She was to bring him happiness and teach him how to enjoy life and art; and in return, he would cherish her, take care of her, always and forever – That was the promise of their marriage. But the marriage was doomed, from the start, despite (or because of) the well-meaning intentions.
She grew up in the Midwest. A gifted painter from a young age, she was
known for her ethereal beauty and her artistic promise. She drew and painted the nature and objects
where she lived, in meticulously constructed splendor. Her work resembled that of no other artist of
her time and place.
Her parents, both from the bourgeois
background, indulged their daughter’s unusual talent, to compensate for their
own lack of education and interest in things artistic. Unlike her siblings, she was allowed freedom
to roam and day dream, whenever and wherever she pleased. No one complained about her sitting there,
staring off into the distance, doing nothing – she was actually busy in her
head dissecting the labyrinth of life and things around her to imagine the
images of her next paintings. Not
surprisingly, she spent a whole lot of time “being still”, while others seemed
in constant motion. When asked what she
was doing there sitting so still, she would simply reply, “I am painting in my
head…”
She was a lonely child, by choice. Her work was laborious, but time was of no
essence. She preferred to work in
solitude. It was necessary to
concentrate her attention on the canvas at hand, thinking only about those
inspired images, without the intrusion of audience. For a while, she became indistinguishable
from the work she created. The final
product was always less than what she had expected, but a miracle that it
existed at all.
She had a cold heart, rough manners, and she
wouldn’t compromise. She was only
curious about people and relationships as far as they would enrich her
art. She was one of those who were in
love with their art more than anything else.
But her paintings were superb, and they sold well in her hometown. Her reputation grew despite her mercurial
personality.
She was beautiful, but she didn’t take care
of her beauty much. “If you are ugly, you are
ugly; if you are beautiful, you are beautiful. You don’t have a
comparison. But when beauty begins to
matter to you, then you can’t do anything else except being beautiful: You are
beautiful all day long and into the night, and soon that will be all you are,
and all you can be. It’s not a crime; it’s
not the worst thing; and it may even be your life’s edge. You begin to live in a dream world where
everything is easy. Think of this: If
Van Gogh had looked like Cary Grant, could he have seen what he had to see, and
have felt what he had to feel to paint those emotionally charged, haunting
pieces? Not a chance. To paint those pictures, you have to stand in
a distance, unknown and looking like a toad.
Art comes first, everything else second.
So, try not to make too much of looking good; because, if it was worth
anything, why were you chosen to have it instead of Van Gogh?” She was wise beyond her age about
beauty. But people would just laugh at
her and say, “You take things too seriously.
Pretty girl like you, you can have anything you want.”
Commerce was always
difficult for her. She liked the money,
but the process was deeply unsatisfying to her as an artist. Once a woman bought a picture from her, a
self-portrait she painted at a moment of extreme distress. The woman paid a lot of money for it, because
of what it represented to her – a statement of feminist grit, sort of. She knew that the woman was projecting too
much of herself onto the painting, and was bringing home an idealized image of
herself; and over time, the woman would learn to hate it for whatever reasons,
and take down the painting to put it in the attic, unless it would suddenly
become valuable in the art market (then she would congratulate herself for
being such an art connoisseur, making such a shrewd investment.) She felt misunderstood and disappointed; she
felt like telling the woman to save her money and go buy the stock of the
art-auction house instead.
Her agent explained to her
that she should not be involved in the selling of her paintings, those matters
better left to the professionals. The
buyer was not obligated to understand what she was buying. The painting was hers, and she had a right to
see whatever she wanted to see, to pin whatever her dreams and nightmares as
she wished. As an artist, her job was
not only to paint, but also to cultivate a branded, specific “public
personality” that the buyers wanted to buy, as Andy Warhol and Picasso had done
with their careers. “Establishing a
foothold in the art marketplace is as important, and must be carefully planned,
as the drawing of the canvas. If you
choose to be mysterious as your artistic personality, you had better be
alluringly mysterious, you had better be more Vermeer than you are now.” said
her agent, “The consumers are buying the personality of the artist, not just
her paintings. They want to know you,
they want to know your personality, they want to own you, and in return you get
– adoration! You owe it to yourself to
give it to them, any works as long as they are alluringly mysterious…”
She clenched her teeth, “I
am a painter. I am not an
entertainer. I didn’t choose a
performing art.” It was all too
complicated – the marketing and branding of an elusive merchandise – that it
gave her a pounding headache. She
figured she didn’t want it badly enough; she just wanted to get back to her
work.
Then, in her early twenties,
thinking that she had exhausted the material in her hometown, she decided to
decamp to New York. New York was where
the new material might be, and where she could get her work done without
interference. There had never been a
great painting made in the Midwest, whereas there were so many in New
York. A childhood friend who lived in
New York once told her, “You don’t belong in the Midwest. If you’re smart, leave. Don’t wait until thirty.” She moved to New York where she studied art
at the Parson’s New School for Design.
After two years, she dropped out to paint full-time in her small studio
apartment in Brooklyn, had few gallery shows, did commission works for
individuals.
“Have you no sense? You don’t even know me.”
She wasn’t in love with him,
and he knew it.
“You will grow to love
me.”
Before him, she could have
never imagined a married life. To her,
married life was mysterious and better left mysterious. It was better left to the married ones, who
were the only ones who understood its ritual, rules, and ethics, or its
deception and petty terrorism. In a
marriage, there was always the long-suffering saint versus the devil. Quite a miserable life with all its hollow
victories and hollow defeats.
But he was unlike any of the
boring or sly boyfriends she had dated before.
He was kind and generous, a gentleman, doing a masterful job at
something precisely what she had not been doing: building a serious and
lucrative career. One by one, he struck
down her arguments against their marriage until she had none left. She began to believe that there was no better
course for her to take than to bring happiness to this man who worked so hard
and seemed to enjoy so little.
Her handful of artistic
friends couldn’t agree. They were
horrified, although none said so to her.
They dutifully came to their beautiful wedding, but soon disappeared
from their life.
Her parents were ecstatic
about her incredible luck. They flew
into the big city, attended the wedding, joined them for weekends in their
Connecticut country house, completely charmed by the bright light and luminous
future bestowed on their daughter, “You’re burning with ambition, but you won’t
admit it. You want money, you want
fame. You’ll need someone to help you
get it. Now you have it. Now is your chance.” “But you have no idea what I want.”
Years later, she learned
that her artistic friends couldn’t bear to watch what was happening to her –
She failed to teach her husband how to experience life and art. Instead, she became a handmaiden of his jaded
palace.
Soon after their marriage,
her previously aimless days of wandering and day-dreaming became ordered by
endless parties, meals, and domestic chores, by managing the increasing
responsibilities of maintaining two homes and the attendant details. They was the dog which required walking and
fussing over; there were the doorman in the Manhattan apartment, the guy in the
garage who tended their car, the stream of her husband’s colleagues who had
babies or birthdays that had to be shopped for, etcetera, etcetera…
Their life together was
privileged and enviable, but something was rotten at the core. Instead of transforming him into a dancer in
the rain, she grew grim and unhappy about herself.
How arrogant of her to think
she could remold a grown man?
How foolish of her to strike
a bargain where love was unbalanced?
How naïve of her to believe
that good intentions were sufficient for a lasting marriage?
Saddest of all, how could
she let her role as a high-priced domestic eclipse her art?
How many times had he
interrupted her creative fervor to do the cleaning, sweeping, and washing of
the dishes at their old country house?
By the time they drove back to the city, she was exhausted, and her
inspirations gone. The curtain had
dropped, and the stage was dark and empty.
“What would I have left to
do after a life yielding to the demands of domesticity, with the vast
assemblages and tender care of people and things it entailed? Memory, scraps of my brilliant, yet
disastrous artistic career?” she mocked herself.
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