The art of retirement
‘‘I would feel really guilty if we closed this gallery. There’s nothing like it within 100 kilometres or more. Where are the artists going to go in this town? Hopefully, these folks can keep it going.’’
Stu Schwartz
Everyone in Manawatu¯ knows Stuart Schwartz and Stu knows everyone. The tall American with a deep drawl stands out in these parts and along with his wife Phyllis, the pair have built a life around their love of art, curation and community. Greer Berry reports.
t’s Stuart and Phyllis Schwartz’s 47th wedding anniversary and Stu reaches over and puts his hand on her lap. He gushes about how he found a wife who has put up with him for so long, and she rolls her eyes and laughs.
‘‘My father always said not to work with your husband’’ says Phyllis, who clearly ignored that advice.
But their business, running Taylorjensen Fine Arts, works for them, she says, because Stu is the art-minded person and Phyllis looks after the business side.
It has seen them run their gallery from the upstairs location on George St in Palmerston North for more than 22 years, through the lows of economic downturns and the highs of top-selling exhibitions.
But with time comes change and the latest season in their lives sees them leaving behind their precious gallery in search of new experiences.
Stu turned 76 this week and Phyllis is in her early 70s.
‘‘We hedged our bets on our family genes,’’ says Phyllis, whose father lived past 100.
She wouldn’t let Stu retire when he became eligible aged 65 – ‘‘The thought of him being under my feet for that length of time...’’ she says, laughing – but has conceded that now is the right time.
Taylor-jensen has played a vital role in the Manawatu¯ arts community since it opened in August 1997.
The Jensen part of the gallery name came from co-founder, Dennis Jensen, whereas the Taylor part was an old family name from Stuart’s mother’s side.
‘‘Schwartz-jensen was too much of a mouthful,’’ he says, adding that not many Kiwis were familiar with the surname.
Stu and Phyllis are both originally from the United States, but have called New Zealand home for decades.
From humble beginnings, with sparsely adorned walls, the experience of entering the gallery now is a feast for the senses.
The only discernable feature from those early days are the bare wooden floorboards, but the bare walls are no longer, instead they drip with art, heaving under the weight of the impressive works, big and small.
Stu and Phyllis have together built Taylor-jensen as a home for artists in the region.
It’s a role the Schwartzs have taken seriously, from giving space to budding artists as well as community groups and charities.
‘‘I would feel really guilty if we closed this gallery. There’s nothing like it within 100 kilometres or more. Where are the artists going to go in this town?’’ says Stu.
‘‘Hopefully, these folks can keep it going.’’
By ‘‘these folks’’ he means artist Rob Haakman and his wife, who are going to spend six months working out if they can develop and make a living from the gallery once Stu and Phyllis move on.
You can tell they both, Stu especially, desperately want to see the life of the gallery continue.
They are passionate about it continuing to be a place where all sorts of people are welcomed and reject the notion that art is only for some people.
‘‘Art doesn’t have to be expensive,’’ says Phyllis. ‘‘People often think it’s elitist and it’s not. It shouldn’t ever be.’’
She and Stu created a children’s area in the gallery, where the smallest art lovers are encouraged to create while their minders browse.
But there’s an elephant in the room here, of course.
Anyone who has stepped foot in the gallery knows there are a lot of things.
Stu’s a collector at heart. Of things. All the things. So turning away from the gallery isn’t just about a change of job, it will be a change of lifestyle for Stu, especially.
He jokes that he has OSS: Op-shop syndrome: the inability to walk past an op shop without popping in. And GSS: Garage Sale syndrome, which features symptoms such as a failure to sleep in at weekends when there are garage sales to scour.
He’s a collector. Always has been. He got it from his mother.
The walls of his office are stacked high with all sorts of knick-knacks, mementos and meticulously assembled scrapbooks about the first few years of the gallery. ‘‘Back when we had time,’’ Phyllis says. There are books, an incredible portrait painting of Stu himself and tonnes of New Zealand-themed items.
And when asked about his love of Kiwiana, considering he wasn’t raised in New Zealand, he’s quick to answer.
‘‘I often think the items I’ve collected are what my mother and father would have had in their home if they had lived in New Zealand.’’
Stu has this theory that he requires three of anything.
Harking back to his museum curator roots, he explains you need one to display from the front, one to show the back and, if you’re lucky, a third to show the side.
It’s an excuse, he knows, to have an even bigger collection of well, everything, but he’s unapologetic.
So how on earth does he plan to fill his time now? Well, he says, there’s the Schwartzonian for starters – a museum of Kiwiana Stu hopes will bring his vast and sprawling collection of New Zealand items out from the boxes and into the light for others to enjoy.
And there are books in the works too, one about the role of advertising on clothes hangers, aptly titled Well Hung, and an autobiography ‘‘because everyone asks when I’m doing that’’.
Phyllis has a different take. She dreams of endless summers, six months in New Zealand then six months back in the US, bouncing around friends and family and travelling along Route 66.
‘‘I really want to see the Grand Canyon,’’ she muses.
But before then there’s a lot of packing and sorting to do.
Stu is adamant he has it in him, that he will be able to part ways with his precious treasures.
‘‘It is emotional,’’ he says, but he will do it. ‘‘It’s got to be done.’’
I ask where he will start in his house, which I can only imagine replicates a museum of sorts, he drops his head. ‘‘I don’t know. You can’t even walk in the lounge. There’s stuff everywhere.’’
So yes, it will be hard, but the pair have been through hard times before and say the economic downturn was rough.
‘‘People don’t buy art when money is scarce,’’ he says.
But with that eternal optimism he mentions the gallery did supply a number of farewell gifts for people who were laid off or retired during the crisis.
Stu and Phyllis have much to be proud of about their legacy to the Manawatu¯ art community and the pair say their only regret is the gallery not being accessible to those with disabilities or extra needs, which meant some people were unable to ascend the stairs that lead there.
‘‘Sometimes, we would take the art down to them,’’ says Phyllis.
At times they have even physically lifted people up the stairs for exhibition openings.
But those days are over for now, and instead the focus will be on lifting and packing boxes, making room and sorting through the endless piles of treasures.
If the Schwartzs are sad about leaving, they don’t show it.