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03/23/2016 08:30 AMOn a wooded hilltop in Clinton amid 14 acres of cypress groves, weeping pines, and cedar sits a 1928 wood and stone Cape-style house. On a Sunday morning, the bright treble of a ukulele and the rich, sparkling tenor of Israel Kamakawio’ole seep from the kitchen.
Wrought-iron grilles on the windows, stone paths bedded into the slopes of its yard and gardens, and a glass-walled music room with panoramic views give the entire place the feel of a country manor, or an enchanted cottage. Your first clue that an artist lives here comes nearly at the foot of the driveway, long before the house and studio come into focus. Here and there on the way up you’ll find a whimsical creature: a lion, an owl, a giant spider. In the clearings and peeking out from behind the trees are clay fountains, a carousel of rats dangling like wind chimes, and a collection of blooming towers.
This is a place where art and music live. This is where ceramic artist Elaine Godowsky, who manages Clinton’s George Flynn Classical Concert Series, makes her home.
“I always drew as a child,” she says, “mostly portraits that I copied from movie star magazines. I liked the challenge of drawing faces—still do.”
Today, Elaine mostly works with clay, creating sculptures, functional art—such as colorful vessels and platters—and large outdoor totems, some measuring eight feet, that are inspired by nature and made to withstand the elements.
Girl from the Boroughs
A native New Yorker, Elaine studied at the Pratt Institute, known for its art, design, and architecture programs. Her older sister, Gloria, had been a painter, and Elaine “wanted to follow in her footsteps.”
Starting out as an art major at New York University after high school, Elaine transferred after her first year.
“It changed my life,” she says. “At Pratt I met people interested in all forms of art, from painting to fashion, architecture, industrial and interior arts, as well as engineering. They were all so sophisticated and smart”
Before long, the student became the teacher.
“I taught art at Frederick Douglass Junior High, which was a challenge, but a great experience,” she recalls.
Her work with ceramics wouldn’t begin for many years.
Born in Brooklyn, Elaine was raised by a stay-at-home mom and a father who worked as a New York City police officer. When Elaine was 8, her mother returned to work as a seamstress, and her parents bought their first house, a two-family in Glendale, Queens.
“That’s where I lived until I graduated from the Pratt Institute,” she says.
For extra income, her family rented out the second floor.
“Ours was a middle-class neighborhood where everyone was doing their best to raise a family. We had a nice backyard, where my mother had a lovely vegetable garden and grew roses and fig trees that had to be covered during the winter. She was a wonderful cook,” Elaine recalls, “We had chicken every Sunday with lemon, garlic, and mint. It was so delicious. The only sweets I had were a Hershey bar once in a while in my lunchbox, and at Christmastime, my mother and godmother would make special holiday pastries. It’s funny how those tastes remain with you.”
Love and Marriage
Elaine has fond memories of her father, too, and admits that while an overprotective dad is one thing, an NYPD cop is…well, quite another.
“I was co-captain of the first cheerleading squad at Grover Cleveland High School,” she recalls. “My father came to every basketball game to make sure I got home OK.”
Her father, who took law courses at City College with the Police Department, also saw to it that his kids continued their schooling.
“Both my sister and I went to college, because my parents insisted they were going to give us the education they never had.”
At Pratt, Elaine earned her bachelor’s degree in art education—and fell in love.
“I eloped with my college sweetheart,” she says.
Tragically, her young husband and a friend perished in a fire on Oahu, Hawaii.
“We went there to paint pictures on velvet,” she recalls. “We were all artists.”
Later, back in New York, Elaine met her second husband, who was just starting a concert career and who would make Chopin and Gershwin an integral part of her life.
Heir to a great musical tradition, Leopold Godowsky III had a family tree that read like a Who’s Who of classical musicians. The nephew of George and Ira Gershwin, grandson of legendary concert pianist-composer Leopold Godowsky, and son of a renowned violinist and one of the creators of Kodachrome, Leopold grew up in the company of men who, today, have their own Wikipedia pages.
He and Elaine met one evening while walking their dogs in Riverside Park.
“It was a nightly thing that those of us with dogs would do together,” she recalls, “since New York in the late ‘60s was not all that safe.”
After three weeks, they vowed to get married; five weeks in, they tied the knot.
“We stayed in New York City, and it was there that I learned about classical music,” says Elaine. “One thing Leopold would do was play different interpretations of many compositions; then we would discuss them. He was a terrific teacher. We went to concerts...and heard all the piano greats.”
A cultural mecca, New York in the ‘60s was also becoming a center for drugs, crime, and economic decay. Two years into their marriage, the Godowskys packed up and moved to Connecticut.
“We loved the house and the land and the fact that it was only two hours from New York and Boston. Both of us got very involved with the Clinton community, he being on the land trust and I on the library board as well as the Inland Wetlands Commission. At this time our daughter Leila was born.”
The couple planted a huge vegetable garden, grew melons, kept chickens, and had a goat named Francie, after Leopold’s mother (“since she was very spirited”). Leopold’s piano technique proved valuable for more than making music—”He was the only person who could milk Francie.” As for the chickens, young Leila would chase and catch them. Like any good pets, says Elaine, they didn’t resist.
Leopold taught piano at Hartt College and performed there and at Yale and Connecticut College. He also composed and eventually became a trustee of the Gershwin Family Trust, a caretaker of George Gershwin’s compositions.
“He was a natural, being a trained musician,” says Elaine. “This was a period of travel to Buenos Aires, Japan, Italy, France, England, Germany. We met Prime Minister John Major. We were guests of Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office, where George and Ira received the Congressional Medal of Honor.”
Artist Reborn
In 1986, when their college-bound daughter created a portfolio and went off to study jewelry at California College of Arts and Crafts, Elaine began working with ceramics.
“I started at the Guilford Art Center, where I took classes in throwing. I found my real desire was to make outdoor sculpture. When I went to Pratt, ceramics was thought of as a craft, not a fine art. That’s changed with the incredible development of ceramic art from the West Coast,” says Elaine.
During this period, Elaine came to know Arnie Zimmerman, who made 12-foot ceramic outdoor pieces that could weather the Northeast winters.
“This had been my goal,” Elaine says. “Arnie was an extraordinary ceramic artist and became my mentor. He offered workshops in his Brooklyn studio. I took two...”
After some early failures, Elaine went big—”One piece that I worked on was 10 feet.” Getting it from Brooklyn to Clinton was no easy task.
“It had to be brought here by an art mover—it must weigh 2,000 pounds—but it’s very happy at my home,” she says.
For six years, Elaine rented studio space in Brooklyn, and she and Leopold bought an apartment in New York City to be closer to their aging parents. On weekends, they returned to Clinton.
In addition to group shows at New York City’s John Elder Gallery, Elaine—a member of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts—exhibited closer to home, notably in the Madison Mile.
Small-town Renaissance
In the 1990s, Elaine got a call from Clinton attorney Ernie Burnham asking if she would serve on a board that would bring classical music to the town, thanks to a $2 million bequest.
“Naturally, I was most interested.”
The man behind the effort, George Flynn, had been a lifelong resident of Clinton and a devoted fan of classical music. When he died in 1997, a foundation was established to make sure the music he loved had a lasting place in his hometown.
Elaine, now president of the five-member trust, manages the George Flynn Classical Concert Series.
“The series has evolved over these 18 years,” she said. “It was once very hard to gather an audience for our concerts, even though we featured some of the most famous musicians. The local audience didn’t know many of these artists. We tried banners on The Morgan School fence and more advertising until we decided to mail a yearly brochure to the entire town of Clinton and place a colorful ad three weeks prior to each concert. We also featured more popular performances in the summer.”
To give Clinton residents first dibs, free tickets are released a month before any show; tickets open up to nonresidents two weeks in advance.
“Our concerts have turned into an eclectic mix,” says Elaine, noting that they’ve featured Joshua Bell, the Emerson String Quartet, Earl Wild, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, John Pizzarelli, Barbara Cook, Boston Brass, Canadian Brass, The Romeros, the Vienna Choir Boys, the Yale Whiffenpoofs, and more.
“Personally, I look for talent everywhere.”
Though her kitchen and studio still hum with the sweet strains of music and art taking shape, Elaine no longer shares her home with her husband of more than 30 years or their daughter, who once chased chickens through their yard. Leopold Godowsky passed away in 2011, and Leila graduated from New York University Film School. After a few awards for cinematography, she switched to designing upscale Carlos Falchi handbags for Cher and 50 Cent. She has since pivoted in a new direction.
“Leila’s now studying nursing,” says Elaine, “and absolutely loving it.”
As for Elaine, when she’s not booking concerts or glazing and etching in her studio, “I travel with my pal, Dr. Jim McAraw. I go to New York City, read, have dinner with friends, watch Amazon’s Mozart in the Jungle and Transparent and PBS. It’s a very full life, and I have no regrets.”
See Elaine’s work at elainegodowsky.com. For concert dates and free tickets, find George Flynn Classical Concerts on Facebook.