Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Economist By Day, Artist By Night
The culmination of over a year’s work, this collection of glittery glass pieces, hanging pipes and faucets, Christmas trees and bamboo stalks is McMahon’s release from a stuffy office job and has become his favorite hobby.
“It’s infinitely more rewarding than watching TV or watching sports,” he said. “And it’s free, so money’s not the issue.”
An economist by day and artist by night, McMahon (pronounced McMan) uses what others may consider junk to make his sculptures. He was collecting glass shards from a dumpster when the owner of the stained-glass store told him to scram.
“There’s art to be found everywhere,” McMahon said. He speaks the truth. The Shrine began when McMahon painted and tied bamboo stalks to an overturned nest chair, creating a sort-of bamboo hide-out in the woods, and he’s been expanding it since then. He makes sure not to harm any of the existing trees but uses them as support systems on which to hang his wind chimes and sculptures.
‘Save the Shrine’
McMahon’s sons, Kazimir, (Kaz for short), 18, and Carl, 16, gave their father’s sculpture garden its name. “Save the Shrine!” the boys chanted one afternoon, while passing through.
“I used to just call it ‘the sculpture’ or ‘the thing,’” McMahon said in his gruff, matter-of-fact voice. “They started calling it ‘the Shrine,’ and I like it.”
Kaz and Carl grew up using the city and National Park land as their back yard and playground. A few years ago, they built a skate ramp near the Shrine. Their message – “Skate at your own risk” – is spray-painted on the wooden ramp for all to see.
Neighborhood kids build tree forts in the woods, and savvy gardeners use the land as space for compost piles. But, the National Park Service prohibits such uses of federal land. Park rangers have torn down numerous tree forts and disemboweled compost piles in the woods behind the Palisades, the community that stretches from Georgetown to the Washington - Maryland border off MacArthur Blvd., where the McMahons live.
McMahon recalled a rude awakening a few years ago when national park rangers woke him up, knocking on his door at six in the morning on a Saturday. “Is this where Carl McMahon lives?” the officers demanded. They insisted the boy tear down his fort in the woods. “They just read me the riot act,” McMahon said, emphatically. “I think the motto for the Park Service should be, ‘We’d rather you stayed inside.’”
Carl took down the fort, but the skate ramp and Shrine remain.
City Space
The McMahon’s home backs up next to the old trolley path that used to carry Washingtonians to the Glen Echo Amusement Park from 1898 to 1968. All that remain today are muddy trenches where the tracks used to be and a sign or two along the way.
Beyond the trenches are the city woodlands, which border the C & O Canal National Historic Park. There are hiking and running paths through the woods, and a stream winds down the hill to the Potomac.
The Shrine is situated along the walking paths, on city land. It is in plain view of National Park markers, but it sits on city jurisdiction.
About a month ago, Chairman of the Friends of the Palisades, Tom Ditonto, came upon an impromptu meeting with city and National Park officers discussing the Shrine. They told him it wasn’t supposed to be there, and he said the community has no problem with the Shrine. “If given the choice, it should stay in place,” he told them.
“Everyone loves it,” he said. “I’ve seen buses pull up there for field trips.”
McMahon said he will comply if the city demands the Shrine be taken down. “I can understand, it’s not my land, and so I’ve got no rights,” he said. “I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but I think that I probably will be shut down.”
D.C. Parks and Recreation spokeswoman, Lisa Kennedy, said the Shrine is an “unusual request” for use of city land, but she maintained it is “illegal to use the land without a permit.”
Not Just a Crazy Artist
The sculptor, his wife – also an artist – and their sons have lived in their Palisades home for 18 years. McMahon said his wife, Dale Johnson, founder of the Watergate Gallery of art and photography, first thought his sculptures in the woods were “crazy,” but she has since come to love the Shrine like everybody else.
“Holy may be too strong a word,” McMahon said, describing the Shrine. “But it’s almost meditative, peaceful to sit here.” He used to be afraid of the woods behind his house, but now he knows them intimately and even works on the Shrine at night. Watching the light from a full moon dancing off the glass and listening to owls call from above is a wondrous thing, he said.
Fern Gully
McMahon’s oldest son, Kazimir, will graduate from Wilson High School this spring, and, following in his father’s footsteps, he will head for the trees. Kaz plans to take a gap year to work in forestry before entering college.
“The woods have sculpted my life,” Kaz said. “It’s probably the nicest thing to have right behind your house. It’s the simplicity of not having anything to do, and to create.”
First-timers enjoy the Shrine, too. A group of students from the American University walked the mile-and-a-half down the road to visit the Shrine and soak up some green time.
Danny Peters, 18, commented that though the sculptures are “elaborate and artsy,” they were made “clearly not for recognition but for people to enjoy.”
Emerging From Hibernation
McMahon said creating his own art project has given him a greater appreciation for other people’s art and for the beauty found in everyday items like the golf club, stop sign and ratty old teddy bear he has hung, or hidden, in the Shrine.
“I think everybody has a frustrated artist in them somewhere. It’s just been bound by having to color in the lines,” he said with a smile and a nod. “And this is definitely coloring outside the lines, here.”
