On Art, Memory, and Memoir
Thoughts on a pesky horse rising among Park Slope rooftops
Two Houses is a newsletter of stories about art, feminism, grief, and Time excavated from the Soho loft where I grew up. Posts are free and illustrated with the work of my long-divorced parents, the painters Mimi Weisbord and Lennart Anderson.
After she left my father, my mother used to paint cityscapes from my bedroom window at our apartment on Plaza Street. The apartment offered views across Brooklyn rooftops to the Manhattan skyline, and my bedroom was large enough for her easel. In the early 70s, I was small enough not to mind this dual purpose for my room. But when her painting included a horse peeking up among the chimney stacks, it left me feeling uneasy. There was no such horse outside my window.
She included a similar horse in a larger rendition of her Bateau Mouche. The original painting from 1960 does not include a horse statue atop a building behind the River Seine. My parents had always painted what they observed. Once they separated, my mother became less predictable.
I didn’t like the horse. I’ve always been interested in what is true.
Among the finds in my mother’s loft were photos she used as a basis for paintings. A few weeks ago, I shared the snapshot that reveals the choices she made when painting those bateaux mouche pictures. The discovery confirms the horse’s presence atop the building by the Seine.
It’s satisfying to find photos that answer long-held questions. It was also exciting to find the photo at all. I had been looking at these paintings my whole life, products of a mind; finding the photo made them also an extension of a moment. (The boat was observed by my mother!) And in the gap between the photo and the painting emerged my mother, the painter, making choices.
Writing memoir requires something similar: carving out a story from lived experience, making myriad decisions.
But adding a horse goes against the rules.
Discerning what is true in a painting, as in a memory, is quietly satisfying. These tiny matters make up a whole private universe. Each of us must be mapped this way, carrying around small, perplexing things filed like cold cases, forgotten until solved, save for the internal sense that something tipped needs righting.
Interesting to contemplate the similarities between composition on a canvas and on the page.
and that pesky blue horse rising above Park Slope reminded me of my surprsie when I learned about Kensington Stables. What? I couldn't believe you could taking riding lessons in NYC.
I love the painting, horse and all. When I think of roof tops and painting, Paris immediately comes to mind (would it have done for Mimi, I wonder?). Oh and it's a (Franz Marc?) blue horse, so a painting very much about painting, perhaps. As a single mum myself I'm very drawn to the idea of her thinking deeply about her craft while painting in her child's bedroom.