POST #158: DEVELOPERS I HAVE KNOWN (and not loved)

One of the downsides of trying to preserve historic buildings is that much of your time is spent fighting development (and developers). Over the past years (decades actually) this has brought me closer to a cast of Trump-ian characters than I ever dreamed of knowing. The good part is that over the years they provided fodder for a lot of strong, satirical artwork, although recent events have far surpassed anything I could have invented. LIFE has now completely overwhelmed ART.  Nothing I might create would ever come close to what is going on today: the politicians, the shyster lawyers, the bimbos, their surgically enhanced wives, the Mussolini grimace our current leader thinks makes him look like Churchill.

I could probably name at least a dozen big time real estate developers I have locked horns with – their names will sound familiar. They range from pure, unabashed Mafiosos to pseudo ‘aristocrats’ with Princeton degrees and Saville Row suits. The relationship between them came to me one evening many years ago at a Planning Board hearing I went to with my late husband, a Clinical Psychologist. While we were listening to the proceedings, the next “item” on the agenda walked in: MR. BIGSHOT and his entourage. “Who are they? My husband whispered. “They look like gangsters.” “Oh, no!” I replied. “That’s ----------. He’s one of the most important developers in the country. He’s a well-known art collector. That’s his lawyer, his sons, their wives, the architect etc.etc. They’re here to present their next project.” - which of course required the demolition of a block of historic buildings in the downtown. Higher and Best Use, you understand.

I thought about the incident afterwards and how my husband, with his professional training, had intuited something about the expensively-dressed applicants, their attempts to look like gentry that only hid what they actually were: gangsters. I immediately began to draw (I never go to zoning hearings without pencil and pad.) Where else could I get such great subject matter – for free?

Recently, however, I find I can no longer be a satirist. Reality has gone beyond my gentle spoofs: too grim. It’s almost the way satire vanished in the Weimar Republic (George Grosz et al) once Hitler came to power. The brilliant social satirists of Germany in the 20s and early 30s left the country or hid away, hoping not to end up in a death camp.

There is however, a difference between Developers and Builders. Some of my best friends are builders. Most of them are small town guys who grew up and plan to stay here. They are essentially craftsmen and will save and restore historic buildings if given half a chance… and they don’t leave town with the profits as soon as the job is over. I’m friendly with at least half a dozen. They respect me and try to “do the right thing” both for the community and themselves. They do quality work and take pride in the finished buildings. Many years ago, a local planner and I got together and came up with an innovative zoning regulation that would allow builders to squeeze in a couple of extra units in return for preserving an existing historic building: Section 7.3 Historic Density Bonus. It was the first of its kind in the country. By using its bonus provisions, we’ve managed to save dozens of historic houses. In fact, it’s the only thing that has ever worked.

Of course, big-time developers are hardly ever interested in preservation; their plans are much too grand to waste time and energy saving old buildings. And what if they do tear down a local monument or affordable housing in the process? They don’t live here; it’s not their home.  One of them actually had the nerve to tell me that was why he didn’t live in Stamford: the City’s zoning regulations weren’t strict enough!

Renee Kahn

POST #157: CHAUCER UPDATED or Whores Are Not Bores

A friend lent me his precious modern translation of Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales” a few years ago because I wanted to do a blog about The Wife of Bath.  (Post # 80) Why is she so intriguing? I think it’s because her modern counterpart kept turning up in my life (relatives, friends) and now she’s on TV all the time. They are the lusty goddesses/ temptresses I loved to paint. My alter egos? The adventuress I would or could have been if I had had the guts (and the measurements.) 

Anyhow, the Wife of Bath in Chaucer’s tale (now married to her fifth husband – the previous four died) is a very modern woman. In fact, she is so modern she recently dominated television news in the re-incarnated form of a tart turned tactician with the nom de plume “Stormy Daniels.” She refused to be a victim, instead, using her ‘know-how’ and her natural (or un-natural) equipment to equalize the gender gap, telling the men who lusted after her: “If you want to use my body, I will control you.” Chaucer makes no bones about her methodology, allowing her to brag about her endowments and skill in utilizing them.

Chaucer’s “Wife of Bath” lived during the Late Middle Ages, a time when women were chattel; upon marriage their bodies as well as everything they owned became the property of their husbands. First married at thirteen, four husbands pre-deceased her leaving her their worldly possessions, plus what they had acquired from her at marriage. In the Prologue to her story, she makes it very clear that while the New Testament may have encouraged chastity, church leaders soon realized this policy wasn’t going to provide them with a lot of followers. It didn’t take our Wife of Bath more than a couple of husbands to learn how to manipulate men, keep herself from being a victim and get them to do what she wanted. Sound familiar?  $130,000? Not bad for a couple of hours of fun and games!

Every time I read a Stormy Daniels interview, I think of the Wife of Bath and how ‘the more things change, the more they remain the same.’ We are supposedly in an age of liberation and sexual freedom where women will no longer have to subjugate themselves to the whims of the men in their lives, I heartily approve of this brave new world, but women like Stormy surely make for interesting art. Where would Titian and Rubens be without them?

POST #156: TO SIGN OR NOT TO SIGN? (a good question)

An art dealer I know came by recently, looked at my work and commented: ”You shouldn’t sign on the front. Nobody does that anymore.” Of course the “nobody does that anymore” raised the hackles (what are hackles?) on the back of my neck. “I do!”  I angrily replied. And I explained that I didn’t do it out of “ego,” but because the composition required it, needed a touch of “something” in the lower right or left. I hate people who make rules for artists. Real artists don’t follow rules but I’m sure the ones he represents no longer sign their work on the front since he told them “nobody does that anymore.”

His condescending remark brought out the quarrelsome art historian in me. When did artists begin to sign their work? Certainly not in antiquity, although there’s an occasional identifying mark. The best example I could think of was ancient Greek pottery where craftsmen of note (i.e. Euphronius) proudly lettered their names onto their work. An occasional medieval artisan left his mark: “so-and-so fecit,” but for the most part, artists were considered craftspeople producing work in service of rulers or gods. When did this change and why?

I started checking in with my knowledgeable friends. We all agreed that for the most part signatures appeared when art became a commodity. If art was now to be bought and sold on an open market, you needed to know who did it to establish its worth. Seventeenth Century Dutch art is probably the first time artists routinely signed their works as there were now literally thousands of artists producing paintings for a newly rich merchant class.

And so it went for the next two or three hundred years with most art either signed or definitively attributed.  When we get to the Modernist era, the 20^th century, a signature usually appears, modestly, in an unobtrusive corner. Some artists, like Stuart Davis in his later years, incorporated the signature into the design of the piece. Davis made his signature an integral part of the painting. one that represented the completion of the process of painting. I found a great quote from him on the subject:

“Manufacturers put their name on your refrigerator and automobile. They’re proud of it, So I thought, if it’s going to be there, it ought to be a decent-looking thing. In the context of a total composition, you plan a place for it and regard it as an object.”

Picasso had a very distinctive signature that he frequently incorporated into the design of his work.  He used his mother’s maiden name rather than Ruiz, his father ‘s because he thought it looked more interesting. It’s only recently, that it has become unfashionable for artists to sign their work. In my humble (unasked for) opinion, the current tendency to leave work unsigned is a kind of phony bravado, telling the viewer that if he or she is knowledgeable about art, they will immediately recognize who did it. Besides, so much current work is chaotic and gimickky that one would have difficult finding place to put a signature or locate it if there was one.

Anyhow, I sign and date most (but not all) of my work. I have no hard and fast rule. I like the way my signature looks; it’s a final flourish that says (proudly) “R.Kahn.” However, I noticed that my most recent paintings remain unsigned, not because as my dealer friend insisted, it has become unfashionable, but because it would ruin the composition which I like to think is perfect as is. I used to tell my art students that a work of art was finished when you could not add (or subtract) a single thing – even a signature.

POST #155: ON GETTING ADVICE YOU DON’T WANT TO HEAR

An artist I know called me up a while ago complaining that nobody wanted to show or buy her work, or even adopt it temporarily. Her basement was filling up with huge rolls of painted canvas that had no place else to go. She announced that she was discouraged and thinking of going back to her high-paid but not very exciting life as a computer programmer. I’m afraid I wasn’t very helpful and didn’t give her the answer she wanted to hear. I quoted an anecdote my Russian friend Elena was fond of telling about a young poet who, in despair, goes to see a friend, an old poet. The young poet is terribly unhappy; he complains to the old poet that nobody wants to hear his poems or buy his books. He is thinking of giving up being a poet and doing something else. The old poet shakes his head sadly and says: “If you CAN give it up – you should.” 

And that’s how I feel about being an artist of any kind. If you CAN give it up – you should. The world certainly needs plumbers and dentists and accountants far more than it needs more poets, writers or painters.

Well, this is not what my (now ex) friend wanted to hear and she hasn’t spoken to me since. She wanted me to tell her it was only a question of time till she became rich and famous and everybody wanted to fete her and buy her work. But, that’s just not how the real world works. If you want to be an artist, (of any kind) it has to be because you have no choice and that if didn’t live a creative life, you might just as well shrivel up and die. The truth is that there is no job with fewer external rewards than being an artist. For every one who succeeds in making even a modest living from their art, there are dozens who live below the poverty level or are supported by indulgent parents or spouse.

Art is a calling, not a career any more than going into the priesthood or becoming a teacher in a poverty stricken neighborhood. Now that I’m more or less retired and free to paint full time, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been and I look forward to getting into my studio every morning. Not that I had such a terrible life before – I had an interesting career teaching art history and writing about preservation. I had a loving marriage and three wonderful children. I’ve had lots of ups and downs in my 87 years and the bad times (I never told anyone about them) were horror stories, but, as long as I was able to go into my studio, I felt I could survive anything. Aside from the sheer pleasure of moving up and down the canvas with a brush in my hand, I now look forward to seeing what I am capable of when I give it my undivided attention. When someone asked my friend, the esteemed sculptor Reuben Nakian, what it took to be a good artist, his answer was simple: “You just need to live long enough.” That’s my goal.

POST #154: THE PASSIONATE PROJECTOR

My friends all know that I’ve had a long and fruitful relationship with the overhead projector. I began using it around 30 years ago to enlarge my sketches onto canvas, much easier than the old-fashioned grid method I never quite mastered. I got the idea from watching fellow instructors at the University of Connecticut type their notes onto sheets of clear acetate and project them onto the blackboard for the class to copy, saving them from having to tediously write everything on the board. I borrowed a projector from the school’s AV Room and never looked back!

Over the years, I’ve found dozens of innovative ways to turn my low-tech, now obsolete projector into high art. Not only can I enlarge my drawings to any size that suits me, I can incorporate real people onto and into my projections, taking photographs to preserve the experience. By overlapping photos or drawings, I can create totally new composite images. I can enlarge them to fill entire gallery walls. I can photocopy them onto sheets of acetate and by overlapping, create entirely new compositions which can then be transferred to canvas or video. I can move images around and make them dance to music, then videotape the results. I can cut small figures or buildings etc out of paper and make them fill a room. While images from the projector are by their very nature ephemeral, vanish the second you turn off the machine, you can make a permanent record with your camera. I‘ve even discovered how to turn my experiments into prints which, when matted and framed, can pass for etchings or drypoints. No press - no ink – no mess.

Here are just a few of the projects created with the projector:

·        The Seven Deadly Sins:  I projected the names of the Sins onto my body and photographed the results. (the names, not the sins)

·        Dance to the Music:  A “performance piece” with projected drawings of tacky ‘real-live’ couples dancing to even tackier music. In the Finale the audience gets up and dances along with the figures on the screen. 

·        The Lower East Side. Many years ago, I took black and white photos of the area with my low-tech Brownie camera. I recently enlarged them to larger than life size with the projector, animated them with the help of my video artist friend, Cici, and found the perfect musical score. I’ve got extra copies of the video we made if you want one. One night, a few years ago, I took over the Franklin Street Works building in Downtown Stamford, mounted overhead projectors near the ceiling and turned the entire gallery into the Lower East Side c. 1960. The crowd attending the opening became part of the street. I think it was the most interesting exhibit they ever had.

So what’s next for the projector and me?

Have you ever heard of Moire patterns? It’s the French word for “watered silk” and a visual phenomenon studied obsessively a couple of hundred years ago (Google was vague) by a Professor Moire (M/wah’/ray – with an accent a/gue’.)  It turns out that my images on acetate, when placed on top of one another, often produce fascinating moiré patterns. I have no idea why or how; the explanations are way over my head.

Meanwhile, I have accumulated a lifetime supply - around fifteen - overhead projectors that I currently store in my attic. They were given to me, free of charge, by schools tired of having them take up space in the A.V. Room. I took them all, just to make sure there is always one in working condition when I need it. 

POST #153: CHEAP SPACE

As I mentioned in my last post (#152), I have a great workspace purchased a half century ago from an Art Deco mural painter. The only reason we could afford it was because it was (and still is) a ‘handyman’s special’ and we were willing to be the handymen.

This brings me to a favorite theory: “no artists’ space is ever big enough.” It’s like we can’t help hungering for more room. Even though I love the studio in my house, the workspace of my dreams is an abandoned early 20^th century factory, an entire floor with giant windows on either side, a large track down the middle that would hold huge canvases and a performance space at the far end. I’d put a sofa bed and a kitchenette near the door so I could live with my work, painting in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, space like that doesn’t exist any more – unless you are willing to move to Norwich, CT or an abandoned textile mill in Rhode Island or the wilds of New Hampshire. 

A few years ago, some friends and I looked at a vacant c1920s hotel in Stamford that had been converted to Class D office space nobody seemed to want. We thought we could pool our money, buy it, remove the partitions and use it for loft living. It was a great idea; I’d have Curley’s next door and could buy a meal plan. However, when we looked at the spaces, we realized that most of the windows were blocked – or were going to be blocked - by new fifteen story buildings. The one permanent view was of Columbus Park – good – but not good enough. Pass.

Areas like Fairfield County are particularly hard on artists. You only have to look at the tiny cubbies the Loft Artists have settled for (and they’re not cheap): boxes, the size of a guest room. This is especially galling when you remember that they started out in a poor artists’ paradise, the ruins of the old Yale & Towne Lock Factory in the South End of Stamford, Thirty unused buildings: low rent, no amenities, unsafe after dark, unclean communal toilets down the hall, BUT with 15’ ceilings and huge industrial windows with great views on all sides. A three-bedroom apartment in the now “restored” complex along Henry Street rents for around $4,000 a month and is the size of my former $250 a month loft! You can barely fit a bed and a dresser in the bedrooms. There’s still some reasonably priced space to be had in Bridgeport or Port Chester or Norwalk but you can’t legally live there and what are you going to do if you feel like working in the middle of the night? Come down in your pajamas? Would you dare even step out of your car?

A corollary to my “no artists space is ever big enough” theory is my observation that “the size of artwork expands to fill all available space.” Small studio = Small work. BIG studio: the sky’s the limit. It’s not just the size of the walls, but you need room to step back to look at what you are doing.

What set me off on this topic is my current situation. You won’t believe me, but I feel as if I’m outgrowing my present studio! I now crave a space where I can paint 20’ canvases or do theatrical performances with my cutouts on the overhead projector. Plus, given the current political scene, I’d like to take my “Developer” series out of the attic: a dozen giant cardboard cutouts based on the gross moguls I dealt with over the years (surrounded by wives, ex-wives, offspring, lawyers, land use consultants, accountants, politicians and thugs.) Wait ‘til you see how prescient I was! They are begging to tell their story!

 I’m currently reading a book called “INVENTING DOWNTOWN: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City 1952-1965”. It’s the catalogue for a show held last year at the Grey Gallery at NYU. I even broke down and bought it ($60), something I rarely do since I have hundreds of art books I haven’t gotten around to yet. It’s about a period in New York, the fifties and sixties, when groups of struggling artists working in places like the Lower East Side banded together to open co-op galleries in tenement apartments and empty storefronts. Many of them later became rich and famous but got their start there. I was busy changing diapers at the time and missed the scene (no regrets, however.) On several occasions though, I did manage to get to visit shows where artists I knew from student days exhibited. When the book describes where and how they lived and worked, you will better understand how critical Cheap Space is to creative growth.

POST #152: THE PRESSLESS PRINT

The summer before I got married, I took a course in woodblock printing at Pratt Graphic Center in Manhattan. The class was taught by a print maker I greatly admired, Antonio Frasconi. He and I had similar ‘sensibilities,’ favoring expressiveness over abstraction and during the two months I was in his class I produced several fairly successful small woodblocks. The problem for me with woodcuts was that carving large-sized blocks required physical strength I simply did not have. When I did go back to printmaking a decade or so later after my children were born, I worked with something called Battleship Linoleum, easier to handle on a large scale. I have no idea where it got its name; maybe one of my readers can tell me. It came in three-foot rolls that I cut into blocks, the size of my kitchen table. Even better, I discovered that if I ran my electric iron on Low over the surface while I worked, the material softened to a butter-like consistency that allowed me to carve large, expressive prints with a minimum of physical effort.  Since I didn’t have a press, I learned how to print

Japanese style, inking the block with a rubber brayer and then pressing a wood spoon or a baren over the paper to transfer the ink. It was a ‘hit or miss’ proposition but somehow it worked most of the time. Over a few years, I created a half dozen prints I was really proud of and then, without warning, the magic was gone. Nothing worked. No matter how much I warmed the block, cutting became a struggle and the blocks looked clumsy and lacked “flow.” After several failed attempts, I gave up printmaking and went back to painting where at least I could control my material. It wasn’t until years later when I told a fellow printmaker my story that I learned that the problem was in the material, not my skill. According to him, there was an ingredient in the original linoleum called Kaori gum came from an ‘endangered’ specie of tree and was no longer available. How could I have known?

Around two years ago, I finally went back to printmaking, only this time on the computer. I accidentally discovered that if I printed photos of my collages or drawings onto sheets of overhead projector acetate and mounted them on toned paper, they looked like etchings or engravings. Once you matted and framed them, they appeared to be “the real thing.” My friend Priscilla who taught printmaking at SUNY Purchase for twenty years, told me I had invented a new printing  technique. I’m now frantically producing prints, putting them in mats and thrift shop frames and giving them to friends. My big fear is not that someone will copy my technique, but that my printer will break down and the new model will no longer get the same results. Happens to me all the time. Technology giveth and technology taketh away.   

Happy New Year    

Renee Kahn