Maple, Grass and Maple, Dusk (iPad)

I am so happy. I blogged before about a book close to my heart, Just Kids by Patti Smith. Much to my delight, it just received the National Book Award for non-fiction!

"The judges called her memoir "an evocative work of cultural history" and an "unsentimental elegy for a time that seems both very recent and very long ago." - Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today

Smith cried while accepting as she told of working at Scribner's Book Store in New York City when she was starting out. She used to put the National Book Award winners on the shelf and wonder what it would be like to win. She promised Robert Mapplethorpe the day before he died to tell their story. They came from nowhere, committed themselves to art and came out on the other side. She means a lot to me for writing a book that is about art and the artistic struggle, fine literature than can speak to everyone. She opens the door to show people what an artistic life can be like. The book takes place in a particular location, time, and culture (NYC, 1970's bohemia) . This differs from my experience as someone who is just as committed to art but also determined to have a quiet family life avoiding walking the line with a risky, potentially self-destructive environment. I don't believe that that environment is necessary for great art-making but the proximity to other artists and exchange of ideas can generate more. It can lead to recognition as well. I neither celebrate nor criticize Smith and Mapplethorpe for choosing that framework for living; it's a valid path. It isn't for me - art yes, instability, no. I plod on painting dots in quiet.

A note on the above images:

The singular trees are figurative, like self-portraits. They are made colored light occurring at a particular time of day. Key is the loose, energetic line, free yet structured, communicating space and form. I am very free yet structured.

new minimalist pieces and college photos

Blue Circle White and Green 12" x 9" oil on panel 2010

photos by Holly Lydigsen, 1990

There's a contrast. Twenty years can change one's art quite a bit. Twenty years is a journey, a lifetime for some.

Geometry and paint application express calm in the three color field paintings. Landscape is referenced as sky and ground, the circle like a celestial orb. In opposition, the painting in the photograph has aggressive marks and is monochromatic: black, red, and pale pink, which create a starkness. I always had a decent color sense but it has evolved over the years to be a kind of science for me.

The photos are from my first year art school at Massachusetts College of Art and Design (spring of 1990, hence the poofy hair. Vain, I almost didn't post them). My roommate, Holly Tompkins (now Lydigsen), took them for a photography assignment and I had some input with the arrangement. The painting was a self-portrait and I don't know where it is anymore or if it still exists. It has a German Expressionist angularity and angst. I might have painted over it - the teacher said it was "an illustration of a grimace", true, and urged me to go beyond. It was one of my first experiences of flat out this-doesn't-work-at-all criticism, literally back to the drawing board. I remember my peers crying in critiques even in graduate school. It's not unlike athletic disappointment over performance. The critiquing process toughens one up. You have to put yourself out there. Total resistance to the process only inhibits growth, but it is necessary to sift through the commentary as one matures as an artist, following one's gut for what is and isn't on target.

My college art school photos and friendships are more on my mind since reading Patti Smith's new memoir Just Kids, about her life and relationship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe. They were lovers before they were famous, before Mapplethorpe realized he was gay, and then forever friends. She bought him his first camera, he encouraged her to perform her poems as music. He photographed her throughout her life and they were committed to art from the beginning. The book is well written and gives an intimate view of how artists evolve and the sacrifices that are made to make the work, as well as New York City culture in 1969. One thing I found particularly striking is how Mapplethorpe made the artistic decision of which of his shots to print, which were the best, Art. He looked at them with Patti and intuitively declared, "This one is the one with magic." It really comes down to that. We can blah, blah, blah about what is significant/working/unique about a piece but it is the inexplicable quality that makes it tick.

Patti Smith's debut album, Horses, is ranked #44 in Rolling Stone's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and in 2005 she received the French Ministry of Culture Commandeurs des Arts et des Lettres, the highest honor awarded an artist by France. [Patti Smith MySpace page]

Controversial and exquisite, Robert Mapplethorpe [1946-1989] is one of the most important artists of the twentieth century; his photographs are in museums and collections around the world. When my photo was taken in 1990 I had just seen his explosive exhibition The Perfect Moment at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts.