From my aunt’s apartment in the Village, I went to the Museum of Modern Art. I was eager to see the Brice Marden exhibit. I had always loved the richness of his encaustic monochrome paintings of the sixties and seventies, the sensitivity and strength of them but have a harder time with the snake-lines of the eighties and nineties. Seeing them in person was more rewarding than from reproductions, of course. Seeing how he searched and discovered the painting, seeing his painting process. But I came away feeling that it’s time for him to move on. I want more. I want that early richness in his paintings to come back. (But then, I do love density, intensity.)
In my painting life, until I moved to Nova Scotia in the early 80’s, I found I changed my working methods about every four years. I covered the bases until I finally came home. Tried all kinds of media and methods. Once I started incorporating collage into the paintings, it has been more of a straight line towards a still unknown goal, a search leading forward, not sideways as it sometimes felt. But the interesting thing to me is that when I look back on my early paintings there is so much there about what I am doing now. The same intense interest in color, in an active color field, in gestural lines. With Marden’s work, the shift he took from a solid color field to snake-like lines came after ten years of what he considered a creative abyss. I’d love to see the work from that period. So much can be learned from what doesn’t work. It would be so interesting to me to see how he came to where he is now.
From the museum, I went back to my friends’ loft in Soho and hung out for the evening. Had an amazing meal, reminisced and caught up on our lives. I lived on the floor below with Tamar, Aaron and our golden retriever, Miranda for a few years. That was about twenty-five years ago. We were young and liked to party. Many memories. I don’t mind getting older. I just don’t like my children to get older too.
Tamar met us the next day and we had a nice lunch in Soho. We will all go into the city again, probably Wednesday. Meanwhile, I’m feeling very laid back, enjoying the lack of pressure, not making too many plans.
Posted by leya at December 23, 2006 12:43 PM