Clarence1968

Sound by Mel Lyman, Jim Kweskin, and the Lyman Family; with the voice of Clarence Schmidt, recorded by Bob Dacey. Sound Mix: Gerd Stern and Jud Yalkut. A poetic montage of the 'sculpture garden house' of 67 year old hermit-builder Clarence Schmidt of Woodstock, New York, appraised as 'a really great work of folk art' by curators Lawrence Alloway and Henry Geldzahler. The film includes some of the only footage taken of Clarence living within the seven-story mountain interior of his creation, which was tragically gutted by fire in the winter of 1967-68. A homage to Clarence and his more than forty years of devotion to the transmutation of cast-off objects into an environment or beauty and love. Originally incorporated into the USCO multimedia shows when silent, the sound version was premiered as a selection of the "Personal Cinema" series of the 1968 New York Film Festival. Selected for the "Anthropological Film" program of the Film Forum in New York, and the "Flick Out" broadcast series on educational television in Houston, Texas.