Summer Rooms

'If ever I would leave you,' my mother used to sing, 'it wouldn't be in summer...' but precisely 8 years ago she did just that.  Death has no rules or timeline, and is especially not going to align with poetic or lyrical predictions. Being the one sure consequence of life, it unfortunately informs all of our daily routines, and our higher thoughts. 

Last week's heatwave prompted some air-conditioned time at neighborhood museums.  The most moving pieces in the Rashid Johnson show were the ones that reminded me of death-- of killing and the indelible anxiety of blackness.  The Ben Shahn show-- a mere shadow in popularity-- was riveting for me-- his unique artistic activism which seemed to permeate all layers of injustice.  Of course as a post-mortem show, there is no platform from which he speaks... and in an era of limited media, his voice was not nearly as resonant as a super-star like Rashid in this day and age.  Artists are their own brand of entrepreneurs... the stakes are high and the rewards are massive, if one gets it right.

I also managed to stop by the Art Students League to see the retrospective of historic teachers' work.  It was soulful and quiet-- underwhelming but somehow important.  Unlike the Guggenheim, it is an old building with few upgrades.  One senses the history; it has changed little since I took a class or two in the 1970's. Purely analogue, and most if not all of the artists in this show have passed on. Unlike Rashid-- relatively young for the kind of collectability he has achieved-- their work must speak for them.  What is lost and undocumented does not affect the narrative, and most of these exhibitors will at best present as a kind of jigsaw puzzle missing a few pieces. At worst, they can be misunderstood, like an inventor/genius without a written will whose life's work ends up in a trash bin or a thrift shop.

As opposed to much of the contemporary museum fare, these paintings were 'dressed' down-- in old frames, sometimes made by the artists.  On a flea market wall they'd be hardly distinguishable to an untrained eye. While many of their makers had been in gallery shows and institutional collections, most of them ended up in middle-class homes as 'decor'. Scanning this quiet show, what is undeniable is the intention-- the day to day dedication to practice and technique without short cuts. When one mastered a certain platform, they might probe imagination and inspiration to break through to discover a new style... the organic progression of artistic genius.  These hanging works like the souvenirs of these achievements... not all brilliant but every one quietly embodying a certain skill... and a certain questioning of the basic tenets of illustration which long years of study had required.

Summer months I take in mail and water plants for my vacationing neighbors.  The younger ones generally have cleaning women who do this... but the older couples require my attention.  People my age and older have a higher tolerance for clutter than the new families with recent renovations. There are libraries-- stereo systems and record collections-- file cabinets and stacks of magazines and journals-- souvenirs from years of travel and family albums... furniture and handmade pillows-- knick-knacks-- mantel clocks, andirons, rugs... art. Their apartments tell a story... reveal their age and politics in a way that is comforting.  They are readers and former explorers... they are still, in older age, studying things-- listening. They do not text me but send an occasional email or even a postcard. 

Years ago musicians often stopped by my house-- to play me a new song, or go over arrangements and harmonies for a show.  I took this for granted.  The pandemic silenced us-- aside from that 7 PM clanging and ringing across the city, one respected that there were people who were ill and subdued.  We were solitary. As opposed to those joyful days when we'd crank up our stereo and open the windows, most people now use earbuds and stream their music. 

As a girl almost everyone had a piano-- some a grand Steinway, but most homes-- even poor ones-- had a kind of funky parlor instrument. People sat around and sang. In my house there was old sheet music that got stored in the piano bench.  When you Wish Upon a Star... with the little Jiminy Cricket cartoon on the cover... stands out in memory.  My Mom played and sang-- badly, but there it was... her favorite songs.  Everyone had a hi-fi, with a space for record albums... most families had the same Broadway classics... West Side Story, My Fair Lady...The Music Man.  We knew all the words. It was a kind of commonality.

When my son had his first 'away' playdate, I was told he wandered around the apartment looking for the boy's Mom's guitars. He assumed everyone was a musician like me.  These days guitars are a kind of accessory-- one sees them in department store windows, on the video 'set' of journalist and podcasters... there is often a guitar on a stand... in staged rooms on real estate platforms. 

My home tells a story. No longer do we use sheet music and write out our new songs on staff paper. Even I have a digital synth/piano which I play through headphones... but wandering through my older neighbors', I can almost hear my old Mom's childlike soprano shyly singing these songs to me.  I can smell the old music sheets and see the notes and chords as they were written-- as I taught myself, on the old piano... when life was black and white, when the 'practice' of music was woven into days and nights, and like a kind of religion, I believed in lyrics that promised no one would leave.