Satan's Socks

Hannah Fink's shoe sculpture, in RAW BEAUTY exhibition, photo©JKreves

Last evening I attended Miriam Mill's directed play, "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" at Rider University's Yvonne Theater.  David Spadora, the talented actor who played Satan, was costumed brilliantly, in a contemporary, collared white shirt, black jacket, black pants, and red socks. (seen at center of photo, in different clothing if you click on the link above) The socks really did it for Satan.  I don't think he could have been as convincingly dark without them.  The red socks screamed DANGER even when the actor was portraying the "I'm just another ordinary guy" side of Satan's act.  

Somewhere is an old photograph of our family with the cousins from my mother's side.  Although it seems to be lost, I remember it clearly.  We are all gathered on, beneath, and around a metal swingset on a summer day. Everyone is nicely smiling, but as usual my father is goofing. He is wearing bright orange socks, and is lifting his knee and pointing to the socks.  As if they might be missed without the special attention!  I was in high school then, and appreciated my father's socks as a fashion rebellion.  Those attention-grabbing socks were kind of a statement of his unorthodox thinking, and I was pretty sure that most dad's were not wearing anything like them just as most dad's were not thinking anything controversial in those Midwestern summer days.  I never could figure out where he GOT the orange socks, since white or black were the only colors that seemed to be sold.  In those days my dad was using his pulpit at The DuPage Unitarian Universalist Church to preach humanistic sermons about the environment and peace, sermons against the Vietnam war.   Someone upset by those beliefs had written into the local newspaper that it was clear that my father was "the devil", and they could "see it in his eyes" from his picture in the newspaper.  I'll bet if they ever saw him wearing those orange socks they'd have been even more sure of the Satan within him.  Anytime a bright color seeps through banality it hints of revolution, and it gets your attention.

Recently I was fortunate to have viewed "Raw Beauty", a mixed media sculpture exhibition at the Arts Council of Princeton curated by Rebecca Kelly.  The photos in this post are ones I took in that exhibition. One of my favorite sculptures was "Raw Suffering of a Woman", a dress by Lesley Haas incorporating handmade paper flax, shredded strips of New York Times and Women's Wear Daily.

Lesley Haas sculpture, photo ©Jkreves

Although mostly subdued colors, the bits of bright red on the shredded paper skirt suggest that life is still there and the suffering is still going on.

Another remarkable piece in the show was Miriam Schaer's 20 ft.long "No Ornament as Precious as Their Hands", made of Embroidery, beads, gloves and paint. Again, the overall neutral tone of the piece was enlivened by slices of red here and there, and the turquoise beading.

Miriam Schaer sculpture, photo ©Joy Kreves

detail of Miriam Schaer sculpture, photo ©Joy Kreves

Leslie Pontz, "Pregnant", photo © Joy Kreves

 As I write this the people of Libya are in a roiling turbulence trying to rid themselves of their oppressive leadership.  I hope that, like the Egyptians and Tunisians, they will soon feel the brilliant sparks of freedom burst into full bloom.  According to Sheryl Gay Stolberg's reporting in The New York Times, the writings of "a shy intellectual" provided some of the strategy for the Middle East revolutions.  Well-written ideas can be those brilliant colors that make instigating political action possible.


This is not a deep insight, that glimpses of brilliance amidst conformity brings vitality to our lives, but it is something worth noticing, remembering, and appreciating whether in fashion, thinking, politics or visual stimuli.  Such visual stimuli is not simple.  It is based on a gut-level recognition that there is something alive there, stirring or smouldering, something to watch out for, something possibly dangerous.  What color socks do you wear?