Anne Truitt

I wanted to bring attention to this post by Tyler Green, regarding Anne Truitt on his blog Modern Art News. Truitt died in 2004, at the age of 83, in Washington, DC. It has been said that it is she who started the minimalist movement. She resisted being called a minimalist. She felt her work was different from that movement in that it was created with her own hands, while the minimalists tended to be working with the manipulation of industrial materials.

It is hard to explain Truitt's work or one's deep attraction to it. Truitt's work is so simple that it feels too obvious. I understand that her life was moved by color. In the way a savant must understand numbers, I think Truitt understood color and shape. It was intuitive and unexplainable. The Hirshhorn is planning a Truitt retrospective in 2008, which prompted my reflection on her. Surprisingly, there are only a few examples of her work that I have found on the web. The one above is too small and lame. I like Truitt's picture looming over the art.

I read Daybook: Journal of an Artist by Truitt years ago. It inspired a long period of work for me that was better than any I have known since. Her struggle with trying to make art on a confined schedule resonated for me at the time and helped me work long into the night. I have had few periods since then where my imagination so clearly took over and lifted me. I feel I owe that period to her inspiration. Daybook is revered by writer Jesse Larsen as one of the 500 Great Books by Women. If you like diarists and/or art, Truit's Daybook is well worth your time.

Anne Truitt is a Marylander. Although born in Baltimore, she was mostly embraced and claimed by DC, where her studio was for many years. She grew up in Easton, Maryland on the shore, where legend has it that she was apparently so visually impaired as a young child, that it was not until she got glasses that she realized that trees had individual leaves. She saw only shapes and masses of color. Some attribute the quality of her work to this childhood condition.

"I've struggled all my life to get maximum meaning in the simplest possible form," she said in an interview with The Washington Post in 1987. "That's what I've spent my life doing, and it's never been understood."

Is "it", or are we, ever "understood"?

Truitt worked in isolation in her studio through the years. The isolation is critical to the work, so often. And perhaps it is the isolation that creates the feeling of distance and a mild paranoia. One seems not to be able to have both society and art, garrulousness and introspection, understanding and revolutionary work.

Finally, this from Daybook. Truitt reflects on human legacy as she sits at the National Gallery:

"I sat for a long while in one of the rectangular courtyards, listening to the fountain. Feeling the artists all around me, I slowly took an unassuming place (for two of my own sculptures were somewhere in the museum) among the people whose lives, as all lives do, had been distilled into objects that outlasted them. Quilts, pin cushions, chairs, tables, houses, sculptures, paintings, tilled and retilled fields, gardens, poems -- all of validity and integrity. Like earthworms, whose lives are spent making more earth, we human beings also spend ourselves into the physical. A few of us leave behind objects judged, at least temporarily, worthy of preservation by the culture into which we were born. The process is, however, the same for us all. Ordered into the physical, in time we leave the physical, and leave behind us what we have made in the physical."

Something is Really Going On

Galerie Lelong, down on 26th Street, NYC, has just opened this show. Yet another important show of feminist art at a renown gallery. What could be happening! This exhibition, opening on the Ides of March, Role Play: Feminist Art Revisited 1960-1980,investigates women's shifting and constructed identities. Lord knows, we've got 'um. I've had at least three just today.

Then, there is Global Feminisms, organized by Linda Nochlin and Maura Reilly for the Brooklyn Museum. In this show, the curators "contrast seminal feminist artists of the last 40 years and their influence on younger female artists, many of whom do not identify with the term." The show features young women artists and mid-career emerging women artists.

These shows along with Wack! at MoCA in LA, make my heart tap dance. I wonder if there is some kind of crone convergence, emanation polarity, curator infusion plot going on? If you are anywhere near these shows, let me know what you think. Ok? I am waylaid here in Baltimore, "Hon" city, as in, "Hey, Hon, ya wannanother cuppa coffee." The little city that is home to big-hair feminism. Yessss!

Photo:Boryana Rossa (Bulgarian, b. 1972). Celebrating the Next Twinkling (Praznuvane na sledvascia mig), 1999. Single-channel video, Edition of 2, 2 min. 45 sec. Private collection. Photograph courtesy of the artist

12th Annual Lou & Nancy Linden Texas Independence Day Party

Lou & Nancy Linden are the stuff that community partying is made of. The Annual Texas Independence Day Party on William St in Federal Hill is some party. This year's party was in honor of Ann Richards and Molly Ivins. My heart weeps. It is hard to manage the loss of both Ann and Molly from the landscape of Texas, or from the landscape of America, for that matter.

This year's party,to which I am a neophyte, having been out of town for the earlier ones, was a blast. Viva la Revolucion!! A great party.

Lou is a mariner, a preservationist of traditional sailing ships. Nancy is one of Baltimore's most talented painters. So their party is imbued with fellows in pea coats as well as people in heavy metal and cowboy boots. Somehow the dichotomy works beautifully.

The Linden house was filled with over 100 people. The famous fritattas, straight from the burning heat of the Weber, are to die for. There is beer and tequila and wine in abundance. The crowd sways in unison. The hot grill. The famous fritattas. The libations. Each provides a conjuring of community and rebellion that is irresistible. A great evening. Lou and Nancy are the King and Queen of Texas, right here in Baltimore! Thanks for the rebellion!

India / Baltimore. Closer than you think.

Well the house renovation is moving along at a carpenter ant's pace. The drawings are done. The bank is ready. The contractor is begging to rip things out and nail in some 2 x 4's. The lead abatement people are ready to scrape and suck the living day lights out of the building and spit the lead out in some sealed tank. I sit imagining the kitchen bathed in morning light, the smell of a crusty frittata baking in the oven. However, the Baltimore Building Department has other plans. They have rules. The rules change, however, depending on with whom you may speak when trying to get an answer to a question.

The Department in their razor-sharp wisdom has focused on the replacement deck. One guy says no problem. The deck is fine. Don't worry. But Baltimore is becoming a little like India. In India, the backpacker rule is that you must ask three different people directions, for example, because you will get three different answers. If you are lucky two of them may have some similarities. You could go by the two that are similar or you could get a fourth answer. If the fourth answer relates to the two that are similar, you can go with it. Because Indians often don't know the answer, they will make one up rather than disappoint the traveler. It is like that in Baltimore City, but different. Not trusting the first answer, which seemed a little loosey-goosey, we made a second inquiry. This person said the Department wants photos, it wants detailed drawings, it wants the electric company to certify that the deck is properly sited, it wants full documentation. The deck requirements are a page long. What!?

We are putting the deck in exactly the same place that the old deteriorated deck was. This little 8'x8' deck is is gonna' be trouble. I can see it coming. The renovation I am doing is so ordinary. There are no additions, no bump-outs, no third floor addition. There is no change whatsoever to the structure or size of the place. This seems to annoy the Department. They must find something over which to exercise their power. The Banana Republic of Baltimore raises its hoary head and bleats. And, we will bend to its little dictator's bleating. I figure the second answer is the worst case scenario. I'm going with that. More later.

BSO Multimedia

We slogged through a snow storm on Sunday to hear the the East Coast Premier of the Fanz Lanting and Philip Glass multimedia concert, Life: A Journey Through Time. The hall was only one-third full, but you knew that the music lovers were there, come rain or snow.

The concert was proceeded by the Capital Quartet, an amazing four musicians---one clarinet and three saxophones. They were an exciting surprise. Their sound and liveliness was very engaging. Great energy, good musical piece. Maestra Alsop was really swinging to the music. I would like to hear them again.

Then the great premier began. Three screens, each about 18' high and 20' wide hung over the stage, a huge triptych of canvases. I always love being in the concert hall. I don't think I have yet heard something I really disliked, except some rare chamber music piece that just doesn't activate the pleasure gene. My education in music is thin, so I am just a lover of music. I don't know why. I can say that this evening was wonderful, moving, and the music gorgeous. It seems, pictorially, a triumph in breadth and the expression of themes: Elements, Into the Air and Beginnings, Out of the Sea, On Land, Out of the Dark, Planet of Life. I was wondering what a Christianist would have to say about this "science" of the beginnings that was visualized in such detail, miniscule detail.

My problem with the presentation was that it seemed like so much old technology. Lanting's photos scanned across screens in all directions, choreographed to the Glass music. But somehow, the pictures were so National Geographic, so expected that there was no sense of surprise for me. It was as if I was watching one huge screen saver. There I was in the concert hall watching my iMac desktop screen saver! The photos were just so saturated and unsurprising. So perfect. It was soothing and beautiful and the music was lush and wonderful; But, it seemed to me even the Maestra lost energy in her conducting.

The movies and technology of animation are so spectacular today, that in contrast, the concert film looked dated. I must say it was nice to have things slowed down. It has its merit. And, too, the journey taken was a powerful one. I had a deep sense of the beginnings of life that I haven't had before. Just watching those acid green pools of genetic stew was very expanding. I feel very lucky to have seen the concert.

And I must say it was quite a contrast to my evening before at Port in the Storm!

Port in the Storm

Port in the Storm use to be an ordinary bar in an ordinary working class neighborhood. It lost the ordinary quality long ago. Now it has advanced to exotic. It is a straight-gay-lesbian-bi-black-white-poor-rich-seedy-smoke filled, splendid place. Five of us, three of whom had had a really rotten day, crashed into the Port late last night to renew our acquaintance with the bar. Of the five of us, I am the only one who dances. I float around the floor and have the best view---a view full of surprises. That's what makes the Port so alluring to me.

There was the woman dressed head to foot in pink and white camo. And there, on the east end of the bar, under the Bud Light sign, next to the Lil' Angles cookie tin, a nice assortment of crock pots. I wondered if the Port offered a crock pot cooking class during the daytime hours? I counted five crock pots from small to huge.

Coupling at the Port defies any common understanding of the word "couple" and the racial mix is infinite. Everyone is included at the Port, in any combination, especially if that combination can move to the music. Personally, I had an eye for the DJ, a sparkling burnette with great moves, but an awful taste for music. She lip-synced to every tune with the precision of an experienced rock star in MTV mode. I noticed that most in the crowd were also orally in sync to the music. Watching the whole room lyp-syncing to the songs, I realized that there was some alternate world of music unknown to me---one that would remain so.

I have to admit that I feel the new dance style that includes the movements of sexual intercourse, choreographed into the hip-hop dance style, is ghastly, except at the Port. Here, the orgiastic movements are perfectly counter-balanced by the crock pots. There is only one Port in the Storm.

What Is This Thing Called Own?

On the morning of the 2006 winter solstice, I bought my first house, ever---a tiny, 650/sf Baltimore row house secreted away on an alley, off an alley. It is two-storys high and a very slim, ten feet wide. The inside has been remodeled by a former owner who apparently did not have a level. Nothing is plumb. The place must be gutted and improved.

These tasks require money, which, for the first time in my life, I am borrowing from a bank. This is called: the mortgage / construction loan. Friends insist that I must have a mortgage so I can build equity. You must have equity! So, I have assumed the burden of a mortgage, which, when the "mortgage interest tax deduction" is applied, computes to about the same amount I was paying for rent.

This is no news for seasoned homeowners. But, I am still not quite a believer in the fabled "mortgage interest tax deduction." Next tax year I should become a believer. We shall see.

What I am interested in is my desire for a home. I would not be able to do this if the house was not a steal. The most recent owners sold it off-market, at a reasonable profit, because they wanted to reduce their capital gains exposure. They wanted to sell it to a person they liked and they decided that they liked me. So, for $107,000, I purchased a house with an appraised, unimproved value of $149,000. This is a rare coup in Baltimore, where prices only go up and a mid-range home in the city is selling for $240,000.

I will invest some construction dollars in it and I shall, god willing, move into the house in a few months. I work for an architectural firm which will do the drawings for me. I need a capable, honest, frugal contractor. With luck there will be no big problems revealed under the skin of the structure and its bones will be sound. I am on the way.

Why am I doing this? The reason seems to be two-fold. First, as my friends insist, equity. I feel foolish pooring my money into the rental black hole. It makes no financial sense, if I can pull off the mortgage. This is the first time in my life that so many means for doing this have converged. Second, an urgency for "home" emerged.

I had not wanted a home before. I made "home" wherever I landed. Those days are passing though and, as I grow older now, I continue to bump into the idea of the security of place. Even if I don't live in this house for long and I rent it to others, it will be there. Just imagining this space and this firmness of place fills me with relief.

So the narrative in my head is telling me this---to have a home is to be protected and surer in the world and that having a home will also strengthen my ties to friends, and a partner, if that's in the cards. They will come into my home and participate in a life of place. And somehow, I think this kind of home is deeply personal in a way my rental housing has not been, though I have had wonderful apartments. An owned home also means I am grounded in a place, even though I may travel, or even live, in other places. I am no longer a transient. When I fill out a form that asks: rent or own, I will be checking the box that says "own." I have not filled out that form yet, but it is coming. My pen is already in the air.

So I will follow this narrative of home/ own and see where it goes. Will there be a difference between the reality of home and my mental narrative of home that I am (emotionally) responding to? How will the owned home feel in comparison to the rented space. Will friendships and relationships be different? I'm going to be thinking and writing about this narrative.

Roast Pork

Few things please me more than cooking. It is a process that is almost entirely intuitive and physical. Living in the city of Baltimore, there is a predisposition to crabs. I am not so disposed. Crab is good. Very good. But is it just crab and it should not be compromised by additional ingredients, or the assumptions of an irreverent chef du jour full of desire to add stuff to the crab. Leave it alone. Just plain crab is enough.

I am more drawn to the pleasure of fresh herbs, reductions, searing, sauteing, braising. I like dishes that are cooked slowly for hours. I like a slow process. The building to a fine result of fragrances, textures, color. I like the look of the food, the feel of the food. I like to mix salads with my hands and peer at tomato sauces bubbling.

I especially love the movement of cooking. Lifting pots, swinging them onto a stove. It like the splash of water into a steamer, the sound of the water coming to a boil. That ping. I like bubbling pots and sizzling frying pans. I like moving from sink to stove, from oven to counter, refrigerator to cutting board. I like the knife blade rocking on wood.

I love the fragrance of herbs being dry toasted in a pan. Ou. Ou. I like to think about cooking, looking through the spice cabinet contemplating the combination of seasonings. I like the spice tray twirling. I like the mortar and pestle, the crushing of herbs and the wild fragrance that emerges. I like onions. I love garlic. I love garlic.

I like soft boiled eggs with green onion shards and Braggs and salt and pepper on a Sunday morning. I like the yolk running brilliant yellow. I like the process of cooking as much as I like living.

In cooking, there is the integration of rules with desire. I think it is like playing an instrument. You must learn the scales before you can improvise. You must know the basics and you must first grasp them intellectually. You must then deeply appreciate the significance of knowing the basics intimately---the lemon, thyme, cardamom, garlic, salt, cream, red wine. How and when do they engage? What melds with another? When does rice wine yearn for avocado? You must know ingredients simply, like a musical scale. Unlike the scale, however, you must know the physical quality of the note on the tongue. (If I could taste music, I would be additionally happy.)

Cooking is like loving. You must give yourself to it fully, you must be fully present in the process and sensitive to the slightest nuances of the ingredients, textures, the flush of colors. You must balance giving and receiving, chaos and order, joy and fear. Cooking is loving, loving...is garlic.

Mariachi Birthday

There was a loud group of women at Arcos latin restaurant last night on South Broadway. My friend and I had to move to another table in order to hear ourselves chumming with each other. On reflection, hearing the closeness of the group of 12 or so, I was experiencing the feeling of envy.

The women were celebrating their friend's birthday. I was impressed, again, by the vivacious pleasure women experience in being together. Their laughter was deep and rich, the kind of laughter you experience when you are very happy. There was little squealing laughter, in the way anxious people often express themselves. People touched each other to emphasize comments, a hug around the shoulders, a squeeze of the arm. As the evening played out, my friend and I found ourselves listening to the conversation of the delighted group, smiling at each other, as we eavesdropped.

One of the stories they shared recounted a recent kayak trip that lasted 6 hours, rather than the 2 1/2 half originally anticipated. The retelling was filled with the details of capsized kayaks, women stuck face-up trying to go under logs, while other members of the flotilla pushed down on the stuck person's body, trying mightily to dislodge the kayaker, wedged between log and water.

They noted in detail the need to repeatedly portage heavy kayaks over slippery, decaying logs and shorelines covered with poison ivy. Group members lost sunglasses, food and clothing to the river's insistent current and the frequent shock of a kayak capsized. They recounted their awarness that they began the trip neat and naive and ended it with the sound of dueling banjos in their heads, as darkness descended and the river's tree cover drew more dense.

This tail was told in detail that spoke of the closeness they shared in moving through the difficult together. They acknowledged the initial anger at being in a hazardous situation, that was originally intended to be one of fun and ease. They examined their means of supporting each other and their awakening to the ludicrous nature of their situation. All of this was detailed with humor and bursts of raucous laughter, laughter too large for the narrow restaurant.

I noticed that other diners were as engaged as we were with this unusually adverturous tales. The women, all well over 50 years in age, were ageless. Another reason for envy. They were brave, strong, witty. As their dessert arrived the Mariachi band appeared and played a rousing Happy Birthday to the celebrant. Everyone in the room sang along.