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Lewisboro Confidential
Jun 5, 2008
Art for more than just art’s sake
According to local legend (and in this case it’s true), the movie Pollack with Ed Harris was filmed here, and if you ever saw the movie you would remember this part: the long drive through windblown Hopperesque pines trees surrounded by deep black evening now opening up to a clearing with a stark white house. That’s where the Ward Pound Ridge Gallery is sited. In the movie, nighttime approached and the misbehaving artist Jackson Pollack sped down the road in his convertible Buick V-8 and ended up crashing over a big rock. They say the park looks like the Springs of Eastern Long Island in the 1950s. Even Zeke’s Sportsman’s Shop was corralled into one scene. For days the residents were treated to the sights of old 50s cars parked in front.
Two artists are having exhibits here now. Doris Downes is in a solo show and Lewisboro Confidential was granted an interview.
LC: These flower paintings seem a little off. What’s going on here?
DD: They are evolved from botanicals. I’m an activist really, not the gloom-and-doom type but optimistic that we can save the planet. I like the idea that people do things like saving the green tree frogs from Costa Rica where it’s heating up from fires and they are getting boiled. They are being moved to Vermont, and put in a holding pattern for future reintroduction when the temperature goes down. Human intervention can save a lot of species.
LC: Why is there a propeller on this dragonfly?
DD: I’m into transmodification where species develop and change into something else to survive. For example, what really gets me is the company Save A Lawn where they spray and throw a chemical blanket over the yard. You have to lock up small children and pets until the toxicity reduces. These actions will affect everything and some species will be forced to adapt to their destructive behavior.
OK. But how would this painting look over my couch? Very nice, I think.
By the hospitality tent was Ms. Downes’ husband, Robert Hughes, the former Time Magazine art critic when it was still a relevant publication. He sat in a sturdy art throne and held court with many artists fawning at his feet. He was famous for being Chuck Norris of the art world and reducing Julian Schnabel to broken crockery hell where his work has no value at all now. Good for you, Robert Hughes!
And what’s it like being married to a famous art critic? I heard a story that you were painting one day and your husband walked by and cleared his throat. Keep in mind a simple throat clearing can be traumatic and wreck your painting day. The last thing you want to do is think about what you are doing while painting. Or was it just something stuck in his craw? Ms. Downes now puts paintings in the attic until ready for a show.
One painting I like has a big bee released from a helicopter and approaching a lady’s slipper flower. There are two black-and-white paintings of flowers, which is quite a good idea and not corny at all. Ms Downes was delighted to hear someone comment, “Very nice work, but a little creepy.” After all, being decorative is the kiss of death in today’s art world of relevance.
Or is it the kiss of death? Across the road in the gallery is Vincent Baldassano’s work. It is lovely and an example of a life well lived apparently without concern for anything but the joy of painting. It seems as if you are entering a tiny grotto full of the pleasure of the brush, of soft color, mark making, shapes and color, too. He paints as if he has never seen a pop art painting, heard of Art Forum Magazine or of any of the Brits in the Sensation show. What a great relief! This artist has been mentally somewhere else for the last few decades, happy as a clam and painting away. He seems oblivious to the art world’s posturing and neurotic search for the next big shocking thing. Damn the bullocks, I like to paint, says he. The glorious color and soft hues seem to be from another time and place. The gallery room is small, but this is a tight and well-thought-out show. His work shines like a soft Tiffany light, otherworldly like William Blake or the Rothko Chapel. And for us it’s a Eureka moment to find two real artists. What a relief from the arty-conceptual, the false avant garde with bad science fair projects you see everywhere from ArtBasel Miami to the hot Chelsea galleries. No charcoal people here. The park gallery curator Rick Rogers forbids them and sets the tone sporting a Grateful Dead beard and a colorful Hawaiian shirt. Congratulations on another fine show, Rick!
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