On the Perpetual Enchantment of Assemblage:
Finding Norman Hasselriis
By Michele Slung
MICHELE SLUNG is an editor and writer who lives in Woodstock, NY. Her most recent books are The Garden of Reading: An Anthology of Twentieth-Century Short Fiction about Gardens and Gardeners (Overlook Press) and A Treasury of Old-Fashioned Christmas Stories (Running Press).
Michele contributed this essay to Norman's last show, Objects of
Poetry, at the Albany Center Galleries (May 2-June 10, 2006).
Oak Hill, New York, gives the impression of being out of time. Moreover, if one comes upon it as I did --- on a solitary ramble, taking the odd turn this way and that, headed nowhere, enjoying the illusion of adventure --- it offers an oddly expectant air. Almost as if, like a faded odalisque of a village, with its many remarkable buildings stretched mostly alongside a small section of State Road 81, the place has seen its share of disappointments yet still counts on the power of its quite considerable ancient beauty to exert a binding spell.
At first, four years ago, when I drove through Oak Hill, and had my initial glimpse of Assemblage, Norman’s double-windowed storefront, visibly chockablock with who-knows-what, I honestly thought I was hallucinating. I simply didn’t understand what it was I’d barely seen as I’d whizzed by. In fact, it was the idea of a wooden duck that caught my mental eye --- but, since my actual eye was on the road, the signals my brain was receiving simply weren’t computing.
Whatever they were, though, they were enough to make me hold my breath.
When I say “idea of a wooden duck,” I think I’m coming closest to describing my memory of what I’d felt at the moment the facade had registered in my consciousness. Somehow, I knew it wasn’t just another antique store, nor a junkshop, nor even a storeroom (country towns occasionally have these, luring you to stop, then revealing themselves to be locked up forever). The notion that it might be an art gallery didn’t occur to me (I’m not all that interested in art galleries), either, because, as I turned around to go back to investigate, I’d already begun to suspect that it was what I longed --- had been longing all my life, in fact --- for it to be.
I parked, got out of the car and approached. Peering through the glass, I was still uncertain about what I was seeing, but, at that moment, even more, I felt my excitement rise. It was time to try the door.
It wouldn’t budge.
How could that be? Finally, right here in front of me, in real time on a real road in a real town --- I was awake, I was sure --- was Sinbad’s cave, the Wizard’s laboratory, Aladdin’s treasure chamber, Miss Havisham’s bedroom, the Rabbit Hole, Gepetto’s workshop, Castle Yonder, every strange and magical place I’d ever dreamed of . . . and it wasn’t open for business.
Was it even a business?
I didn’t yet know.
When I eventually found a person to ask, all I learned was that the proprietor was away for the winter and would return in the spring. (I probably didn’t really want to find out any more, the better to have the fun of my own fantasizing.) As I continued to press my nose against the window, still trying to comprehend the exhilaratingly ragtag miscellany of what was so tantalizingly inaccessible on the other side, I promised myself I’d come back as soon as the daffodils were out.
As long as I couldn’t get in, the way I consoled myself was by turning the thought of my return journey into a quest, a magical mystery trip that, when I finally embarked upon it, would lead me back here. And, at that moment, there would be no more secrets.
Right now, it was delicious just to wait.
Here’s the thing: I don’t remember what happened next, so to speak. I know well what the fantasy had been, and the way the perception of Assemblage as a locus of wonder secured itself in the geography of my imagination. But how I felt that next April, when I drove back to Oak Hill and the door actually opened, I can’t truly now say. The reason is that the experience of going inside for the first time has since been overlaid by the pleasures of many visits --- and yet it’s also important to stress how the amazement of first arrival simply never did wear off.
That’s because it was never exactly the same twice.
Just as in any magical toyshop, the objects on the shelves and tables seemed to move all on their own around when you weren’t looking. It was obviously Norman’s doing; he seemed never to stop assembling or arranging, even if you never saw him do it, and was always ready to talk about the origins of any piece. But the way the place seemed alive in a way unique to each visitor --- depending on his or her receptivity, of course --- was, somehow, independent of its creator/curator, and made for a large part of the eccentric enchantment.
Odd as each assemblage was, once he’d put it together, it seemed inevitable, as if it had always existed, always been there. I guess this is because almost every component is old --- quite visibly so --- but it’s also because of Norman’s nearly unerring sense of unity, his uncynical whimsy, his sophisticated notions of form and texture and contrast. I should add that I also think that the vintage nature of the assembly materials contributes to the exhibitionistic playfulness they convey: one feels that Norman’s works, themselves, are obviously delighted to have been rescued and recycled in so joyful a fashion.
“I’m always here,” Norman would tell you, in season. “Just look for me down by the stream, or in the garden, if you don’t see me right away.” That meant there were no fixed hours. And there were almost never any other people, so that I feel sure that all the regulars --- who, so far as I know, based on my own experience only, never saw one another --- were easily able to sustain the belief that this was their secret destination, and theirs alone.
And there were no prices, either, until one inquired.
Norman’s poetry, his photographs --- both of which he often wished the public valued more than it seemed to --- along with his collages, and his years in the antiques trade, his stint in publishing, his increasing deafness, his grandchildren, his sly humor, his awareness of his own value and the value of what he was doing in this out-of-the-way spot, his determined self-sufficiency --- these are some of the things I know about him and his history. But I don’t know much and won’t pretend to. I have merely been a tourist in his particular Wonderland.
And count myself very lucky.
