As blogs go this one will be a shortie – it’s a first for me, which makes me and you both wonder what took me so long? It’s not that I don’t see the benefit of new conversations that the occasional ramble may prompt, but I can tell you that age has been a factor in my hesitation to do this until now. I’m not that old mind you.
I recently demonstrated the string telephone (two tin cans attached via a long string to transmit vibration and sound) illustrating how ideas change as a result of distance and time’s passage-so maybe this feels a little like talking into one end of the string telephone – but, that’s the point isn’t it? Even though I can’t see you, this string telephone is about to come alive with real voices and I’m up for the adventure and a bit of discovery.. so here goes –reservation or not - ready or not - ring·-a-levio
If I’ve been tagged, than it’s as a result of what I’ve done – am doing, so let me go back a little. My interest in things came from three people initially– my father, brother and mother.
My dad bought a 1951 Pontiac after the War and took my brother sister and me on wild rides around NYC in the 50s. He thought going to Idlewild Airport to watch planes take off was fun and when that got a little stale we’d go to Times Square and measure people-flow by just standing there and watching people pass by – then off we’d go to the piers and visit ships before they sailed – you’d see people in their cabins having parties, stacks billowing smoke, before they departed for wherever they were going. There’d be the unmistakable last bell – the bell that let visitors know it was time to pack it in – the real fun lovers would watch the land lubbers depart, and we’d nervously jump ship hoping we wouldn’t get stuck on board leaving mom behind in Queens.
Back in the Pontiac heading somewhere else- we traveled every neighborhood in Brooklyn. Dad had a big thirst for people and how they lived. Once he took my brother and me on a whirlybird ride around Manhattan, and this was something we never forgot.
My brother and I could identify every American car that was ever built and still running, as dad chauffeured us from the Bowery where the inhabitants used to be called Bowery Bums to Little Italy and Bay Ridge and Cobble Hill to see where the Mafia hung out.
I’m sure his travel program became the basis for a life long friendship and working relationship that my brother and I forged as young boys.. He’s been my partner in work forever– and funnily enough my sister works with us too. This familial association in business has been repeated for generations in our family – many cousins and uncles in the family still work together.
My father got up to go to work every day until he was 85 and then his legs wouldn’t carry him anymore. Now he’s 97 and he’d still like to go back to work- even if that’s not possible.
Elliot was the spark plug though in a segue from “regular life” to life in the visual world. He got a scholarship to go to the Pels School of Art as a kid and I wanted in as well. Within a year or so we were both on the subway on Saturdays to the Hotel Ansonia where Albert Pels our esteemed teacher, painted and taught Art.
We drew from plaster casts and made copies of paintings. Pels made beautiful copies of paintings by Rubens. You could see the neon sign for Pels in the window at the Ansonia for many decades
When I was in Art School – well and truly, I went back to see Albert Pels and he gave me some awful advice which is mostly what happened for years when I went to see artists about being one. I was planning, and had an introduction, to work for Jacques Lipshitz but he died before I got to Italy in 1973. I was very fortunate as a young student when my anatomy instructor made an introduction to the great painter and larger than life personality - Oskar Kokoshka, whom I did meet before his death.
Kokoshka was living in Switzerland when my girlfriend and I arrived with a letter of introduction and overflowing backpacks. After a few minutes, O.K. himself came to the door and invited us in to have a coffee with him. He couldn’t stop marveling at about how young and how pretty my girlfriend was and when the moment for important business had arrived, turned to me in a gesture of Shakespearean authority and said “this letter says you want to be a painter?” At which point I sheepishly replied “yes sir,” then he launched into his student standard - “be the best,” and all that rubbish, “and that’s all I can say.” I’ll never forget his face.
Our short and sweet visit didn’t do much for my career as a painter - there weren’t any offers to clean his brushes or archive his work, but close proximity –superficial as it might seem, had a profound effect upon me at the time. It wasn’t until I met Francis Bacon many years later in the continuation of the apprenticeship myth journey, that I realized Albert Pels hated advice made sense after all.
“Pursue your own ideas,” Pels said, the story that is your work can only be realized and appreciated when your ideas are your own and you dare to find an original direction - only then will you become an artist whose work will be worth paying attention to.”
Next time: Art becomes a serious pursuit.
