Discovering Artists: Anna Mavromatis, "Artists' Books"

When my daughter was 2 we happened to spend New Year's Eve in Rome. On the 3rd day, discussions were held about the next day's plan. My daughter, from her spot on the floor, surrounded by preschooler play with small plastic figures, piped up. "No more churches! No more museums!"


High WASPs like art. We collect it. We like museums. We drag our children to them, at very early ages. We are glad that all over this planet, and perhaps all over other worlds in other universes, people are addressing empty space.


Art galleries, however, can be intimidating. The hush as you enter. The sound of your feet clacking on wooden floors, or rubbing against carpet. The distortion of your shadow on very white lighting. We don't like to go to art galleries unless we know something, or someone. One of the best things about the Internet that things of beauty can be observed in complete absence of embarrassing social context. One shares only if one so desires.

I discovered Anna Mavromatis, I believe, when she started to read Privilege. Unless it was on Twitter. She is from Greece. She makes artists' books, among other things. I won't say much about her work, because I cannot for the life of me figure out how to talk about the visual arts without sounding like the complete pompous twit.


My stepmother, who is a photographer, and speaks at conferences about her work, put it this way. When she is asked talk, she just wants to point at her work and say, "There." So, there.

Anna blogs, too. Here. And here, where she appears to be quilting, beautifully. Maybe we will talk about other artists over time, but this seemed like a good starting place, what with the references to texts and symbols, and all. What with those last two books and how much I'd like to put them in my house.

How Does It Feel To Share A Family Portraitist With The Kennedys?

Back in the 60's, my mother had a portrait painted of her children. The three eldest, that is. I was 6, my sister 3, my brother 2. The painter tried several times to cover up my brother's diaper, but couldn't. The diaper stayed, my arm got tired, and my sister and now I fall about laughing about how, well, piggie she looked. She no longer looks one bit porcine, but she's captured forever as, um, piggie.

The eldest three children in the Privilege family of origin. c. 1962.

Family portraits play an storied role in High WASP families. Especially since we didn't have cameras back when. Local talent included Gilbert Stuart, 1755-1828, who painted many notable early Americans, while the Age of Innocence relied on John Singer Sargent, 1856-1925. My father believes the Privilege family portrait was modeled on this.

The Daughters of Edward Darly Boit, 1882. Who subsequently lived fairly difficult lives.

Singer, unfortunately, was not available to paint for us. However a man named Aaron Shikler was. As is often true in lives of privilege, we, wholly without intent, bumped into someone who then bumped into someone else extraordinary. Five years later, Shikler was to paint this.

Jacqueline Kennedy and her two children, 1967.

And in 1970, at Jackie's request, he painted this from a photo. Post-mortem.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1970.

Which now hangs in the White House as JFK's official portrait.

What do I think about having our family share a portrait painter with the Kennedys? The same thing I think about other things we share with them. My father went to Harvard, some years before Jack. My mom played softball at the Kennedy Cape Cod compound. It feels cool, as though some of their import rubbed off on us. Even though it didn't. Privilege sometimes lands you in the vicinity of special. You get a better view, not necessarily a place on the playing field. Oh, and apparently Teddy cheated.

Why paint a family portrait, even without Presidential connection? Beyond status or privilege or simple representation? In the era of digital photography, which has led to a proliferation of images unseen since the Russians stopped iconifying saints? Recently Materfamilias wrote very movingly about the portrait she found from her youth. The degree to which the drawing of her young face reminded her she had been more beautiful than she knew. The Privilege family painting, on the other hand, provokes not one whit of profound feeling in its subjects. We fall about laughing. I think there's a place for both reactions.

I imagine, as I write, that our parents feel something more. Portraits show intent. You "sit" for them, over several weeks at least. No wonder I complained my arm hurt. However, the intention itself is open to interpretation. All one can say for sure is, "Yes, we did that on purpose."

Oddly, my siblings and I find most meaning in Shikler's painterly habit of getting things wrong. I do not have now, and did not have then, hair like a wild animal. In this painting I always will. Portraits create distortions of reality that become part of the told history. Which is, I suppose, as good a definition of art as any.

Decades later, Mom checked to see if Shikler would paint my youngest sister too. But his services now run dear. Presidential commissions will do that to a fellow. So Mom had a lovely charcoal sketch done. Which looks just like my sister. Beautiful. It hangs in Mom's bedroom, as do piggies, diapers, and fierce hair.

Shikler himself continues to get better, as a painter. Capturing exhaustion and pre-teens pretty darn well.

Mother and Daughter, 2005

If your family fortune is intact or (thank goodness) on the increase, there could be worse ways to invest your time and money. And maybe one of your children will, in fact, become President.



Images:
Family collection
The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit via PBS
Jackie and children via Artnet
JFK via The White House Historical Association
Mother and Daughter via Davis & Langdale

Family Portraits. In The Year 2010.

My father turned 79 the other day. We gathered, some of us, for dinner.


We ate in the dining room.


Among family.

We gave my dad a birthday present. All the kids contributed. As I have said, we're talking a rather dwindling sort of fortune.

What do you give a man who feels like this about his dog?


Why this, of course.


I wasn't sure it he would like it. He did.

"Family," and "Portrait," broadly defined.

Images:
First 3, LPC, 4th, family, 5th, Hoop Dog Studio via Stuff in St. Louis, MO. They have more dogs of all kinds. And Casey, one of the owners, is extra nice. First seen here at Miss Cavendish's lovely blog, which I had forgotten!

*I feel the usual odd mix of embarrassment and pride in the family artifacts. But never mind. That's for me to manage. And you to tell me if I overstep. We aren't related to the African statues, as far as I know.

David Hockney's iPhone Paintings Are Almost Too Beautiful...

OMG. You must look at this.

David Hockney's drawings on his iPhone. The New York Review of Books.

I'm so thankful for artists.

Thank you, Helle Jorgensen, of the only crochet works I can countenance, for the link.

Do You Have An Artsy &/Or Intellectual Cousin?

You may have an artsy or intellectual cousin. Might even be artsy or intellectual yourself. All to the good. Art and Intellect are cornerstones of the Renaissance, NPR, Burning Man, and other valuable human endeavors. However, this is not quite the same as choosing the Artsy And/Or Intellectual Cousin style in which to dress yourself. Taking up the Artsy Cousin mantle requires commitment, enthusiasm, imagination. And a closet full of clothes with stories.

While there are a few sub-species, (for example, the all-my-clothes-are-black birds of some large cities, or the Pacific Northwestern wood sprites), I do believe this style is, at a high level, universal. Cross-cultural. Not reserved for High WASPs. After all, there is no mall for the Artsy Cousin. The kabbal does not assemble in Tibet and decide that in 2010 there will be ruffles. No Fashion Week for the global aesthetic. Instead, Artsy Cousins of all cultures dress following common principles.

Artsy Cousin - By Day by High WASP featuring Chie Mihara shoes

The Artsy Cousin wears clothes that reflect her beliefs. Her travels. It's possible that the High WASP version is particularly prone to the international style; the cachet of travel and adventure silence the voice of her mother, "Dear, is that really what you want to wear?" Of course she has been mocked, imitated, affectionately teased. She doesn't mind. Her vision, and her ideas, trump any cultural obligations. Go ahead. Point a finger at the orange harem pants. She will tell you that belly dancing is good for the 2nd and 3rd chakras.

Artsy Cousin - By Night by High WASP featuring Basile scarves

She spends her grandest evenings at home, although can be found in cafes on occasion. No ballgowns. No charity events; she celebrates life. Exotic cooking is probable. Last year it was Moroccan. This year, well, we don't know. Perhaps Peruvian. Stock up on aji amarillo now. There may be a run on the market.

Of course, along with sandals from the market in Chennai, and skivvies from a vintage store, the High WASP Artsy Cousin may wear Grandmama's diamond ring. May have donated enough of her trust to charity over time that she feels more sentiment for Gran than guilt for blood money. If she's been lucky in the equity markets, that is. It's also true that if her commitment to independence, to global sourcing, to the non-commercial, is real, we'll all be lucky. A culture is strengthened by the well-loved voyages of its eccentrics.

Can We Care About WASPs, Or, A Review of Cheerful Money (Objective, General).

Life is a scavenger hunt run backward as well as forward, a race to comprehend. But with Wasps, the caretakers lock the explanatory sorrows away, then swallow the key. (Cheerful Money)

Cheerful Money:
Me, My Family, and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor

By Tad Friend
(Little, Brown; 353 pages; $24.99)

The WASP, or White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, has a place in America's mythology. Not surprisingly. WASPs were, after all, the source of our first big wave of wealth. We like wealth. We may even love wealth. The question is, while we might feel a prurient curiosity about privilege, do we have any real interest in the WASP story?

The species has been simultaneously stereotyped, ridiculed, and envied, for one reason or another. Again, not surprising. Americans do that to all sorts of cultural species. WASPs, however, have not yet had their brief moment in the blazing sun of the 21st century's popular culture. No Sopranos, no Angela's Ashes. It's hard to make entertainment out of a group that doesn't believe in displays of wealth, accomplishment, or emotion. It's hard to write about a group that has a horror of talking too much. And if you are of the group, well then, indeed.

So how can we know what WASPs were if no one says much of anything? "Were" is the operative word. The species is dying out. Richard Ford and John Updike have written novels characterized by trailing, wistful manliness. Scorcese's Age of Innocence makes an entire movie out of failure to speak. Is that all there is?

Tad Friend, a staff writer at the New Yorker, has decided to say something. His memoir, Cheerful Money, chronicles his life, and the story of his WASP family. He writes two stories, intertwined. One, time-honored, about a boy whose parents don't show him much outright love, who spends his time looking for that love with girls of various sorts, and finds a happy ending, finally, in marrying. You may remember Mr. Friend as Mr. Latte, from a popular New York Times series where his wife, Amanda Hesser, memorialized their courtship.

The second story is the Dickensian history of many people named Tim. And Theodore, or versions of Theodore. Tad is short for Theodore, as is Ted, as is Dorie, Mr. Friend's father's name. (By the way, as is common with WASPs, the Tims and Timmies are girls.) Friend says of his family tree,

I could proceed as a Robinson like Grandma Tim's family (loquacious, madcap, sometimes unhinged); a Pierson like Grandpa John's family (bristling with brains); a Holton like Grandma Jess's family (restless, haughty show ponies); or a Friend like Grandpa Ted's family (moneyed, clubbable, and timid).

Juicy tidbits of privilege and accomplishment abound. Mr. Friend's family owns Century House on the South Fork of Long Island,

...in the Georgica Association, an enclave of two dozen houses on the western shore of Georgica Pond that faces houses owned by Steven Spielberg, Martha Stewart, and Calvin Klein on the eastern.

Images of gray shingled houses against a vivid, blue, privileged sky. As he puts it,

When you hail from families that have lived for generations in houses with dumbwaiters and coal scuttles, your birthright includes a staggering heritage of bric-a-brac that has no bearing on modern life - the junk DNA that gets handed down along the the useful genes. Wasp tableware is anything that abhors the dishwasher: gold-rimmed chargers, etched-crystal wineglasses, pedestaled fruit plates, egg spoons of translucent horn.

All this because, in the turn of the century, "...the Friends made enough from steel, coal, and banking to become - briefly - smashingly rich; chauffeur rich, yacht rich, $350,000,000-in-today's-money rich." Mr. Friend himself attended Harvard, where he was elected to the Harvard Lampoon and the Signet Society.

But our overarching impression of Mr. Friend's family history is one of painful complexity, language fraught with anxiety and hanging clauses of regret, along with a family tree that makes it quite simply difficult to figure who is who much of the time. Which Timmy are we talking about? Is Jess male or female? And which wife of which husband is leaving whom for whom?

Luckily, Mr. Friend's personal history is much more direct, and, while less entertaining in the US Weekly manner, both more moving and more universal.

Mr. Friend's mother, as mothers will, had her own unsatisfied needs, leaving her unable to bring heart and soul to child-rearing. He understands this early on.

Feeling that I had failed to delight her, I turned into a wary, watchful child. I began building the internal Wasp rheostat, the dimmer switch on desires.

Dimming the light of desire leads to a family distance sorrowful for all. Spaniel Sam provides the only comfort. Mr. Friend's mother says to him, as she approaches the end of her life,

"We have this beautiful lawn here, perfect for two soccer teams of grandchildren," she said. "And there aren't any grandchildren. I'd always thought my children would live nearby, just down the road, and would be over all the time. But everyone lives so far away."

"And why do you think that is?" I said.

She began to cry. I felt sorry, and guilty, and started crying, too. Sam trotted into the room and looked worriedly back and forth. She gathered him up and wept into his fur.

Neither is Dorie Friend, Mr. Friend's father, a source of direct talk of love. Upon the breakup of one of his son's serious relationships, Dorie faxes from Jakarta,

I think you are wise to use time as a resource for whatever it offers that you may wish to choose, including (1) repair toward commitment or (2) easing off to affectionate detachment; or (2) enabling (1) but not, obviously, (1) entropic to (2).

Indeed.

So Mr. Friend enters therapy. Happily, as narration of therapy is often as terrible as the narration of one's dreams, he writes little of the sessions and more on the outcome. He meets Ms. Hesser, falls in love. Now he can speak. Which he does, proposing marriage.

I led Amanda down an empty hallway behind the bar. The passage was damp and chilly, her two least favorite qualities, but she followed calmly, thinking I was positioning us by the kitchen for hot hors d'oeuvres (one of my moves). She looked astonished when I swung her around with my hand on the small of her back, as if to music, and said, "I've been thinking..." - which wasn't true. My thinking cap was off. When she said, "Yes!" the future compacted to her ear, pink with excitement, and her sheltering lock of hair.

Cheerful Money is about the inability to speak, to speak love in particular. Fittingly, it is Mr. Friend's writing that makes his book worth reading, in the end, invokes our feelings, and leaves us to carry his experience forward when we finally put the book down. He writes, of his grandmother's funeral. "The thunk of earth and skitter of pebbles beading down the coffin sides, the finality of it." We might be interested in WASP artifacts, old lace, ivory, silver, but we listen and feel for the universal. For families, and love, and loss.

The true WASP, while in this day and age prepared at least to acknowledge - maybe even voice - deep feelings, never stays long in the land of full-throated sentiment. Irony, tragedy whispered between teeth, requirements of appropriate behavior and speech at all times. Mr. Friend, despite his hunt for love and truth, is, after all, a WASP. He keeps the mushy stuff just this side of poignant, as you would expect in a culture that so values propriety. As he says, "Extraordinary oddities of conduct are tolerated among Wasps so long as you show up for Christmas." Maybe even the oddity of a confessional memoir.

For most, the story of our background is just that. Background. We lead our real lives with our families. All our loved ones. Freud trumps Marx, day to day. In the end, Mr. Friend's book engages us and moves us largely because he turns out pretty happy. And writes about both his distress and his happiness in an achingly beautiful style, finding a way, in the last, through the ellipses of WASP-talk. We might wish, from time to time, that Mr. Friend and his family had been able to speak more directly, fewer characters, fewer complexities, fewer clauses. But then, so might he.

*Note. My blog friends may wonder where I went. This is me writing. I wrote Tad Friend and asked to review this book. He was very gracious and agreed. Tomorrow, however, I will tell you my reaction as me, rather than as a book reviewer. I hope that is appropriate. Being a WASP and all. Image by me.

High = Aesthetics

If money is the dark god of the High WASP, good taste is the priestess performing temple rites. High WASPs love to talk about good taste. What is in good taste, what is not. If we had rosary beads each bead would be some instance of the correct aesthetic. (And the scary thing is, out of all this High WASP stuff, the taste piece is the one thing that I can’t give up no matter how strictly I speak to myself. I can understand that other people have the right to their ideas about aesthetics, but I can’t give up the idea that they are wrong. Just wrong.)

I also realize that the attitude towards aesthetics is going to be hard to explain. Maybe because it’s subtle and sophisticated. Or maybe because it’s really a matter of personal taste gussied up in words like classic, or robust, or authentic, or anti-sentimental, or ironic.

Let’s start with a simple case, one where’s there’s no question. Let’s say, art, for the time being. What is in good taste, in our opinion? (Here I'm guessing we are not alone...) Unequivocally, medieval Italian triptychs, Brueghel the Young and Elder, and David Hockney.





What’s not in good taste? What’s not in fact art, but masquerades as such? Unequivocally?


Why? Are the paintings of roses and the statue of the loving husband and wife ugly? Do they represent a society that we resent? Is that why they are not art? Is it because you can buy them without hiring a world class thief or attending an invitation-only Sotheby's auction? No. It’s a question of emotion. High WASPs think art should represent, not assume. And by represent, I don’t mean the art itself has to represent a thing. Only a vision. The artist paints or prints or carves or casts or installs what they want us to see; it’s up to each of us seeing to have our own set of feelings. We don’t want to be told via the colors and affects of sentiment what we feel about roses. Or even what we feel about lovers. High WASPs are unsure that we want to have feelings at all.

The feeling of shock and awe in the face of beauty, or an absolute audacious concept, however, that we are willing to feel.

Fierce at 50 #1

I'm just not ready to pack it up and go to Dowdyland. That's the net. Which has led to such crimes as wearing my son's surfer sweatshirt. He doesn't even surf. After a stern talking to from the good women over at Corporette, I am now musing over how to dress in an unsurrendered but still suitable manner. And by suitable, I mean suitable to my goals. Not to any whispered tut-tut-tuts about what I or anyone else "should" or shouldn't do. It's simple. I have the goal to put death off as long as I can. And as a corollary, since at the end of the day I cannot put it off forever, I would like to forget that reality as much as humanly possible . Second, but perhaps more achievable, I should find a job. Therefore, I need to dress in a way that sends signals of intent, competence, intelligence. Even a little creativity won't hurt. Not too much though, creativity is scary to most corporate cultures.

So.

Fierce at Fifty #1 by High WASP featuring Old Navy jackets

Let me deconstruct. Jeans I believe have long since made the leap into the universal dictionary of fashion. At 50 I need to avoid a too-low cut, as that makes me look as though I haven't noticed that I am 50, indicating that I am either very unintelligent or disturbed. Holes are a problem. But these boyfriend jeans are fine. And comfortable too, something I prize more and more as I age. The earrings and necklace, as I have said, High WASPs don't think of jewelery as an accessory. It's more like family. Corporette found me the jacket, and it's cheap and washable. Critical for something I might wear to the market. Since I am prone to brushing up against strawberries, and other things that leave mysterious stains. The bag - good, simple, no visible logo. I can't help that it's expensive. That is the way of the world. The shoes, now there even at 50 you can get a little fierce. A little mischievous. These I found via nitrolicious. That's also how I know they are fierce. And finally, makeup. At 50, my lips are fading in my face, almost as though the fog has me already. And my favorite book, How Not To Look Old (well no actually that's Disgrace by Coetzee, but my favorite in the area of beauty) says wear pink lipstick over 40. Who am I to question?