Coy - Part Thirty - "Isn't That Pretty" - (A) - "Something Going On"

Coy

Part Thirty

"Isn't That Pretty"

(A)

"Something Going On"

            Beautiful ‘old dishes’ and ‘glassware’ purchased for pittance ...is not what this tale is about... EVEN IF THAT... is WHAT the tale becomes.  Yes...:   Isn’t that a horrible solution for an old New England estate; to be ‘drawn and quartered’ on a bric-brac table, the headless corpse recovered and carried off in a ...banana box.  Petroleum fuels propel this plunder to the market place.  The internet decorates, value guides, promotes by image, panders and... peddles ‘it’.  ‘It’... is the contents of the Savage estate.  The rooms, once full... are emptied.  Nothing remains of the story.  It is a tale that can no longer be proved.

            It is so nifty... the solution by Helen and her ‘generosity’ (Part Four).  Generosity should be plural; ‘generosities’.  It is, at the estate as I write of it today, a ‘take away’ still... at full throttle.  I am ‘always around; a ‘janitor’ (Parts Twenty-Three [C] and Twenty-Four).  I am always at the bric-brac tables ‘buying’ ‘that’.  NO ONE ELSE CARES.  So I am ‘always alone’.  EVEN... when at the Savage mansion with my truck backed up to a shed and I ‘loading’... I am ...always alone.

            “Anyway”... if it’s not... and only becomes “THAT” (generosities)... what is it.  If I go back to that day fourteen years ago of the ‘two banana boxes.  If I ...dare... go back; way back... THERE:

            I’ll start with the ‘piece’ of blue glass.  When I handed it over ‘full of WHAT?’ to be my purchase, the table tending woman said to me as we passed it.... “Isn’t that pretty”.  That is an art statement from her.  Not about her.  NOT about me, NOT about the Holiday Fair.  It is about an old Victorian pressed glass ...table (center) decoration made of molded and mold embellished blue glass; a ‘compote’... or... ‘bowl’.  “Merely”.

            Yet she was compelled... to a trifle of verbiage... to express an inner notice of her eye upon a... an... object... passing through her life.  This is scarce to occur outside my professional realm where ‘it’ ‘happens’ ‘all the time’.  So I notice.  Take note.  To look.  Often concur...  Always reflect and... often, too... ponder... ‘it’; the expression of notice of ...art.  By someone.

            That is what I do; notice art.  Once noticed I ‘bail it to it’.  First I bail history.  Then I bail antiquarian merit.  Then I bail heritage.  Then I go back to art... and play with that.  PLAY... with that.

             To I... with my art eye... I do not care about the history, the ‘it’s ANTQUE’ and... the heritage.  These considerations, for the most part, are dull because... they are (easily) known and understood.  No, no; my mind is already very busy doing things that are ‘fun’ and are... ‘art’.

            What happens, specifically, is I... using my eye... as a mechanical tool; an inspection device, am... ‘spinning’ the object ...WITH my mind and BY my mind IN my mind; an internal mental process of physically spinning a designated-by-I and eye ‘all over the place’ ‘in there’ (my mind) to discover ...for myself... the so titled ‘positive art aspects’ of this mind spun object to... ‘release’ this ‘hidden’ art.  The art is hidden by the ‘other stuff’ (history, antique and heritage, ET AL) of the object.  For example, here with this blue glass specimen... we have a ‘bowl’ “merely”?  No.  We have art... and one just has to FIND IT... in its raw, pure... beauty.

            IT... is not just me doing ‘at this’ ‘play’.

            And I have done this (mind spin for art’s sake) a very long time.

            All... that are all... and GOOD AT IT (art) do ‘this’ as... automatic exercise and PLAY.

            When did I start ‘doing this’?

            Very early in my profession and very ‘young’ as an ‘art eye’.

            When did I define ‘this’; the doing this and that I was doing this and I was aware that I was doing this and was thereafter managing my doing this... (while others ‘stand before’ an ‘it’ in ‘a museum’ and ponder “what... should I be looking at”.  It is hard for me to wander back, back and BACK to ‘that’ as ‘me’.

            But I study THAT TOO.  I am very interested in my own personal ‘art eye’ ‘spinning’.

            The best specimen of that study I have traced... (among several epiphany study moments that I will NOT be presenting here... and save for a rainy day expostulate [?]) is to the publication of a book in 1976.  I... ah... ‘was there’ (“There’s something going on over here”***) before the book was published and THAT state only drove the “I DISCOVERED” point of the book ‘home’ harder.

            The book is:  Patricia E. Kane “THREE HUNDRED YEARS OF AMERICAN SEATING FURNITURE... MABEL BRADY GARVEN COLLECTION... AT YALE..., New York Graphic Society, Boston, 1976 (in hardcover with dust jacket please).  “It’s all over the place” so ‘don’t worry; you can get one’.

            I was already ‘was there’ with... old chairs (American seating furniture).  This book has pages and pages and pages of... old chairs... that I memorized, memorized, MEMORIZED.  So memorized that I do NOT even own a copy of the book today.  I ‘read to death’ and chucked mine... years ago because I ... “don’t need it”.  “OK SO LIKE THE BOOK IS REALLY, REALLY GOOD about OLD CHAIRS and WILL LOOK really, really good on your COFFEE TABLE TOO”.

            But that’s not the point

            Of the book

            For me.

            The point of the book... for me... then... and of an epiphany... then... was the

            Dust jacket

            That showed an... American fan back Windsor chair... being... spun

            In space

            To show

            Its

            Sculptural presents as a three dimensional form

            In space.

            That point, was a ‘whole point’ and was a bigger point than all of the wonderful ‘old chairs’ in the book.  The point was ‘this is how to look at an old chair’; by spinning them in space with your eye and mind to discern the chair’s sculptural presents; sculptural qualities.  And, obviously, if one can do that with ‘old chairs’... one can do that with ...any... and ...ALL objects.... never even having to TOUCH THEM... let alone OWN them, “HAVE” them... talk about them, talk WITH ANYONE about them or talk about...THIS and... and... sit back ...of one’s self and enjoy ‘there’s something going on over here’... ART.

            NOW, with this dust jacket-as-instructor (reminder?)... that book on one’s coffee table is... REALLY a book to have on a coffee table.  It suggests... on it’s dust jacket... how one should ‘look at every... thing’... and ‘see art’.

            "IT’S REALLY COOL RIGHT THERE.

            THERE! THAT THERE

            IS ART”.

            See?

            Now... I’ll take this critical process ...to Dan-in-bag; the ‘teddy bear’ in the ‘tote bag.’   

---

***  These words; “There’s something going on over here” are from.... I cannot recall.  I BELIEVE they come from... either... Larry Rivers as comment when HE was looking at a large painting (VERY LARGE) OR were made ABOUT a ...very large... Larry Rivers painting... during the 1960’s (?).  IF the latter it was probably either Jasper Johns or Robert Rauschenberg making the comment and that was recorded (possibly I hope I recall correctly) in Calvin Tompkins’s “OFF THE WALL”.  I don’t like being vague about this but ACUALLY... it (this ‘my sin of factoid verification’) does not matter for it is the expression one needs to ... put in the TOOL BOX of one’s art eye AND USE IT.  MY USAGE of this ...precept ...is CONSTANT.