Ailene Fields Reaching For The Sky
Neil Zukerman was passionate about art and introducing it to new audiences. In addition to owning the CFM Gallery in New York City, he participated in a number of collaborative projects that connected him with artists from all over the world. Neil believed that art was only enjoyable if it challenged people and that it can come from anywhere. Skylands Museum reflects his adoration for art and its versatility,
Every project that Ailene and Neil have committed to, including the Skylands Museum of Art, has a personal, spiritual, and communal value that is meant to connect us further to the best parts of ourselves. To reconnect with nature, our inner dreamer, and kindness towards ourselves and others. We all sometimes struggle in the day to day, and their hope is that the museum will you give you a moment to breathe and enjoy the beautiful gift of our lives.
Every artist has a unique story and follows a personal journey through various aspects of life, and Ailene is no different. Her mission is aptly captured in her own words,
“I am a sculptor. I express myself through my sculptures. They say things that my words cannot. But I will try words. Carving stone is different from most other forms of sculpture. It is a process of finding what has been trapped within since time immemorial and allowing it to reveal itself to the world. For much of my career, what I liberated were animal and human figures caught in particular moments of reflection that revealed some essential aspect of their being.”
David Fields first met Ailene more than half a century ago, when she was Eileen Rubin, ten years old living in Brooklyn. “I was twelve,” he recalls. “She knew immediately that I was to be hers. She’s that way, always has been. She gets it — whatever it is — intuitively, at a glance…in life and in her sculpture. Her aim…as a sculptor, is to capture the essence of her subject in a moment…that contains their essence.”
“ I express myself through my sculptures.They say things that my words cannot.”
In Ailene Fields’ world, anything and everything is possible. Peace, love and happiness prevail. The neighborhood bears roam and romp freely in her back yard — undisturbed.
In the words of Yogananda, “It is a world where time is taken to enjoy things — the beauties of God’s creation and the many blessings of life in a circle of boundless love, a vast home of sympathy, a vast heart of feeling (with) all creatures living with you in peace.”
ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a very big art show held at that great relic of mid-20th century architectural bluster known as the New York Coliseum. The even more blusterous Time/Warner towers occupy that site today. There, amidst the Auto, boat and airplane shows as well as all manner of trade conventions, a trio of enterprising gentleman gave birth to the New York International Art Exposition. It was the place to be in the Spring in New York City for almost a decade, until the art world with a capital “A” moved on to
greener pastures. But back in the 80s, it was thriving and fresh with vibrant talent and it was there that we first came upon the work of Ailene Fields, and more importantly, my future friend and college classmate (we didn’t know each other back then), the artist herself. It was almost as if I was drawn by some mystical power to this booth…or maybe it was the crowd excitedly milling about her exhibition space. Here there was no threat of a prospective buyer tripping over a sculpture whilst stepping back to look at a hanging work of art affixed to a wall. With its array of creatures and figures, the liveliest stones and most alluring bronzes ever, this was indeed a paintingfree zone. Pulsing with life; energetic force fields doubling as works of art. As if within these strong and silent (and sometimes silly-looking) stones, secrets of the universe could be unlocked. This, of course, is what Indiana Jones movies are made to exploit — our need to know. Ailene, it seems to me, somehow knew – even back then as a young sculptor – and we see it in her work and life. The gift she was given, and which she has honed and honored by using every
imaginable second of time alotted to her on earth to go about creating and — really — doing good, is not lost on those of us who know her. This is important to convey to the many of you who may never get to meet Ailene or view her work in person. The tactile perfection of her stone, glass and bronze carvings are masterful and reminiscent of Henry Moore’s smooth and luscious spheres with an almost Dr. Seuss-like frivolity. “What I want more that anything else,” she said, “is to make a difference in the way people see the world, so they can make a difference in how it is.”
Ailene’s craftsmanship and creativity emerge equally victorious in her work, evident to the New York crowds at the art fair, and later on to attendees at museums and galleries on the world stage.
Ailene Fields bangs stone unabashedly. She says it’s good for New Yorkers to do so. Her work is her play and the result is creativity-gone-wild. It is never-ending. It is a universe waiting to be inhabited by her imagination, upon which there are seemingly no restraints. A great artist, Frank Owen, told me the secret to his
success in his career and life is that he never lost his child-like awe. At the age of ten, he figured he knew what was what.
Hope is an ever-fleeting glimpse of perfection; perfection that can be found in a van Gogh brushtroke, a Ruthian swing with a baseball bat, a delicate stroke of chisel to stone, or a thoughtful couplet that brings us nearer our destiny.
Ailene often sculpted in the Vandam street basement of her son Marc’s business, The Compleat Sculptor before they recently moved uptown. Marc is somewhat of a savant when it comes to sculpture supplies, an acknowledged leader in his field. He doesn’t mold beauty from mud, or scare form out of marble, but he knows the composition and usage of just about every product ever invented to aid the sculptor in their work. These words are a fitting tribiute: “As some of you may know, TCS was born from the notion of Mother’s Day! My mother @ailene.fields was the impetus to the creation of this place that now feeds the creativity of so many. Every time we work with a client and help them realize their goal, it reminds me of what a great mother she is. Glasses up, mic down….”
Between opening her new Skylands Museum in New Jersey or wielding a pneumatic something or other on a new creation, Ailene makes time to teach a class at TCS’s new locale. The original location was in its infancy when the unspeakable happened and our enemies took down the World Trade Center, less than a half mile south. Ailene’s ensuing body of work — a solemn and majestic series of alabaster and acrylic sanctums — are something to behold. They are fortress-like caves or little castles, contemplative comfort zones in which beleaguered souls can find peace and protection. Each sanctuary houses a staircase rising up to a pinnacle of…hope; our own stronghold to recharge, reflect and re-arm our spirits for the next battle.
Ailene is a chosen soul whose success is based on two things: a child-like awe holding fast to the mentality of her tenyear old self who found in her playmate, David Fields, her future husband. When she was a college student at Lehman in The Bronx, she sealed the deal by bringing the soon-to-be-Dr. Fields back from “the other side” when he was literally crushed by a Jerome Avenue bus.
This is one family never short for pets, either. Alligators, frogs, owls, mermaids, did I say dragons? and a host of mice, birds and butterflies cohabit with the bears and various other life forms. Her creations
range from folkloric to life size, delicate miniatures from table top to pedestal. Like her Sacred Space Sanctuaries, these works stand firm — be they six inches or six feet in height; six ounces or six hundred pounds in weight. They collaborate in unision of an artist’s vision of a more perfect world etched in the perpetuity of her carvings. These rocks will outlast us all. They will survive flood, famine, all manner of fussing and fighting. They will be heirlooms for future generations who will laugh with glee at the life work of a modern stonecarver and equally adept creator of magnificent acrylics and bronzes. Many may wonder what exactly was an Ailene Fields?
The short answer is that she is in an elite group of sculpting immortals and just when you think there are no more worlds for her to conquer, she comes up with a doozy — some kind of structure prancing about on chicken legs. It’s not as though she is thumbing her nose at what is known as “the art world” today, where Andy Warhol throwaways are fetching $150 million. Ailene will never have works that venture into that lofty stratosphere, but as much as we all love Andy, did he ever bring a dragon to life?
In the past half century, few have created as extensive and diverse a body of work as Ailene Fields. She is a free spirit who soars, sharing her great gift of love through vibrant, poignant and hilarious characters — sometimes all in one piece — starting with the title. This is her calling, and she invites others to join in the fray with works such as Forgot Your Bone, We’re Not Going Back, Nuts To You, And What, Pray Tell, Is a Gryphon and a host of others that Neil Zukerman, her friend, gallerist and curator of her book Out Of The Nowhere and Into The Here, culled from nearly 1,000 sculptures in stone, bronze and acrylic, and those were the ones of which either a photograph of or the original itself, exist.
Themeatically, one gets the impression through this mammoth body of work that life for Ailene is sweet. She puts hands and heart togeter and makes something sweet out of the day. Hilarity is not a soda sweetened with high fructose but a sincere chuckle, a long-lasting smile, maybe a whooping belly laugh at either the expense or intention of her wonderful cast of characters. That doesn’t mean that we will not gasp in awe at the sheer virtuosity of Ailene’s very special set of skill. The Left Hand of God holds its own with any figuratives of the great masters, as do a a
considerable number of her other works.
I hope this is not beginning to sound as if Mrs. Fields is about ready to get out of the boat and walk across the Hudson River, though it wouldn’t surprise me if I were to read about that accomplishment in tomorrow’s paper. What I would look to get across to you, gentle reader, many of whom may never come into actual contact with an Ailene Fields work of art other than through the beautiful images contained herein, is that Ailene brings the party with her wherever she goes. It is a sense of happiness, hope and the ultimate happy ending of which she is an adamant advocate as a passionate sculptor of fairy tales.
“I am a storyteller... in my childhood, one of the stories I was most taken with — and afraid of — was that of Baba Yaga, a witch and nature spirit of the forest of Eastern Europe, the place of my ancestors. I have always thought of myself as a child of the forest. Baba lived in this forest that I loved. As a child, I wanted to be worthy of the magical gifts she gave to heroes and the pure of heart. I did not want to be foolish nor unworthy,” notes Ailene.
The joy of creativity is evident in every element of Ailene Fields’ abundant body of work. Even the titles have that ring of amusement, of a childlike happiness at her own capacity to entertain herself, and her ever-growing legion of admirers, with the fruits of her labors. Ailene continues to “rock on” with a youthful exuberance that thumbs its nose at the aging process as her work continues to entertain, inform and amaze. She is a master with an insatiable appetite to produce, setting an impossibly high bar for those who would seek to follow her path.
—VICTOR FORBES