Mentioning no names, I’m in the process of disposing of the
work of an artist, let’s call her Jacqueline, who died several years ago. She was an unmarried, childless retired
schoolteacher who spent her summers playing artist in Door County, WI. She donated her work (paintings, drawings and
prints) to a nonprofit organization in her will. The nonprofit organization had an auction and a
gallery had a sale of Jacqueline’s work, but there was still a lot left
over. “Most of it never should have seen
the light of day” in the words of one curator.
So, I was asked to store the leftovers in an unused storage space in my
studio as a favor for an old friend.
Years have gone by, the mice have been busy and the nonprofit says get
rid of it, so now I’m throwing out the work of an artist whom I never met and
whose work I didn’t respect. This
shouldn’t be a problem, right? Wrong.
I feel terrible. I apologize
to Jacqueline with each trip to the trash can and recycling bin. Her work is insipid and unoriginal, and most of
it is now quite dated. The 1950’s, ‘60’s
and 70’s are particularly well represented in pseudo Picassos, Pollack wannabes
and attempts at I-don’t-know-what but you can almost heat the disco music. All of it looks like something I’ve seen
before, mostly in art class, by somebody who wasn’t good at art, but something
else, like Home Ec or Typing. Still, I
feel bad. I hate throwing out someone’s
labor of love. And I hope it was a labor of love. I hope that Jacqueline enjoyed painting and painting
was fulfilling her heart’s desire.
Because, actually, it’s just trash on several levels.
Jacqueline spent a fortune matting, framing and shrink
wrapping things for her gallery, which was a “vanity gallery”: it exhibited her own work, which probably was
the only place she could exhibit.
Tourist areas like Door County are full of vanity galleries which
illustrate the entire spectrum of artists – the good, the bad and the ugly. So I wonder, as I’m tossing and tearing, did
Jacqueline really think her work was good?
How did she not cringe at how bad it was and crawl away to hide in a
bottle or book or something? Or did she
feel like a success because she had her own gallery? Didn’t the lack of awards, commissions and
exhibitions tell her something? Or did
she think, schoolteacher that she was, that the only important thing was
Effort?
I’m haunted by the stacks of Jacqueline’s paintings that
nobody wants. I don’t know whether I
hope Jacqueline was happily fooled with her own self delusions, believing her
paintings (she would have called it her “artwork”) were good, or whether she
knew how bad they were and carried on painting, anyway. I kind of hope she knew and said, “the hell
with it.” But I’m not seeing that degree
of self-awareness. I’m seeing imitations
of Utrillo, Modigliani, Chagall and Klee, but no original Jacqueline. I’m also seeing no solid skills: no accomplished draftsmanship, no anatomy, no
perspective, so she may have been a victim of the free wheeling Abstract
Expressionist years. When I get to the
Big Studio in the sky, I’ll ask her.
“What were you thinking?” But
while I agonize over all each contribution to recycling, I have to remind
myself that earlier this year, I cleaned out my own portfolios and contributed
heavily to recycling and municipal garbage for a couple of weeks. I don’t want my kids to have to plough
through all this junk!
“He only moves toward the perfection of his art whose
criticism surpasses his achievement.”
Leonardo da Vinci
And one last question:
did Leonardo think he was a success?
And if he wasn’t, who was?
PS. Ha! Over the July 4th weekend, I put a
half dozen of Jaqueline’s large paintings on masonite by the side of the road
with a “FREE” sign. They all found
homes!! I’m so happy about that. I’ll do it again in August during a dry,
sunny weekend when the tourists are zooming around everywhere.
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