~NANCY SMITH / PRECOG ZOOM EPISODE 29 / AFTER-THOUGHTS . . !!
the zoom interviews . . archive on the Precog website / under: “Don’t Miss This” . . !!
mine is: episode 29 / but, it’s not up yet . . stay tuned.
it was weird after, but so much fun . . during.
weird, because I got so engaged & wired . . and than it’s over, and you are alone again.
well, actually kind of just like a night of openings.
but, also because unlike writing – real live conversation is hard to keep on track / and stay focused.
there was a time limit, and no chance to go back and clarifiy. it was very much in the moment.
with the pros and cons of that kind of spatially limited – con
but it was . . fun !!
Aires wild child that I am – coming into my peak Zodiac phase, I felt like that eternal Aires April spring kid,
turning cartwheels in a garden full of new blooms. sometimes I feel I’m way too naive, too just-born, cut-grass fresh to the world’s energy. hardy ever jaded / which, downside: can make me feel like a nerdy dork in NYC, home of the hard driven – gritty.
sometimes it’s just plain raining outside, and sometimes, it’s just plain jealous / non-aires people raining on my parade.
but, not here.
so, yes !! fun.
mostly, because I felt so comfortable & welcomed by my Precog hosts:
GABY COLLINS-FERNANDEZ, KELLIE KONAPELSKY & FLORENCIA ESCUDERO.
FLO . . in particular,
has been my Precog point person from the very beginning / perhaps because she also hand-stitches, and uses fabric in her studio work, Idk. but, there’s something, a vibe we share. a trust. a warmth.
is it the hand-stitching ?
because for sure, while hand-stitching seems so laborious & time consuming to the uninitiated, it’s totally soothing & compelling. my favorite thing to do – in the entire world.
hand-stitching becomes . . a trance beyond labor / and I wanted to say that, since we barely talked about ‘repair’ and my quilts, not enough time / so I’m mentioning it now.
plus ‘repairing quilts’ . . is just so sustainable, not to say . . history ‘walking’ / in real time.
as well: ‘repair’, and that kind of creative meditation, leads to ‘good’, so-called ’empty’ mind-set space . .
allowing room for opening up . . to other people’s work ?
which . . pretty much sums up Precog in general.
but, it was a real delight for me to see Florencia hand-stitching during the zoom talk, working on some kind of big black / shape, pillow-like but also finite surfaced object. still her expression was always so kind, and listening.
I felt so free to revel, reveal, and . . dance in my own life / my own art.
it’s taken me a lifetime – to get that, here – in NYC.
hence my Precog word: ‘Autobiography’.
and, I guess: also a riff on my many decades – on the scene.
L. the family . . in front of our bunkered-up, storefront at 5 Rivington St. – 1 block east of The Bowery, ca. 1988/89.
yes, that is an ‘ESPRIT’ t-shirt, I’m wearing / no irony !!
R. me & Kate . . in front of our JACK GOLDSTEIN ‘Lightning’ painting, lent to a big group exhibit, ‘The New Romantic Landscape’,
Whitney Museum of American Art, Fairfield County, Connecticut branch, 1987.
it is now in the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto / on it’s label / under Provenance, you can find my late husband’s name: Simon Cerigo. it is still the largest canvas, Jack ever painted.
see: SIMON CERIGO / OBITUARY, THE OBSERVER
parenting . . ?
I hardly knew where to begin, or what to say. so the convo quickly moved on . . .
in a nutshell: my kids had hard times, but also good times / just like all kids.
though they wonder how, me and Simon ever had kids, with not one pay check between us.
what on earth – were we thinking ?
no pay check, no paperwork, no nothing, just born that way – me & Simon, I guess.
just big-time ‘art’ smarts, and we knew it . . !!
and like all immigrants / big dreams. so, we survived.
born & educated in Montreal, in the tail-end intellectual glow of the Leonard Cohen era . .
the minute we stepped into the non-stop flow of the city,
we went from Canadians, to New Yorkers – in the blink of an eye.
but I got to talk about how we flipped paintings to stay alive,
and, that JACK GOLDSTEIN . . was one of our star moves, for sure.
NANCY SMITH, watercolor, 18 x 24 in. / 5 Rivington St., Loeer East Side NYC, ca. 1987-88.
light as a cloud, in the midst of that crazy whirling storefront.
I also kind-of clammed-up when it came to talking about my art, though it obviously was completely off the grid / re: the Lower East Side, 1980s !!
my watercolors, so private & outsider. seemed always to reflect on my family, and reach inward.
even I ran around to openings constantly, and knew exactly . . which way was up / I was having no compromise in my own vision.
NANCY SMITH, NYC watercolors, ca. 1990s.
me in my studio, acrylic paint on canvas. MFA studies, 1970s . . with Guido Molinari, in Montreal.
how’s that . . for before & after / Montreal vs. New York
before & after . . kids.
before & after things, got hard.
Montreal was a piece of cake. NYC was hard.
I couldn’t talk about my own art, the cat got my tongue and held on tight.
it’s hard to confess, that although I started off so academically, completely immersed in the contemporary art swirling around me: I was so inward. stubborn. mystical & magical. sensuous & driven.
so I just dropped the ball there, though I think I managed to give a shout out to Agnes Martin, Tibetan art & the big ‘Quilt Survey’ show at the Whitney when it was uptown, in 1966.
NANCY SMITH, NYC, 1985. charcoal Tarot card drawing, 38 x 50 in.
pregnant with Kate, my first born.
yes . . I was always deep into reflection, as to how / all this was going to work out.
we got to talk a bit about my time working for . . WALTER ROBINSON when i he was the big honcho editor, at artnet (2002-04) / it was Walter in fact, who branded me ‘artloversnewyork, though I forgot to tell them that. but I did get to tell them how, I finally got my art scene photos published after 20 years !! on artnet, thanks to Walter.
and, that he fired me, after 2 years – even though my report was a huge huge success / for “bringing in too many photos of musicians” (!!!). yeah, the Precog team were shocked that I got fired, but more so, that I never . . got paid.
not a penny. I think I got one . . $100 honorarium.
yeah, so New York:
I got fired from a non-paying job, and it was a lot of work, and very good work, too.
fun fact: I was the only only !! photographer at the “Gee’s Bend Quilt” show / opening at the Whitney, in 2002.
quilts – were my life, by then. everyone else was clueless.
I am of course / eternally thankful to Walter for posting some of the pix on my artnet report.
if you want the definition of classic frenemies, that would be: Walter & me.
L: me & THEO in our pod at the 99+ artist resident pod hotel at ‘QUIET’ . . the Josh Harris Millennial New Year’s Eve 2000 art party / social experiment that was later fashioned into a Sundance 2009 winning documentary, ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’.
I was part of the crew, Josh’s right hand person toward the end, & art world liasion.
R: I was supposed to install a ‘quilting bee’ performance . . but I was too busy running around the entire time, as a crew member / so I used to make these DIY paper lanterns, from scraps I picked up here & there / it was a huge old multi-floor warehouse downtown on Broadway near Loenard St, that I would randomly hang up, and sure enough, the next day as if by magic – they had professional lighting trained on them,
that was how magical . . my experience there was.
it seemed like we mostly talked about ‘WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’, and all the stuff going on – behind the scenes.
one of the Precog crew, mentioned they had actually seen the doc in art school, but didn’t know too much about.
I was super happy to oblige. the most exhilarating experience of my life. and the worst.
luckily !! they didn’t know that it was me – who had gotten kicked out at the end, or why !!
so it was all . . fun to talk about. it went quickly from utopian, to sheer hell.
they were no rules / except you could not leave. if you left, you could not get back in.
I was trying to explain: 99+ of the wildest, crazy, most expressive / competitive artists in the world, all living together, with plenty of food & open bars !! but no windows. no sunlight. no calls home. no routine that was normal, too much sex, drugs & rock n roll, etc etc. you name it. yeah. damn straight it went to hell.
it actually got shut down by the NYPD, the FDNY & FEMA / all 3.
and then next year, was the World Trade Center / melt down.
it was like a prophecy, for sure.
JAMES ULMER, NICK PAYNE & CAROLINE WELLS CHANDLER . . Greenpoint Terminal Gallery, Oct 23, 2015.
PHOTO: NANCY SMITH
so. yeah, it was real nice, when CHANDLER WELLS, popped up on the zoom screen at the end, to say hello.
and, thanked me for posting coverage of a show that happened back in 2015.
apparently a real milestone – on his journey.
see: ‘SURPPRISE, …’
MILAH LUBIN, ’15 WARREN ST – New Year’s Eve 2014′ !!
PHOTO: NANCY SMITH
as well,
another very nice, soft-spoken artist . . I didn’t catch her name, but that photo is a good stand-in /
also thanked me for posting about a group show she had been in, the downtown / underground New Year’s Eve blast of Jan 2014, called: ’15 Warren St’.
see: ’15 Warren St. …’
that show was such a blast / a real underground triumph.
just scroll down the left-hand navigator / on this home page to JAN 2014.
you will see a good handful of posts. all incredible. it just stopped web traffic for the month, period.
it was so nice to be thanked . .
and, to hear how my little artlovers, is so beloved, so trusted as an archive & has helped so many young artists get their start & or just passion – for the artworld, and NYC.
it was also quite ironic to end with ’15 Warren St’ … !!
’15 Warren St’ . . was like the low budget stepchild of ‘QUIET: WE LIVE IN PUBLIC’ . . . !!
like the exact opposite.
it had zero funding, and we had Josh’s literally millions of $$$$ / but it was still wild, and crazy great !!
in 4 years things had changed that much / the dot.com bubble that had funded Josh was bust.
and, so was Josh. he went from $81 million / to even owning me – $2K.
sadly, the downtown NYC firemen & police officers who had shut down the ‘Quiet’ party / most of them died, racing up the Twin Towers as they came – pancaking down. they shut down the ‘party’ & then got crushed, by a real ‘threat.
’15 Warren St’ . .
these were the young kids who had grown up, as young teens, more like . . pre-teens, in downtown Tribeca / in the dark shadow & grim afer-math of the World Trade Center / 9-11 attack. they had a lot to say, and the show curated by a very young SEAN VEGEZZI, and a few pals took off saying it.
just as ‘QUIET’ did, but . . ’15 Warren St’ not being a self-contained 24/7 party for 2 weeks, it never imploded.
though trust me – the potential was there.
in a way it was the . . un-Quiet !! / and Sean Vegezzi . . was the un-JOSH !!
a nice little circle of art & NYC art history / no matter how you cut it.
I so love circles . . of information.
bringing back . . the magic / even in the heart of the super bustling, boiling over / gritty great City of New York.