THE LONG STEM OF CONNECTION

Bob Dylan shows up at The Factory for a screen test.  These are traditionally short, on the spot, spontaneous interviews, filmed and conducted by Andy Warhol himself.  Warhol is a bit dazzled that Dylan actually showed up.  Dylan a bit nonplussed, as he doesn’t really like Warhol’s paintings. 

Nat Finkelstein
“Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan at The Factory”
(Copyright Nat Finkelstein)
1966
B&W photograph
Courtesy of Idea Generation Gallery

Edie Sedgwick, supposedly introduced Dylan to Warhol sometime around 1965-1966, but it was Barbara Rubin, a filmmaker and a mutual acquaintance of both, who brought Dylan to the studio.  Having finished the screen test, Dylan received a personal tour of The Factory.  One account of the story has Warhol giving a painting of Elvis Presley to Dylan.  The other account has Dylan picking up the Presley painting, putting it under his arm, and walking out with it as payment for the screen test.  Warhol’s studio assistants were aghast, but did not quite know what to do at this point.  The kind of story from which myths are made.  Fortunately, the photographer Nat Finkelstein was there at The Factory, documenting the entire encounter. 

The painting was the large “Double Elvis” from the “Silver Elvis Series” produced by Warhol in silver spray paint and silk-screen, printed on rolls of canvas and cut to size by his assistants:  one, two, or three images to a panel.  In any case, the “Double Elvis” was strapped to the roof of Dylan’s station wagon and taken away!

Nat Finkelstein
“Bob Dylan with ‘Double Elvis’ strapped to the roof of his car in front of The Factory”
(Copyright Nat Finkelstein)
1966
B&W photograph
Courtesy of Idea Generation Gallery

Musical history, myth, and mystery all wrapped up in the long stem of connection, and Elvis Presley remains at the center of our attention.  Presley’s early renditions of classic blues songs such as “Milk Cow Blues” were really important influences on the young Bob Dylan.[i]  Presley’s appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show were crucial influences on an entire generation of young Americans, including the poet David Wojahn, who was born in 1953 in St. Paul, Minnesota and studied at both the University of Minnesota and the University of Arizona. 

Writing in his collection Mystery Train, Wojahn collected several rock & roll myths, all supposedly based on true incidents.  They were visions of musical stars and hangers on, often containing tragic outcomes:  Brian Wilson having a ton of sand delivered to his living room where he set his piano in order to compose several of his masterpieces; Bo Diddley being mistaken for Chuck Berry one night on Long Beach Island in New Jersey; and William Carlos Williams taking a break in his hospital day room just in time to see Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan Show one Sunday night. 

The poet Denise Levertov was born in 1923 in Ilford in Essex, England, where she was raised and home schooled by her Welsh mother.  In 1948 she emigrated to the United States with her husband, the writer and activist Mitchell Goodman, in order to work and teach.  Levertov shared many literary and aesthetic concerns with her American counterparts from Black Mountain College to New York City.  Many of these younger poets especially, were drawn to the work of William Carlos Williams.  Of utmost importance were visions of the local and attention to detail, a new method on how to create a presence, and the physical measure of an object or a sound.

There are two modern poems that touch on these interrelationships, one each by Levertov and Wojahn.  Although they are of differing generations, they share an interest in the attention to certain details, and looking directly at the world around themselves.  Wojahn even uses a line “…missed connections, missed connections….” which seems to be a play on Levertov’s powerful portrait of Williams.  Here are the two pieces, from very different points of view, but featuring work that places them each within the aesthetic realm that was established by William Carlos Williams.

Geoffrey Clements
“Dr. Williams on the roof of the Passaic General Hospital”
1936
B&W photograph
Courtesy of the Rutherford Public Library,
Rutherford, New Jersey

Williams:  An Essay

“His theme
over and over: 

the twang of plucked
catgut
from which struggles
music,

the tufted swampgrass
quicksilvering
dank meadows,

a baby’s resolute—metaphysic
of appetite and tension. 

Not
the bald image, but always—
undulant, elusive, beyond reach
of any dull
staring eye—lodged

among the words, beneath
the skin of image:  nerves, 
muscles, rivers
of urgent blood, a mind

secret, disciplined, generous and
unfathomable. 
                           Over 

and over,
his theme
                  hid itself and
smilingly, reappeared. 

                                    He loved
persistence—but it must
be linked to invention:  landing
backwards, ‘facing
into the wind’s teeth,’
                                    to please him. 

He loved
the lotus cup, fragrant
upon the swaying water, loved

the wily mud
pressing swart riches into its roots,

and the long stem of connection.”[ii]

Andy Warhol
“Double Elvis”
1963
6’ 11” x 53”
Silkscreen ink and acrylic on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

W. C. W. Watching Presley’s Second Appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show”:  Mercy Hospital, Newark, 1956  

“The tube,
                 like the sonnet,
                                       is a fascist form. 
I read they refused
                            to show this kid’s
                                                      wriggling bum.  
‘The pure products
                            of America. . . .’ 
                                                      etc. 
From Mississippi! 
                           Tupelo, 
                                       a name like a flower 
you wouldn’t want
                            beside you
                                             in a room
like this, 
              where the smells hold you
                                                     a goddamn
hostage to yourself,
                             where talk’s
                                                no longer cheap. 
Missed connections, 
                               missed connections—
                                                               a junk heap  
blazing there in
                        Ironbound,
                                        a couple kids
beside it,
               juiced on the
                                   cheapest wine.  Mid-
thought.  Mid winter,
                                and stalled
                                                 between TV screen
and window. . . .
                          This pomped-up kid,
                                                        who preens
and tells us
                  ‘Don’t Be Cruel.’ 
                                             Kid, forget it. 
You don’t know
                         a fucking thing
                                                about cruelty yet.”[iii]


[i] Barker, Derek, ed.; “Bob Dylan’s Jukebox:  Songs that Influenced the Bard;” CD Recording; ISIS and Chrome Dreams Productions; Surrey and Warwickshire, United Kingdom; 2006.       

[ii] Levertov, Denise; Candles in Babylon; New Directions Publishing Corporation; New York, New York; 1982; pp. 59-60. 

[iii] Wojahn, David; Mystery Train; University of Pittsburgh Press; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; 1990; p. 27. 

ARE WE CLIMBING JACOB’S LADDER?

“And he came to a certain place, and stayed there that night, because the sun had set.  Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place to sleep.  And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!  And behold, the Lord stood

above it and said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God if Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your descendants; and your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the

ladder1
Attavante
“Le songe de Saint Romuald et l’Echelle des moines”[i]
1502
Miniature on parchment
44 cm. x 34 cm.
Wildenstein Collection of Illuminations
Musee Marmottan, Paris
south; and by you and your descendants shall all the families bless themselves.  Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done that of which I have spoken to you.’  Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place….This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.’”[ii]

The Jacob’s Ladder

“The stairway is not
a thing of gleaming strands
a radiant evanescence for angels’ feet that
only glance in their
tread, and
need not touch the stone.

It is of stone.
A rosy stone that takes
a glowing tone of softness
only because behind it the sky is a
doubtful,
a doubting night gray.

A stairway of sharp
angles, solidly built.
One sees that the angels must spring
down from one step to the next giving a
little
lift of wings:

and a man climbing
must scrape his knees and bring
the grip of his hands into play. The cut
stone
consoles his groping feet. Wings brush past
him.
The poem ascends.”[iii]

There are many literary references and historical illustrations to the passage of people and angels traveling between Heaven and Earth.  There are also contemporary examples such as the one above by Denise Levertov and one at the end of this essay by Bob Dylan.  In literature these draw upon the Old Testament story of the Dream of Jacob. In music there is a major source for this in the great American Southern Baptist spiritual:  “Jacob’s Ladder.”

“We are climbing Jacob’s ladder.
We are climbing Jacob’s ladder.
We are climbing Jacob’s ladder,

Soldiers of the cross.
Every rung goes higher and higher.
Every rung goes higher and higher.
Every rung goes higher and higher.
We are brothers, and sisters, all.”[iv]

It was one of the first African American spirituals to become popular with both black and white citizens of the south.  There is no record of when it was written or who wrote it, but it came into being sometime between 1750 and 1825, and was known as a call and response song amongst slaves.  The ladder quickly became one of many symbols for the means of escaping slavery.

As is typical with folk traditions, this song was handed down through generations and verses were added and changed to reflect more recent times.  Significant versions from the 20th Century include recordings by Paul Robeson, Pete Seeger and most recently by Bruce Springsteen during his “Seeger Sessions.”

ladder2
Georgia O’Keeffe
“Ladder to the Moon”
1958
Oil on canvas
40 3/16” x 30 1/4”
The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

In the visual arts as well, this imagery has wide ranging uses, from medieval manuscript illuminations to pieces of surrealism and even to contemporary sculpture.  The “Dream of Romuald with the stairs of the Monks” from an Italian book illumination at the Marmottan-Monet Museum in Paris is a reference to the story of Jacob’s Ladder.  Many early 20th Century artists incorporated this imagery into their work, from realists to surrealists, from Georgia O’Keeffe to Joan Miro and most recently, Martin Puryear, who has used the ladder form in his sculpture dedicated to Booker T. Washington.

ladder3
Martin Puryear
“Ladder for Booker T. Washington”
1996
Wood (ash and maple)
432” x 22 3/4” x 3”
The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Texas

Finally, a young artist here in Indiana has for several years been employing severe and unusual views of many ordinary and everyday objects.  Having studied at the Herron School of Art in Indianapolis, the Pont-Aven School of Contemporary Art in Pont-Aven, France and the Arizona State University in Tempe, Sarah Jones has always had an eye for the unique angle of things.

ladder4
Sarah K. Jones
“Ladder #2”
1993
Oil on canvas
12” x 12”
Courtesy of the artist

The dramatic placement and situation of certain objects is combined with her own personal point of view towards these things.  Her paintings above and below best illustrate this, as does her own statement regarding how they came about.

ladder5
Sarah K. Jones
“Ladder #3”
1993
Oil on canvas
12” x 12”
Courtesy of the artist

“The paintings came about after a summer spent in the four corners region. I was working on a ranch in Durango, CO and took weekend trips to places like Mesa Verde, Taos, and Albuquerque. It was my first trip west of the Mississippi and I was fascinated by the differences in landscape and even quality of light compared to Indiana. The images which inspired the paintings were taken at Taos Pueblo. The sky was SO blue. The light was SO bright. The shadows were SO strong. I loved the clean lines of the buildings and the shadow patterns made by ladders leaning against the adobe buildings. They formed lovely right angle triangles: building= side 1, ladder = side 2 and shadow of ladder falling across the ground = side 3.”[v]

ladder6
Sarah Kathryn Jones
“Ladder #1”
1993
Oil on canvas
12” x 12”
Courtesy of the artist

Finally, I am reminded of a certain theme that runs through much of the writing of William Carlos Williams:  primarily in his epic poem “Patterson” and secondly in an essay on the work of the artist Charles Sheeler.  He mentions several times that we should “Say it!  No ideas but in things!”[vi]  And further, he observes that “It is in things that for the artist power lies….”[vii]  So, it is in both poetry and painting that a single object might become a powerful image.

“May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
And may you stay forever young”[viii]

 


[i] Translated as “The Dream of St. Romuald and the Ladder of the Monks” this is a piece from the Wildenstein Collection of historic manuscript illuminations at the Marmottan-Monet Museum in Paris. One historian, Peter Damian, has noted that St. Romuald’s Dream is also a conflation of the legend of Jacob’s Dream.

[ii] “Genesis 28:11-17” The Holy Bible:  Revised Standard Version; Thomas Nelson & Sons; New York, Toronto, Edinburgh; 1952; p. 21.

[iii] Levertov, Denise; Selected Poems; New Directions Publishing Corporation; New York, New York; 2002; p. 25.

[iv] Springsteen, Bruce; “Jacob’s Ladder” The Seeger Sessions; Audio Recording, Columbia Records and Sony Entertainment; New York, New York; 1998 & 2006.

[v] Jones, Sarah; An artist’s statement regarding her “Ladder Paintings” as contained in an e-mail correspondence with this writer, 16 May 2017.

[vi] Williams, William Carlos; Patterson; New Directions Publishing Corporation; New York, New York; 1992; pp. 6 & 9.

[vii] Williams, William Carlos; Selected Essays; New Directions Publishing Corporation; New York, New York; 1969; p. 234.

[viii] Dylan, Bob; “Forever Young” Planet Waves; Audio Recording, Columbia Records and Sony Entertainment; New York, New York; 1974 & 2004.

THE DOG OF ART

“It’s me. One day I saw myself in the street just like that. I was the dog.”[i]

giacommeti1
Alberto Giacometti
“Le Chien”
1951
Bronze
45 x 98 x 15 cm.
Annette et Alberto Giacometti Foundation, Zurich

“The Dog of Art”

“That dog with daisies for eyes
who flashes forth
flame of his very self at every bark
is the Dog of Art.
Worked in wool, his blind eyes
look inward to caverns and jewels
which they see perfectly,
and his voice
measures forth the treasure
in music sharp and loud,
sharp and bright,
bright flaming barks,
and growling smoky soft, the Dog
of Art turns to the world
the quietness of his eyes.”[ii]

The first time I had heard of the ‘dog of art’ was through this work and from other poets, especially in Baltimore: Jean Rubin and Dr. William Kinter. And later through Edward Hirsch when he visited here in Indianapolis and Chicago. The dog of art was a daemon of sorts: an impish figure who would torture every artist. Pinching a nose here, pulling on an ear there. Tickling or itching one’s body in some way that just could not be ignored, as hard as one might try.

This of course created a tension, a sense that could only be released or satisfied by making something! Denise Levertov and Edward Hirsch are both writers who have shown us this fact. Over and over. The discipline of a writer who continually carves out a vision and a voice. Exactly what Alberto Giacometti would do: not just in sculpture, but he is carving out a space or form in every one of his paintings and drawings as well.

giacommeti2
Henri Cartier-Bresson
“Alberto Giacometti”
1961
B & W photograph
Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, Paris

Whether he was crossing the street near 46 rue Hippolyte-Maindron in Paris to make his way from his studio to a café, or returning to the studio, he was like a dog in the rain, wasn’t he? Caught in a significant moment by Henri Cartier-Bresson on one of these daily trecks, his coat pulled up over his head to protect from the rain, he rarely strayed from his usual patterns.

As the writer James Lord described it, it was in this nearby café where Alberto “…ate what was his ritual lunch: two hard boiled eggs, two slices of cold ham with a piece of bread, two glasses of Beaujolais, and two large cups of coffee.”[iii] He ordered this very same combination for almost 40 years. He worked every day and made his models do the same. Strictly.   Religiously.

“…a street during the rain and the figure was me….Me scurrying down the street in the rain.”[iv]

giacommeti3
Alberto Giacometti
“Walking Quickly under the Rain”
1949
Bronze
32” long
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Bunshaft

“The Rain”

“Trying to remember old dreams. A voice. Who came in.
And meanwhile the rain, all day, all evening,
quiet steady sound. Before it grew too dark
I watched the blue iris leaning under the rain,
the flame of the poppies guttered and went out.
A voice. Almost recalled. There have been times
the gods entered. Entered a room, a cave?
A long enclosure where I was, the fourth wall of it
too distant or too dark to see. The birds are silent,
no moths at the lit windows. Only a swaying rosebush
pierces the table’s reflection, raindrops gazing from it.
There have been hands laid on my shoulders.
What has been said to me,
how has my life replied?
The rain, the rain….”[v]

 


[i] Selz, Peter; Alberto Giacometti; The Museum of Modern Art and Doubleday & Company; New York, New York; 1965; p. 62.

[ii] Levertov, Denise; “The Dog of Art,” Collected Earlier Poems 1940-1960; New Directions Publishing Corporation; New York, New York; 1979; p. 118.

[iii] Lord, James; A Giacometti Portrait; The Museum of Modern Art and Doubleday & Company; New York, New York; 1968; p. 9.

[iv] Selz, Peter; Alberto Giacometti; The Museum of Modern Art and Doubleday & Company; New York, New York; 1965; pp. 56-57. Photo credit: Herbert Matter.

[v] Levertov, Denise; “The Rain,” Poems 1968-1972; New Directions Publishing Corporation; New York, New York; 1987; p. 53.