple a solution as punishment, which after all ends up far less simple in the long run. 

Phoro--BRANDON KITCHEN of his twins, Castiel and Christian.

A TALE of Quarry Hill in the Elden Days

The month of melting snow. Even if the snow flies in at blizzard strength and lets us know it has not yet finished with our part of the Earth or ourselves, it is growing closer to the moment when snowdrops come up, poking out of places where the snow has slowly melted off, leaving a cave underneath which-- always amazing to me-- is filled with fragrant white flowers.

It is time for the Fish to turn the seasons towards spring and the gamboling lamb of Aries. Soon flowers will be everywhere (well, after mud season and after what one hopes will be a good sugaring season).   I am joyous in Pisces and Aries because it won't be long now before it is really spring, and the daffodils and other bulbs I planted last year will soon arise and grant a  benediction to all of us who had to or wanted to stay through the deep winter. (Even those who didn't can get in on the joy of spring.)

Wind, the voice  of Winter, whistles through the trees,  reminding  me of those days  when Quarry Hill was one of the largest communes or communities in the country-- certainly in New England.  I remember how hard winter was for many (it's not always easier now).  It is the oldest "hippie commune" in the eastern part of the country, as far as I know. Is there anyone out there with a community founded before 1946 and still going?

I remember the neediness, especially in winter,  of the mothers of young children in the "Old Days" at Quarry Hill (the 60s-80s), when we raised the children in four hour shifts, many of which were filled by new people, or people who had no children. Some new people were amazingly talented with kids.  Some whined and cried, little more than babies themselves-- these were probably not suited, at least then, to being with children; and I would usually say, "This person's not ready yet,"  or "I'm not sure this new person is into kids." (Sometimes, the desperate mother myself, because I had a daughter who never slept, I would try to force the issue and get helpers to be with my kid whether they were "right" for her or not, but I regretted it. My daughter usually ended it by saying "I  want my mommy."

But why did the mothers get angry? They were exhausted, the cabins heated by wood, and if there was no father for the child or if their Primary lover was with another, they felt overburdened quite a lot.  They  had to keep getting up and putting wood in the stove.  There's a special panic, not like anything else, exactly, in being the only person in a house heated by wood in the winter, with snow piled over the kitchen windows, and a baby, perhaps restless with a fever or cold or just not a very deep sleeper, dependent on one. 
The mother (and one or two  fathers, but there were not as many single fathers) awaited the morning... I believe the shift was 10 to 2 -- desperately watching  the old dusty clock go around while the baby whimpered.  The mother would be thinking: "God, I hope the helper is in a good head today!  I hope that my baby, little Starflower, or Joya, or Summer, Shaw, or Victor (for Bernard Shaw or Victor Hugo-- male boys were often named for literary figures or artists we admired, while girls received "nature" names much of the time) will play with S---- or J---- or M---- and let me sleep for a while!"
Then perhaps  the appointed hour would come around and no one would appear.
After waiting a long time, perhaps the mother would go out and yell to a neighbor to try to find out what happened to her helper, or might even dress and bundle her child (now perhaps not feverish, but wide awake and ready to play) up-- to find that the helper had forgotten, or was sick themselves, or had decided to go on a trip to see the Dalai Lama speak in Montreal or something of that sort. The whole message of the Dalai Lama, Compassion, would be forgotten in the excitement of going off on a jaunt to see him... or some other figure... or a band. Or perhaps the missing helper was merely still in bed with his or her lover of the moment and was not inclined to get up and help.
Perhaps the helper got up and came along to play, or perhaps the mother ran, irate and distraught, to Irving's cabin to weep and complain (and to be urged not to upset the child, to make her or him feel like a god or goddess, wanted and adored).   Most of the time the Kids List worked. 
We had drawn it from Aldous Huxley's last book, Island, in which the children were all part of a Mutual Adoption Club and, if they were not getting on with their parents-- or perhaps the parents became dangerously overstrained-- the children could go to another "parents'") home and stay with them for as long as it took for the anger in the family-- or whatever it might be-- to shift, alter, or end.
 Then the family,  at least in theory, could reunite.

A young woman named Debbie Venn  was, as I recall, the originator of the Kids' List-- the  adaptor of the Huxleyan vision for the single mothers of Quarry Hill. I wonder if she realized how much agony she was accepting when she began to collect names and match them to children and mothers who needed help. The Kids List inevitably became entangled with the love list (it really had no name that I remember), in which most women had a Primary lover, a Secondary one and perhaps a Tertiary one, which made sense, it seemed to me. That way the male parent had input to his child's upbringing. If he were not the biological father, he soon developed a deep attachment to the child of the woman he loved. (If he didn't, and was a competitive person with kids, he probably didn't stay very long. He didn't feel pampered enough.)  It also gave men the chance to interact with other children, the kids of his lovers, and it widened the horizens of us all. The kids often had fun with these young men who were just learning to care for children and were only a few years away from childhood themselves. There were also young women who came to help, and this deepened the relationship between and among the women... most of the time.

Now the children are grown. Some percentage of them have problems, as who does not? But most are rare and talented and attractive young people with vivid thought and opinion of their own. Many have fascinating professions-- stunt man, makeup artist, psychotherapist, and so on. I admire them all. Mostly,  what I appreciate is that they are close to one another and caring of one another in a way that is rare among groups of young people. It doesn't happen simply because one went to the same hght school as another person. There is a sort of magic about it. I've heard that children raised in Kibbutz situations have similar relationships. I love to see the children (now in their 20s, 30s and even 40s) come home for the All Night Dance Party ( a reunion gathering) once a year and enjoy one another's company.  I am glad to have lived in this place, this time, and to have been able to help to create the conventions of the home in which we all lived. 

See Quarry Hill's other Blog-- The Moon Seen in Water...

www.quarryhillcreativecenter.wordpress.com


for more about Quarry Hill

FREEDOM AND UNITY: THE VERMONT MOVIE; AND QUARRY HILL

 A group of Vermont filmmakers have made a history of Vermont in (I think) six parts.  It is well worth seeing, though so far, I have only seen Part 3, about odd people and big change (such as the Interastat) to Vermont, and about communes and communities .... and Quarry Hill, a part of the story.

I am in the film, giving what I recall as about a five hour interview... and Barbara, my mother, co-founder of QH, and artist, being very funny and inviting the filmmaker, Nora Jacobson, to vome live at Quarry Hill.   

Many younger people from QH also speak in the movie, Jason, Carrie, Jill, Eva, etc. 

In any case, not just because of QH, but because of fascinating stories like that of a woman named  Shoshonna, heroine of the hippie underground who did not harm anyone with the Weathermen, but was being sought by the FBI in those days-- and had Packer Corners commune offer to sell their land to get her out of Riker's Island.... I recommend seeing this film. 

I look forward to seeing the other parts!

www.thevermontmovie.com

-- Ladybelle

Greetings all...

Haven't been able to post for a while, due to my mother, Barbara Hall Fiske Calhoun (or Isabelle Calhoun) being ill and in a nursing home. There has been a lot of stuff to do to get it together to make it possible for her to be in the home on a continuing basis. If I can, I would like to bring her home or to a nursing home closer to Quarry Hill.
Right now she is in Brookside Nursing Home in White River JCT VT. She is 94 and was one of the co-creators of Quarry Hill.

I try to visit her at least once a week and maybe more if I can. Cold weather will make it more difficult, but there's a hostel for people with ill family members there that may put me up on bad nights.

By The Way!  The Vermont Movie will be showing parts 3 and 4 in WRJ on November 17 and I will try to be there, speak to the audience (as QH, Barb, and many others, and I are in the 3rd part) and hope that we can bring Barb to the movie as well. I know she'd enjoy the part about QH, but might not be able to sit through all the other stuff... only Quarry Hill really interests her.

It is too bad that she can't be home since that is so. I'll try to get her as close as I can once I get all the legalities worked out.

Love to all,
LB

Dirty DAting at QH Talent Show, 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpytXhRufGk

Andrew as Bret Peterson...

ART SPIEGELMAN IN VULTURE MAGAZINE (2008)

Prior to his somewhat less disapproving take on that "Vermont Commune" in METAMAUS (2011), Art, who seems to be embarrassed at times by his younger and to me, cheerier self, gave this interview to an online magazine with an apt title.

Though it was a while ago and I see in MetaMaus a slightly less unfriendly and unbending attitude towards Irving, me, and QH, I'd like to answer what he has to say here.
<You spent some time on a Vermont commune around then. Were you doing much drawing there?
What was I doing? A lot of fornication and a lot of drugs. I was drawing, but unlike certain cartoon peers, I couldn't control what meager talents I have while I was stoned. So there were occasional walks outside the decaying farmhouse, and occasional scribblings on pieces of paper and making very ornate, speedlike drawings, but it wasn't the work I'd really want to pass on to posterity.<

1. Art was not doing a lot of drugs, unless he wasn't telling me, the person he was closest to at that time, At a certain point he decided drugs just made him paranoid and interfered with his work, and gave up even smoking pot-- as far as I know,
As for "fornication," as Art knows this will hurt my feelings, for a good deal of this, he had with me-- and it was not just fornication but true and profound love... I have letters attesting to his love for me.
As for the other women on the place, some of them seemed to find Art rather amusing, others were fond of him, but all knew I loved and worshipped him, and I think that if they made love with him it was often because they knew how much I wanted him to be with us all.
2. The "decaying" farmhouse was over 200 years old and we had no money with which to fix it. Nonetheless, to my mind, it was a building of beauty and history and patterns of beauty, It was my home.
3.HIs work at the time was juvenilia, but it was good juvenilia. I loved some of it. Some contains my name, secretly hidden in the "speed" -like squiggles.

Our relationship was not a casual one. He and I also lived together in Binghamton, NY., Brooklyn, NY., New York, NY, and had plans to go to California together-- indeed, one day, perhaps, to have a child, or children, together. I am at work on a memoir in which I hope to tell some of these stories in more detail,
But though he says things that are far nastier about us than would seem to be called for considering all the years that have gone by (and our friendship, and that of Françoise Mouly and ourselves), until the 1990s, I want to say that I am still very proud of Art's success and genius-- which I saw in him when he was, I believe, 18 and I, 16 (1966) and more so in 1968 when we became lovers (we were already "Water Brothers."
That is the truth. He and Irving, too, had a competitive but respectful relationship, with many interests in common, such as beautiful young women--and as Art has admitted (MetaMaus pp 24-25), we were never short on those.
I would like to be friendly with Art and his family again, and still, ever the optimist--"the most gullible person I've ever met," Art called me at the age of 16 when I kept a vow to my own detriment-- I hope one day we will meet again.

http://www.vulture.com/2008/10/art_spiegelman_on_breakdowns_r.html

Check out QH poems by Dillard K. Henderson

http://wp.me/p1KGnn-Q

Hi Everyone,

I'm staying for a little while at Curtis Pond, "home of all my many dreams," one of the places I love the most. It's in Maple Corner, Calais, about 10 mi. outside Montpelier. Beautiful dreaming water lilies, cool sweet water, kayaking and canoeing, friends, peace. I hope to meet any and all of you who want to meet Quarry Hill when I return about the 1st of August. I'll post here from time to time anyway... with thoughts and news. Anyone with related ideas or thoughts welcome to post (let me know with a comment) Ladybelle

All Night Dance Party soon!

It's got trumpets, it's got drums, It's the Dance Party, here it comes!

Barbara Fiske Calhoun with her 2nd husband, Dr Donald W. Calhoun, in 1989 (Wedding photo?)

Mutual forgiveness of each vice Opens the gates of Paradise. -- William Blake.
Animals are my friends, and I don't eat my friends. -- G. Bernard Shaw

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