Letter

Ever since I read an article about the imminent opening of The Milton Resnick and Pat Passlof Foundation, I’ve been champing at the bit to go. I booked a flight for May but had to cancel it when their opening got pushed back. Then I wrote to the director to ask if they’d be open by July 11th and was assured that they’d show me around even if they weren’t yet letting the public in.

I landed at LaGuardia, took the shuttle to Alamo, and followed the Google Map directions I’d printed out over the Manhattan Bridge. My friend, Gil, who I’d planned to meet at the museum, texted that he was waiting at a coffee shop across Delancey Street, a couple blocks away. I parked a few paces past the entrance and Gil walked up a few minutes later. Workmen were busy installing a new front door to the former synagogue which used to house Resnick’s studio, so we had to wait for one of the staff to lead us in via a back door. In the lobby we were met by Geoffrey Dorfman, Resnick’s biographer and former student, and Nathan Kernan, the museum’s president. They led us on a tour, with Dorfman doing most of the talking.

A New York Jew straight out of central casting, Dorfman eyed me suspiciously as he asked what my interest in Resnick was. My saying I’ve been a fan since art school in the early 90s was met with wary acceptance, while the Russian Jewish heritage I share with Resnick may have actually earned me a few hard-won points. There were paintings from different periods on each of the three floors we saw. One of the distinctive qualities of Resnick’s work is that much of it is practically unreproducible. All the scale, texture, and presence is lost when reduced and flattened by the camera lens. This is true for all art but especially so for painting which depends on minute surface differences like his. I would’ve liked to’ve spent longer sitting in these rooms but our hosts had a museum opening to prepare for the following day so time was at a premium.

The last thing they showed us was a little alcove housing Resnick’s final studio. Works in progress were pinned to the wall along with doodles, magazine cut-outs, and notes. Brushes, paints, paper, and bric-a-brac took up the rest of the tiny room. A protective piece of fiberglass barred entry but Dorfman slid it out of its notched groove so we could walk in for a minute. The room just outside, used now for stacking chairs, was the artist’s last bedroom, in which he ended his life with his WW2 service revolver at age 87 in 2004. That fact followed us like a ghost as we bid our goodbyes and walked out into the humid NYC summer afternoon. 

Gil and I found a coffee shop nearby and took a table by the window. He set up a microphone to record our conversation. If he posts it, it’ll be my third time on his show. I drew his portrait as we chatted. Just outside the window two middle-aged beardos kept taking selfies together. It was a good time.

I drove Gil to the Upper West Side garage where he’d parked, then continued north toward Maine. My brother, Boris, and his wife, Blakeney, had invited me to visit their new summer house there. I’d printed out the directions but somehow missed a turn or two which took me needlessly through Rhode Island and added an hour and a half to the ride. Good thing I was in no hurry. I had to return my rental and Boris texted me he’d meet me in the basement of the Alamo but I was too tired or spaced out to get that Pee Wee Herman joke.

We spent much of my first day there wresting/repairing one of the porch screens. On breaks, I swam in the lake that is steps from the house. In the evening we went to a drive-in about an hour away to see The Incredibles 2. The fact that drive-ins still exist is a tiny bit of hope for this hopeless country in my book.

We woke at the ass-crack of dawn the next day to make the 7am ferry to Monhegan Island. We got there with minutes to spare and the car basically running on fumes, gas gauge past E. The boat ride was full of postcard views as was the island itself. I informed Boris and Blakeney I had no interest in hiking, then promptly followed them into the woods. We emerged covered in sweat and bug bites a couple hours after. We sat on a bench looking over the town and the neighboring Manana Island to recuperate.

A little museum next to the lighthouse was full of photos and artifacts from the many decades of artists’ time there. I learned to my surprise that Zero Mostel, who’d originated the role of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, was a regular visitor and avid, if not particularly talented painter. In one of the last rooms were a couple plaques, one for lighthouse keepers, the other for a job I’d never heard of. The fog keepers were listed going back to the 19th century, but it looked like the job had been eliminated in the early 60s. At the bottom of that plaque was a short list of Assistant Fog Keepers. I found Boris and told him that that sounded like the job for me. He went over and actually read the wall text and was about to inform me what it actually entailed but I stopped him, saying I preferred to make up my own job description. At a coffee shop near the dock I was happy to see my friend Chris Brokaw on the schedule of upcoming entertainment. It made me feel a bit of connection to this place which had otherwise felt so remote. 

The last morning in Maine I painted a couple views of the inside and outside of the house. I was thankful to have been invited to share my brother’s and his wife’s life for a couple days. It’s a privilege to get a peek into how others spend their time. I couldn’t imagine doing all the work they’ve done on this property or even owning property at all. But that’s the beauty of other people. They’ll show you worlds which wouldn’t occur to you in a million years.

At the airport I got news that my book of sketches and memories called Music to My Eyes will be published. Maybe I should get out of town more often.

Whet Moser heard of me before I ever heard of him. Researching a story on the taxi business for the Chicago Reader he stumbled onto my Hack blog. This was about ten years ago. Long before I wrote a book or even thought of writing one. Whet’s attention to my early writing efforts made me take them more seriously. It also made me make sure to read what else he was writing about.

His great gift is to assemble vast reams of facts and figures into concise, readable prose. A typical Moser piece might feature a pie chart or statistic—elements which usually make my eyes glaze over—but he manages to make sense of this data and to incorporate it into whatever story he’s trying to tell. Over the years many of his articles have concerned Chicago, so I was excited to learn he would be publishing a book about the city.

I get lots of press releases about forthcoming books so I figured the email from Reaktion Books was one of those. Instead it was a request to write a blurb. I answered immediately that I’d be honored to do it and received a link to a pdf a few minutes later. Moser’s book isn’t long—a couple hundred pages with lots of illustrations—but I’m a slow reader. I tore through it by the following afternoon. 

Moser traces the city from its beginnings to the present day through politics, food, infrastructure, architecture, art, and music. It’s a portrait which is wide-ranging yet idiosyncratic, as any one person’s portrait of a place must be. It’s a great gift to be presented with a take of the place you love. This is why anything about Chicago gets my immediate attention. It’s that better when it’s a thing like Whet’s new book, which handles its subject with wit and intelligence.

Getting to read this book made my week. Having a chance to help promote it a bit was icing on the cake. Anyone who cares about this contradictory but resplendent place will want a copy of their own. I look forward to my very own cloth, paper, and ink version when it comes out in October.

I don’t have people over. There aren’t many places to sit, not even a proper table, except for drawing. One armchair, one bed. I like people—in manageable doses—I just see no reason to invite them to where I live. The one reason to occasionally have others over here is to look at art. Last Monday, Keith came over to do just that.

I’ve written several articles about shows at Keith’s Rare Nest Gallery. Though it’s only been around a little while he consistently shows interesting work. He’s also one of the very few gallerists I’ve ever gotten along with. Because I’ve been writing about art shows more the last year or two I now get a pretty steady stream of press releases from galleries and museums. The vast majority of it is utter crap so getting news of something up at Keith’s is usually a treat. Making art then also writing about it is an ambiguous place to be. Writing criticism and reviews often feels like working for the enemy but I’m too old and tired to hold myself to high ethical standards anymore.

So I invited Keith over to look at some art to maybe get a show at his gallery. This is how it works. It’s all about who you know. No meritocracy and little rhyme or reason, just who you happen to run into and when. Do them a solid and maybe they’ll do you one back. I probably always knew this on some level but it’s taken till the last couple years for it to sink in that this is the way of the world.

Several weeks back I ran into a younger painter. I told her of my upcoming show at Firecat Projects and she got a sour look on her face. She said something dismissive about the scene around that gallery being “my crowd”, as if it was a clique from which she was being excluded. It made me laugh because I’m pushing fifty with barely any artworld acclaim to speak of. The idea that I’ve got an in somewhere is a novelty to me, but maybe it’s about time it happened. All I know is what little success I’ve had has never come at some other artist’s expense.

I tidied up the place, cleaned the bathroom, and set out a bunch of pictures. I don’t know what other artists do in these situations. Some likely have a line of bullshit to convince others of their genius to get them sales and representation. I don’t. My pictures will either speak for themselves or be ignored and forgotten. Can you be forgotten if you were never known?

Keith came up, took a quick look around, drank a glass of water, then invited me to lunch. We ate at a Chinese place a few blocks from my house which has a pretty good $6 lunch special. He talked about pairing me with a photographer of Chicago cityscapes for a show sometime this winter. Did the visit go well? Who knows. It felt odd having another person in my rooms. But if the result is an exhibit then I suppose it was worth it. A few of the pictures I put out for Keith to look at are still out, but bit by bit the apartment is returning to its private state.

The morning after his visit I was woken by pounding sounds which felt like they were coming from directly outside my forehead but turned out to be tuckpointers smashing away at the bricks around the roof, about ten feet above my skull. They kept at it all morning till there was a layer of brick dust on every surface near my living room window. I wiped down the armchair and the art books, marking the second time in a couple days that I’d had to clean the place—likely a personal record. It’ll likely be months before anyone other than me sets foot in here again, so I’m free to let the housework slide.

Once the heat breaks, I’ll be able to paint here again, which, after all, is the only reason for anyone to be in these rooms.