RUDIMENTS, pt. 217
Making Cars
It was never hard for me to be
myself. What was difficult was,
first, finding that self I was. Or
wished to be. Polychromatic.
Man of many hues. Howard Hues.
Had my name been Howard. I
first needed to find settlement,
and settle in to it. Over at the
Art Students League, on 57th
street, I found a number of
famed artists too - Romare
Bearden, I think, was the most
eminent among them. That place
was run tighter than the Studio
School, and I'd been accepted
there too, but I never ante'd up
any money to get studio space.
But again, things back then were
so loose and easy that I was able
to just stroll in at will and sit
around, act like anybody, see
the different people and artists
in their working and teaching. It
was about the same as the Studio
School in that regard, yeah, but it
was different too. It had a more, a
much more actually, 'Depression
era' feel to it. Big old hallways, a
substantial old artist building, all
proud of its years and its almost
socialist or populist art leanings.
The disenfranchised, the black,
those shut-out from things. Romare
Bearden was one of those - sort of
a Harlem artist, maybe even out of
he Harlem Renaissance movement
of the old days - 1930's ideology,
a little of that old religion stuff and
black spiritualism thrown in, collages,
deep, sorrowful colors, intensity in
movement and paint, wrapped up
in sadness - or in a certain form
of ghetto, black, soft NY sadness.
I was attracted to his work; don't
know why really. He was a main
man. I'd grown used to the white
attitudes of the brash and famous
Abstract Expressionist New York
School of painters who came through
the studio school. All their money
and Paris, the Hamptons, all that
art-history stuff of their brawls
and sleep-arounds, debauchery
and drunkenness. They'd all, of
course, aged and settled in - so
that a lot of that was gone and
you had to just read it into their
characters, but in Beardon there
was none of that. He was like a
religious figure, a bit bumbling,
but nonetheless sacred. Nothing
I could put my finger on, just a
strange art-presence of another
time and place, and people. I
never thought of Negroes or
black people having a cultural
identity of their own. It was never
taught or presented to me. But, in
him, there it was. None of that
high-arching theoretical stuff
about the reach of art, the
philosophical trimming of the
work of space and time and
color and line. His work seemed
to start, and stop, at himself,
while also being conscious of
his 'people' instead of theory and
concept. These New York guys
could drunk themselves up and
spend hours fighting then over
space and negative space, push
and push-pull - almost stupid
fire and fury. He was, by contrast,
just quiet and soft. Something
was going on.
-
Inside the Art Student's League,
there was a corridor and a separate
entry space along the right side
- tacked up announcements, posters,
pieces of art, announcements. A person
maybe felt like they didn't belong
there, but you were there, and so
you belonged there. Oddly weird
and yet simple too. Then, after a
while, I began to realize that, down
at the Studio School, they had all
that too - the slight disorganization,
the alcove, the notes and notices. It
was as if everything was patterned and
echoed after the Art Student's league.
I didn't pay it much mind, figuring it
was maybe all done correctly from
some art-school playbook perhaps
The idea too, of both of these places,
was their difference in 'space' or at
least 'spatial' things. In 1967, most
other things were turning away from
the past - plastics, formica, fake this
and that, streamlined and powerful
designs. Cheaper by the dozen, in
that respect. But - and this too was
a real eye-opener to me - each of
these places, the League and the
Studio School - existed in a 'space'
far different from that of the present
day, then. That space was wider,
taller, darker, more quiet. Wood.
Timber and brick.Hearty and heavy
metals and fixtures. The sound
inside of them was different. They
were not really part of 1967, and
upon entering either of these two
places, you sensed you were then
somewhere else. I liked that, and
could really relate. Stay and never
leave. I'd gotten something of the
same feeling in those jazz-lofts I
wrote about in the far-earlier chapters
here, but in them there was an entirely
different strain of things too - black
people, jazz cats and Negroes, strange
half-naked babes, and all the rest. But
for all that they were, you knew, still
knew, it was the present - maybe a
groundbreaking and brash present -
but there wasn't that backward-rush
of an escape into time.
-
I used to think that, for every person,
there was something peculiar, different
for each, that spoke to them, and caught
them. The taste of everyone was singular.
This all spoke to me, while to others
it was nothing at all - some old,
glowering waste of place and time.
It was like that with the radio too.
Back then there seemed always to be
some sort of radio on no matter where
you went. Antics and crummy music.
Top-40 crap mostly, ad nauseum.
Talkative disc-jockeys pushing their
own personalities enough to make
you sick : Dan Ingram, Harry Harrison,
Bruce Morrow, Scott Muni, Murray
Kaufmann (stupid enough to bill
himself as 'Murray the K' - and
also add, 'the Fifth Beatle' to that).
None of them knew shit about
shinola, and they just got paid to
talk and sell soap. Their voices and
their racket ruined everything. Even
in occasional moments, as in these
art studios, some fool would have
something stupid playing; one of those
stations. Those guys sucked. Then they
all had to try their own 'I'm so hip'
routine at being culturally modern.
It didn't work at all, but they kept
pushing these idiotic songs,
constantly. I remember one time,
that Dan Ingram guy, in his
coddling faux-hippie earnestness
announcing, on the radio, as he
talked about some song he'd just
played, saying, 'I love women's
lips too - both sets of them.'
That was about the sickest thing
I'd ever heard from any of these
guys - the unnecessary aspect
of saying it anyway. Like who
the bleep cared. It really grated
and I swore someday I'd
sucker punch him right in his
own lips. Their noise and their
music was always on the way.
-
Anyway, finding the part of me
that I really wished to be - that
took a long time, and every one
of these experiences in this time
period and others had a role to
play in my 'upbringing,' let's call
it - all under the careful guidance
of me and my own guiding hand.
It couldn't be any other way. I
wanted it, and I wanted it pure and
uncluttered; certainly uncluttered
by the likes of crass, mercantile junk
culture. I always had higher aims.
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