Beginnings

Beginnings are awkward. Consider, if you will, introductions at a business lunch: limp handshakes, forgotten names and your own barking fake laugh. The inevitability that you will have to eat something that retains its original shape no matter how persistently you chew it. The inevitability that someone will ask you something simple, like your name, and you won’t know the answer. Nodding a lot while people expound on obscure topics you don’t understand. Topics like The Recession, or Wassily Kandinsky. Who is THAT guy?

Well. Kandinsky’s painting, “Red Yellow Blue,” is at the top of this blog. I didn’t ask him if I could use it, because he’s dead. Plus, when he was alive, he lived in Russia. I’ve never been to Russia, but I considered going once. While studying in London in college, my roommate and I consulted an atlas to see how far away Russia really was, and whether or not we could reach it by train. We were young, and geographically unsophisticated. We ended up in Italy. But that’s not the point.

I borrowed this painting because I’m a fan. I saw an exhibit of Kandinsky’s work at the Tate Modern in 2006. His most well-known works are the abstract masterpieces he created toward the end of his career, but what’s fascinating to me is the way his career evolved. When he began studying art, his work was distinctly impressionistic, but he painted buildings that looked like buildings, and people who walked on the ground. Only later, as he grew as an artist, was he able to express himself in the abstract. Rather than attempting to present a mirror of life, like a photographer, Kandinsky’s work has been compared to that of a musician. His paintings depict emotion with color, shape and movement. While gaining confidence as an artist, his artwork became increasingly open to interpretation and devoid of recognizable objects.

I used to hate abstract art. There is an abstract sculpture in the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh that used to make me angry every time I saw it. It looked, to me, like a human heart and some other internal organs that had been gnawed on by angry animals. I couldn’t understand why an artist would bother to create something that didn’t appear to be anything. Also, it wasn’t pretty. Back then, I wanted Renoir’s girl with a watering can, Monet’s lilies, pretty things I didn’t have to think about.

I still like pretty things, but as I’ve grown older, I’ve begun to appreciate more and more an artist’s prerogative to present his own particular vision of the world, whether that vision is one of lovely children frolicking in gardens with bunnies, or geometric shapes and squiggles.

As a North Carolinian, I feel privileged to live in a state rich with art and artists. A state in which there are endless opportunities for artists to cultivate, and share, their craft. A few weeks ago, I visited the ArtStudio in downtown Sanford to interview Tyrone Street and cover the opening of his show. Although the space has been open for some time now, it was new to me, and the experience of going there was similar to opening an ordinary wardrobe and finding a secret world. The gallery is in a beautifully restored space in a historic building on Steele Street, and Lisa Mathis and the other talented artists who have studio space there are working hard to develop the local arts scene.

On Sunday, March 2, I took Old US1 north to Pittsboro to interview Gwen Higgins, the new Gallery Manager at the Chatham Arts Gallery.  Luckily for me, March 2 was First Sunday in Pittsboro, a day when local artists and vendors line the main street and sell everything from handmade crafts, to tutus and dress-up clothes, to locally-grown-and-hatched chickens and eggs. The Gallery was hosting a Pottery Invitational to show off new works by area potters. My first favorite piece on display was a heart-shaped platter in a matte, speckled cream glaze that was as light and thin as a china saucer. My second favorite piece was a color photograph of a red chili pepper.

The pottery show will remain at the Gallery until the end of March, and a story about Gwen will run in the Herald on Monday, March 10.

Kandinsky’s painting will remain on display for the foreseeable future.