A VS280 Evening

A VS280 Evening. A somewhat atypical photo--or at least this isn’t precisely how I remember the class. It captures a moment of insistence on my part--the Bolshevik programme side, no doubt--where my wish to complete a thought--an idea--was stronger than the more important challenge of moving with grace from moment to moment.

I’d been upstairs, in the office, in those minutes before class. Sometime soon after 5 o’clock, which is when I’d roll into the back lot, make my way across the courtyard (see Wurster with Campanile, the first post) and make my rounds inside the building--a stop at 232 (the ArchitectureOffice) to see if Tom was in--always anticipating our exchange--maybe Jennifer, alert and over-hours, finishing up at her desk. These hello’s were important…

Once upstairs, I’d set up my laptop on the desk near the window--always the feeling of something being centered when it was working. My “image wanders” at the beginning of the class depended on a good internet connection. (I’m recalling the years when none of this was possible--if I wanted to share a painting, I’d need to have a slide in the tray--even the stack loader didn’t expedite the process that much. Always dreamed of a time when you could think of a painting--and show it, almost in the same instant. Now to an amazing degree, that’s possible. And most of the time I think it’s wonderful--but always with those lingering doubts that too much is available--or that the very availability somehow takes away from the value of the work (the preciousness, I was going to say)--so that I’d throw in the provisos about how important it was to see the work itself--except that I wasn’t living by my own advice!

So, here above, in the photo, I was trying to make a connection that re-founded these images. Not depending on reproductions but on the things themselves. I’d chosen a number of important objects (wrong word!) from my office upstairs--the same set of things I’ve photographed and written written about in these posts. Here are the woolen socks that Amber once brought me from Chile (see Chiloe post). I’d brought them downstairs to Room 170 to show the students. Along with the stack of books (each one important to me) and the examples of the paper-made-soft project that came from some earlier time (almost always the way I’d open a new class). The gathering of twigs part of it, too. (See Crushed Paper post.) And the small flat box wrapped in brown paper tape (another Dubovsky trademark) (see Redemption post.) Each of these things a kind of bridge or touchstone, gathered from before, which seemed (felt) significant--emblematic of the experience of beholding them (maybe primarily in my own life?)--and all of which I’d gathered up in that flimsy CopyCentral manuscript box, at the last moment, to carry downstairs. The idea being I’d share them with the students--share these important objects-which-contained-moments…

But the insistence--the willfulness on my part (Philip Guston: A painting can’t be willed--one of my touchstone quotes) made the sharing impossible. The connections I’d wanted to carry across felt as if they’d been lost immediately-or not there to be made. I think you can see this on everyone’s face. The group is listening attentively, and watching, not sure where I’m going with this, but giving me the benefit of the doubt as they follow along. All Berkeley grad students, of course, so the curve is fairly high--and they are interested--it’s just that this whole business can be hard to understand.

I tried to write about it, years ago. About 1978, I think. Upstairs room on Miramar--a set of notes that I put together under the word Tone. Maybe a bit like what the philosophy people would do when they added that asterisk to one of their terms in question--a way of setting it apart slightly--making clear that we were talking about meaning, not use…

It’s forever complicated--a kind of ongoing and wonderful challenge--to address this experience--to attempt to share it. Like sharing what’s most alive.

And thereby both beautiful--and impossible. Impossibly beautiful, perhaps…

.