Our perception of public art changes over time. Will Dirck Cruiser's "Energy Loop" become an icon of Asheville's artistic heritage?
A city can be defined by its public art. The Statue of Liberty is synonymous with New York. The Eiffel Tower is a universal symbol for Paris. But the Parisians didn't immediately warm to "the odious column built up of riveted iron plates," as some leading citizens called it. And New Yorkers had trouble raising money to install Miss Liberty, a gift from France. "If the money is not now forthcoming," the fund-raising committee warned, "the statue must return to its donors, to the everlasting disgrace of the American people, or it must go to some other city, to the everlasting dishonor of New York." Works of public art may be the same from their creation till the end of their lives, but the public's perception and appreciation of them can change over time. Here in Asheville Dirck Cruiser's "Energy Loop," the city's first public sculpture, has suffered years of neglect and disrespect. Now that it has finally found a permanent home, will it take its place as a symbol of our city's artistic vitality? Can it become, like Douglas Ellington's art deco cupola on City Hall, an icon of Asheville's history? The case of Chicago might be instructive. Few cities in the world can match its treasure trove of public art. The collection runs the gamut, from representational statues of generals, statesmen and explorers to abstract works by modern masters. A monumental sculpture by Picasso is simply known as "The Chicago Picasso." Along with Alexander Calder’s equally abstract "Flamingo," it is immediately identified with the Windy City. Yet when these now beloved icons were installed, controversy raged. Ugly, citizens said. They objected to their initial cost and ongoing upkeep. Screams about government waste and accusations of elitism were rampant. Indeed, to many Chicagoans in 1967, Picasso's fifty-foot abstract steel bull seemed insulting. Only recently has it come to symbolize another time in the history of a town that Carl Sandburg called "Hog Butcher for the World." Sculpture for downtown Asheville Before "Energy Loop" was installed in 1983, the only thing resembling public art in Asheville was the Vance Monument, erected in Pack Square in 1898. It was mostly paid for by one patron, George Pack. Not until 1975, however, was there any idea that Asheville needed public art. That was when the Women’s Auxiliary of the Buncombe County Medical Society donated $1,000 to a new organization called Quality Forward for "a work of public art or sculpture for downtown Asheville." In the deserted, boarded-up environment that was Asheville's downtown in 1975, there seemed little reason to pursue public art. So nothing happened until 1978, when the Akzona Corporation, then Asheville's most important - and Dutch-owned - manufacturer - commissioned international architect I.M. Pei to design its new corporate headquarters for Pack Square. Thus began the long, slow process of bringing downtown back to life. When the Akzona Building, now the Biltmore Building, was completed in 1980, a sculpture for Pack Square didn’t sound like such a ridiculous idea. Quality Forward moved forward with its goal of art in downtown. It added another $1,000 to the funds from the Women's Auxiliary and held a competition. It enlisted an impressive panel of judges: architect Charles T. Young of the I.M. Pei firm, who was the supervising architect for the Akzona project; Harvey Littleton of Spruce Pine, known as the father of the contemporary art-glass movement; Edwin Ritts, then director of the Asheville Art Museum; Sally Rhoades, chair of the Asheville Area Arts Council; and Norma Price, a long-time Asheville City Council member. The call for entries was brief, simply asking for an outdoor sculpture. There was no mention of style, size or material. Proposals came in from 18 artists in a wide variety of styles, from Wayne Trapp's modernist works to the decidedly post-modern work of Scott Fair. The judges chose four finalists and ultimately settled on Dirck Cruiser's "Energy Loop." Dirck Cruiser Dirck Cruiser was not a household name in the then small Asheville arts community. Relatively new in town, Cruiser was a quiet married man with two children. In the early 1970s Cruiser's parents retired to Western North Carolina from New Jersey. Soon after, Cruiser sold his graphics design firm in California and moved his family to the same wooded area near the Swannanoa River. He and his wife, Karen, built their cabin-style home with their own hands, hiring professionals only for the excavation and electrical work. In California Cruiser carved shore birds that frequented the coast near where they lived. He continued working in wood after coming to the mountains, carving native birds and making doll houses and children’s toys. "Art did not consume Dirck," Karen Cruiser said in a recent interview. "His whole life was art. He saw art in everything around him and everything he made was created with artistic integrity. He made models of our house with minute details before we left California. He put the same time and craftsmanship into making a child’s toy as into a sculpture. He built most of the furniture for our house." She reminisces with pride that Cruiser "divided our 12-acre property into different areas of woods and meadows so that on a walk we were greeted with surprises along the way. He loved walking along the Swannanoa, especially at night."  A devotee of Carl Jung, Cruiser believed in the living energy of all things. He planned everything he did very carefully, his wife said, but was fully aware of the constant changes of life. The twists and turns of the Swannanoa River that he loved may have been a metaphor to him for these fluctuations and the inspiration for much of his work. He knew that no matter how carefully things were planned, life did not proceed in a straight line. "Energy Loop" is another expression of Cruiser's philosophy. It climbs toward the heavens and drops gracefully back toward the earth. It replicates the meandering cycles of life. Cruiser was very excited to have won the Quality Forward competition, his wife said. He had exhibited his work in local and regional shows, but this was his first public commission. Twists and turns The road to the construction and installation of "Energy Loop" was, like the sculpture itself, filled with twists and turns. The original site, in front of the Jackson Building, had to be abandoned because city engineers discovered the sidewalk could not support the weight of the steel beams and concrete required to anchor the work. The city then proposed that Quality Forward move the piece up the street to a new brick sidewalk in front of the recently-vacated Pack Library building. This option, however, required another $7,000 to re-do the sidewalk after the installation. In the end the Quality Forward sculpture committee decided that "Energy Loop" would be placed on a grassy area in City-County Plaza. As in many other cities under similar circumstances, there were outraged objections when the maquette for the work was unveiled. According to newspaper accounts, some of the most vocal opposition was from the United Daughters of the Confederacy. They insisted that any public sculpture near the Jackson Building, where the monument shop of W.O. Wolfe, Thomas Wolfe's father, had stood, should depict Wolfe's marble angel. One UDC member commented in the newspaper that she didn't deny that "Energy Loop" was art but it did not belong on Pack Square. Other letters to the editor suggested that there was room for the Cruiser sculpture in the land fill, or that if that was the best the committee could come up with, "perhaps we had all better move." The lead editorial in the Asheville Citizen for January 2, 1983, titled "There's Room On Square For Many Kinds Of Art," gave "Energy Loop" its support. The writer commented, "It is a thing of curves and shifting shapes; it represents nothing in particular, perhaps, but it says everything to people who appreciate its message." According to Karen Cruiser, the artist was annoyed and upset by the criticism, but stoically said, "Art is open to interpretation." Cruiser was quoted in the Citizen that his purpose was "to objectify on a human scale the course of individual, community, national, cultural, and planetary life, which . . . when seen within their respective time frames are brief but extraordinary surges of vital energy." It was clear early on that the original $1,000 from the Women's Auxiliary of the Buncombe County Medical Society, with the additional $1,000 from Quality Forward (plus a small amount, less than $200, donated by downtown merchants), would cover only the proposed honorarium for the artist, not the cost of constructing the work. Quality Forward asked Betty Holden, wife of Warren Wilson College president Ben Holden, to take on the task of raising additional funds. She told a reporter for the Citizen, that she and her husband recognized Cruiser "as a fine artist and a solid, likeable person and we think very highly of him." Her belief in Cruiser and his work was crucial. She raised $16,000 from private donors. The Asheville Area Arts Council gave another $500. The North Carolina Arts Council contributed $5,000. Work began. A beauty for the city Cruiser first constructed a full-sized replica of the sculpture in cardboard as a pattern for the fabricator, Candler welder Jack Carver. Interviewed for the Citizen, Carver admitted that he was not an "art fancier" and that he "was a little leery at first." But he wanted the job, he said, because it was "something unique." Carver became a committed fan of "Energy Loop," however, noting that there was no tax money involved. "The city’s getting a good deal," he told the Citizen; "It’s going to be a beauty." Cruiser spent day after day in the welding shop, overseeing each step of the work. Finally, in July 1983, eight years since the original contribution, Governor Jim Hunt unveiled the sculpture during the fourth Bele Chere Festival to the music of the Smoky Mountain British Brass Band. Still a lightning rod for controversy, "Energy Loop" drew more letters in the Citizen, both pro and con. But gradually the attention slowed and Asheville slowly began to accept the sculpture. As tourists stopped to photograph the piece and newcomers from more urban areas came to town, the citizens of Asheville apparently decided that "Energy Loop" was simply a part of downtown. A generation of Asheville children discovered how much fun it was to climb up the sculpture's smooth slopes. "Energy Loop" was a part of their lives, something they felt comfortable with and enjoyed. In the late 1980s Cruiser continued to create sculpture, including a large outdoor work for Florida Atlantic University. He also built himself a studio near his house and began to paint. Warren Wilson art teacher Dusty Benedict, a close friend of Cruiser's, said recently that the artist was always frustrated that his recognition as a craftsman overshadowed his reputation as a fine artist. "Dirck had a great sense of humor but he was dead serious about his work," Benedict said; "He was committed to getting it right. His skill as a woodworker was remarkable. He was obsessive about perfection."  Cruiser pushed his work toward an integration of painting and sculpture. In his statement for the exhibition, he wrote, "These paintings are attempts to find the possibilities and limitations of a new medium." After making sculpture for 20 years, he said, "I discovered the medium was no longer quite in tune with the message. Finely finished walnut was a bit too elegant for a view of the world that had become a little grainy." Instead, he said, he was turning to "spray-paint from K-Mart and Bondo, the dent-filler that does wonders for old cars. The results were gritty and immediate." In a review in the Citizen, Western Carolina University art historian James Thompson wrote, "Having worked as a graphic designer and as a sculptor, Cruiser brings to his first exhibition as a painter sophisticated understanding of rich surfaces and depths, both illusionistic and actual." If abstract art still appeared arbitrary and arcane to the Citizen's readers in 1992, Thompson reassured them that even "the most avid fan of trompe-l'oeil realism could not fault" Cruiser's complex craft. His works employed "the imagery of machinery and technology as both stimulating structure and labyrinthian prison." Cruiser died unexpectedly in 1996 at age 52. The following year, Benedict organized and curated a retrospective exhibition of his work, both paintings and sculpture, at Warren Wilson College. Cruiser considered his sculpture, especially "Energy Loop," Benedict said, to be his most important work. For a number of years "Energy Loop" was out of the news. Then in 2000 a plan surfaced to create a new park in the area from the Biltmore Building to the County Court House and City Hall. Once more "Energy Loop" became the center of controversy. There were claims that years of deferred maintenance had rendered the work without value. It did not fit with the new concept of the park. Local artists and others rallied to preserve Cruiser's and Asheville's artistic legacy, however, and the piece was removed and restored. Now, after more years of debate, it finally stands, fully restored and with quiet dignity on a small prominence in the new plaza next to the Health Department Building across the street from its former home. Perhaps the sculptor's old friend, Dusty Benedict, said it best: "Cruiser's 'Energy Loop' moved Asheville into the 20th Century."  Dirck Cruiser's "Energy Loop" is next to the Buncombe County Health Services Parking Deck on College Street, across from the Courthouse, in downtown Asheville More of his work is at A Dirck Cruiser Gallery. |