Keeping up my newly renewed socialising, I met up with two other friends of a friend, this time writers from New York. They were rather surprised that they had to enter my studio crouching down through the dungeon-like basement so as not to hit their heads on the pipes and emerging covered in plaster dust, but were sportingly witty about it. If I now tell you that one of these New Yorkers is certified blind, you will realise how urbane that is. They took me out for a great German lunch, food piled up and marvellously fast and amusing New York chat. Having been an artist hermit for a month, more or less, in the studio, it made me elated to be with them and gave me so much energy to do my work. Maybe it is because of the groundwork put in, but now I feel on solid ground with what I'm doing. And it does somehow come out of all that I've been experiencing here. The one thing that was a bit of a shock was when I went to Boesner's today, the big art shop, they said it would be at least a month before I could have the stretched canvases of the large size I want. That has to be got around somehow.
Talking of flea markets, I went back to see if the perfect white bowl was still there, and it was, but before putting down my thirty euros, I wandered around the market and there in the centre, a woman, bundled up in a big brown coat, scarf round her head against the biting wind, eating a sandwich, had all sorts of bowls, including a plain white bowl of the same sort of size. Asking her how much it was, I asked her several times because she kept saying eine, I thought to the woman next to me rummaging through the stuff. Finally she held up her thumb, "eine" to me. One euro, I couldn't believe it but quickly gave her a euro for the bowl, which she even wrapped up. Not perfect like the other one, not original thirties plain roundness, but perfectly good. The way using perfect as a modifier shows its' imperfection. In fact I like its' utility plainness. Tableware instead of china, but fine. On the stall I also spied a blue and yellow fluted glass bowl that had been hand-painted by someone, and pressing my luck I tentatively asked about the price. That she breezily said I could have for half a euro. Having gone there with the intention of buying one bowl for thirty euros, I came away with two bowls for one euro fifty. Not the perfect one but great. How satisfactory. Going back, I passed the writer D.B.C. Pierre and we said Hi. Well he looked bemused, (as he's familiar to me from television and his books), but friendly. In my elated mood I then spent another euro on some daffodil stalks and went home whistling I'd like to say, as it would convey my mood, unfortunately I have never been able to whistle, but you know what I mean.
An art shop, a flea market, both within five minutes walk, a Kaiser food supermarket next door, the tram at the corner, two different U-Bahn underground stations within ten minutes walk or one tram ride, and cafes and restaurants galore, this Milchhof is definitely a des res. The front door lock is a problem though. During the night there was a big crashing sound. It might have been the wind that was so fierce that it picked up chairs and a wooden bar counter in the side yard smashing them down into a heap. Then again it could have been someone trying to get in, or out, because the next day the front door could not be opened. I was standing there facing up to this just as my friend of a friend in London; Tom was arriving on his bicycle. At that moment, as it seems to happen here, a solution appeared in the large masterful German form of the sculptor Mark. Just back from his month away, about to form a band in his ground floor studio he quickly took charge. I was to use the basement entrance, where Marcus, another sculptor, had a studio, down with the central heating plant. So that solved, we went to a café and talked about being in Berlin in English.
Jules Olitski American Colour Field Painter died last night, Sunday 04 February 2007. Those paintings were beautiful and influential. I first saw reproductions of them in Time magazine when it was news that Olitski was making stained paintings with the edges, (the edges!), being the focal point. That was his breakthrough and later on his all-over sprays of colour. Today artists are still remaking and recreating his breakthroughs, although not with his originality.
Days pass quickly with so many choices of things to accomplish and things to explore. Some times there is so much to do in the studio that I don't get out at all, yet other times I'm out so much at museums and looking around, that I can't get done what I'd planned. The advantage of a computer is that you give it a task and it does it full-stop, (or crashes), but humans, and I like to think, especially artists, go off on tangents because so many possibilities lie at each stage. That way madness lies, one might say, but using some sort of discipline, interesting possibilities creep in. Working steadily on a drawing, I found myself dancing around the studio. It must be the weather, so bright and mild now that is making me less hermit-like and ready to make some contacts. Having emailed an artist who lives in Berlin, friend of a friend in London, and arranged to meet for a coffee tomorrow afternoon, I'm looking forward to an insider's viewpoint.
