An abstract gets close scrutiny.
Photographed at the San Francisco Museum of Art, early 1950’s for LIFE Magazine.
Here’s to 2014, and more mixarella. All my sparkliest wishes to you for the year ahead, and thank you for reading.
Let’s fade away the duller shade of living …
Wake the Day
One of the men in my neighbourhood heard I studied fine arts. He’s in a band that was doing a fundraiser for cancer. He asked, if he provided the supplies, could I create a painting of the album’s title song that could be auctioned off at the CD release party? As he was very persistent, I eventually agreed. Then I tinkered around on Facebook, as one is wont to do when the clock is ticking, while listening to the song, by After Autumn, which is sort of sweet and sad and ultimately about not giving up.
I had no idea what to put on that blank canvas staring at me. I thought of a tree with the lyrics branching out of it. Then I realized that I’d rather do a portrait, which made me imagine a face that was open, strong, determined, and neither smiling nor frowning. Something Mona Lisa-esque. I remembered a profile picture of a Facebook friend, which I downloaded and began replicating. While staring at the tiny digital image on my screen, I gave the wonderfully expansive, egg-shell white canvas some of the broad strokes of my friend Silvia’s distinctive features: her resolute jaw and cheekbones; Jackie O wide eyes; generous, enigmatic mouth; and broad swish of eyebrows. The photo of Silvia I had chosen pleased me greatly as it had high contrasts of light and shadow, just like Silvia’s personality. She’s a tough kitten with a big heart and wicked sense of humour — a feisty, dark, cerebral beauty.
Please excuse the thumb I rely on it for proportioning.
Yes, the midcentury glass bowl was full of paint by the end.
Ah, red.
I finished the painting on stage with the band at their CD release party, as they played “Wake the Day.” The lyrics are painted in her hair. I hope you like it, dear reader.
So it happened AGAIN. Stayed in the spaceship this year. Will be back to save the universe from dullness, soon.
“C’est vrai. Voilá quelqu’un qui sent comme moi. (It is true. There is someone who feels as I do).”
Edgar Degas, born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, in Paris, France, today in 1834 (d. 27 September 1917.) A superb draftsman, especially identified for his sinuous and beautiful studies of ballet dancers. Ever the observer, his work also caught the dance of the more mundane: capturing a complexity of moods and movement in parts of everyday life. Here is one of my favourites:
‘Laundresses Carrying Linen in Town,’ Edgar Degas, 1878, oil.
As well as his raw and intriguing self-portrait he did in 1863, especially compared to his self-portrait painted almost 10 years before.
Edgar Degas “Self Portrait,” 1863, oil on board. Edgar Degas “Self Portrait,” 1855, oil on canvas. Courtesy of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
Although a difficult and somewhat formidable ‘old curmudgeon’ personality, I do love this story: In his late years Degas was chatting in his studio with one of his few friends (and admirer,) English painter Walter Richard Sickert. They decided to visit a café. Young Sickert got ready to summon a fiacre, a horse-drawn cab. Degas objected. “Personally, I don’t like cabs. You don’t see anyone. That’s why I love to ride on the omnibus-you can look at people. We were created to look at one another, weren’t we?”
“An artist can show things that other people are terrified of expressing.”
― Louise Bourgeois
Louise Bourgeois photographed by James Hamilton, in 1992, with her piece Arch of Hysteria.
The trailblazing French-American modern artist and prolific contemporary sculptor Louise Joséphine Bourgeois, who died three years ago today in New York City at age 98, left a towering artistic legacy (astonishingly, in the latter part of her life). I love her for many reasons: for her bravery in subject matter and scale; her passion and wit for promoting women in the art world; her courage and conviction (in her 90s) to speak up for equality in the LGBT community; and her energy and drive to teach, inspire and galvanize young talent. But, most of all, I love her for her most recognizable and famous body of work, Maman (Mother, 1999), which is made from recast bronze, and displays an arachnid-like sculpture with marble eggs in its sac. The sculpture is one of many, placed throughout the world, measuring over 30 ft high and over 33 ft wide.
Photographed in her studio in NY by Dimitris Yeros in 2009.
Mme. Bourgeois explains:
“The Spider is an ode to my mother. She was my best friend. Like a spider, my mother was a weaver. My family was in the business of tapestry restoration, and my mother was in charge of the workshop. Like spiders, my mother was very clever. Spiders are friendly presences that eat mosquitoes. We know that mosquitoes spread diseases and are therefore unwanted. So, spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother. … The spider is a repairer. If you bash into the web of a spider, she doesn’t get mad. She weaves and repairs it.”
Outside Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain.
It always makes me pause, or at least try to pause, to react accordingly to all misunderstood creatures. I am always telling Mads and my niece and my nephews that there is no reason to be afraid of spiders — that they are wonderful and creative creatures that eat flies and mosquitoes, which are dirty things that may bite us and make us miserable. I tell them, hopefully convincingly, that the larger they are, the less harmful they are likely to be.
Recently, however, while cooking, I felt the sensation of something tickling my leg. Absentmindedly, I glanced down and proceeded to do the most wild and levitational Zulu dance ever, all without making a sound so as not to alert Mads, who later wandered into the kitchen while I was feigning calm and vacuuming up the gargantuan carcass that I had evidentially slapped to death. Naturally, I didn’t want her to see that I had murdered the so-called “wonderful creature.” Later, as I emptied the vacuum I found my not-so-Ripley-self whistling “Taps” in an attempt to assuage the creeping, crawly guilt I had begun to feel. Sorry, Maman.
“Art is a guarantee of sanity. That is the most important thing I have said.”
—Louise Bourgeois
Alas, we will not hear Ms. Bourgeois talk again, but her work will continue to speak, or yell, in its own power.
Earth Beings: Debs
Even if you’ve never heard of the Henry Brooks Adams saying that “Friends are born, not made,” you’ve probably experienced that moment of instant kinship with someone new. It’s a remarkable phenomenon that most aptly explains Debs and me. I met her in Cape Town, early 2004, and from that moment onwards, I do not remember when we weren’t friends. You, dear reader, met her briefly in my first post. Debs hails from a part of the world that’s warmly etched into my fondest childhood memories: Port Elizabeth. “P.E.,” as it is known by locals, is a sprawling, sunny South African seaside port town where the air always smells like sea salt, thatch, Sparletta Cream Soda and braais. It’s also home to some of South Africa’s great sport and creative talents. Debs, being the latter, thrived in the city of her provenance, and enjoyed the freedom it gave this spirited, artistic eaglet, who grappled with reconciling her rebellious, ever-curious and wild side with a Catholic sensibility and deep love of her family. As Debs says, in her distinctive, 1820s English settler-flecked accent:
“Spent a lot of my youth trawling junk stores for furniture, clothes and quirky bits of crap. I was diving head first into boxes of second-hand clothes in flea-infested shops in Main St. (P.E.) from the tender age of about 14. ‘Dead peoples clothes probably,’ sighed a friend of mine’s mum once.”
Debs’ uncanny eye for beautiful form and colour is matched by her ability to attract and inspire artistic friends. So as a young rock chick out on the town with her similarly feathered friends, she’s periodically flown through P.E.’s thrift and consignment shops to amass a collection of treasures.
“I obsessively started collecting hats at one point. I only have a few left as the moths got hold of them. Storage was often a problem as the collections grew larger. My retro crap was collected before it was even called retro. Old Soda Streams, coloured glass ashtrays and vases — people just didn’t want this stuff and I did.”
In one loud P.E. club, she chanced upon a compelling objet d’ affection with a large warm heart on its sleeve, mop of blonde hair and a disarming twinkle in his eye. His name was Denis. After Debs came back from two years of exploring the world by herself, she married him. After a few years in P.E., Debs and Denis moved back down the coast to Cape Town in the early 1990s. They bought a “whaler’s cottage,” built in 1902, that was created with stone from the surrounding Cape mountains. Our eagle was ready to settle down on this unique rocky perch overlooking the False Bay of St. James/Muizenberg. She gave mixarella a tour of her stunning and homey nest.
“In 1991, I swapped Denis’ much-loved faux leather couch (truly hideous) for six retro chairs, Scandinavian style. Denis was devastated but later, being the master of embellishment, he brags about ‘his bargain of the century.’ Then again, I spent an entire month’s salary on that Art Nouveau clock that’s pictured here on top of the kitchen cupboard and was made by my great uncle.”
“My favourite pieces in my home are mostly the ones that have been made by an assortment of talented friends. Photographer Pippa Hetherington, potter Tessa Gawith of the Pot Spot, artist Jackie Jones (artworks on wall), sculptor and sometimes recluse, Dominique Rocco, artist and collaborator Arabella Caccia, and decor artist Janet Fryer. As well as the many cushion covers, throughout the house, by the prolific South African textile designer and illustrator, Heather Moore.”
“I love old fashion mixed with a bit of now. I have a thing for Persian rugs and old wardrobes and, of course, old mirrors. The more time-beaten, the better. The mirror backsplash in my kitchen behind the basin was made by my very talented old school friend, Ms. Fryer.
“Having children curbed the obsessive collecting phase, and I have been through a bit of a 10-year lull. However, I think the bug has bitten once again. This time it’s for collecting old South African pottery from the ’50s, Drostdy Ware, Lucia Ware, and the English and American versions of Vermont.”
“My Beswick ducks were found separately in three different junk stores in different cities. Each of them is a different size. Amazing, ey? Now I have a full set in the same style and colour.”
“For the dining room wall, the fiercely creative Jen Mason roped me into painting it for an Earthcote shoot. Inspired by Paul Smith. maybe?”
The colours are also a nod to the famed Muizenberg brightly coloured changing huts that line the beach in front of her house where Debs swims each dawn. As she notes, “With all the grannies at the St. James tidal pool. This marks the start of my day and a coffee at a local coffee shop before I start work.”
Her work is in photography, which is more a vocation than a labour. When she is not “working” at capturing people, places, lives and faces, she is visualizing and collaborating on art and further installments for exhibits. When Debs sets out each day, she is attired in her own offbeat expression of elegance with a hint of her past punk influences.
“My wardrobe still has a resemblance of junk store finds from my youth. My Nan (grandmother) made my mom’s clothes when she was younger. I still wear some of them (seen hanging on wardrobe door.) I am trying to be grownup and add more neutral colours but cannot throw away my colourful past. My new (read: not second-hand) pieces are mostly from my good friend, designer Claire Kingan Jones, who recently moved to New Zealand.”
Even at the end of the day, this bird likes to keep busy. Around the house, needles and wool are kept within stretching distance. “There is always a handmade blanket on the couch or bed in my house. My youngest, Jed (now 17), sometimes when he was little, would prefer to fall asleep to the soft clack of my needles rather than a story. I have great excuses for my knitting —my grey hair now and our little precious grandson, Luke (born to eldest son, Rip, below right, who lives in Johannesburg and is finishing medical school). Jed, below left, is an aspiring musician in a band called The Oxygen Thieves; their video, ‘Under the Sky,’ was filmed in his neighbourhood.”
“Sun-downers” and weekends are spent on the expansive front deck, which feels almost cantilevered over the False Bay cocktail of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans. Below the deck is the garden, a seaside, rocky terrain strewn with an almost eccentric installation of flotsam and jetsam found by Denis, Debs and their boys, Rip and Jed, on the beaches all along the South African coast.
“Those weird pieces of junk in the garden are Denis’ art collections. Flotsam from the beach. His collections of African heads keep a watchful eye on his collections of cacti. We always did have different taste … as you know.”
I do know. Once, Debs and Denis called upon my critical eye to give an honest opinion about a new painting (above) that Denis had acquired. Debs and I struggled to contain our mirth, but once Denis explained how it made him think of surfing and being young and free and how the moon looks just like that when you’re on your board in the water, it became impossible not to fall in love with the acquisition. It’s always the response that gives art its meaning — just like Debs and Denis give to life. This sums up how I feel each time I am with them. Like her marvelous finds, they delight me and I want to keep them around forever.
‘untitled (to Piet Mondrian through his preferred colors, red, yellow and blue),’ 1986, and ‘untitled (to Piet Mondrian who lacked green) 2,’ 1986.
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam © 2010 Stephen Flavin/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
— Dan Flavin, American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures. Born today, 1933, in New York City (d. November 29, 1996.)
This is one lunch I would have loved to have attended, preferably seated between Claes Oldenburg and Robert Rauschenberg. With Andy Warhol, watching, quietly bemused.
New York, 1982, 25th Anniversary Lunch of Castelli Gallery at The Odeon. Standing left – right: Ellsworth Kelly, Dan Flavin, Joseph Kosuth, Richard Serra, Lawerence Weiner, Nassos Daphnis, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenberg, Salvatore Scarpitta, Richard Artschwager, Mia Westerlund Roosen, Cletus Johnson, Keith Sonnier Seated left – right: Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Leo Castelli, Ed Ruscha, James Rosenquist, Robert Barry. Photographed by Hans Namuth
Earth Beings: Emma
Artists have always said that a portrait of a beautiful woman is the most difficult to paint, I feel the same way about introducing Emma for Mixarella’s Earth Beings®. Emma and I have been friends for almost as long as we have been living on this Earth. Also, she is distractingly beautiful.
Emma grew up in a rambling farmhouse consisting of thatch rondavels all joining up to the main house called Thatchings. The gloriously lush garden and generous patio — complete with hanging rattan chairs, sleeping dogs and skittish chickens — made you forget that you were 15 minutes from the cacophonic and swirling dervish that is the Johannesburg CBD. The house was always filled with marvelous original artwork. A dazzling array of fabrics in exotic colours formed a backdrop to an eclectic collection of sculptures, antiques, books and bric-a-brac. For example, an art deco lamp lit up a carved Moroccan tray table of Africana artifacts. Larger-than-life characters, history makers and trailblazers were always welcomed to tread the large, loud, old-wood floorboards, with some showing no compunction to leave.
For those growing up at Thatchings, Friday nights skies were often filled with the red-wine fueled impassioned debating of resistant fighters, enraged artists, hopeful expats, weary nationalists, acerbic writers and idealistic industrialists. I have a strong memory of the fragrant basmati rice and chicken curry, heaped with bright coriander leaves, in beautiful blue-and-white china platters placed along the expansive dark wood dining room table that was strewn with candles and fresh flowers.
Emma’s striking feline features, catlike reflexes, business acumen and mesmerizing storytelling ability are bequeathed from her incomparable father, John. From her mother, El, she gets her heart, compassion, fierceness and wonderful creative verve. Her tenacity she inherits from both.
Emma, along with Pippa and myself have maintained a triumvirate of friendship that has withstood all tests life has thrown us. Along the way, we unwittingly developed a somewhat annoying tradition of surprising each other. It is still undecided who gets the most glee out of the whole surprise scenario, but after many years of Emma being the reigning (and smug) Queen of Surprises, Pippa masterminded a very successful one recently, which brought the three of us (each living in NYC, Cape Town and London) together at Emma’s lovely and inspiring London home, which she shares with her partner, Cameron, who is a knock-your-socks-off (or further clothing) handsome American with leading-man good looks and a gentle, almost blushing demeanour.
This isn’t the surprise we gave her (pictured right), this is from another one, given three days later at her 40th birthday party, after which she begged for a ceasefire
Photographs by Pippa Hetherington
You might have noticed that we put the dining room table against the wall for the birthday party. That is an Emma-Pippa-Mixarella custom, as it creates more room for dancing. Emma notes, “Might be a good illustration about our general party style/get-togethers to say that what was intended to be a genteel afternoon tea party, for about 40-plus friends, with twee teacups and cupcakes everywhere, quickly became something else entirely. To the point – the next day I found 50 empty bottles of wine and one dirty tea cup …”
Photographs by Pippa Hetherington.
Now, let’s go back and take a look
at Emma’s place.
Emma’s living room shows the fantastic influence of her childhood home, Thatchings. I love the mash-up of styles, decades and textures, which draws from many global influences, including those from the bottom tip of Africa right through the top into India, with a splash of Italy, France, Scandinavia and many stops in between. Says Emma, “The rug is from travels in Morocco – a seaside village called Essaouira. Almost the only good thing about the holiday, but that’s a long, tedious story.”
The wonderful accent of the paw-paw (papaya) coloured chair was an Ikea find, but one would never know it. As Emma explains the leather mid-century armchair on the left, “Is an eBay purchase. It was a five hour round trip to pick it up … in London. Absolutely forgot how vast this city is, missed an important work dinner and calculated that it would have been quicker to pick it up from Brighton. But it is incredibly comfortable and will make a slouch out of anyone.”
Emma appreciates the power of mirrors and lighting when decorating a space and scours eBay and salvage shops for finds such as this black glass chandelier and fantastic mirror over the fireplace, which anchors the room. Emma explains some of the pieces, “The bric-a-brac are assorted: beaded sheep from SA from family for my 40th; the goose inherited by my great aunt; all art is Greg Kerr (as you love.)”
All the chandeliers Emma has installed were found on the internet. Emma furthers: “The sweet guy who delivered them walked into the house, put his boxes down, looked up the stairwell and said “This house is haunted, isn’t it.” As it turned out he was right.”
When you exit the living and dining rooms, a terrific collection of art, prints and posters lead you up the spooky stairs — with ample mirrors and shiny objects to keep the light reflecting within.
Some years back, Emma was dealt an unwelcome blow (as chronicled in her website, Life on Ice) so her talented younger sister, Lulu, made Emma this exquisite artwork dedicated to her courage, strength and spirit.
As Emma describes her gallery, “Everything has some meaning. Either my mother’s etchings, LuLu’s magical ‘courage’ creation made for me when I was up against it, (William) Kentridge exhibit from adventures in NY, Russian Madonna from antiques market for Cameron’s heritage, BOS poster is Grant Rushmere’s genius business … many are gifts.” (Ed: click on the last link, you’ll thank me.)
On the upper level is the main bedroom, which Emma shares with her partner, Cameron who I mentioned, is a US football-star-turned-money man who whittled his 6’4” frame from beefcake to sinewy yoga form (note the winter collection of exercise shoes under the bench) and shed the pounding competitive mindset for a more receptive esoteric outlook.
And one of the many reasons that we love this California kid is that he always makes full use of the dance area we clear with our customary moving of the dining room table (as seen in action, above in the tea party photos, the dark blur with white Converse sneakers.)
The facing wall serves as a dreamy gallery of their childhood memories and family, with whom they remain very close.
Shakespeare said that every story needs comic relief, and I feel this way about décor, too. Emma and Cameron’s bathroom is a riot of grey and black marble. One cannot pass its door frame mirthless or at least mimicking an Arabian Sheik in his domain …
As Emma accepts it, “The bathroom story is that as a rented house we had to live with the scary black and grey marble–effect Arabian Nights fantasia scenario. So instead of trying to tone it down with white I decided to dial it up with high gloss black everything – cabinets, blinds and baskets. Its a ridiculous, big room with two giant his/hers basins but then a shower like a telephone box, so narrow that if you drop the soap you have to turn off the shower, open the door and step out to retrieve it. Embracing the look made me love it all though. We call the room ‘Saudi’. The dove print above the door is a Picasso I love.”
The bottom level of this home contains the kitchen and the den, the latter of which is dominated by one of her first fine art investments, and one of my favourites of Emma’s art collection, by (the above mentioned, and my adored dean of Fine Arts) Greg Kerr. Emma pointed out the dark purple bench, “is custom made to order from a fellow up North (UK), Beaumont Furniture, who churns these out all day. Everyone should have one of these. All in velvet, as are most things in the house – curtains, loves seat, benches, footstools, outsize cushions etc. Velvet works in the cold and dark – its warm, affectionate and it glows – reflects the tiny bit of light we get.” A description like this works perfectly for me, and I love the purple. Emma adds, “The bench at the bottom of the bed in the master bedroom was made by him. The one pictured here has cushions from the fabulous Shine-Shine fabrics.
The kitchen frustrates Emma and it is a work in progress, but I love the wire sculpture she has above the stove. A common South African roadside-merchant acquisition in an uncommon place.
However, she puts the kitchen into good functional usage as she continues El’s lavish and embracing entertaining flair.
Emma, who went from marketing Schweppes in South Africa, then in London, to co-ownership of a firm that headhunted financial “masters of the universe” (nod to Tom Wolfe) until she could no longer ignore the voice within her that cried for a more creative vocation. In short, if we let her, Emma will save the world. Recently, she entrusted me with designing the company logo of her newly-formed entrepreneurial venture fighting for human rights, Ocula Access.
Photograph by Pippa Hetherington
Emma has always been a tremendous inspiration to me as both a champion of my art and a source of strength. Together, our Emma-Pippa-Mixarella triumvirate has weathered some stunning losses and spectacular triumphs. Always there to grasp each other should one of us veer off course, it is a great comfort to know that we will walk through the changing seasons carrying the warm, sun-soaked glory days of our friendship.
Here’s to a new year, and thank you to The Curator for the inspiration.
mix|arella 