Everyone is talking about the summer heat wave, as if it is something that will pass. I hate to be pessimistic. I prefer to think of myself as someone who is hopeful. A hopeful pessimist. To all you optimists, I pose this question: do you think the problem of global climate change, documented to be caused by human activity, is going to vanish without human intervention?

I have often wondered about optimism and pessimism and the idea of the glass half full, half empty. As an avowed pessimist, I tend to look at the dark side of things and curse my nature. Why can’t I see the good in things? Why am I the arbiter of the dire? Is this a curse?

Or, could this propensity be a blessing in disguise? If it weren’t for the worrier, the pessimist, the kvetch in me, I would probably never think about the question of climate change. I might, for instance, be like, say a George Bush or a Rush Limbaugh (both optimistically ignorant) and be able to brush off the reality of these summer warming trends while basking in the glory of a let’s live for today, God is in control philosophy. Or if I were a Sarah Palin (heaven forbid), I might be inclined towards greater population growth, abortion be damned, at any cost. Whatever happened to ZPG?

I am surely blessed because I know there are many, like me, who stir up enough trouble to keep the earth spinning. We look at an imperfect world and ask “How can I make it a better place?” I am pretty sure that if we leave the world in the hands of the cockeyed optimist, we’ll have a pretty good time. We won’t worry about our deficit, oil spills (“dig, baby, dig”), or health care. We won’t worry, because they don’t worry. In fact, if we pessimists stop trying to fix things, I’m pretty sure there will be nothing left to worry about.

Lucian’s overtly grand-scale nudes and personal quotes naturally brought to mind the great Sigmund Freud, his grandfather. Stated Lucian, “I work from people that interest me and that I care about, in rooms that I know.” Sigmund, too, cared for interesting people in familiar rooms. I was suddenly struck by the notion of Sigmund using his own monumental imagination as a canvas for revolutionary ideas. No doubt his thinking influenced Lucian in art and ideas. His radical pronouncements also provided a foundation for thought, perhaps even a way of life, for many of my generation.
Consider the title of Lucian’s self-portrait, “Interior with Hand Mirror” and its implications both as mirroring and self-awareness, and for intensity of scrutiny. Lucian Freud’s paintings are like journeys through the minds of his subjects. Isn’t that what Sigmund was attempting with his patients as well; to discover, uncover, explore and perhaps invent the secret of the self? The two Freuds evoked a confluence of meaning satisfying my intellect as deeply as my emotional experience of Lucian’s paintings, art at large, my own analysis.

I see the two Masters Freud as master plumbers. For many, the 70’s were about plumbing the interior. We did it with everything. We did it with sex, drugs, rock and roll, psychology and art. For others, I think these kinds of explorations were as untenable as a transition from the figurative to the abstract in art. And still there are those who maintain that art should remain an emotional experience, not one subject to analysis. I am journeying towards the abstract, but not without my need to dissect.

In pictures larger than life, Lucian Freud shows us how curiously alike we all are: naked and invulnerable, naked and frail, naked in all our permutations from the plain to the pretty, trying, oh so desperately, to feel comfortable in our skins. Is that different from what Sigmund Freud was illuminating for us?

June 13, 2010

June 18, 2010

July 18, 2010

While Kira is on maternity leave, tending to Anderson Glen Adair, the cell will be working on a new addition, too. We are in the process of adding an open-air stage to preserve a patch of green in the vast concrete jungle we all know and love. Though construction will slow us down a bit during the summer months, we’ll keep you posted on all events.

Thank you for your support! nancy