Golan Moskowitz's Open Salon Blog

Physical-Emotional Nature

Sun, 30 May 2010 14:05:41 -0400

Losing Water

Sat, 8 May 2010 17:05:33 -0400

When Boston lost access to drinkable tap water, I was lying in a grassy, ninety-degree haze, eyes bloodshot from the mix of sun and drink. But thankfully, I wasn't in Massachusetts. Vassar was having its annual Founder's Day, in which students and some adventurous alumni populate the large athletic field for group naps, intoxicated mingling, live music, carnival rides, local food vendors, and guaranteed surprises. Sunburnt, exhausted, and hot from a delicious chicken tikka, I was happy to be in New York that day where the water was clean.

I came home to MA the next day with the remainder of my things from the home I'd shared before my move from Poughkeepsie to Somerville this past winter. I also came with a three-liter jug of Poland Spring water. Inconvenient as it was to boil water on what have been the hottest days here this year and to add about three steps to the dishwashing process, the three days spent without clean tap water induced some positive experiences for me, which I'm moved to list here:

heightened notice of personal need, much like the aim of fasting; an awareness of quantity required and a reason to minimize waste; nostalgia (Mindfully sealing my lips under the shower reminded me of a week spent three years ago in Ciudad Romero, El Salvador, where a group of us Vassar students learned about local community issues and helped dig the foundation for a community center. We'd enjoyed delicious meals of our house mothers' black beans, avocados, fried plantains, and homemade tortillas, and we'd showered with lips closed, brushing our teeth with packaged water. On one of the last days we danced circles in a hot storm of drinkable rain.); the first drawing I've done in ages (of my messy desk - a testament to my lifestyle of rushing and running from one thing to the next. Stopping to make art is a luxury for which I hope to have more energy this summer). The colors, also unintentionally, are kind of Poland Spring.

Hole in the Wall

Thu, 4 Mar 2010 23:03:18 -0500

I spent about four weeks over the course of this past fall painting lines. My housemates at the time could tell you about the way I stared blankly at the kitchen table, seemingly braindead from the fumes of house paint...eyes, thoughts, and fingers blazed from Orange and Grey, Orange and Grey...

Harry Roseman, installation artist, studio art professor, and Chair of Vassar's Art department at the time, had taken me aboard to assist with a project launching Vassar's new installation series, one that commissions contemporary artists to transform the atrium space of the beautiful Lehman Loeb Art Center on campus, a space graced by Picasso, Ellsworth Kelly, and Francis Bacon. Back as a college freshman at Vassar I'd done some handiwork of my own in this space - I'd worked my second semester as one of the Preparator's assistants, pasting up labels beside the expensive frames and, one time, painting a scuff blemish back to wood color with watercolors on the museum floor. That'd been a trying semester for me, fresh to the wear-off of college's initial hype and promise...disillusioned by best friends grown apart and a potential boyfriend gone for someone more hipster. I remember the way I dissolved heavy in the nails I sorted for Bruce, the lumbering Preparator, who looked like a strapping Santa Claus and never failed to mispronounce my name ("Golin")...and the way I silently swept pessimism on the dusty-cased Chinese ceramics to which I tended. Back when I made the decision not to return to the job as a sophomore, I never would have imagined that my first gig post-graduation would be, in a sense, right where I'd began.

When we got to the Loeb Art Center (Harry, myself, and five other assistants), the walls were an angry shade of freshly grated carrot. Over the course of a few weeks, recorded in fast-motion intervals of bouncing scissor lifts, snaking grey lines, and the scurrying of the seven of us clad in bright yellow harnesses, we softened the space into a sort of sensational seventies revival corner. But first Ellsworth Kelly had to go. Rumor was that Ellsworth wouldn't tolerate sharing a room with another artist (a rumor brought into question during my later trip to the Whitney Museum), but whatever the reason, movers came to carry away Kelly's horizontal piece (which had hung in the Loeb since its opening and also features orange and grey) from the space that we would proceed to invade.

Most of the time, Harry was absorbed in evaluating the space and the visual decisions he made in it with orange and grey. He ran back and forth between the atrium and his office in the connecting building, tending to his duties as Art Chair. He gesticulated, squinted his lashless eyes, and spoke loudly with slow, but firm insistence. He looked a bit like Tigger in his coiled yellow harness, which he kept on when trotting between buildings. He lost our timesheets the first time around and several times sent us on errands to the hardware store. He also brought us a delicious buttery lemon tart that his wife had made, treated us to a fancy meal out, and played us in vigorous ping pong matches between painting.

When people ask me about the privilege of working for Harry Roseman, an artist whose work is permanently and prominently featured at the JFK Arrivals Terminal and in the New York City subway system, I don't really have much to say about the actual process or artistic implementation. I think more about what transpired between us on a scissor lift one afternoon as I stood harnessed behind him, dipping his brush repeatedly in grey and raising us higher in intervals as he brought his lines and circles to life. "You know, I used to be shy like you" is something like what Harry said, breaking our silence. We talked about how Harry used to be a daydreamer, a private person with wild visions and nothing to say. That only upon beginning as a teacher (an accidental career) did he feel pressed to cultivate a verbally engaging persona. We spoke about private and public selves, about the ability to be candid and real without indulgence, arrogance, and carelessness. With the Poughkeepsie Journal on its way to interview Harry, an upcoming WAMC Radio interview, and a large public talk approaching at the art opening, these issues were ripe for discussion.

Descending the lift, I wondered, "How do we balance our guarded public personas with the vulnerable sparks of our personal cores?" Something happened in that moment on the scissor lift. A space cut open, a contemplation of a future or past self, a lowering of guards, a recognition.

The installation "Hole in the Wall" is viewable in all its stages and completion on Harry's website.

Artwork of 2009

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:11:00 -0500

My Webshots site is a bit of a mess and contains work I've done since high school. I thought it might be nice to have a post to which I can direct viewers here to see a select list of works from the 2008-2009 year.

Billy Collins' Talk

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 01:09:07 -0400

"I was once described as an indoor nature poet," said Billy Collins, past Poet Laureate, when he spoke at Vassar on Wednesday. Collins offered us honest, direct, and witty advice. Before the lecture began, he sat in front of me, chatting with his neighbor and holding his eyeglasses and a stack of books and paper . I jotted down a couple of sketches and also what I felt were his most interesting comments:

-Everyone has about 300 bad poems in them, and the only way to get rid of them is to write them.

-Poetry is a non-embarrassing diary that activates your inner life. What removes embarrassment is form. Proper adherence to form creates a product that brings pleasure. Form provides the illusion that you care more about poetry than about yourself.

-The poem is an act of imitation. A poet must be jealous of other poets, and a poet's voice exists in his/her reaction to other poets, rather than in his inner cavity.

-Literature is a conversation through time, and one must read extensively before knowing what to add to this conversation.

-Willa Cather said that there are really only 4 or 5 human stories, but we keep retelling them as desperately as though they have never been told before.

-Humor disarms the reader, softening him/her to receive what challenging item the poet has next in store.

-Dante defined poetry as things that are true expressed in words that are beautiful. Auden defined it as a clear expression of mixed feelings. Collins described poetry as words enjoying themselves at play. He also described writing (as a profession) as being swallowed by a hobby.