13,256. RUDMENTS, pt. 1,097

 RUDIMENTS, pt. 1,097

(tripping another world)

To take everything in all at

once is just too much. After

all, a scan with the eyes

always leaves out as much

as it takes it  -  one must study

and delve, first, the view or

the scene. Maybe, I used to

think, a 'dream' while sleeping

is not a psychic rehash of

what has already occurred, 

but somehow a glimpse to the

raw material of a future. No

way of knowing...but the

thoughts were flowing.

-

The lofts and workshops of

NYC were enchanting as much

as they were bedeviled. The

prognosis generally was 'head

down, stay at your task,' which

was an OK idea for the 1940's

perhaps, but which had lost any

real relevance by the later 1960's.

Batman TV had taken over. Pow!

Wham! Bash! It had become hard

to see clearly. At every corner

was some sort of scourge : drugs

rampant; loud, raw, lifestyles,

music blaring; the youth movement

was setting in, like an iron-fisted

presence demanding its due. There

was division everywhere : burly

construction guys wielding anger

and some form of 'leave it alone'

conservatism which rapped head to

head against the layers of the loud

and the riotous then marching in

the streets. It's hard to get across

now, how  -  at least in NYC  - the

Vietnam War was a cataclysm;

a breaking issue on which everyone

fell to one side or the other. From 

Joe Pyne to Dick Cavett, to Bill

Buckley, the lines were drawn 

and the TV talk-shows always

driveled on as if people's minds

were still malleable. But they 

weren't. They were closed, and as

solidly shut, one way or the other,

as Fort Knox.

-

I always tried to give everyone

their due, but the majority of folks

were tendentiously whacked out  -

ideas and opinions found wanting.

It was pretty much hopeless. My

Studio School people seemed one

step off that mark  -  except for the

Mike guy from Montclair, who

painted only that, the Vietnam issue

seemed totally off the table. Which

was actually OK because who in

their right mind would want to mix

that in? The idea of Art, and the

Studio School itself, as that moment,

was to provide an enclave, a refuge,

dedicated to the more intense

proposition of Art and its history:

Like a machinist's loft anywhere

along the west side, except that

the mechanics therein were of

Art. Head down. Stay at task.

Other than a few people, there

was, as far as I knew, no social life

or affiliated activities, going on - 

Jim Tomberg notwithstanding;

but that was good. I liked Jim.

-

Alcohol was new to me, about as

new as bars, clubs, organized 'Art'

and any of the rest of the NYC scene

I was thrown into. Charles Cantore,

an at one-remove rich guy I mingled

with, exemplified every NYC virtue

I had never been exposed to at all.

He was at least a decade and a half,

or two, older than I was; tall; swanky;

wealthy. This 'art' thing was something

he was doing to encompass his time.

He ate seriously too  -  massive heaps

of fanciful food, he'd bring with him.

(He's the guy who threw me the

sandwich I've written about before,

and then, after I'd eagerly consumed

it, commented that he'd 'Never seen

anyone eat a sandwich as quickly as

that.'). Little know ideas of hunger

and need evidently did not reach to the

higher confines of the upper east-side.

We were sitting in my little half basement

level kitchen-type area, my free apartment

for being there, in the basement of the

Studio School as the 'night-watchman,' of

sorts. I had a table there, seating maybe 5

or 6, and often people would gather  - 

there was also a cast-off record player,

on which all sorts of different music 

was played  -  jazz to classical to the

then-latest Bob Dylan. (John Wesley

Harding, mostly). We all wanted out,

it seemed, and, that year, whenever it

was, wanted 'Country' throwback

rural realism, a la the Band and the

whole rest of the 'back-to-the-land'

hippie movement. This music was the

closest we got. 'Sweetheart of the

Rodeo,' and the Flying Burrito

Brothers, maybe bookended with

'Music from Big Pink.' Charles would

have little of that. He was way into

 'high jazz' - which I mostly found to

be unlistenable or boring and erratic,

or he liked classical   -  he seemed to

detest what we were beginning, by

these musics, to represent. Someone

once foolishly said that he thought

that  Gaugin would have loved

the Velvets ('Warhol's 'The Velvet

Underground'). That was one step

too far for old Charles, who blanched

and began extolling the colors of

Scriabin  -  some theory of his that

Scriabin had written his symphonic

music to represent and exemplify

colors. (Which I did kind of later

find out was true, or close enough).

-

That basement area I've mentioned

had once been the servants' or the

Kitchen-quarters for the household

staff, back when those three buildings

had been separate brownstone, vertical,

mansions  -  to the Whitneys, and the

Vanderbilts, and all that crap, before

three of them were unified into one,

at the behest of Gertrude Vanderbilt

Whitney, about maybe 1925, whose

art-hobby instilled in her a sort of

longing  -  post the 1913 Armory Show,

etc.  -  to have a place for 'American'

Art to be displayed, shown, exhibited,

studied, and discussed. Thus, the

first Whitney Museum, which in 

1967 had become, instead, the 

NYStudio School. Voila! Me!

-

In the beginning, pre-1967, the school

had been in a nearby Broadway loft,

up some floors. The school made the 

move, (I believe it was over the Fall

of '66. My first visits to the school

were to that loft space, then undergoing

the move, and my initial interviews

and showings were there too).  In

working from memory, as I am, I

recall that someone named Claudia

Stone had died in a car crash. She'd 

been a student there, and in her memory

her wealthy father/family had given a

ton of money to the school through that

memory, which money facilitated the

new location  -  which I'd imagine

must have been very costly. In any

case, it got done, and in about a 

year or so an odd little sculpture,

also in her memory, with a narrative 

plaque which told the story, was

installed in the stairway lobby at

the 8th Street entryway. It's still

there, last I saw. That was my only

knowledge of the Claudia Stone 

thing. I always appreciated the story

and the resultant effects, sad as they

were, of her untimely death, and

this Cantore fellow embodied, for

me, as well, the upper east-side

monied cachet of that illustrious

crowd. Whenever I thought of her

I ate very slowly. Just in case.