Irwin Courterly - Fall 2000

A discussion

Farber, artist
Mona, collector, historian, writer

Meeting for lunch in Mona's living room, discussing her art collection.

F:
What do you have in mind for that open space above the couch?

M:
I'm looking for a window on the soul of the room. There's enough visual space that as a viewer I wouldn't be cramped, yet I don't want to feel oppressively conscious of the solidity of the wall. Of course, I don't want something protruding into the head of my guests who sit on the couch!

Last year I had a dark mosaic that sucked all the light of the room; then I had a three-dimensional paper collage that my friend's massage therapist created. I liked the texture, but the flow of the piece counteracted the movement of the eye from piece to piece in the room. I would walk into the room and just stop! Then I would notice, and continue in, rest my eyes on the wooden Madonna there in the indented shelf, or I'd walk right up to the gray oil painting and notice all the colors that compose it. I find each element, each piece of this room fascinating!

F:
I remember visiting this room years ago, at a reception you had. There was white carpet then, and someone had spilled red wine near the bronze statue of a child holding a suspended stick, as if the child were a ghost, or the stick an illusion.

M: (laughing)
Yes! I have that stained piece of carpet, believe it or not. We put in the parquet flooring, and I saved out the stain. Then my niece used it in a sculpture with red tiles and Femo beads. The carpet adds a softness to the piece, plus I love telling the story of how Cecelia, whose wine it was, had been so engrossed in a watercolor I had just brought back from Oklahoma (yes, of all places, it doesn't have a reputation of appreciating culture) that she didn't notice two young children chasing each other with hobby horses, which inevitably bumped her arm and upset her wine glass.

The watercolor is quite splendid. The artist had hundreds of pieces crammed in his studio, on paper of all shapes and sizes. He had been working consistently for 3 days straight, he told us, because he had mixed such exquisite colors that he couldn't bear to let them dry out and he had to paint until they were gone, smeared with an intense combination of tenderness and fury upon rough, handmade paper, fine, cotton sheets, firm watercolor paper, and even cardboard.

Our car had stalled nearby, and we had walked over to the filling station for water and advice, when we noticed the paintings literally falling out of his open studio door. I was intrigued by the fluttering gem I clutched from the tall grass and handed gingerly to the color-covered man, but I fell in love with the reds on a torn-out sheet of sketch paper. They are the reds of sunset in the Grand Canyon, they are reds of tulips and reds of brick. It was as if the entire end of his palette had leapt onto the page; its shapes are vivid freedom.

It's ironic, then, that the red stain on the carpet was caused by her rapture in the red watercolor. I can show it to you; it's in the other room, solo, on a blue-green tinted wall.

F:
You seem to have a fascination with red, Mona! Do you notice that in your appreciation of the art around you? Have you always been drawn to its fire, or only at certain times?

M:
Red has always been my favorite color, though for a long time my collection was awash in blues of varying hues, sky-blue, sea-blue, deep indigo and teal. I had a fountain splattering drops onto translucent, blue, glass "tears." My weeping fountain! Then I added bronze, such as that tall, winding vine mounted on the driftwood, and greens presided in my living room, climbing up walls, softening rocks---I literally had moss growing on a partially finished granite obelisk! Then suddenly, as if my color preferences switched to reverse, my greens changed to reds. Actually, I think it started when I saw that watercolor in Oklahoma! Since then I have found a few more rosy treasures, but have still been drawn to yellows and blues.

F:
In my limited collection, I have an abundance of earth tones, wood, stone, metal, browns, yellows, deep green and only an occasional vein of red.

M:
Why Farber, that's remarkable! All your own work is bursting with primary colors! Do you notice the difference between your living room and your studio? Do the colors assault you?

F:
I think they exhaust me! I am driven by bright colors, they surge through me and demand dramatic expression. So when I close my studio door and seek food and rest, I need to have softer colors around me. My bedroom is bland and simply decorated because I'm too obsessively drawn to my brushes and fabric when the colors around me give me ideas that can't just wait until it's convenient to stitch and paint.

M: What is your studio like? Are there many works in progress leaning on walls, or is it bare as your audience buys, borrows, or steals each one as soon as you'll let it out of sight?

F: (laughs)
I have a few pieces in progress that I wouldn't part with until I finish the thought, though there are also several out on loan that I'd like to come back to. The ones I sell are complete; I need to have that closure. Occasionally a client makes a request, and she and I work together to explore what I can offer and what she's imagining. Often before such a piece is finished she borrows it for some time to grow used to it, to see if it works for her.

Would you like me to make a suggestion for the space above your couch? I'm envisioning something soft and red, textured, pattered with gold thread in a weaving, invigorated with leaves of green. I can make it, you can hang it and see how it pleases you, if you grow comfortable with one another, if your seated guests bask under its glow, or whether they carefully set down their wine to touch its alluring fibers. Let the stains on your floor be the judge.