Obliteration Christmas: A tale of friendship, tradition, and the art of the Christmas Stocking

Sometimes, the most endearing holiday ideas are those that are also the most frivolous and ridiculous. For example, every year that I've known Felix Flores I've made him a Christmas stocking. The early year weren't great.  In fact, they were horrible. Maybe even embarrassing. But overtime, the silliness of the exercise took on the status of Holiday Tradition. Felix and I amused ourselves with the surprise, handmade stockings filled with unexpected, funny, and sentimental gifts that usually didn't mean anything to anyone but us. He often told me it was his favorite part of Christmas. (Previous stocking posts are here, here, here, and here.)

With each passing year my production skills improved and I became more adept at manipulating felt, glitter, beads, and rhinestones. The stockings also took on more meaning as insider info made reference to experiences we shared during the year. Like this year when Felix and I visited New York's Gagosian gallery to participate in Yayoi Kusama's Obliteration Room.

Here's how Yayoi Kusama obliterates a room.  She builds a traditional, completely white living space inside a museum or gallery.  Then she invites a bunch of people to "obliterate' the room by placing brightly colored dots of varying sizes all over the colorless surfaces.

The result is this:

I like the tension of Obliteration Room.  The idea of obliteration, destruction, even loss of all that minimalist white space juxtaposed against the pure joy of the whole affair. So even before Felix entered the hospital earlier this year, I started a stocking. I decided to finish it after his death. Here is Obliteration Christmas, the official stocking of 2015

I wanted the stocking to maintain the interactive nature of Kusama's original idea.  So on the front are hand-sewn metal snaps.  The accompanying satchels contain felt dots that the viewer can apply in any configuration he or she desires.

I recognize the frivolity of 18 years of stocking construction. That's a ridiculous endeavor. I also recognize that with the death of Felix this will be the last year I'll get to enjoy this particular frivolity. I suppose that's a sad sentiment. But that's not the intention. Instead it's a reminder, mostly to myself that all those unnecessary, strange, curious things we do during the holidays are the things that help create the most important relationships of our lives. Relationships like the one I had with Felix.

So merry Christmas everyone. And merry Christmas to all those weird, wondrous, and magical traditions.

Book eighteen: Sacre Bleu by Christopher Moore.

As last year 's year of reading books about art and artists continued, it got harder and harder to find books that looked like they were worth reading.  Sometimes you have to take a risk.  I did that with Christopher Moore’s Sacre Bleu.  I’ve read a Christopher Moore book once before and while it was not awful, it wasn’t my favorite read so I’ve stayed away from Moore’s hugely popular books ever since.

With that in mind, I’m pleased to report that Sacre Bleu was a pleasant surprise.  Reading this book was a reminder that books about art and artists tend to be serious, heavy, sometimes dark, frequently depressing, and so on.  So this light and frothy supernatural romp was a welcome change.

Here’s the premise: Maybe there’s a reason Van Gogh went crazy and cut off his ear.  And maybe his suicide (in which the artist shoots himself in the stomach and then walks a mile to a doctor for treatment) is just a little too suspect to not warrant investigation. 

The book opens with news of Van Gogh’s death spreading through Paris.  Baker Lucien Lessard, whose father was an acquaintance of many of the great French Impressionist painters, receives the news and immediately feels the need to spread the word. Eventually Lucien is in cahoots with Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (with many other cameos from artists of the time) as they find themselves caught up in a mysterious tale.

Central to that tale is a twisted, shriveled character called the Colorman (who peddles artists’ paints like drugs) and the beautiful female muses who are associated with the paint maker.  As the book progresses, it takes on a dangerous, supernatural air with loads of surprises. It turns out, that for tens of thousands of years, a mysterious shade of sacre bleu is responsible for some of the world’s greatest paintings.  But the artists may have suffered the consequences.  In fact the color may have been responsible for some horrible moments in history.

Moore makes the French art world of the late 19^th Century a delightful and exciting place where lust, liquor, and artists collide.  His take on historical characters is just plain fun.  Toulouse-Lautrec is one of the funniest characters I’ve read in a long time, even though the humor is frequently, dare I say it, off color, even blue. The adventure sequences crackle with suspense. The result a funny, pleasurable read about a subject matter that tends toward pomposity.

Book seventeen: Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood.

That’s right, I’ve read another book about art and artists.  Oh and women. This time it was Cat’s Eye, a novel by Margaret Atwood.  Actually, I should say I listened to the audio book read by Kimberly Farr.

Cat’s Eye is the story of Elaine Risley, a Canadian Painter who late in her life has achieved enough success that she’s having a retrospective in a Toronto Gallery. But the majority of the book doesn’t concern itself with this moment in time.  Instead the book weaves back and forth to tell the story of Elaine’s life, from childhood, through college, and into maturity.

Central to the story is a girl Elaine meets in elementary school.  Cordelia is a snarky, mean girl who acts as ring leader of a trio of girls who taunt and tease Elaine. All the while, Elaine does her best to fit in.  Their relationship hangs on through high school although by then Elaine has largely left the friendship. However through college and beyond, Elaine can’t seem to quite shake off Cordelia’s cruelty.

The early part of this book which dealt primarily with Elaine’s childhood bored me.  Atwood’s writing is lovely but the story line fell flat.  It might be that although kids were occasionally mean to me as a child, this book represents a different kind of mean.  These girls, particularly Cordelia exhibit a meanness meant to infect the mind.  When Elaine finally starts to lead her own life, going to art school and taking a night drawing class, the book got more interesting.  But maybe that’s because art plays a greater role in the story. And I find art infinitely more interesting than memories of childhood relationships.

No matter how you feel about the story, you can’t fault the writing.  This is an expertly crafted novel that is written with great care and emotion.

Book thirteen: The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt.

A while back I opened my Sunday New York Times and there was this interesting image on the cover of the Book Review. It looked like something you might see from feminist artists The Gorilla Girls or maybe even Barbra Kruger.  It asks the question, “Would you like this more if a man made it?”  I’ll start with the obvious comment.  It’s a little rich that the Book Review would have this question on its cover since the publication is notoriously bad when it comes to the equal treatment of men and women in its pages, featuring dramatically more male authors and reviewers than female.

Of course, since I’m in the middle of my year of reading books by and about art and artists, the graphic immediately caught my attention.  Because the question of how the art world treats women has always been of interest to me.  So I immediately downloaded The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt.

The novel follows the career of Harriett (Harry) Burden.  She finds herself in a situation many women artists find themselves in: The largely male dominated art world ignores them. Tired of the situation, Harry embarks on a project she calls Maskings, in which she finds men willing to act as masks.  They present her work as their own. The result is a series of three successful shows over a number of years.

When Harry finally reveals the truth, the critics are doubtful, one of the artists denies it, and what was supposed to be Harry’s grand triumph becomes the source of immense depression, frustration, and anger.

This book is masterful in the way it discussed the gross inequalities of the art world, what makes art valuable, and how artists arrive at their vision.  That’s when I liked the book.  And Hustvedt makes some convincing arguments about the gulf between the value placed on art from women vs. men.  Take this passage as recalled by Harry’s grown daughter:

Harry’s face was a reproof. Money is power, she said. Men with money. Men with money make the art world go round. Men with money decide who wins and who loses, what’s good and what’s bad.

I offered the comment that this was changing, slowly perhaps but changing nevertheless; that more and more women were getting their due. I had just read something about it . . .

Harry's expression turned bitter. Even the most famous woman artist is a bargain compared to the most famous man—dirt cheap in comparison. Look at the divine Louise Bourgeois. What does that tell you? Harry’s voice cracked. Money talks. It tells you about what is valued, what matters. It sure as hell isn’t women.

That's a powerful bit of writing. I like The Blazing World best when it engaged in conversations about the value of art and of women’s roles in the art world.

I also liked that the book explored the duality of personality.  Often Hustvedt uses her characters to explore how our sexuality, personality, and gender are probably more fluid than most of us are willing to admit.

There were things I didn’t like about the book.  The novel uses a construct that is quite trendy in the world of recent literary novels.  Each chapter is told from a different perspective and with different writing styles. The premise is that the writer is actually a researcher trying to determine what really happened during the life of Harriett Burden.  The book uses Harry’s journals, interviews with acquaintances, and other transcripts to tell the story.  The result is that some sections (like Harry’s journals) make for great reading. Other sections just seem like interruptions to a better book.  Also, this book has footnotes.  And anyone who regularly reads my book posts knows that I’m baffled by the use of footnotes in novels.  They annoy me. It's a literary trend that I find infuriating.

But it would be unfair for me to end on the things that didn’t inspire me. Because this book is worth reading and explores feminism in an interesting and engaging way. The world can definitely use more conversations like this.