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Notes from a Crusty Seeker

Artists Who Express Who They…and We…Really Are

It seems ridiculous that somebody would go to the trouble of creating art and then create work that is designed to please or be current or imitate somebody else who’s popular, but it happens all the time. That’s why gallery hopping with my artist friend, Ardith, is like finding treasure at the end of the rainbow.

We begin at the end of Manhattan’s West Side — 547 West 27th Street, a pretty rough part of Chelsea that is in the process of gentrification. As usual, the art community is already there amidst the blasting, construction, and street mess. But up one flight in the Ceres Gallery, a cooperative supported by and supporting female artists, there is a whole other world. We’ve come after seeing this fractured face in a story about sculptor Cynthia Eardley (Art Knowledge).

I don’t speak “artspeak” (you can click on the links for that), so suffice it to say, I take one look at Eardley’s fractured but exquisitely beautiful sculptures and I feel something deep — what, I suspect a whole lot of people are feeling these days — broken, but hanging together as best we can.

I suspect everybody feels some aspect of what Eardley communicates in her hand-modeled, resin-cast portraits. She tenderly displays everything we try so hard to hide — with clothes, manners, and civilized behavior. But the word “suspect” is a lie; I “know.” I know we all feel these things because I have spent so much time in so many places where large groups of ordinary people come to find out who they really are. And, in my experience, when people tell the truth, it turns out we are all equally fractured. Read More 
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Melodie Somers: 30 Years Later

What a marvelous invention Facebook is. It finds people you always kind of liked but never got to know 30 years ago when you were both hanging out in an Off-Broadway theater. It tells you that, with a click, you can invite them to be your friend, giving you a second chance. And 30 years later, now that you’re both grown-ups and maybe smart enough, you can say, “Hey, I think you’re swell, I’m sorry I didn’t get to know you better a lifetime ago, how about lunch?”

Such was the case with Melodie Somers, an actress I knew in a former life, now a psychoanalytically trained relationship coach and half of the singing duo Somers & Steel. We “friended” Friday, and yesterday met at Niko’s Mediterranean Grill & Bistro on the Upper Westside, up the block from her office. Over soup and Greek something or other, we didn’t so much reminisce as we got to know each other. Thirty years ago, I was scared of everybody, but Melodie was an open, loving, fun spirit who invited me to write for a comedy show she was directing. Why I didn’t dive into a friendship is beyond me.  Read More 
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