The Show, Part Two: Not a moment wasted

Because it would have dri­ven every­one at the gallery com­plete­ly up the wall if I hung around all day (and also there were some hours of the day when they weren’t open!), I did do oth­er things besides obsess over “Text/ure” while I was in New York.  In fact, I’m now try­ing to think if there was any­thing I DID­N’T do while I was in New York.  Every wak­ing minute was enjoyed to the fullest.

After a very full day on Fri­day get­ting in every­one’s hair at the show, mak­ing tiny last-minute cor­rec­tions to the wall text, watch­ing as the few remain­ing works-in-progress were tweaked, Sat­ur­day dawned sun­ny and gor­geous, as only a May day in New York can be.

I moseyed up to Union Square, tak­ing in the sights and sounds of that farmer’s mar­ket, the orig­i­nal in my life.

I spent a great deal of time in Barnes and Noble tex­ting Avery pic­tures of books I was sure she need­ed (she did­n’t, but we enjoyed our­selves any­way), and then met one of my dear­est friends from old gallery days for lunch.  Oh, Aman­da the beautiful!

Back in the day, Aman­da was a ris­ing star at ART­news mag­a­zine, whose own­er, Mil­ton Esterow, used to take me out to lunch quite fre­quent­ly because I was such a sponge, such an eager beaver ready to lis­ten to his price­less war sto­ries of the art worlds of the 1970s, 1980s.  He sent Aman­da along to me to sell me ad space, and I would have bought any­thing she was sell­ing.  What a pow­er­house of ener­gy, opti­mism (well, you can see it in her smile!).  She in turn took me out to lunch at Nobu every once in awhile, where we amused each oth­er with celebri­ty sight­ings.  Once I said (this is com­plete­ly true), “I wish we’d see John Malkovich.  That would make my life com­plete.”  Aman­da’s eyes were like saucers.  “He’s right behind us!” she hissed.  True story.

We talked like there was no tomor­row, about the old days, and about her new days as a doc­tor of psy­chol­o­gy, work­ing with ado­les­cents in the Bronx.  She is a per­fect angel.

I raced back down­town to the gallery to get in the way of the deliv­ery of Dus­ton’s paint­ing, and to bask in its glo­ry.  What a cen­ter­piece, and such a joy to have as the invi­ta­tion image.

Back uptown, then, to reunite with one of my favorite friends of our New York lives, Julia, who is a VIP in the Foun­da­tion of a Very Impor­tant Artist.  She and I were good, if not close friends, when our daugh­ters rode ponies togeth­er in the Bronx, all these years ago.  When I moved to Lon­don, we para­dox­i­cal­ly became much bet­ter friends.  Why does this some­times hap­pen?  You have to be sep­a­rat­ed from peo­ple of val­ue in order to under­stand their val­ue to you?  We met up at the Jew­ish Muse­um, to enjoy the last 20 min­utes of the muse­um’s day, at the glo­ri­ous ret­ro­spec­tive of the work of Florine Stet­theimer.

The show is not with­out its flaws, as has been point­ed out by Bar­bara Bloemink, an art his­to­ri­an who con­tributed an essay about Stet­theimer to my won­der­ful 2004 book, “Sin­gu­lar Women.”  (I told you I had a Dark Past.)  But for all its flaws, the show was beau­ti­ful, a glimpse of aris­to­crat­ic 1920s and 1930s New York City.  This paint­ing rep­re­sents the icon­ic Ben­del annu­al sale.

Togeth­er with Juli­a’s delight­ful daugh­ter Nina, Avery’s erst­while rid­ing com­pan­ion, we toured the show in a heart­beat, glad to have caught it at all, in my whirl­wind time in NYC.

From there we repaired to their town­house for din­ner.  Nina con­coct­ed a divine starter of pea and mint bruschetta.

She her­self sent a transat­lantic wave to her old friend Avery.

We repaired to the gar­den with the fam­i­ly bun­ny.  Because what says Upper East Side like a fam­i­ly bunny?

Juli­a’s hus­band fur­ther under­scored the char­ac­ter of this par­tic­u­lar New York neigh­bor­hood by bird-call­ing.  I think they were mourn­ing doves he was speak­ing to.

This is the secret New York that almost no one gets to see.  Over grilled chick­en tor­tillas, we solved all the world’s prob­lems.  They promised to meet me at the open­ing.  I stag­gered back to my hotel.

Sun­day saw me in a furor of inde­ci­sion.  Did I, or did I not, have the emo­tion­al strength to turn up at Trin­i­ty Wall Street to ring for their Sun­day ser­vice?  It turns out I did.  I walked in the front door and asked the cheer­ful guard where the door to the cham­ber was.  “Oh, a ringer!”  “Yes, I’m terrified!”

Check out the ver­ti­cal stair­way to the ring­ing cham­ber.  It puts the fear of God into the most fear­less ringer (which I am not).

We gath­ered in the chamber.

And up popped the sweet guard.

“You sound­ed so scared, I thought I ought to come up and see what it was all about!”

We rang.  I did not cov­er myself in glo­ry, but I did­n’t hang myself in the rope, either.  So all was well.  I was so relieved to climb down, to look back up at the scene of my accom­plish­ment, a tri­umph of per­se­ver­ance over fear.

One step at a time, these accomplishments.

I walked hap­pi­ly, med­i­ta­tive­ly, to Lit­tle Italy for my lunch with Binky.  She does not appear on film, which I have to respect, but here is an indi­ca­tion of the kind of lunch we had.  Abso­lut Cit­ron on ice, with our branzi­no and risot­to and end­less conversation.

Il Cor­tile!  What an insti­tu­tion.  Shades of Avery’s lit­tle-girl­hood when her Ital­ian grand­moth­er and Irish grand­fa­ther used to take her to lunch on their pre­cious NYC vis­its.  Heav­en­ly mem­o­ries, and a won­der­ful after­noon with my Binky.

Lit­tle Italy, SoHo.  What fun.

I took a quick detour to 514 Broad­way, our first New York home.  There is still mag­ic there, for me.

Oh, the par­ties we had, extend­ing onto that fire escape with its view north to the Chrysler Build­ing, and south to the Wool­worth.  What heav­en­ly days those were.

I popped into the sub­way to race out to DUM­BO for a stu­dio vis­it with a com­plete­ly new artist, some­one whose work would have fit­ted seam­less­ly, beau­ti­ful­ly, in “Text/ure.”  There is no doubt Anne Gilman will be in our next show. (Because there WILL be a next show.)

Each divine work on paper begins with “start here”: a stream of con­scious­ness reflec­tion of her emo­tion­al, intel­lec­tu­al and artis­tic life.

Then the text is redact­ed, edit­ed, made into artwork.

The sense of inspi­ra­tion, of explo­ration, was pal­pa­ble, that after­noon in Anne’s studio.

I can’t wait to intro­duce Avery to her work, tomor­row.  We have a def­i­nite show in mind, involv­ing rep­e­ti­tion, detail, obsessive/compulsive ges­ture.  It will be very, very Avery and me.

I took a deep breath and plunged into the sub­way again, this time to Roo­sevelt Island, to a beau­ti­ful view of the 59th Street Bridge, which of course filled my mind with the lyrics to “Feel­in’ Groovy,” one of Avery’s favorite baby­hood songs.

This evening was one of the most sub­lime culi­nary expe­ri­ences of my life.  You may (you must!) remem­ber my Christ­mas cook­ing expe­ri­ence with the leg­endary David Rosen­garten.  We decid­ed then and there that when I was next in Man­hat­tan, I would go over to his house to learn the secrets of prop­er Chi­nese cook­ing.  And so it was planned, and so it hap­pened, that Sun­day evening in May.

It was a sim­ply sub­lime evening, begin­ning late because of my insane day (Tribeca, Lit­tle Italy, DUM­BO and now Roo­sevelt Island), and it went on into the wee hours.  We even skipped a course!  I could have cooked all night with David, we had so much fun.

I give you quite the best Chi­nese dish I have ever tast­ed, and now I’ve cooked it myself at least six times, for sev­er­al sets of guests, I can attest to its utter deli­cious­ness.  I have recre­at­ed for you here screen­shots of David’s actu­al recipe.  It’s just that much fun to hear his “voice.”

We just had the most fun.  He is the con­sum­mate con­ver­sa­tion­al­ist, with anec­dotes about Julia (yes, THAT Julia), and Ice­landic fish and chips, and French wine, and his adorable daugh­ters, and every­thing in between.  We had the time of our lives.  I think I got back to the hotel around 1 a.m.

And of course up with the chick­ens to get back to the gallery to both­er every­one some more.  Chris­tine was a saint to put up with one more pho­to­graph of her instal­la­tion process.

And then up to Canal and Lafayette for a crazy errand for Avery.  Did you know some make­up is CURAT­ED?  They have EDI­TORS?  You have to get to know Glossier.

Yes, their store is a SHOW­ROOM.  It was awesome.

I made my way back down­town that evening through a mist of nos­tal­gia, down the streets of Tribeca, scenes of Avery’s pre­cious child­hood, some ter­ri­ble mem­o­ries, some won­der­ful, mem­o­ries of the gallery, of her divine lit­tle school.

To arrive at one of the most beloved build­ings in all of our love­ly neigh­bor­hood — home of my best friend Alyssa, and her love­ly fam­i­ly.  They have a new dog!

Because they know me and my intense wish to be Jew­ish all too well, they had laid on pas­tra­mi sand­wich­es, pota­to latkes, apple­sauce, the works.  We talked, talked, talked.  Final­ly I had to admit it was time for bed.

Mon­day dawned with what should have been utter exhaus­tion, but instead was a fresh burst of ener­gy to rush up to mid­town, to have lunch at a pri­vate and VERY fab­u­lous­ly chic club, the Cen­tu­ry, with my friend Anne.  I love hav­ing chic friends.

We lunched ele­gant­ly on crab cakes and the sort of con­ver­sa­tion one has only very rarely, with a per­son whose mind works at light­ning speed, mak­ing con­nec­tions that enlight­en and delight.  What a lucky per­son I felt, to be there, in that place, at the moment.

And back down­town to take a deep breath, change my clothes, take part in a love­ly video shoot, and have… THE OPENING.

Next post.…  the thrilling evening I had wait­ed so long for!