I'm going to take the text of a letter I wrote to a friend verbatim in places and expand it unconscionably in others.
This friend is a kind of samaritan. In art, this is both good and bad. It's good because whatever he does is done in good will, incomparable fellow-feeling, and a strain of selflessness that borders on the saintly.
Ever since I've known him, he's tried to look out for me. I've also tried to look out for him in an oblique sort of way. If I consider a path to be strewn, not with nettles, with with smart bombs, I'll try to steer him away from it. But he seems to be willing to see anyone and go anywhere (within reason, of course) on my behalf and I'm very grateful to him for that.
The bad part is his perception of me as needy. For this reason, I try to discourage anyone from indulging charitable impulses on my behalf. Would they do as much for a capable friend? If not, they should not attempt to do as much for me. One of the reasons artists are considered charity cases is because of a lingering mythology about them. It is, in fact, comparable to the racial mythology that has held down certain minorities - black people in particular, but almost any person or group to which the stigma of neediness and dependency attaches itself.
I have all sorts of theories as to how such preconceptions about a certain group can be addressed
- if not immediately overcome - but I won't go into them here. All I wish to do at the moment is reveal two men's thinking. Once any two voices are separated, the wider implications of opposing worldviews can be parsed easily enough.
Here, then, is the text of my reply. My friend's naively generous invitation may be inferred by what I say of it. (Note: he had enclosed an article about The Corcoran's new director, whom he chose to see as an apostle of change-for-the-better. Being who he is, he can't help seeing the good in people. Being who I am, I wait and see what they have to say.)
"I wish you hadn't've sent me that article - thoughtful a gesture as it was. It's pretty much why nothing ever happens for me at that level. Next time you read such a thing, if you see the words "edgy", "cutting-edge" or "modern art", you'll know that there's nothing in it for me.
"I guess I haven't really told you much about what I've done in the past. Suffice it to say that such people as our new museum director friend are wearily familiar.
"Besides, I'm starting out on a new path and am not really thinking much of painting. Except: I'm going to give you some websites to look at. I want to expand your awareness of good artists outside of the area. DC is possibly the poorest talent-pool (for the visual arts) I know of in the entire US of A - with the possible exception of Florida, the Upper Midwest, and, of course, in those underpopulated areas of Utah, Wyoming, and North Dakota where survival is uppermost and very little thought is given to the seven livelies
- unless they're little creatures you can aim at with a gun.
"As I told another friend of mine: most everything is bad, though it's surprising how much good there is.
It's up to you, however, to find it."
The following section deals with the image on the card he sent me, which I consider unworthy of his attention. My tendency for didacticism is on shameless view here. I should have just let him keep his enthusiasm for a local artist. Yet, for me, the need to educate trumps all. This is not always a good thing.
Other pet peeves re-emerge: the status of the local artist, which is almost entirely warranted, even if everything and everyone is essentially local. Was Rembrandt a local artist? Of course and most certainly not! There's local and there's LOCAL.
Another peeve is the treatment of certain iconic figures in art history. Mention them to me and just get the hell out of the way. Thomas Eakins is the victim of the moment. I obviously identify with him.
Which is both good and bad. I don't care for his slumping at all. He slumps, in fact, like a victim -
though he doesn't do a lot of that in his work.
"Do this for now: go to the Renwick and study that wonderful picture Abbott Thayer did of roses (or
peonies) in a bowl. It's a great piece of work and elevates the whole genre of flower-painting. Most great paintings of flora are done by artists who are known for something else entirely. That is to say, if you can paint one thing, you can paint another. No one subject is better than any other; it's only what the artist can do with it. The people who are known for a particular subject are generally terrible - which is one reason why I don't like to be identified with deteriorating neighborhoods. Most people regard such artists as 'local characters.' (And not, alas, without justification.) I'm a landscape painter - or was a landscape painter - who sort of 'majors' in the urban scene.
"Here's a case in point. Thomas Eakins' now-famous painting of the Gross Clinic was relegated to the medical section of the Philadelphia Exposition. A grossly unfair demotion, but that's how prejudice operates. Eakins was identified with his subject, which revolted a lot of people, and was buried with all the scalpels and specimens. I've had to endure a similar fate with a lot of fat-headed people who know just enough to be able to recite a bit of history, remember a few old names, and are comfortable with "isms." 'Tis a pity, of course, but that's how things seem to operate. Tell me how many people YOU think should have the jobs they do. A lot of people who are conscientious unto themselves project their own mentality onto others and, as a consequence, have a much higher opinion of the expert class than they ought. I've never had that problem and have learned to listen to what the "experts" say first and worry about being intimidated by their reputation later on.
It makes for a lively inner life - if a nothing outer one.
But I'm changing that. And not through ideas. (If twenty well-established collectors read my blog, they'd probably want to kill me. In which case they'd make sure I was not published and never collected - at least by them!) And definitely not through trying to contact museum directors who've already made up their minds about what's important and what isn't."
I won't reveal how I end the letter. It is, in a word, personal and I would prefer that it be his and his alone. However, in addressing what I consider to be a mythological pre-condition I've perhaps gone too far. Perhaps it's best to simply bear one's lot and not complain too much. Having lived with my own character for so long, I realize I am not a noble person. I have become self-centered and - to use a delicious old word that is not, alas, in use anymore - splenetic. I regret that I cannot see a wrong and not want to criticize it. Criticism is a sort of passive vengeance, exacted not with the hand, but with a certain remote pressure that's designed to cut off the blood supply just enough to cause discomfort. I believe, on the other hand, it to be absolutely necessary. There aren't, in fact, enough good critics to go around - though there is no lack of criticism of a general sort. It's always distressed me that so few art critics are actually equipped to do their job.
Yet those who write criticism professionally are the only ones we get. And read, discuss, revile - remunerate! I, who have a blog at least, can write a sort of closet criticism that satisfies me alone, but which cannot, by its very nature, be widely distributed. Nor should it perhaps.
However, I've always enjoyed the dual personality in art. Constable wrote hilariously about his peers, as did Eakins himself. We should appreciate such writings more than we do. We don't, for the most part, take informal communications, as in letters and diaries, as seriously as we do deliberately well-structured prose. Yet it is pity that word people have to write about art because most don't really understand it. On the other hand, most image-makers don't understand words very well and make a mess of analysis, mostly. But we should rejoice in those few artists who do, because, to them, the activity with which they deal is not abstract; it's what they do and that colors - and particularizes - what they write about it. What's missing in most writing about art is a sort of actitivity-sense. Most writers seem to be contemptuous of the activity, while in awe of the result.
But back to my friend. I suppose I have a dual interest in him. I want him to retain his purity, but I'd also like for him to look with a colder, more experienced eye. I flatter myself that I can help him develop same, possibly at the expense of his good nature. Yet I marvel at this unflappably good nature of his, which nothing short of insult will deter. I am humbled by his meekly nurture, his strange and steadfast regard. I remember being miffed once when he called me "flaky", which was admittedly unjust.
But an hour later when I was surrounded by his warmth and trust after looking at mostly bad childish drawings, I could hardly fail to notice that he continued to search for images that would move him. I joined the search politely, but had given up in spirit. I had made up my mind; his mind was still open.
The world probably needs more of him than it does of me. Yet being as apostle of my own existence, I would prefer that the world not choose and let me tag along
for a while.
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