the art walk

Sun 7.9.23

I went on the Art Walk this past Friday; Rockland being the art capital of Maine, every first Friday of the month from May to October, the Farnsworth Museum and the galleries open their doors and one is invited, gratis, plus wine and hors d’oeuvres, to their current shows.  The outstanding exhibitions were Jamie Wyeth’s Unsettled at the Dowling Walsh Gallery, and then the Farnsworth’s Edward Hopper and Andrew Wyeth: Rockland Maine.

I was never taken by Andrew Wyeth’s work, primarily I was turned off by Christina’s World which depicts a woman crouched in tall grass reaching out to a house in the far distance -- Too theatrical.  His other work is very good, but Christina is what he’s most associated with.  Son Jamie is all together a different painter.  His work is vibrant, the colors reach out and grab you.  Much of the paintings exhibited are framed by actual doors and windows.  Attached is a painting entitled Poisoned which needs no explication, and then another that spoke to me entitled Lighthouse Drive-in Diner.  If you are not familiar with his work, google him, you will be impressed.

“Edward Hopper is famed for his images of the big city and its disconnection”, says the Farnsworth.  Think Nghthawks:

A story about nighthawks:  The writer and anthropologist Carlos Castenada in a memoir about his experiences with the sorcerer, which he pseudonymizes as Don Juan tells of going to a diner in Los Angelos late at night after a writing bout.  He enters, sits down at the long bar and notices a man across the room staring at him wildly.  The man stands, and in panic at seeing Castenada runs out of the diner.  After working with Don Juan those many years, he has also become a sorcerer.  This is what has caused the mentally disturbed man to panic.  This phenomenon also occurs to me.  Mentally disturbed individuals are psychic and what they see in me and in Casteneda is that connection.  It is either frightening to them or comforting to know that they are not alone in their madness.

I  see that alienation in the earlier paintings Hopper created during his stay in Rockland also.  Take for instance, Schooner’s Bowsprit

Not an inviting boat, yet it has something to say.  Similarly, Andrew Wyeth’s work is astonishing, yet distant, one is not grabbed by the collar and invited in.  See The Helga Pictures, a strong, sexual woman in a pensive mood.  

When living in NYC I went to an exhibit at the Whitney of Edward Hopper paintings and I wrote this at the time which I quote from the memoir Manhattan Seeress:

I go to museums as much as possible and am on the lookout for new exhibitions coming to town.  One that especially moves me is the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Whitney.  I am close to tears viewing its power and beauty.  Bleak, the very word my don at Sarah Lawrence uses to describe my novel.  I was put off by the word at first.  His canvasses are so powerful, I need to sit down and digest what I'm seeing.  I, like he, try to render each character I write about in the full complexity of their existential situation.  

The Whitney also incorporates quotes from some of Hopper's contemporaries alongside the paintings, "Solitude gives birth to the original in us," says Thomas Mann, "to beauty unfamiliar and perilous -- to poetry."  Since I made a commitment to writing, my life has been solitary.  I can see there's no getting out of it.  

I leave the exhibit thinking, I am not alone.  I have a strong bond with this artist.  An incredible thought considering the nature of alienation and solitude in the scenes of his paintings.  

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MANHATTAN SEERESS NOW ON EBOOKS

Eight o'clock Sunday morning, the police arrive at her apartment in Greenwich Village, "How long have you been living here?" The roommate Elizabeth, after having accepted her half of the deposit money and rent for their new apartment, has called the police. 

New York City doesn’t open its arms to welcome her, but she’s arrived and the adventure of her life is about to unfold.  She’s come from Maine with an invitation from Sarah Lawrence College to participate in the graduate writing program.

How one becomes a seeress is what this memoir explores. Stories have been specifically selected to illustrate, from the sublime to the practical, a spiritual journey introduced in each chapter by an atout, the Tarot’s major archetypes.   From the Fool, to The World, our human journey with its risk and folly unfolds. There is also an artist here alive to her new world seeking inspiration among artists on the Lower East side, learning the ways and foods of her Chinese neighbors, falling in love.