alphabets, art, hospitality, & coverings
Dear Lisa,
This morning I woke up naturally, later than usual and in a warm and dark and quiet place, with a beautifully comfortable bed, with a heavy blanket keeping me pinned down in rest. And in Manhattan no less. The place where good chunks of public budgets are spent on art. Ah Heaven! I made myself a French press coffee (my favorite coffee prep), and milled around, plugging in a heater to make the bathroom extra toasty for later, and feeling burbling gratitude for this getaway. Thank you so much for putting me up at your place.
Incoming | Outgoing
Today’s word1 —and my world— is just right, and I marvel at how clear and focused I’ve felt making little ‘insta-stories ‘of my journey to MoMA from Alphabet City— letter by letter, sight by sight. Inside, Outside, Formal Art, Forms. Function. I’m having fun, making things, digital things. And walking miles. It’s a bit of a pilgrimage, but not too serious. My media is my outdated phone, and maybe my body doing bits of yoga to get into good positions to take the images. I even danced around some public art and made a video of it. I feel like an avant garde champ.
Museum of Modern Art | Layering Up
At MoMA2, being in the room with some of the masters’ works filled me with amusement, and awe, and I felt in communion with some of them. Inside my soul sometimes I was Chuckling and Nodding with them. For someone who purposely ‘stuffed down’ my artist’s life when I left NYC in 19963, this is a welcome experience. My recollections of art history has come rushing back too. And my shame at having left feeling a confused successful failure has become pride and ‘happy hiding’ in the city lights. It was nearly 30 years ago I left, vowing to take my work underground but to never abandon myself.
I didn’t, thankfully. Here are some odes to other artists, across disciplines:
Hospitality Odyssey: Comfort in Covers
Your home here is so perfect for this getaway, and has everything one needs to feel cocooned up (when needed) and ready to launch into the sun and sounds of the city. The best of the worlds. The Rising4 is literally playing right now. With covers of more connected music (via a newer artist, Athens Creek) below that. You’ll catch the woven in references to names & places, I’m sure.
I learned years ago that hospitality was one of the most important and virtuous acts in ancient Greece. All travelers are protected by Zeus, and sometimes he’d appear looking all messy and sketchy to see how he would be treated. Apparently, this was written about in the Odyssey, but I never read that (so many books I have yet to read, Library-loving Friend5). The idea of hospitality as virtue stuck with me though, and I notice it in many places: homes, restaurants, hotels, stores, cities… I’ve often thought of you, and how you have exemplified this at LCGH and places like Valley Street and now here too. It’s a gift you possess.
Getting an eD: Design, Fonts & Mixed Media
Feeling | Breathing | Hearing | Here & Now
I enjoy noticing how you and E have made a special NYC place. Everything feels such quality too— from the teapot to the towels. Heavy, well-made, and appealing. Form and function. I love this! And you have an awesome mattress in the small room. And your towels are consistently the best. Even the dish towels feel good.
Perhaps I’ll make a piece of physical art later today, or perhaps I’ll turn my digital stuff into some kind of a larger work when I get back to Rhode Island. Who knows? When I talked art and legacy with my Gabe last night, as he sat in Washington Square Park on his favorite “fresh air bench” (as I sat here on the cozy sofa), we discussed how the legacy of the stuff we make matters less long-term than the act of making it matters in the here and now. “If making art brings clarity and happiness to the maker, then it has served it’s purpose,” he said.
Practical Application | In a Fix?
Here and now, is really good. I feel myself making things, and I feel happy to go home tomorrow too. And, I need to clean myself up next, because I still like to look good on the road and need to do my hair. I picked up a hairdryer, BTW, which I’ll leave here for you all (or maybe even me to use if I come again, I’d love to). Also for the fixing part, I’m not sure, but I may have made a small scratch on your dining room table. Please forgive me if so. I tried to fill it in/buff it out with lip balm, which didn’t work. I can only hope if I made the scratch, it was while I was making something of value. It’s on the end closest to the wall. I just noticed it this morning. Maybe it was there. No idea.
Yesterday’s letters A B C D E F G H I
J is today’s starting letter, fitting as I head up to 76th to see my dear friend Joanne. She lives in an apt 2B. Not lost on the two of us. Little meanings are delightful.
Footwork & Footnotes EMWe / ɛmˈ weɪ / pronounced em way
- My dad used to subscribe to the Merriam-Webster word of the day, conversing with T about it (presumably to support SAT scores later), until he could no longer email people. So I picked up the subscription to carry on in a way. Today’s word was excursion. ↩︎
- Check out Marlon Mullen’s exhibition. I love it! I wonder to what extent his ‘covers’ are aspirational? I think he has a sense of humor, and I like his last name too – lol ↩︎
- More on those earlier days here is here. ↩︎
- Bruce. See below, friend. ↩︎
- When Libraries Love you back post is here. ↩︎
Instead of a cover of The Rising, I discovered this video, which fits with love of another city, sleeping around (so to speak) and feeling grace. I’d say this young band (Athens Creek) did a good version.
That’s it for this moment.
