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How can someone for whom the basis of their entire life is art, art, art be spawned from someone who not only doesn't understand art, but doesn't even like it all that much? How does this happen? My father was an extraordinarily artistic man, yet my mother is a complete art philistine. I used to think there was something lacking in my abilities when she would tell me that my work wasn't very interesting or that she didn't "get" it (what's to "get" in a landscape? how much more basic can that be?) and couldn't for the life of her understand why I was "doing that". These are comments I have heard countless times within my life and still hear on a fairly regular basis. With all due respect to Charles Schulz, how can a picture of Snoopy sleeping on his doghouse be superior to a Paul Klee? In my mother's world, it is. I no longer bring her to museums or galleries with me, because while she thinks she's going to enjoy the day ahead, she is really only looking forward to the day in theory. Once we arrive and begin to actually look at art, she's so far out of her element she becomes, very quickly, tired and bored. Not to mention often rather embarrassing in her uncensored comments, especially when it comes to modern art. While many would think this may be due to her age and the era in which she was raised, it is in fact due far more to her ignorance of the subtleties of art and the beauty within it than that she's simply old. Using her age is a cop out. In our last visit to the Museum of Fine Arts together, after she had spent an hour or so looking irritated and bored within an exhibit of Cezannes and Picassos, I found her sitting on a bench conversing with a man who clearly was cut from the same cloth as my mother. Both were loudly denigrating the work opposite their seat, demanding to know how the artist could possibly call that mess art. After all, where was the supposed cathedral in the piece they were viewing? How can a bunch of blobs and mismatched shapes be anything real? I found myself getting irritated enough to have to walk away. But after giving it some thought I have decided it isn't so much irritating as it is sad. I have tried to imagine what life would be like for me without art and I can't even express how miserable it would be. For me to live a life with little or no beauty, no art, no joy, wouldn't be living at all. How tedious and depressing would such a life be. I'm thankful that I am who I am, because to be like my mother would just be devastating to my soul.
I've been thinking lately about what constitutes being an artist and by association, what constitutes art itself. The definition of an artist is: 1. one skilled or versed in learned arts and 2. one who professes and practices an imaginative art (with the subsequent definition of art being: the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects). Okay, that covers quite a bit of ground there, so where does one draw the line? I know people who aren't particularly art snobs, yet consider quilting, weaving, and the textile arts in general to not be art at all, but merely crafts. If this were the case, then why would museums all over the world be clamoring to exhibit the stunningly beautiful quilts created through the years by the women of one of the poorest towns in the American South, Gee's Bend? And are popsicle sticks, glitter and an old shoe art outside of a Brownie Troop meeting? They are at the Institute of Contemporary Art. And what about the gallery exhibiting a rotting side of beef that hangs from a ceiling hook and relentlessly drips blood into an old metal pan on the floor beneath it? Is a slab of stinking meat art?
Is an artist only truly an artist if they have earned a degree in some area of the fine arts through an institution of higher learning? If that's the case, then Tramp Art can't be art at all, as not only did those artists who created it not have college degrees, but many of them couldn't even read or write. And does art only have merit or value when presented to us on a traditional support such as canvas, fine paper or board? What about art created on a piece torn from an old cardboard box, or a matchbook cover, or even a paper napkin? Is sculpture only sculpture when it's formed from marble, bronze or stone? What about papier mache, old wire coat hangers, or even chewed fat spat at a piece of plywood? Isn't that sculpture too?
I'm of the belief that an artist is an artist when they can't not create something, because it is that need to create that keeps them alive, that is second only to the need to breathe. If they aren't creating something, then they are thinking of what they will next create and how they will create it. You are an artist because you are born one. An artist is not made at a school. Being an artist comes from your heart, your head, your hands, your soul. And it matters not one whit if not one other person likes your work. It doesn't even matter if anyone else ever even sees your work. Most people agree that art is a very subjective thing, so why isn't this also granted to the artists who make the work?
The other day I filled out an online dating questionnaire to see who's my dead soulmate. As I answered all the questions as seriously as I was able, and naturally was expecting someone who at least dabbled in the arts, who I ended up with surprised me. I'm not sure if I should consider the results quirky and cool, or if I should be very concerned for my own mental well-being. My three potential mystery dates? Edgar Allen Poe, Vincent Van Gogh, and the enigmatic Leonardo Da Vinci. Now, don't get me wrong, I consider these all to be great men in the arts and sciences, and would love to have had the chance to meet any of them in their lifetimes, but let's be honest here if I may. All three of them were loonies, plain and simple.
Bachelor #1: an alcoholic, bi-polar, clinically depressed writer consumed with death in general and who had an obsessively morbid fascination for his dead beloved
Bachelor #2: a poverty-stricken, unsuccessful (in his lifetime) artist with schizophrenia, psychosis and OCD
Bachelor #3: another bi-polar with narcissistic tendencies who had great difficulty finishing anything he started and who also was gay with a penchant for very young, effeminate teenage boys
I thought perhaps if I went back and re-answered the questionnaire again more carefully, I might fare better with my choices of potential sweethearts, but no such luck. There were the same three gentlemen awaiting my decision. Apparently I am who I am and this is my destiny, so how hard could this be? An outrageously arrogant gay pedophile isn't my thing (and I obviously would not be his, which wouldn't be any fun for either of us), nor is a psychotic self-mutilator (and since I like to talk so much, I need a man with both ears in working order), so I chose Bachelor #1.
Perhaps had I not been quite so honest in my answers, or at least left out the part about my liking the idea of seeing visions (that would be so cool), or dating a man who saw visions (still cool) I might have ended up with a more mundane choice of men, but isn't honesty supposed to be the best policy? And for a dead guy, our date rocked, so who can complain?
My father was an executive chef. For those of you who don't know what that means, it means he was not only the head chef at the various restaurants where he was employed, but he also did all the ordering from the butchers, the fishmongers, the vegetable dealers, dairy farmers, and so forth. It means he wrote the menus and set the prices of each dish. And while my father was a brilliant chef who was very well-known, highly respected and much-loved, he was also an amazing artist, though not in any of the traditional mediums. He was an artist with food. His dishes were not only delicious, but beautiful to behold, a play of both texture and color. A balance of all that is perfect. And although his devoted clients didn't know this, to those in the industry he was also known for his beautiful ice sculptures, sculptures for which he won many awards. In my dreams I am the proprietor of a small tearoom where I serve little pastries, cakes and pies. I think it would be a wonderful way to honor my father who I miss very much and who I admired- and admire still- with all my heart and soul. I try to carry on the culinary traditions he set within our family, and as I nurture with food I feel him here with me still. I can think of nothing more fulfilling than a sumptuous meal shared with those I love. Even those who join me at table in spirit only, you will always have a place set for you.
I have been told many, many times that "arty people" are weird. While I'm not sure I would go so far as to say this is a hard and fast rule, I will go so far as to agree that most of the artistic people I know are rather liberal in a great many areas of their lives, code of dress being one of those areas. This is in actuality how I dressed a great deal of the time when I was young. Although the butterfly wings are a bit of creative license on my part, that is not to say that given the opportunity, I wouldn't go grocery shopping wearing a pair of them today. I would. This outfit consisted of a striped tee, the bottom half of a former Halloween costume (a full-length paisley skirt as this was after all 1971, sewn with hundreds of beads and sequins by my mother), and an antique hand-crocheted apron that belonged to god-only-knows-which ancient female relative of mine. And while it appears that I was playing dress-up in this get up, I wasn't. It was the outfit I had chosen to wear that day, one in a long line of original (some would say "bizarre") outfits that I put together on a whim when deciding what to wear that day. And still do now. Give me funky over couture any day!
In between working on what I term "real art", I've been working on an art journal reflecting on my childhood. Or maybe I should clarify this: reflecting on my childhood as I see it. What I remember and how I remember it. Whether or not this actually qualifies as art, I'm not so sure. But I do know it's cathartic as hell. Not that my formative years were so awful I would need extensive analysis to be a whole and normal adult now. It wasn't like that at all. I didn't have an especially bad childhood, per se. I mean, I had fun and I was loved by those who love me still, so how bad could it have been? Still, it's funny how certain photos trigger specific memories and feelings, good, bad or otherwise. On one day working on one page, I find I'm happy as a clam, while other days and with other pages, I can be weepy and "off". How a photo from when I was two and simply sitting on the porch, even though I can't remember any other specific details from that day long ago, can trigger something so primal in me, I'm not sure, but it does.
This past summer I went to see the 'Americans in Paris' show at the MFA and I was just blown away. I've always had a soft spot for the impressionists, and Sargent is hands-down my all-time favorite artist, but this show was simply extraordinary (with the exception that it was rather heavy on the Cassatts, who I have never been particularly fond of. Had there been seven galleries of nothing but Sargents, I'd have crapped myself with glee!) and I came away from it with some very clear-cut ideas that I hadn't had before seeing such a large body of work from so many artists of the period in one space. For example, in seven galleries of paintings, there was but one tiny Prendergast oil which I had never seen before, and immediately upon viewing it realized that as brilliant as he was in watercolor, his magic simply doesn't translate to oil. It was disappointing. And Childe Hassam. He was magnificent when he first landed in France, but by the time he had returned to the States, his work was diluted, washed-out and stilted. In my opinion, he had lost his greatness while in Paris and came home a far worse artist for it.I was in a lather when I first got wind of this show coming to Boston, and especially when I heard that Sargent's Madame X was to be one of the stars of the show. I adore this painting and all the controversy surrounding it in its day (Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X by Deborah Davis details both Sargent's and Gautreau's lives and the fall from grace they both endured through their own follies, this painting included- it's a great book) and I couldn't wait to pay it a visit in person. So imagine my surprise after boring my family to death with "Madame X is coming! Madame X is coming!" for months in advance of this show, only to get there, intentionally save it for last, passing it by without so much as a glance to come back to it after I had seen everything else, and then find that it wasn't the painting I kept gravitating back to over and over again (though spectacular a work it still is in my opinion). No one was more surprised than I that after all my pre-show Sargent hysteria, my favorite turned out to be a small Metcalf oil of red poppies that I had never seen in person before, nor most likely ever will again as it's in a private collection. That and a very tiny Homer (who if you ask me would never rate even in my top 20, as as an artist he simply has never kindled a spark in me) that I also couldn't tear myself away from, and which was also from a private collection. As they were both in the same gallery, I thought if my husband could fake a seizure, I might have enough time to whip out a sharp blade, cut the two from their frames and pile-drive my way through the nosy crowd that would have gathered around my husband's limp form and make my way to freedom with my two little treasures before they were ever missed (the idea of only seeing these two pieces as pictures in a book again after being dumbstruck in their presence was more than I could bear). And as the only alarmed piece in the show was Whistler's Arrangement In Grey and Black, I might have had a shot at it, but my husband refused to be an accomplice, meanie that he is.I was in the galleries for several hours, way longer than anyone accompanying me would have liked to have been there, with my nose pressed nearly up against most of the canvases going over brush strokes and light with maddening detail. I wanted to absorb every nuance of every canvas. And when my husband had finally persuaded me to leave, I suggested we pick up a few more tickets and go again, but alas no one else felt as strongly as I did about reliving this period in art so soon after our first visit, and going alone sucks. I don't particularly like to do anything alone, but in this case if I didn't take someone with me, who could I bore with my endless art prattle? Strangers aren't quite so tolerant as those we are close to. And being escorted from a museum for being a public nuisance isn't exactly at the top of my Things To Do Before I'm Dead list. So as such, I never did go back, but it was a hell of a rush while I was there.
I thought it might be nice, given the fact that I am an artist, to spend a little of the time I spend not working on my art, talking about my art. Hmm, that's not too self-absorbed, now, is it? But seriously, when one's life is consumed with either making art or thinking about art, or making plans to view someone else's art, it's only natural that one would enjoy talking about art, even when it isn't about me.
