We stopped up to visit Pete. He has been through a lot but we found him holding court and as cheery as ever. He calls his room on the seventh floor of the new wing on Highland Hospital “The Highland Hilton.” While we were there he let two calls go to voicemail, from friends of his who Pete told us require a certain amount of cheering up. The irony of someone in Pete’s condition providing inspiration to others was not lost on us.
Pete was born on the same day in the same year as Anne Havens. Anne too has had a few health setbacks but she has two art shows on the docket. The opening of “Echos and Variations” was last night at MCC’s Mercer Gallery. We cut our visit with Pete short and drove out there in hopes of seeing Anne at the opening. We were richly rewarded.
The brochure for the show had the following description of Anne’s process and I don’t think she would mind if a shared her secrets.
“For the most part, I am an intuitive artist, finding rather than ordering up, always looking around the bend. I search for shapes or situations that reverberate in me, following the pull of my motivation and energy.
I work in many media, and enjoy letting them bounce off of one another. Found materials, or objects, are often a source of inspiration, or triggers for action.
Much of my work on paper is an offshoot of my sculptural work, or continues my interest in materials in some way.
Ideas are often the jumping-off point for work, but hopefully the end-result will transcend them and reveal something significant, or surprising. I am interested in discerning what I have really been up to, rather than what I think I had in mind, and that is what keeps me fascinated with the whole enterprise.
My art-making is my way of dealing with life. It lets me act out, exorcise, focus, resist disintegration, and, most of all, be surprised. I can only hope that the metaphors that I find in the process will have echoes for others as well.”
-Anne Havens
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