Artwala Road

Turns out the correct spelling for the Lord High Everything Else is The Grand Pooh-Bah. He is from The Mikado by Gilbert and Sullivan and because he is the Lord High Everything Else he is not the Lord High Executioner. That job falls to Juror who axed me and several of my friends from upcoming art show.

A note came from Sally this morning to say that Barbara and Steve have also been axed. Both were shocked but that night their dear cat Dewey, who’d been with them for twenty-one years, passed away. “A small stroke,’ said Sally. Barbara said it helped her put it all into perspective, as it would. We await news of other artist friends.

The thing is that last year we were all accepted and had a grand time at the reception. There was great diversity in the art chosen and it was all honest and full of heart. I’d already planned what I’d wear to this year’s do. That is how the mind works, let’s face it. A little bit of the old ego asserting itself, a big bit of F.U.N. The shock of our refusal hit hard—the fun had been taken from us.

But this morning The Grand Pooh-Bah whispered in my ear—don’t forget Manet and Le Salon des Refusés of 1863. I had my dates wrong in the last post. The official Salon of 1863 rejected 3,000 artists! Of which one was the truly, truly great Manet. None of us can even breathe the air Manet breathed but—but we do share this with him. We have been refused! AND we are not defeated! The Great Pooh-Bah whispered to Sally that we must have our own exhibit and so we shall. He whispered to me that it will be called Le Salon des Refusés II. 144 years after Napoleon allowed the first Refusés Salon, we shall have the second! In honor.

We will rent a room at the Art Center in January and in order to be included in the show you must have been rejected from the ‘official’ show. I think one half of the group must bring champagne, the other half caviar. We’ll go from there. The Grand Pooh-Bah speaks!

I was wondering as I stared in shock at my refusal notice what this all meant. How could I find the good in it? Lovely that it only took a day. I’m so glad I can count myself in such great company and that there is something better than being accepted.

For now, I leave you with Le Desjeuner Sur L’herbes, Manet’s brilliant painting that broke all the carefully modeled conventions of art and the restrictions of laced and bonneted society at that time with wondrous, loose splendor—and was the painting rejected by the official Paris Salon. His Olympia is my all-time favorite painting and I was lucky to make a pilgrimage to Paris a few years ago with my son, Nick, then 14, to see it in La Musée D’Orsay. We searched and searched that great little museum and just couldn’t find it. Nick said, ‘Mom, we’re not leaving until you see this painting.’ God bless him. We rounded a corner and there it was. I’m still reeling. It was that brilliant—fun and invigorating all these years later.

Manet painted Olympia, a high-class prostitute, apparently waiting for a client. He gave her the dignity of  the conventional lady of the house, a radical view in its time and now too, I think. Manet was asking us to look at repression and judgment. The painting has hints of Ingre’s Odalisque, the ideal woman, painted a few years before. Olympia was painted in 1865. Apparently the model, Victorine Meurent, went on to become an accomplished painter in her own right. But we do not know her name or her work. That’s another story. It could have something to do why so many of us, all these years later who have been refused in our little show, are women and still finding our way. Curious that the lone Juror is a woman. I will tell you this about our wee troupe—wherever we are as artists, and I think we are all in a grand place simply because art has seeped into our souls—we do know how to throw a party. Stay tuned. The Grand Pooh-Bah is coming.

November 2nd, 2007 | Category: Dear Reader | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL