These Hands is a storytelling project to share Northern Virginian’s stories through a focus on how they used their hands in memorable moments of life.
A magnet on Jim Mueller’s fridge in Chantilly states: “The arts are the rain forests of society. They produce the oxygen of freedom, and they are the early warning system when freedom is in danger (June Wayne 1918-2011).” A Northern Virginian rehabilitation industrial designer-turned-sculptor, Mueller’s lifelong dedication to helping others is discernible through his gentle countenance.
His hands:
1. Gripped go-kart steering wheels. “When I was little, my brothers and my father raced go-karts. We had a lot of fun together. I just loved to build things. I’d make models and then blow them up with firecrackers. I was always breaking things and cutting myself. I went through a lot of gloves and antiseptics and Band-Aids. As I got older, I worked outside with my hands a lot, in nurseries, building things. One summer I worked 10 hours a night at a steel plant lifting shelves. One night, I multiplied how much steel I was lifting each shift, and I figured out it was 22 tons a night.”
2. Designed a wheelchair-accessible miniature golf course for an elementary school. “I was lucky enough to go to art school in Syracuse. [Later] I met somebody with a daughter with cerebral palsy, and I was intrigued by the idea of designing things for people that were well-designed. People with disabilities get saddled with jerry-rigged kind of things. I always wanted to move back [to Northern Virginia], so when I got a job at GW in the rehabilitation center, it was a no-brainer. I helped people get back to work or live independently and make stuff for them. Rehabilitation was huge fun because it gave me a chance to apply design to real problems. That was for 40 years or so.”
3. Creates sculptures from stones, plants, lights, aromas and water. “I started making these in 2002 during one particularly nasty winter when I was sick of waiting for spring. I started exhibiting in Merrifield around 2005.” The sculptures bring the natural therapeutic beauty of landscapes into people’s homes as well as providing a multisensory experience. “If I’m blind, pictures will be lost on me; if I’m deaf, I can get something out of it but not the full experience,” says Mueller. Influenced by traditional Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese art forms, his designs are compositions of a visual cadence, the resonance of moving water, the aroma of essential oils, the gritty texture of rock, the life source of plants and light for cloudy days. “Just like when I was getting tired of waiting for spring, everyone gets tired of being disconnected from nature, especially with the less space we have. My idea was to westernize that what was really a [Far East] labor-intensive art that you could enjoy even if you don’t have much space or you’re busy or don’t have the talent for plants or if you don’t have the vision or the mobility to take care of these things. They are still fairly durable; they pretty much take care of themselves.”
4. Fished all over Northern Virginia. “Northern Virginia is a little crowded, but we love it. We purposely moved to the area because Walney Park is right across the street. The park smells different in the different parts of the year. In the fall, the smell of the leaves and the ground is still moist with the fall rains. There is a little creek that goes through it and a little mill where they have weddings and parties. My son, when he was much younger, fished in the creek. My son and I have fished along the Shenandoah River by the Blue Ridge [Mountains]. There is a creek just south of Front Royal with trout fishing. On the other side of the stream is a big rock formation where the rocks have tumbled down, and there are jagged formations down to the creek. It always comes back to how close [people] can get to water. That is a spiritual thing for most of us—when people go on vacation, you want to go to the ocean, go to the lake, go to the river, go to the stream. So it’s the places that have water. The Potomac is the most inspiration where it is wildest. We’ve fished off Thompson’s Boat house where the Georgetown crewers row out of. You can rent boats there. You can be within view of the Kennedy Center and sitting in an old wooden boat fishing for catfish really early in the morning when the mist is still on the river, and you think, ‘Wow I’m 5 miles from the White House, and I’m in the wild.’ That is inspirational. You don’t necessarily have to be away from everybody, but you also need to yield to the nature of it. People in the park are not the same people they are in their crowded cars. We’re all looking for the same thing—a little solitude.”
5. Flip through the pages of the Washington Post travel section. “I’m always uncovering some obscure spot. The latest was in Iceland, and it was one of these places you really had to work to get there. It wasn’t getting off a plane and taking a cab somewhere. It was a wall of bay-salt where there were just long columns that run down to the water. The photos were so captivating, I got on the Internet and studied every photograph I could find because I’d really like to do a sculpture. I think, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to get there and touch it?’ But in some way, I could create something for people that will never get there. That’s the connection … I don’t think if everyone picked up a paintbrush, the world would be better. But the sense of why artists do what they do and what they try to do if they really working at it is what we should all do with our lives. Every day should be a piece of art where we start with a central theme in our life, something that is the most important thing in our life, and whatever else happens today I’m going to respond to it through a focus on that central theme. It ought to be there or else we’re just wandering about.”
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