This pic, with a friend of mine, was taken in a photo booth at Love Saves the Day in the East Village back in the day. I was on my way to an opening at the Ronald Feldman Gallery and I was personally invited by the artist showing. The artist’s name was Leon Golub.
You may not know this about me, but I started out as a singer/songwriter.
One day I was watching a program called P.O.V. (Point of Veiw) about Leon Golub and I was floored by what I saw. Here was this older man on the floor scraping away at these huge paintings with a meat cleaver. I thought to myself, damn that’s the way to go! I wanna be doing what he’s doing! I didn’t have any kind of training as a painter, didn’t know where to begin.
So instead, I wrote him a song called I Pray I Feel It Too. I won’t bore you with the whole thing here ..but there are a couple of bits in the verses that were incredibly prophetic (this was back in 1991).
(As Kristin Hersh said in her book Rat Girl…’Songs’re weird: they tell the future and they tell the past, but they can’t seem to tell the difference.’)
‘I feel it too to be so crude and beautiful just the same, but it’s words that keep inside my head so why am I ashamed
And you put it all on canvas for someone else to find, you put it all on canvas and release it from your mind
…and so I write it down again like all times before, within it’s mediocrity I feel there’s something more
I’ve tried to find a reason why but every night I pray, that it’s what’s inside you Leon I feel inside today’
When I think about it now it’s kinda funny. I often find myself on my knees scraping at paintings and cursing myself for my chosen method. It’s only once in awhile that I realize that was exactly what got me into this mess. Years went by and I was walking through SoHo looking at art and making my way to Pearl Paint on Canal Street when I passed the Ronald Feldman Gallery. There was a new show of works by Leon Golub and the opening was coming up.
At this point I had become a painter ( …the rest of that story later! ) with all my faves dead. It hadn’t occurred to me that I could meet the one that started it all. So I sent him a letter with the song in it. Well, ya know what happened next……?
I got a letter back. From Leon himself!! Now, while this may not seem like such a big deal to you, for me it was Unbelievable! He invited me to his studio for dinner and to show him slides of my work perhaps after he gets back from Germany… thanked me for the poem and invited me to the opening at the Feldman Gallery. Told me to introduce myself. I was over the MOON!
I hand made the skirt I wore that day after one I saw at Comme des Garçons and went with my friend to the opening. Stopping along the way to commemorate the occasion with a booth photo. I was sooooo nervous!
The show was fantastic! I wished I had enough money to buy one of the paintings there. It was overwhelming to see all these brandy new paintings by Leon in all of their colorful glory. They are HUGE! I think he’s the one that got me wanting to do something large scale.
There was a line of people greeting him so I got on it. Finally, I got to him and introduced myself…I was so nervous I could barely talk. I just remember him saying ‘thank you, it was a lovely poem’. And that was it! I could barely do anything else but walk around in a daze gazing at the paintings. I also met Nancy Spero that night. I’d admired her Codex/Book of the Dead show at MOMA years earlier and hadn’t realized she was married to Leon. What a power couple!
Anyhoo, I went back to that gallery to soak up the paintings as much as I could before the show closed. I love getting lost in a good show. I never did take him up on his invite, I couldn’t muster the courage to show him my work then. I was a young self-taught painter and had not yet found my voice.
I heard of his passing by seeing it in the top right corner of a newspaper on the subway. I cut out the pic. It’s still on my fridge. Then more recently Nancy passed away. Read it on-line…not the same. No pic to cut out.
I see this as a real loss.
They were LIONS of the art world as far as I’m concerned, I don’t think either of them ever got the proper recognition they both deserved. I wish I had gotten to know them. I gotta start writing and sending more letters.
Ever contact someone you never thought you could? Did they write back?
XX
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