Perfect

I was about 10 or 11 years old when I went on a series of trips with my precocious classmates at School 80 to the John Herron Art Museum. As I recall, our teacher, B.J. Frey, taught us every subject except French and gym, and she especially loved art. So off to Herron we went each week.

On one of our first trips a docent pulled an Egyptian scarab out of the display case and held it in her hand, turning it over to reveal the underside. She told us that the makers always carved a deliberate flaw into such works so as not to anger the gods.

I later learned that this is either my faulty memory, or the docent was confused. I'm told the Egyptians did not practice the art of making deliberate mistakes, though some weaving cultures did--perhaps West Asian. But it didn't matter--I was transfixed by the idea that a human being could create something so perfect that the gods would be threatened. Nearly 40 years later I would encounter an idea somewhat like this--again at Herron--when the wood shop supervisor was giving a demonstration on stretcher building. He was completely meticulous about his measurements, accounting for the width of the saw blade in every cut. "Why not be perfect," he asked. Why not? Why not? Who says you can't make something perfect?

pleasure of the text

This is why I so love Mark Tansey. A car formerly hurtling through space obeys the sign. If I could only write "done" and make it so.

Tansey creates his images by laying a mid-tone down evenly across an area of the canvas and then adds or subtracts pigment.


This guy is a genius, but way too studied for today's market. The painting is from 1986.

The title also references a short book by philosopher Roland Barthes. This is what I would love to know about Tansey: is this image a send-up, a repudiation, a mocking, an affirmation, or a free-form riff on Barthes?

whad'ya think?

I am going to Italy sometime this year--exact dates still TBD--to visit Siena and study its civic art. This is the view from the apartment I'm hoping to rent. Right on the Palazzo Publico.

what's not to love?

OK--this is off-topic, but it just makes me so happy--someone new wins a slam! Controlled mega-aggression, wicked ground strokes, annoying ball-bouncing, all-court game, super-supportive family in the box including two adorable little bros . . . thank you Novak Djokovic for making my day.

ahh claire

One of Six Feet Under's finest moments...Claire, the disillusioned artist, tries to fit into the corporate world but just can't hack the pantyhose. So in her imagination, she performs a rockin' song-and-dance routine on top of her desk, sending up the groupthink that is suffocating her from the waist down and stifling her from the waist up.

At the moment, my pantyhose are in a bit of a bunch, or they would be if I wore them. I wish I knew Claire's song.

my mantra

In 1990-1991 I was living in Boston, working at the first-ever branch of Urban Outfitters, trying to develop a painting portfolio for graduate school. I lived in Somerville, so I walked through the Harvard campus twice every day. And every day, I marched thru the Busch-Reisinger museum to stand in front of this self-portrait by Max Beckmann, the German Expressionist ex-pat who fled Nazi Germany to live in the US.

What a combination of dignity and self-loathing--to put yourself in a such a harsh light and such an elegant tux. Every day he stared me down. And the brushwork--so simple. Not an ounce of unnecessary detail (here is where I could really use a lesson).

I miss my daily visits with Max, but he shows up in my work from time to time. He's like an unsettled spirit hanging around, trying to finish something. I don't seem to be much help.

cornell soap bubble set

Here is one of Cornell's soap bubble sets. You should see his ballet pieces!!!!!

soap bubble set

This is Soap Bubble Set; it's an homage to Joseph Cornell (obvious from the title, maybe not so much from the image). Cornell was a little sick, his personal life was not one to be admired although he wasn't a monster either. What I do admire is his unabashed romanticism, perseverance and ingenuity; he was the art monk. Lived an isolated and lonely life caring for his mother and invalid brother, had no training, and made things up as he went. The results were ingenious and breathtaking. He baked wall-mounted, surreal installations in his mother's oven to achieve the perfect finish. Early on, he liked clay pipes.

The fun of creating this shot was hunting down suitable clay pipes (which were at one time a ubiquitous feature of American life)--setting up the shot, and thinking about my daughter and me as a kind of set. When she was younger we looked so much alike that I teasingly called her "mini me." (She hated that, I had to stop. I don't blame her one bit. My bad.) Yet we have a profound bond despite our now significant ideological differences. (Me--lapsed Episcopalian and budding atheist; she is a budding evangelical.)

On the shoot we blew bubbles through the clay pipes, and for one moment the bubbles merged. In traditions of European painting, bubbles are a symbol of the fragility of life and the passing of youth. When Joseph Cornell made his soap bubble sets I have no idea what he meant, but that does not matter. I'll follow up with a Cornell image post for comparison.

reckoning, from a writer

I have spent my life writing. My credibility is continually at risk thanks to my pick-typing, admitted allergy to grammar, and general disrespect for the syntax police. Style matters, but it pales compared to substance.

I'm 50. A milestone. I called this blog the changeling because a changeling is one who replaces the real child--typically they are sinister, but perhaps they might be good, sometimes, yes? Anyway, by 50, the replacements have piled up.

That's it for now.

the oyster shucker

I'm writing a history of an art museum--a museum old enough to have spent its early years pursuing mission that few of us would recognize today in an art museum. In the 1910s, this art museum was far more interested in the the education of young children than it was in owning a Rembrandt. Why? Because children were routinely exploited as workers. Lewis Hine was a photographer who documented child labor conditions and helped to change national values so that children could have an education and a childhood. This is one of his pix--from the Library of Congress--an oyster shucker. She did not know how old she was.