11,602. RUDIMENTS, pt. 620

RUDIMENTS, pt. 620

(the wake of war)

The wake of war. Looming

presences. Massive individuals.

As I entered the new world of

New York City, I felt as if

wandering through the pages

of the recent past was about

the only way I could best sum

up what I was in the middle

of. The big war, and its now

physical aftermath  -  power,

strength, jobs, steel and

buildings  -  but, and more

importantly, to me, the art

wars. The Art Wars were

always going on of course,

yes, but I had a double-lensed

camera vantage: I could read

and learn all about it some

more, BUT, better, I walked

among  -  and talked and

laughed and nodded  - with

the actual personalities, or

at least those still extant  -

who peopled all the histories

and tales I'd read of. Franz

Kline was dead. Hans Hoffman

was dead. Arshile Gorky was

dead. But they were only still

quite recent losses, and many

of those I was amidst spoke

of them almost as if they were

still there. I well remember

Mercedes Matter often going

on about this or that Franz

Kline episode (they were quite

close) and how she'd usually

end up muttering  -  as she

re-told it  -  'Oh, Franz!'

My own list of elders was

comprised of legends : Philip

Guston, Esteben Vicente,

Philip Pavia, Georgio Spaventa,

David Hare, Milton Resnick,

Morton Feldman  -  and those

are but a few. It was gold.

And, lest I forget to give the

needed and due predominance

to Mercedes Matter, I give it.

When I first met her I guess

she was about 53, born in

1913 I think it was. Younger

than my 1901 grandmother,

yet older than my parents,

in their mid 1920's birthdates.

A curious sequence. Mercedes

Matter turns up everywhere,

in art histories and books of the

prevailing times of the 1930

through the 1950's art turmoil,

New York School Abstract

Expressionist world, all those

formative years and places.

-

I often wondered about the days

of my life, the hows and whys

of my parents, in their age group.

They could have done so much

more, I always felt, or at least

more towards living a life that

wasn't so ordinary. Contemporary

to them  -  and my in-laws too,

(same feelings there)  -  all of

this city-stuff was going on

right around them. The grand

ark-boats of existentialism,

absurdity, art, drama, writing,

performance, darkness, light,

philosophy, learning, ANY

of it could have been theirs to

partake of. They could have

dwelled among the righteous,

in 22nd street lofts, cafes. I

suppose it was all part of my

always feeling so unrepresented

and out of place. I don't know

how any of that happened and I

can't really worry over it because

it's truly representative of nothing.

And there are, of course, two

schools of thought about all

this. One says 'You can't pick

your parents,' (or maybe it's

you DON'T pick them), and

the other (representing a more

spiritual and cosmic view of

things), say that's exactly what

you DO do  -  that your greater

soul, before returning to life,

surveys and selects the situations

and experiences it wishes to

undergo. So, perhaps this

internal conflict was a part of

my metaphorical experiential

DNA by selective choice. I'd

gotten to no real conclusion on

any of that anyway, and it all

seemed beside the point. I'd

been looking, obviously, for

anything which would get me

away from that insipid street

environment of box-houses

in suburban rows with their

horrors of the grocer-stores

 and parking lots down the 

street and the lording over of 

all things by robotic thought 

and that stupid ease of 

convenience which always

ends up running things. 

Not for me.

-

Once I met Mercedes, I was OK,

as if another Mother had come

onto the scene for these next

few acts. Yeah, sounds cruel,

but whatever. Here's where I

took my leave of even James

Joyce with his ideas of

Motherhood being unchanging

and eternal and important to

one's makeup, while discounting

Fatherhood  -  which by his

count has no account and was

just a passing shot of jism that

could have been done by

anyone. (Read his Ulysses;

it's there). For me, quite frankly,

both sides of the parenting thing

were of no real importance. It

was all a mystery-voodoo mashup

anyway. Mercedes Matter arose

then, within all that, and

represented my liberation.

-

I was always at bay. Do you

know that feeling? What it

means? To be at bay has it that

you're somehow holding steady

in the shoals, not quite out (yet)

on the open seas, at bay in a

sheltered cove, an anteroom to

that ocean of experience. That

was my envisioning of it anyway.

A Father? I was conflicted; if I had

a father, It was in Heaven. I never

felt a need for a Mother. The contact

all around was very sparse, worlds

in collision, separate orbits that

never contacted in any case. There

was never any real understanding

of anything. Orphan Annie? I

was Orphan Antic. As soon as I

met Mercedes, I knew I had

broken through, gotten past the

red-clay-muck of things like

Avenel, duties, details and all

that sick reasoning that made

places like that. I was a new

spear-man; a rapier-carrying

killer.

-

Mercedes Matter, with her

husband, and son Alex  -  some

longer weird name attached too.

I guess she'd named him after

some Indian stuff (interesting

name)....lived at MacDougal 

Alley. As nearby as could be.

She'd been famed through the

1940's and 50's, right up the

straits of the art world. Poetic

beauty, model, figure, painter.

When I stood before her it was

all surrender, and whatever 

pretense I may have had 

dissolved right away. In reality,

I had nothing. Nothing but

intent, and she recognized the

Spirit, and said come on in.

And I did, and I was saved.

None of it was ever perfect,

mind you, but this is the one

individual in my life who

answered all things and 

asked nothing back. The

recognition of the innate is

one major factor in what's

facetiously called self-esteem.

She gave that to me, freely.

-

From day one my time was

spent moving forward  -  and

only that. I wanted nothing to

do with my personal past;

all connections and all bets

were off. I don't know how

often that happens to others,

but that's how I went for me.

It was more than some stupid

changing of a name. It was more

than the way people do things.

I have a friend who makes stuff

up whole hog and lives by it,

to spend his time destroying 

others. No tangible factors 

emerge, ever. Those sorts are

cheap and easy  -  they're glib,

and they talk with an iron mask

covering their face. This was not

that at all. This was reality.

-

Willem deKooning or one of those

guys always kept a semi-notorious

photo of Mercedes Matter, nude,

in the sand, on some beach 

somewhere. He kept it propped

at his workspace. Silent and 

without any further reference.
Of course, I didn't know this at the
time, noting of it. It was only later,
in learning the history of that time
and hearing of the things that went
on in the formative years of Ab Ex
art in NYC, did I learn of this and
her role in much of what had 
transpired. To me, at first, she was
just Mercedes, with the same name
as the car ? who had founded the
Studio School and written the long
article about the Art Movement,
which article had started it all for 
me. Eighth Street, here I am! Or
there I was! Whatever. You'd, again,
never know it now; even by 1970 
Eighth Street itself had dissembled 
into the strings of shoe stores and
miscellaneous touristy crap you see
in the worst spots. Right now, it's
just mostly bad vacancies, and
everything representing the
 days of legend and lore is gone. 
Maybe, though, the same thing
is happening, for a someone else, 
right now and there. You needed
to 'know' the history in order to
get the once-was vibe to ride on.

It just was, and it just represented. 

Pollock, de Kooning, Franz Kline,

she knew any and all of those guys,

and they lived on, to me, through 

her. I don't know what the search

for truth and knowledge ever was

for others, but for me it was through

her, those initial, allowed, steps 

granted. It was then, and it is

still now. The 'wake of war' had 

many things going for it  -  that

intense feed of turmoil and angst is

what brought us to the pass we'd

gotten to. That was when things

happened, when there was

NOTHING else.

-

I always wanted to be a sacred

object, an intense and luminous saint,

just by doing what it is I'd do. Not

by achievement or status or money

 or fame. Wealth and riches are just

things to screw you over. All that

counts, in a dark, bleak, world, is 

what you create, what's made

from a thought, a dream, an action.

That old existential rant that 

'existence precedes essence' may

be more right than we think. 

Before us, there is nothing,

individually, except that

which we do to make 

ourselves holy.