Randyland: Hard Work and Happiness

On Friday, July 25, I joined thousands of people who have already been uplifted by visits to "Randyland", a joyous spectacle of public art on Pittsburgh's North Side. A superficial look might  just note its weirdness, detachment from general reality and childlike quality, but, in short order, and thanks partly to brief exchanges with its creator, Randy Gilson, I came to see it not just as strange and wonderful but as a reflection of all of the hard work he must have done over the years, and continues to do.

"Randyland" as a subject has definitely been publicized, but I hope that my piece will expose it to other potential "converts", for whom a few photos below will not be enough. [Footnote 1, either at the bottom of this page or the end of this article:) - depending on software:)!] With this partial opening of Randyland, then....

I may be whetting your appetites for a truly three-dimensional experience, both spatial and warmly human, perhaps with the kind of welcome you may be lucky enough to receive from Randy himself.

As I walked from downtown Pittsburgh to Randyland (30 minutes maybe, I recommend it!), I already knew what to expect in part, thanks to the internet and a quick nighttime glance earlier in the week, so given the visual "candyland" of the site, it was subtly appropriate to see this sign along the way, perhaps as discrete and formal as Randyland is bold and casual....

1228 Sherman Street, Mexican War Streets neighborhood

and with hopes its owners will not go all "William Tecumseh Sherman" on me (whoever this home's street is named for, and more on that historical context shortly.]

The sunny delight began as I rounded the corner from Sherman to Jacksonia....

with scenes during my short photo foray including the joyous dance of directional arrows, largely to neighborhood institutions, including Randyland (!)....

the "south elevation" along east-west Jacksonia Street, graced at one point by a mural....

and also by a celebration of 20th-century pop culture, old street signs from the neighborhood, etc., and, around the lower center of this structure, a map of the immediate area....

as well as a proud history of a metropolis known as "Allegheny City", whose boundaries when it briefly rivaled Pittsburgh were much the same as the current "North Side" and which was then swallowed up by its better-known twin city across the (Allegheny) River; that dramatic end, as per the chronology at Randyland, happened on a date which would of course be redolent for American disaster and may have also been one which would live in infamy for "Alleghenians" of the early 1900's....

[Footnote 2]

The east elevation, along the North-South Arch Street, includes, to the left just below, the front of what seemed to be the anchor building of Randyland, and at least its official address of 1501 Arch Street [with its southern elevation already shown above]....

A view from the southeast draws in a little more....

and, in context, looking both ways from the 1500 block of Arch, the neighborhood slopes up to the north, towards another one of Pittsburgh's potential shangri-las (knowing I romanticize in part here)....

and, looking down Arch to the south - at the risk of breaking the schmaltzo-meter - I am betting many children have dreamed of the castle in the distance [otherwise known as the headquarters of Pittsburgh Plate Glass (PPG)]....

The wonderland at hand soon saw its distinctive blonde-haired and glasses-wearing creator drive up, and just as it is easy to now think of him simply as "Randy" and not more formally, it was easy, at least in my case, to secure an interview with him pretty much on the spot, while I did approach him as he got out of his car and with a reference to this blog.

One of the first things Randy Gilson said to me was on what may be the biggest word in his language - "hi" - a word he used at least three times with passersby before an incoming call to him and our sitting down at a picnic table inside Randyland. Randy stated that "[t]hat word is not just a two-letter word, but it's magic", adding that a handshake "can be like an extra exclamation point" and that when you say "'hi' with a smile, it's like a hug".

From then on, his riffs on what inspires him were largely an extension of that warmth and uplift, coupled with a tone of loving encouragement. Sometimes, that might be communicated in unusual phrasings, one example in regards to building your life, when he used a house as a metaphor and said that "the living room is from our parents, the dining room is from our teachers, the kitchen is from our peers." Other philosophies and images were presented in ways I think many people have heard previously in various settings, one statement of his being to "hug your dreams [and] caress your dreams" followed a few seconds later with the statement that "your heart is the key, so love yourself, trust yourself, plant yourself, grow yourself, be yourself".

Even if we might have heard some of this in a self-help/motivational forum, or read it on a card, and even if I might change certain wordings, e.g., "everybody calls me Randyland", I would say that Randy can talk however he wishes, partly because his expressions are coupled with a major work of art and community space, all of it a generous celebration of life.

At the same time as the sense of a bright and shining place - but given just my own brief knowledge and hoping Randy and others will offer their sense - a handful of signs stressing the protection of Randyland, as in the midst of the brimming happiness here along the south elevation....

may speak in a more serious and forceful way to what I began to hear from Randy about his achievements, hard-fought at least for some of them.

Early on he told me he was an "educationally-disabled (ED)" student, something he has turned around with the slogan that "'E' means you have other 'educations' and "D' means you have to be determined".  Logically,  that may have been part of a stew combining the deeply nurturing with a "tough love" approach, including his saying to me that "everytime you look in the mirror... [you should] see if there's something inside that person [to achieve your potential], and that "you should find 365 presents [each year] to unwrap the wonderful creative talents of you" and, additionally, that people who say at the end of a year....

...."'I got nothing done....whine, whine whine' - you should not repeat that (phenomenon) a second time", and that if you are saying "'nothing' today, that means you need to start the 'something' steps".

Randy may be a rare interplay between being truly gentle and having the toughness to blaze creative paths, the latter perhaps reflected in his sharing that "Randyland is definitely a challenge; everyday, I do not want to be a stencil; soon as I'm into tomorrow, I vertical it...people have a hard time changing - I like to challenge myself....."

While conversing here at the aforementioned picnic table....

he said that his project "is the story of a dreamer, just taking baby steps, and planting and gathering and [later] plotting sculptures (and larger components of the site)", and [segueing into a kind of reverie as he did several times during our conversation] "before you know it, you will find the beautiful song of life".

That "all of a sudden" state of progress, as I learned later - and trusting brief pieces of autobiography from Randy - seems to have taken a deep work ethic. In a second impromptu meeting he and I had on July 25, he explained that he has been a waiter at Downtown Pittsburgh's Westin Hotel for 27 years, each year taking at least $4000 in tip money to build 800 gardens, 50 vegetable gardens and eight parks, all in the blocks of the Mexican War Streets, and a huge achievement, even if it includes very small "curb gardens", as well as one of its major plots -  on Veto Street just a little south of Randyland....

Randyland is separate from this "800/50/8" tally, and, as I understand, falls under another statistic from Randy that "a quarter out of every dollar I earn goes to art".

While he embraces all ages, this hard-working adult has spun a child-like paradise including (as just one example) a parade of squeezable plastic rats and nearby dinosaurs....

and I was not surprised that before I met him, I thought of Fred Rogers (Pittsburgh's patron saint for children and neighborliness?), as I saw the affirmation to "believe U can" in the top center of this east elevation exhortation....

During my initial visit, I saw him reaching out to two young people - Katherine and Elizabeth Jenkins, who came in with their aunt Jennifer Marshall, visiting from her job on the North Side, with all of them pictured here after the kids spent time with Randy....

[from the left - Elizabeth Jenkins (age 10), Randy Gilson, Katherine Jenkins (age 8) and Jennifer Marshall]

It was great to see if not note all of the messages Randy animatedly shared with Katherine and Elizabeth, ending with a hug I did not record :)....

and beforehand, his introduction to them included sharing that he only earns "about $20,000 a year", coupling that with advice to not live your life for your money but for being happy, and noting that, not too long ago, "Hollywood found me", in the form of "two guys" who were researching happiness, and have "[considered] me one of the happiest people in America".

One of his later observations referred to kids naturally being smaller than adults, with that being an entree to not let that stop them, reflecting that "what makes you big is when you share what you have with others" and to not wait to be "old, wise people [but] young wise people". Again, as I heard from him, there was the affirming challenge to love yourself, and - another essential step which I had "seen" near the entrance earlier - to "get rid of your worries" and "your angers"....

Later in the day, I saw Randy working with a long-time friend, Mark Guntrum, thanks in part to the success of a recent "Kickstarter" campaign for funds to repaint the neighborhood map along Jacksonia...

and spreading the word (and the love) with visitors Dana Jeffries and Mario Zamora of Portland, Oregon, after just one previous visit to Pittsburgh by Mario but with their coming, as Mario said, completely unexpectedly to the corner of Jacksonia & Arch and being amazed by the artful flowering there....

The day, and a chance meeting with a North Side native, Carl English, suggested - at least for my first visit to Randyland:) - that whatever is negative about Randy Gilson is not so bad and that, like any neighborhood of deep and abiding heritage, I could definitely keep writing about this part of Pittsburgh.

I crossed paths with Carl shortly after I met him at Randy's domain, with his saying jokingly of the artist - "is he done yet?!" and, as we walked south on Arch Street, Carl met up with what seemed to be a few of his many North Side contacts, besides their front porch at a senior housing development - Arch Court - where he genially commented to them "you know Randy don't shut up".

In our short walk, Carl, who is 62, generously took me down to a home occupied by George Ferris (as in the Ferris Wheel)....

and with that, it was easy to think about a "Children's Way", assuming someone may have already strung together enough kid-related sites all the way from Randyland to the Pittsburgh Childrens' Museum, which I later discovered is on a roadway named (or renamed) "Children's Way".

Carl, a proud and lifelong North Sider, said of the changed perceptions of the Mexican War Streets area over recent decades by realtors and others that "they say 'Old Allegheny', 'North Shore'" but "I'm original - It's 'North Side'!" and this is an historic neighborhood!" perhaps his silent exultation below in this view looking north on Arch by the Ferris Home....

In closing, my best wishes to electrician and handyman Carl English, artist and inspirational speaker Randy Gilson, and all of their North Side neighbors.

****************************************
Footnotes

[My apologies for a continuing issue in my footnotes and/or "blogger.com" of "urls" (web addresses) not being "hyperlinked", but with the relative ease of cutting and pasting them in search engines if you want to explore further....]

1. One reassuring element may have come on the same day I saw this colorful work-in-progress, when I was at a more traditional "North Side" landmark, Max's Allegheny Tavern, after lunch with one of my Pittsburgh (-area) nephews (both of them regional natives) (!).  In talking with two other patrons who were natives and still residents of the North Side I was eager to share my visit to Randy Gilson's world while at the same time hesitant to "spoil" their interest with photos, but went ahead with a short show after my Max's waitress said that "pictures don't do it justice".

2. A brief survey on the internet showed a source which attested to Dec. 7 as the date Allegheny City died (http://www.alleghenycity.org/index.php?ARTICLE=2)  and two which state Dec. 9 (http://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2007/12/09/The-day-the-City-of-Allegheny-disappeared/stories/200712090229 and  https://networks.h-net.org/node/19397/reviews/20681/cialdella-rooney-and-peterson-allegheny-city-history-pittsburghs-north), but whether or not 12/7/1907 was Allegheny City's "Waterloo", it's time to return to another war you may have been wondering about just above, before rejoining the sweetness and light of Randyland, so, briefly...

The Mexican-American War is at least somewhat distasteful depending on one's view of the belief in America's "Manifest Destiny" to overtake (Northern Mexico, in this case!), but considering it as a fait accompli, it is a charming quirk of geography as well as reflecting the bursting pride of the Victorian U.S to have named a few streets in Anglo-America after Mexican venues, largely of victories against Mexico (e.g, streets very close to Randyland such as Resaca, Palo Alto, etc.).



Acknowledgements

My thanks here for use of quotations go to Jennifer Marshall, her nieces Katherine and Elizabeth Jenkins and their parents Todd and Patti. I wish Katherine well in her stated possibilities of becoming a nurse, teacher or hairstylist and Elizabeth the same in her thinking of art or chemistry in her future!


And final words from Randy Gilson, using guitar lessons as an example for a more general point....

"Most people, they take a challenge, and instead of making it simple, they decide all the difficulties, and the difficulties take away the pleasure of the dream....Pick it up, and just strum it; don't think about  all the work, just think about the hand dancing over top of the strings, the music filling your heart with a smile...."

Randy Gilson at "Randyland", July 25, 2014