Marian Van Landingham: Celebrating Alexandria's Torpedo Factory
This week, Michael is joined by an Alexandria legend, former Delegate Marian van Landingham; who served in the General Assembly for twenty-four years and spearheaded the transformation of Alexandria's Torpedo Factory from military storage into a world-famous art center.
Episode Transcript
Michael Pope
I'm Michael Pope. And this is Pod Virginia, a podcast celebrating a really big birthday this week. It's the 275 birthday of the city of Alexandria. It's also the 50th birthday of the Torpedo Factory Art Center. Today, we are joined by a woman who had the crazy idea of transforming a Torpedo Factory into an art center. She spent more than 20 years representing Alexandria in the House of Delegates. And she's joining us today on Pod Virginia Marian Van Landingham; thanks for joining us.
Marian Van Landingham
Thank you for inviting me.
Michael Pope
This is really exciting. I really appreciate you joining us on Pod Virginia. I want to talk to you about a bunch of things from your more than 20-year history in the House of Delegates and all the things you saw there. But I want to start with the Torpedo Factory. As the name suggests, this is a factory that makes torpedoes. This was a United States government military installation on the waterfront. Built right after World War One, and they made a lot of torpedoes there. After World War II ended, it became kind of a government storage facility; I think the papers for the Nuremberg trials were stored there. And I think the federal government stored dinosaur bones there.
Marian Van Landingham
It was Estonia.
Michael Pope
It was kind of a hulking, abandoned eyesore on the waterfront. Then you had the crazy idea, which must have seemed crazy at the time, to transform it into an art center. Tell us a little bit about that. All the stuff that happened 50 years ago.
Marian Van Landingham
Well, that was a fairly exciting time. Actually, I was just looking for a new space for the Art League, which was had been called the Art League of Northern Virginia. It was about to lose its lease on a building where it had been housed for a few years on Cameron Street. I was president of the organization at the time, and I wanted to find another reasonable place. That was decent, and the Art League would like to be in. I was also working for the Alexandria Bicentennial at the time. I was talking about this need that the Art League had one day and the editor; well, he was not the editor of the Bicentennial, but he was chairman of the Bicentennial. I was also the editor of a local newspaper.
Michael Pope
The Alexandria Port Packet, you're talking about Jim Cole Smith, right?
Marian Van Landingham
Exactly, he was he was an imaginative fella and was easy to talk to. We'd become pretty good friends as I was working with him on the Bicentennial. I had looked at so many places and sort of rat-failed and tired old town spots.
Michael Pope
You called it the largest Pigeon Roost in Old Town.
Marian Van Landingham
And he said, Why not the Torpedo Factory? The city doesn't know what to do with it. I'd never been in it because there was nothing down there except this big gray building on the lower side of King Street. After he mentioned that, I immediately got permission to look at it. I went in, and as soon as I walked into the building, I loved it. Because it was an enormous space. It was dirty and had a paint-chipped, etcetera, but that space just absolutely sold me. I thought what we could do with it.
Michael Pope
You're talking about this enormous space that is kind of dirty, has lots of pigeon droppings and that sort of thing.
Marian Van Landingham
It was dirty gray on the outside, but as I said, the space was wonderful, and that was immediately obvious. At the end of Cameron Street, there was a cyclone fence cutting off the street. There was a gate that was slightly open, and I decided to go through it. I rode my bicycle through the gate and got to the dock, and that finished it. You know, it was wonderful.
Michael Pope
About 20 years ago, you wrote a book; the title of the book is On Target: Stories of the Torpedo Factory Art Center. You talked about people who wanted to keep the plant operating. I thought that part of your book was really interesting because the people and names you mentioned of the elected officials who wanted to keep the plant operating were all Bryd machine people, which kind of grabbed me. Tell me a little bit about that era.
Marian Van Landingham
I didn't really deal with a Bryd machine that much personally.
Michael Pope
But they wanted to keep this torpedo plant operational.
Marian Van Landingham
Well, it hadn't been operational for quite some time. Immediately after the Second World War, the Nazi war records were brought there and studied. Then, it was taken over by the archaeology program for the city, which was in partnership with the Smithsonian. They started using one of the buildings, the second building. The first building was a place where they could put whatever they wanted. They dug up and used it as a place to work and leave a mess.
Michael Pope
When you said they wanted to keep it operational, the torpedoes were long gone. But maybe the federal government wanted to keep it operational as a storage facility of some sort?
Marian Van Landingham
Yes. Yeah, the torpedoes had long been gone. However, the federal government still used it for storage.
Michael Pope
Which seems strange. It's waterfront; why would they want this? For our listeners who have never been there, this is at the foot of King Street, in the most recognizable and important spot on the waterfront. Who in the right mind would want to put a storage facility there?
Marian Van Landingham
Well, there was practically nothing else on the waterfront. What it amounted to was it got them a desk and things of that order. Particularly in the building that we chose, there was a lot of gray, government, metal desks, and things of that nature. The federal government still has warehouses like that; they're just not in Alexandria anymore.
Michael Pope
Several times, I've referred to this as a crazy idea. Obviously, it is a successful idea. Now, 50 years later, people are celebrating it as a success. But 50 years ago, people thought this idea was crazy, right? Where did you get this idea to do this?
Marian Van Landingham
It was so hard. I just needed space. And it needed to be a big space. Artists take up a lot of room. I had not originally thought I would get a space that large. But that was its value. It was also light. We had these windows; they were dirty, as you can imagine, but we had light from 20-foot ceilings or more. And we knew that we could subdivide the space in ways that would be useful for the first four studios. It was not a crazy idea. It was larger than life, almost for what we had to deal with.
Michael Pope
You took this idea to Alexandria City Council and City Council, which you refer to as an activist City Council, and you sold them on it, right? Tell me a little bit about that.
Marian Van Landingham
Yeah. Well, they didn't know what else to do with it.
Michael Pope
I imagine there will be a bunch of developers who look at this property and see dollar signs.
Marian Van Landingham
No. Interestingly, it didn't become attractive to developers until we were there and cleaned it up.
Michael Pope
That when it became attractive, that makes sense.
Marian Van Landingham
Developers have been looking at it ever since.
Michael Pope
So you sold the City Council on this idea. The city purchased this property?
Marian Van Landingham
They already owned it.
Michael Pope
They already owned it. Okay. You went in with the other artists and cleaned it up. Then, you had a grand opening that was timed to coincide with the Bicentennial, the American Bicentennial in 1976. That was the opening.
Marian Van Landingham
The opening was great. We used one of the loading platforms that existed on Union Street. We had it because we had it mid-summer, and we had only gotten entry into the building in May. And we cleaned and painted it as much as we could before that time. People couldn't actually see artists at work at that. But it was exciting to know what the prospects would be. Every couple of days, I would go and buy 15 gallons of antique white paint. We had a bunch of artists, and we were always getting more as they came in and saw it. We also had 314-foot extension ladders.
Michael Pope
For our listeners who have never been to the Torpedo Factory Art Center, it's essentially a shopping mall, except for the stores, which are all artist's studios. You can go in and watch the artist's work and purchase their art made there on-site. Let's talk a little bit about what it was like to be in the Torpedo Factory in 1974? When you first opened it.
Marian Van Landingham
It was a big space. We started trying to paint it, and in fact, we did. We had a one-on-one artist who was very good at working on it; I guess it's hard to explain, but they made designs to cover the walls on the passageways. When the city built it, they walled off the sections inside the torpedo factory. They were floor to ceiling, to the height of the roof. I think they were more like 12 feet or something to that effect. The art artists started painting giant murals on those walls. That really made the place look brighter. Other than that, everything was painted in antique white paint.
Michael Pope
Covering up the grime from all the government storage years, right?
Marian Van Landingham
That's right. And the new walls that were being built inside. We began painting and cleaning almost immediately after we got access to the building on the first of the summer. We painted literally all summer until early fall to get it reasonably attractive.
Michael Pope
You worked with all these artists to rehab this building. Turning it from a government storage facility into a series of artists' studios. I found your book interesting, especially the way you talk about artists being different kinds of people. You talk about the Van Gogh ear syndrome, which is essentially the belief that all artists are a little bit crazy.
Marian Van Landingham
That's what everyone thinks.
Michael Pope
That's what everyone thinks. Perhaps there's a little bit of truth to that. You also say visual artists are more territorial than the general population, which is obviously important if you're talking about the layout of a building. You also say that artists have a special ability to endure ambiguity. What was it like working with all those artists in the 1970s?
Marian Van Landingham
It was a trial. But it was also very good. They were enthusiastic and began to feel that it was their place. It ended up that the federal government had to either move the stuff out or throw it away. They had several big bins at the doc in the back, full of desks and things from the federal agencies. The artists began going over and pulling those out, rehabbing and repainting them. , Making them clean and attractive, and then dragging them back to the factory.
Michael Pope
It was very successful, according to some people, but not everybody was on board. The late Ellen Pickering, a very important person here in Alexandria, is quoted as saying, tear it down; it's an atrocity, end quote. There was a lot of pushback, even in the early days, correct?
Marian Van Landingham
Oh, she's never liked it. But before her death at the end, I had a nice conversation with her about it. At that point, even though she still wanted the waterfront. She would have liked to have had it all, and it is a Park going through the whole thing.
Michael Pope
Ellen Pickering is important in this conversation because she spent many years and decades really advocating for a waterfront that was open and accessible to people as opposed to a series of industrial buildings that were closed by fences.
Marian Van Landingham
Oh, yeah, I think so. She just didn't envision an art center. She was thinking more about greenery and parks.
Michael Pope
I want to move on and talk to you about your career in the House of Delegates. But before we move on from the Torpedo Factory, it is the 50th anniversary of the Torpedo Factory. I want to get into the newsy part of this. Because the future of the Torpedo Factory is, well, I wouldn't say in doubt, but there are divided opinions, even today, about what should happen with the Arts Center, specifically, the first floor. There is a long-standing belief among some people that the Torpedo Factory should make more money; the city government owns this, operates it, and leases it to the artists. And gosh, this thing could be a cash cow, and the city just isn't making enough money. That first floor could be transformed into a restaurant or something that pulls in more cash for the city. What do you make of the current debate about the future of the Torpedo Factory?
Marian Van Landingham
As far as the restaurants go, I think maybe we have enough in that immediate neighborhood. Those have been built since we went in there. I'm not sure there's a greater need for additional restaurants in that area. Maybe it could have some other use. But why would you put the equivalent of a department store or something like that in there?
Michael Pope
Money.
Marian Van Landingham
Money. Well, if it were available. If there are people who think it can be easily converted, the space is there, yes. But you'd have to input an entirely new heating system, which is problematic. It's not going to be easy to convert for any purpose. Though it potentially could be done. Would the city would have anything that would be that much of an attraction? I don't know. Shopping malls and things of that nature are not doing very well in the US today. That was one possibility, I guess.
Michael Pope
One of the debates going on is who should own and operate the Torpedo Factory. Currently, it's owned and operated on a day-to-day basis by the city government. Our current Mayor doesn't like that arrangement. He thinks there should be some other entity that should operate it. The city should continue to own it, but some other entity should operate it on a day-to-day basis. What's your opinion on that?
Marian Van Landingham
Well, what does he think is going to take over? Except for something that wouldn't be exactly exciting, let's put it that way. Shopping malls are not going anywhere these days. Why would you put something that doesn't need a location on the river? Just to fill the space. What could you put in there that would be an attraction for tourists? It's not the biggest attraction, but it certainly is an attraction. It may be one of those things that could be used for other purposes. But when you get around to it, what would the other purposes be? How would they fit in with the historic city?
Michael Pope
Before we move on to your career in the House of Delegates. Looking back on the 50-year history of the Torpedo Factory, what do you think about the Torpedo Factory? What is it like today, and what might it be like in the future?
Marian Van Landingham
Basically, I hope it has a future where it's not very different from what it is because it'll continue to be an attraction. And it's different. When it started in the early days, I didn't keep track of them. There were a lot of other communities in different parts of the country and even abroad that took the idea and thought about starting their own Torpedo Factory-type operation. Whether they're still going, I don't know. I know one in Charlottesville is still operating. And the one in Arlington is still operating. I'm sure there are others that have worked out. People like to watch people working. That's one of the things.
Michael Pope
People like to watch artists working. If you watched a journalist's work, it would be kind of boring, frankly, like setting up all my podcasting equipment. So, you had this idea, and you sold it to the city council; they agreed you opened the Art Center. It was a success. People liked to go in and watch the artist's work and purchase the art that was made there. Then you decide that you're going to take a leave of absence as director of the art center and run for city council. Tell me a little bit about that 1979 campaign for the Alexandria City Council?
Marian Van Landingham
Yeah. Well, I was a political science major, and I had a master's.
Michael Pope
Emory, right?
Marian Van Landingham
Emory, right. I always had an interest in political activity. I had worked for a Congressman as a press aide, so that was always there, I guess. One aspect is that I wanted to protect the factory. That was one of the ways.
Michael Pope
Oh right. You decided to pull Chuck Beatley kind of out of retirement and have him run for Mayor. So that, as Mayor, he could protect the legacy of the Torpedo Factory, which was in doubt at that time by the current Mayor, Frank Mann.
Marian Van Landingham
Frank Mann was not a supporter. Chuck's mind was already made up when I floated the idea. But I knew I had a friend in him, and he liked it and was willing to try this three-year experiment that I was suggesting. I knew there were people; in fact, there was a rumor that when his term ended, Frank Mann was going to run again. At that time, Frank Mann decided to bring the Alexandria A's in as a baseball team, which was his big interest. But I ran for council, and I didn't make it on the first try in that spring race. But then there was a vacancy a couple months later. Because of a shift, we picked up one seat. For a while, Alexandria and Arlington had a combined district.
Michael Pope
Yes, I read about this. These multi-member districts were later determined to be unconstitutional. Before that ruling, there was a huge district, and you elected multiple members to one district.
Marian Van Landingham
That's right. That opened up a new possibility. That happened that same spring.
Michael Pope
That opened up a possibility for you to run for the Virginia House of Delegates.
Marian Van Landingham
Yeah, I had not won in the first race. But when they had another race to be elected to a new Alexandria-only district, I turned around and ran again.
Michael Pope
So you ran against incumbent Republican David Speck. I think a lot of our listeners would be surprised to learn there was a Republican representing Alexandria, and you knocked him off. Tell me a little bit about that campaign?
Marian Van Landingham
Well, I made a point that it was easier to work in Richmond with a Democrat than it was with a Republican at that point. He had only been in one year when I ran against him, so he really hadn't had much time or an opportunity to build a real resume of accomplishments. I had a really good support team, and I walked to a lot of doors.
Michael Pope
You won, and you beat incumbent Republican David Speck, turning this Alexandria district from a Republican seat to a Democratic seat. The Democrats were in charge of the Virginia General Assembly at that time, although it was a different kind of Democratic Party. So you go to Richmond, tell me a little bit about the environment there. You're a brand new House Democrat, a freshman. You don't have any seniority yet. You will, of course, get lots of seniority over the years. But with no seniority and no experience walking into what was essentially a boys club. What was it like in your early days in the House of Delegates?
Marian Van Landingham
Well, we had some women who had been there for some time: Mary Marshall from Arlington, who had been there for quite a few years at that time, Dorothy S. McDiarmid from Fairfax County, and others. There were a few others; I don't remember exactly how many, but at that time, it was certainly less than 20.
Michael Pope
So, you were first elected in the early 1980s. You were in the House of Delegates for more than 20 years. You were the first woman to chair the Privileges and Elections Committee. You were Chair of the Transportation Committee, and you served on the Appropriations Committee, where you were Chair of the Education Subcommittee. That's quite a track record. Let's start with being chairwoman of Privileges and Elections. You were the first woman to chair that Committee. What was that like?
Marian Van Landingham
It was fun to a great extent. I didn't get a chair until fairly late in my career. It took a while in those days to climb the ladder of seniority. But it was good. I would have had more experience with it if I had not had cancer and had to quit.
Michael Pope
Over your career, there were certain issues that you focused on. One of the things you championed was to earmark lottery money for public schools. You had legislation to reduce class sizes, and you had legislation to boost programs to teach English as a second language. You advocated legislation for services for people who are disabled or people who are homeless. You advocated for childcare for poor families. One of your key signature issues was parental leave, which I find really interesting because this is modern and current in Virginia politics. Just this year, 2024, there was a bill that got out of the House and the Senate to create eight weeks of parental leave. It was vetoed by Governor Glenn Youngkin. Let's start with parental leave. You champion this over and over again. What do you make of this debate? Why is it so hard to get parental leave?
Marian Van Landingham
I guess employers don't want to pay for somebody who's not there for that length of time. But the pool of workers would be much greater if they were more flexible on that. I'm sure there are people who drop out early and decide not to go with a company or business because they don't have that. They don't explicitly say it is, of course. But now, more than ever, women are in the General Assembly and are interested in politics. I suspect, at some point, it parentally has to become easier. When it's easier, it's more often that people take advantage of that. Otherwise, they're just not going to have the workers.
Michael Pope
Obviously, this is a discussion that you've had for many years in the General Assembly. People are still having this discussion because nothing has actually happened to it. What do you think is going to be needed for action to be taken? Can the governor put his signature on this?
Marian Van Landingham
I don't really know. Certainly, it's been an issue for so long. Maybe, as I said, as it gets harder to find people to hire, they'll realize there's a large pool of possible workers if they are flexible with them.
Michael Pope
I went through the newspaper clips of the different elections that you had and all the different Republicans who ran against you. It's kind of a rogue's gallery of Republicans, Tom Hallfish, Mike Holmes. One of the people you ran against was George Cook, who criticized the kinds of bills that you introduced as being not important or not meaningful and impactful in people's lives. I went through this list of things, like helping renters, in terms of the disputes that they might have between landlords and renters; Mike Holmes criticized that as being sort of inconsequential or not necessarily relevant to the lives of people who live in the 45th district. You call them out as being chauvinistic. What was it like running against all these Republicans over the years?
Marian Van Landingham
I tried to answer what they were doing, but I realized that they just didn't get it. You can't keep somebody from saying these are like things or if they think it's useful. I think they must have found out that it wasn't really popular. They all lost.
Michael Pope 32:51
They did all, in fact, lose. After you left the General Assembly, the 45th district remains in Democratic hands. Although I'll say, it has breezed through so many people since you left the House of Delegates. There was David Englin, Rob Krupicka, Mark Levine, and now Elizabeth Bennett-Parker. The joke in Richmond is that ever since Marian Van Landingham left, this has been a cursed seat. What do you make of the many Democrats who have breathed in and out of the seats since you left?
Marian Van Landingham
I don't know. I guess they found out you didn't get everything the first year. You have to dig in to be down there. You have to you have to be patient to a degree. I don't know why I haven't talked to any of those who have replaced me to find out how they're feeling. But they apparently don't love it.
Michael Pope
Well, I have to say, I think you might not have loved it. Toward the end, I saw a quote that said the General Assembly is a miserable marathon and that it hasn't been as much fun in recent years. This was in the early 2000s. Did you feel like it probably was more fun in the 90s?
Marian Van Landingham
Maybe.
Michael Pope
I think the point you were making at the time was that by the time you left. It was the 2005 election cycle that your replacement ran. That would make your last election to the House of Delegates in 2003. That's the era we're talking about; by that time, things had gotten so partisan. The Republicans were in charge at that time. From your perspective, it wasn't as much fun because you were no longer chairman of the Privileges and Elections Committee. And you might have been on Appropriations, but you didn't have as much pull as you have had, right?
Marian Van Landingham
That's exactly that's exactly right. Also, I had health problems for a good part of the time.
Michael Pope
You had colon cancer, and you even had a swooning couch near the House floor, right?
Marian Van Landingham
No, there was one in the lady's lounge; it was a couch of sorts I could go to, but no, I didn't actually have a place to lie down on the floor or anything of that order. The last term I was in there was really pretty tough. I would go over in the morning, across the street to the hospital, and get shots or whatever for the treatment. So, I would get very weak and very tired because of that. There was the pace of the House, so it's a lot of stuff. You're going, going, going, going. And if you're sick, it makes it a tough time.
Michael Pope
You made the difficult decision to not run for reelection in 2005.
Marian Van Landingham
Right.
Michael Pope
That's when you stepped off the public stage. But then you beat cancer, so you're still around. I want to talk to you about your legacy in the House of Delegates, which is vast because you were there for so long. One thing that popped up in the archives that I'd love to hear you talk about is the Goochland Correctional Center for Women.
Michael Pope
Yeah.
Michael Pope
Which you visited and called a dungeon. Talk about that experience?
Marian Van Landingham
Well, it's a hard place to be. It's enlightening to actually go into an institution like that, in a prison. None of us know about it otherwise and feel how it is. Some of the stories that you recognize are about how someone got entrapped or went off at one point, and now they're there for 30 years or something of that order.
Michael Pope
One of the other discussions you took a very important role in was an effort by Governor Wilder to abolish the Commission for the Arts. For whatever reason, Governor Wilder wanted to get rid of the Commission for the Arts. You took action as an artist and as the founder of the Torpedo Factory. You thought that was a terrible idea. So you recruited 45 Delegates and Speaker Moss, plus all the appropriations members and a dozen Senators, and killed that effort. Tell me a little bit about that.
Michael Pope
I was successful; that's the main thing I remember.
Michael Pope
Well, the Commission for Arts is still around today, thanks to your efforts to save it. But why did Governor Wilder want to get rid of the Commission on the Arts? Talk a little bit about your efforts to put together this group of people to save it?
Marian Van Landingham
I don't know why he had that attitude. Mainly, it was easy to organize people who supported the arts. Oh, yeah, that's a good thing. It wasn't the hardest thing in the world; I could have gotten organized.
Michael Pope
One of the other issues you dealt with in the General Assembly that's fascinating because of the resonance in our modern world is the effort to put a stadium in Potomac Yard. Not the one that we talked about in 2024, but the Jack Kent Cooke stadium. Explain what was going on with that.
Marian Van Landingham
Yeah, that was that was a real failure for the governor and others. The city was actually very well organized for that. It was not the kind of divided situation we had recently.
Michael Pope
When you say organized, you mean organized against it. Mayor Patsy Ticer was leading the charge against the stadium.
Marian Van Landingham
She was. All of us that were representing the city were organized against it. Delray was in an uproar and, etcetera. There was that sort of sneaky thing they tried this go around. The city was more or less united. I was already talking to people from Virginia Tech about the possibility of having some kind of a branch in that space and doing something of that order, hoping that we could pull that off. There were alternative uses that we were already thinking about. However, the main one was that tech would become a kind of core for organizing advanced development.
Marian Van Landingham
When you heard in December that there was an effort to put a new stadium in Potomac Yard. What were your thoughts in terms of history repeating itself?
Marian Van Landingham
Oh, exactly. It was about 15 years later. I don't know exactly; I haven't figured out how many years it has been. They were trying to do basically the same thing of sneaking something in. The city was not organized this time. The Mayor was not taking that lead.
Michael Pope
The Mayor was taking the lead, but he was in favor of the proposal as opposed.
Marian Van Landingham
I could not believe it, but I was not happy about it. I don't believe that most citizens would be.
Michael Pope
You also had a bunch of legislation on schools, reducing class sizes and boosting programs to teach English as a second language. Talk about that. Why was this such an important issue for you? And what do you think you accomplished?
Marian Van Landingham
We knew we had a lot of foreign students in Alexandria, and the number was going up. In fact, what was a small trend, or I don't guess it was small. But the trend, certainly in that time, was not what it is now. And that increase has continued. It'd be interesting to know what percentage of students in Alexandria schools are foreign-born or from foreign-born families. Have you ever run into that number?
Michael Pope
I don't have it off the top of my head. But I know it's large; it's one of the largest in the state, absolutely, in Arlington and Alexandria.
Marian Van Landingham
That was true back then, too. But it was not nearly as large as it is now, I'm sure.
Michael Pope
Then other efforts that you had were services for people who are living with disabilities, getting services for people who are homeless, and getting child care for poor families. There's a theme there to this legislation. What was behind your efforts here? Why were those the issues that you decided to focus your attention on?
Marian Van Landingham
Because they were needed. And there wasn't that kind of built-in constituency that had a voice.
Michael Pope
Why was that important to you? To be a voice for those constituencies? Other people weren't doing this? Your colleagues were not doing this. But you were, why?
Marian Van Landingham
I don't know it. To me, it was important. Partially, I did have an unusually large constituency. That was varied. I didn't know how large it was or how large it would become. But it probably was, I'm sure, at the top of the list.
Michael Pope
One of the other debates that you took a major part in was how drug problems are handled in schools. There was this debate, which is very similar to debates we're having right now, about whether or not Schools are required to tell parents certain things. The debate that's currently going on is whether the school is required to notify parents if a child changes gender. But, 20 years ago, there was this debate about whether there are drug problems in schools and whether the school is required to notify parents. Are we talking about treatment? Or are we talking about discipline? Talk a little bit about that debate and what arguments you were trying to make in terms of what was going on at that time?
Marian Van Landingham
I don't remember that debate at all, but it's obvious there would be problems. I can't imagine why they wouldn't tell the parents if a child is having real issues. They think he's on drugs and say, what have you found? What are you doing about it? Surely they must. But I don't know that they do.
Michael Pope
One of the other topics, perhaps not the most earth-shattering or important of topics, but perhaps one that's important symbolically, is the state song. You had a bill to revise the lyrics of the song Carry Me Back to Old Virginia. Tell me about that.
Marian Van Landingham
Well, that's one of the things that really is still an 18th-century holdover.
Michael Pope
A holdover from the 18th century, yeah.
Marian Van Landingham
It's a nice tune. And I guess there are people that are devoted to it, but it's obviously not with this century. I haven't heard it in a very long time. Have you?
Michael Pope
Well, it's no longer the state song.
Marian Van Landingham
Well, I know that.
Michael Pope
It's been removed. But you were part of an effort to change the lyrics. Frankly, there were pretty racist lyrics in the original version of the song.
Marian Van Landingham
They were.
Michael Pope
You helped take out of the song. Was changing the lyrics a good idea? Or should that song have been abandoned before it was?
Marian Van Landingham
It probably should have been abandoned before it was. For a lot of people, as long as it was there, people would remember some of the original words, and they would come out. So the only way to get rid of the bad lyrics, really, would be to get rid of it.
Michael Pope
One other topic I wanted to ask you about is not a General Assembly topic but your artwork, which we are actually surrounded by in this room. You have a theme for your artwork, which is pathways and doorways. Every piece of artwork I'm looking at here actually has pathways and doorways. Why is this the theme for you?
Marian Van Landingham
I don't know. I really don't. I think you sort of enter into a painting; very often, it's something that seems to be a pathway or door. It's one of the things that will bring you in. You don't have to have that in a painting. A lot of painters now paint and do flat paintings, but one of the things you'll find out is that even if it looks like it is, it's not flat. There's usually an effort to get colors that retreat or come out and sort of push and pull. Even if it seems like it's abstract, and there's no three-dimensional effect to it, there usually is. Any painting that keeps your interest for any amount of time has this feeling of a push-and-pull effect; it's not just a flat surface. But there are people who just specialize in keeping everything flat. But you do accomplish that in two ways. One way is to draw lines that go into a painting; that will do that. The other fact is that just by doing it through colors, art will pull in and pull out. That kind of push and pull makes it more interesting. You don't realize it, but changing the surface of the painting like that is one of the things that keeps your interest.
Michael Pope
I've talked to you about your artwork, and I've talked to you about the Torpedo Factory. I've talked to you about your time in the House of Delegates. So you haven't been in the House of Delegates since 2006. I'm wondering what you think of the current House of Delegates. I'm looking at it from afar here in Old Town Alexandria. What do you think about how the General Assembly is currently operating with the current governor?
Marian Van Landingham
I think they had a lot of guts to do what they did recently.
Michael Pope
In what way? What do you mean by that?
Marian Van Landingham
The business really stopped it for the city of Alexandria.
Michael Pope
You're talking about the arena now.
Marian Van Landingham
I thought that's what you were talking about?
Michael Pope
I meant, in general, what do you make of the General Assembly? That was obviously a very big issue here in Alexandria.
Marian Van Landingham
Some of the best help came out of Southside, really out of Louise Lucas.
Michael Pope
Louise Lucas. Yeah.
Marian Van Landingham
I knew Louise and liked her a lot.
Michael Pope
She spent a long time in the General Assembly. You were talking earlier about it; it's not really much fun in the General Assembly until you build up enough seniority to be able to be in charge of stuff. Louise Lucas has certainly been around long enough. Now, she's in charge of the powerful Senate Finance Committee. And she was the one who said we're not doing this.
Marian Van Landingham
Yeah, that's it. That's exactly right. I was cackling every day as I read the paper. I still remember some campaigns, and I don't remember what they were; they were statewide. They wanted me to take her to church. So she could meet more people here in Alexandria. And I took her to the church, and she was wonderful when she spoke.
Michael Pope
She's a very charismatic speaker.
Marian Van Landingham
She is. And she came right over. I kept thinking back to that day, thinking, well, she'll straighten them out.
Michael Pope
I asked you about the General Assembly. What do you make of the current Governor Glenn Youngkin?
Marian Van Landingham
I think he's one of these very rich men who made money, and thanks, that's it. Basically, he probably has no feelings for Virginia, as he grew up in it. I guess I can't say he doesn't have any feelings for Virginia. But he's not used to having to deal with political things, obviously.
Michael Pope
I'm curious about your thoughts about the potential next governor; Democrats are excited about the prospect of a governor, Abigail Spanberger. What do you make of that?
Marian Van Landingham
That's interesting. She's had the experience of Congress. She'll probably be going in with more knowledge about how things work. Even though it's a very different place.
Michael Pope
During your time in the General Assembly, it was difficult for female law lawmakers for a number of reasons. One of them, which might strike a lot of our listeners as being odd or something they hadn't really thought of, is restrooms. There was a lack of women's restrooms for female lawmakers in the Capitol building, right? Can you explain that?
Marian Van Landingham
The main building was built before there were new female lawmakers.
Michael Pope
The building predates indoor plumbing.
Marian Van Landingham
They didn't think they had, quote, space. Well, it wasn't a very big space. And we didn't get it enlarged to a decent-sized space until right before I quit. It's important to not have to go downstairs. We could always go down to the first floor, but that's not always convenient. And there was no place there to rest, say, if you just had to get down and didn't feel good that day and you wanted to lock down for a few minutes and not be on the floor of the House. For a long time, there was no place where you could do that.
Michael Pope
Well, I really appreciate your taking the time to talk to me today. The reason I wanted to talk to you this week is the timing; the city of Alexandria is celebrating its 275th birthday this week. It is also the 50th birthday of the Torpedo Factory. It is a big week for the city of Alexandria and for you, Marian Van Landingham. What do you make of their legacies? We have the Torpedo Factory, and it is still operational 50 years later and perhaps even 50 years into the future.
Marian Van Landingham
I hope so. It's showing that it's something the public enjoys. It's shown it's a place where artists can work. Not only is this space where they can work, but it's also where they can work with other artists, which is very good and nice to share. And it simply has worked. The artists are able to do their thing, so to speak, whatever it is. The public is interested, and there's nothing that people like more than watching other people work. So that's natural. It's colorful, and it turns out to be a very convenient location, also something that's close to where people would like to see something interesting. The waterfront has improved a great deal, of course, to a great extent because of the factory. There was nothing there but a mess before we were there, so why would anybody go to the waterfront.
Michael Pope
Now it's the most sought-after and best place in the front door of the city.
Marian Van Landingham
That's how the commercial types want it, for just that reason. They say the artists are not the main reason; that's it. That's infuriating in many ways. We made it valuable. Now they say it doesn't bring in enough money, though it pays its way. And they want to put something commercial in there. They've already taken over a good part of the building, the whole strip of King Street corner.
Michael Pope
Well, what would you say to those people who say, Look, we're talking about the most valuable property in all of Alexandria; it could be making a lot of money. Why have these artists here? Why not put something that would make a lot of people's money and produce a lot of tax revenue for the city. What's wrong with that approach?
Marian Van Landingham
Well, it makes money for somebody. I don't know how much more it would make for the city. The city would have to spend a great deal of money in order to get it up to the kind of commercial space that would bring in that money. It's not something that would just appear. Even the height of the ceilings and things would be a problem for anybody trying to do something else with it. They really want what is it, 25-foot ceilings? No. It's not a dressy kind of place. It works as an open space, which serves fine. We don't need 20-foot walls, and it's not warm enough in really cold for when the heat comes down from the ceiling that's so far up above. The kind of renovation that is perfectly satisfactory now, for the use that it's used, would not be enough to bring in the kind of square foot income that I think most commercial spaces would want.
Michael Pope
In the past 50 years, there has been a fight to make sure that the commercial interests and the impulse to pull in money don't outweigh the needs of the artists. That's the last 50 years. Do you think that in the next 50 years, the artists will be able to continue to be there? I'm sure they will continue to face these financial pressures in the next half-century.
Marian Van Landingham
Oh, yeah. They probably will. We've been successful so far. And it's going to continue to be a major attraction for the city. They'd be losing attraction if they did away with it. More likely, it'll sort of slide away, the city might not make a decision for a long time, and it could gradually fade or become less important to the city. But we've got it down now to where it's relatively simple to keep it up. It's not heated, and the winter is certainly not easy. But it's not like it's putting the city in debt. We're not asking them for first-class renovation either. So far, the heating system is holding up. These things do have to be replaced at some point, and maybe the city will want to spend that. But we hope that there's always enough benefit to the city that they won't try to finance the city with a Torpedo Factory. That it'll bring in adequate amounts of money for the use that it is.
Michael Pope
What's your prediction for the next 50 years at the Torpedo Factory? Do you think that the artists and people who support the current model of the Torpedo Factory are going to be successful? Or are there other forces that want to pull in more money? Are they going to be successful? What's your prediction for the next 50 years?
Marian Van Landingham
I don't know; I suspect that it'll be another 50 years of controversy. Every time we have to make an improvement, somebody will complain about it. Because different people have different priorities. That's certainly true of the city staff. I don't know, to the degree that if you took a poll of the city staff, they would all necessarily be supportive of the factory. There may be some that really don't have any strong feelings about it one way or the other; that's probably the majority.
Michael Pope
From your perspective, I would imagine the key would be making sure you had elected officials on the city council and Mayor's office who really believed in this concept and were willing to fight for it.
Marian Van Landingham
One would hope.
Michael Pope
We have been joined by a living legend, one of the founders of the Torpedo Factory Art Center, who was in the General Assembly for more than 20 years. Thank you so much for joining us on Pod Virginia. Marian Van Landingham.
