Peggi dropped me off at Culver and Clifford right in front of the church my parents were married in. She was headed out to her mom’s and I took off on my bike to meet Scott Regan at the Memorial Art Gallery. Scott suggested we walk through the Memorial Art Gallery together after we had a an engaging discussion at the the Little Theater one night. I casually mentioned that I liked the little abstracts on the wall and he pushed me to explain why. I told him I don’t usually try to explain why I like something. I just respond in a flash. Of course some things are acquired tastes but Scott is more reasoned. Abstract art is usually not reasoned although Kirk Varnedoe made a pretty good argument in his brilliant “Pictures of Nothing” book that it is.
Scott had just come from a photo session for an upcoming profile in “Lake Affect” Magazine and he had to be somewhere else in an hour and half so we got right down to business. We started in the gallery store looking at Janet Williams’ posters from her Primordial Flea Market Series. The posters bother me because someone has added type to reproductions of her absolutely beautiful paintings. Absolute doesn’t need any more. I asked if they still had any of the paintings and they did in the back room. We were allowed to go back there for a few precious minutes.
Down the hall where the gallery staff sometimes display their new acquisitions we stopped at a beautiful abstract wood cut print by a Japanese fellow. Can’t remember who it was by. I’m slow with names. Scott again asked me, “Why do you respond so favorably to this”? I felt like I was explaining the obvious but of course it is not that simple. Did I really say, “I find it delightful”? On down the hall past the hideous fireplace mural recreation to the Lockhart Gallery for the Rembrandt etching show. We both agreed he is our favorite artist, hands down. Whether he’s sketching the country side or a constructing devilish self portrait he is masterful.
Scott suggest we go upstairs and we spent some time analyzing paintings from the 1800’s before studying the “Urban Realists” from the early part of this last century. Someone came over and asked us to keep at least six inches away from the paintings. He said the people behind the camera were going crazy as we gestured. He pointed up to the ceiling. I wondered why we didn’t see any guards hanging around.
We only saved a few minutes for the modern collection which is where I usually spend most of my time. Peggi and I had just watched a beutiful Alfred Stieglitz documentary and it was fun to see paintings from his stable of artists lined up there. Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley and Georgia OKeefe. On the way out the door we stopped in the “This Is A Series” show in the gallery of the Creative Workshop. I have three paintings down there, one of which I am still uncertain about and Scott helped me sort that out.
3 Comments
I had the same thing happen to me at the Nelson in Kansas City. I was looking at John Singer Sargent’s Mrs. Cecil Wade and I wanted to get in close to get the detail of the brush strokes. As I recall, they told me to stay back 2 feet. The painting has some beautiful detail if you get in close enough to see it. It is beautiful , delicate, light and airy.
http://www.jssgallery.org/Paintings/Mrs_Cecil_Wade.html
I agree with Joel, there’s something about putting your eye right up against a brush stroke painted centuries ago. I was trying to do that at the National Gallery in DC but being a good rule follower I kept the required distance.
Paul, I confess that “someone” is me. I also took the photos of my paintings. Each one took me days to get the right light, etc. Hundreds of shots. So, you don’t find the posters cool? Arrrrgh!. You, of all people, who I consider the expert on cool! Well, at least be it known that I’m the one who think they’re cool . Guilty as charged. I’m enamored of typeface and manufacturing history. The clerks at Kinkos, where I get them printed, think they’re cool. I’ve designed 2 more since you were at the MAG: One All’s Whistling Kettle (see the original at the Oxford Gallery’s Fiat Lux Show) and Staples’ Wide Ruled Letter Pad.