The DirtyDurty Diary

Winter Layers

The sky and weather has changed in New York to match my mood, steely grey and at times, blisteringly cold. I have found myself exasperated trying to pack all of my items for the day while first trying to figure out how many layers to put on. Undergarments, stalking, boots, pants, or my white petticoat skirt topped with cashmere sweater, silk scarf, wool hat, must find my matching leather gloves. I begin to sweat profusely as the radiator kicks out enough heat to burn my skin when I accidently bump against it. I assemble my gym clothes, reading materials, my laptop, cell phone, and house keys. I look for my ATM card. Once again, I’m frustrated because I can’t find it. I pour the contents of my gym bag out on my writing desk, nothing. I open my purse. No luck. I put on my overcoat, “There it is.” I mutter to myself, locating it in my breast pocket from when I used last night at Pianos. I reassemble my bags, just to leave the house in search of a good cup of coffee before hitting the gym.

I walk outside and the wind has already chapped my skin.  My contacts dry on my eyes, and I look for lip gloss so that I will feel less maudlin, more attractive. My bottom lip is already cracking and it’s not even January. I search the internet looking for some quotes, something that will inspire, and something that I can put on my blog that will perhaps inspire others.

It’s difficult on days like this, when it’s fifteen degrees outside to wonder why I live up North. I am one of those born in the desert who needs sunlight. I look over at the coffee shop worker; she herself is in a terrible mood. I give her a light smile (much better than the seventy five cents I gave her as a tip) and ask her what’s wrong.

“The weather” She says, “And, boy problems.”

I ask her to tell me. She pours me an extra cup of coffee for listening to her. I tell her to concentrate on her on life, her own passions. I tell her there is no reason to make a man that she has only dated for two months the center of her life’s focus, “A mistake” I say, “that most women make.”  One that I have made time and time again.  I have found that I have mistaken passion for a man as a vocation, instead of putting forth my on effort and creativity. Pouring that type of commitment into my life’s work.

She asks me if there is anyone special in my life. I say yes, “My family. And me.”

She laughs, and thanks me. I walk back out into the wind. I realize it’s been a very long time since I have been in love, or hurt over someone. In a way it feels good, but in another I realize that I have taken myself out of that equation, if only to refocus on myself, my wishes and desires. I find myself alone a lot these days, exploring New York’s landscape while longing to explore new ones across the ocean. I sit and write while listening to lush music. I found myself in a wonderful conversation the other day with five Italian men talking about Fellini, who, impressed by my knowledge of these films and my gumption to be out on the town alone, bought me a second round of tequila; I find myself in my room quietly reading about world travel, old classics that I have never gotten too. I find myself not just cocooning underneath all of these winter layers, but back within myself. But I look forward to spring and to see what all of this creative hibernation will bring.

Prolific Artist Nancy Spero (1926-2009)

Nancy Spero, an artist my mother revered past away this Sunday, October 18, 2009. She was a brilliant artist and if you hadn’t heard of her, now is the time to discover her luminous body of work.

Here is a statement from GALERIE LELONG:

Nancy Spero, one of the most influential artists of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, died Sunday, October 18, 2009, in New York City.  For over fifty years, Spero made the female experience central to her art’s formal and thematic development.  Her radical career encompassed many significant visual and cultural movements from Conceptual Art to Post-Modernism to Feminism.

After studying at the Art Institute of Chicago and l’École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Spero lived in Italy briefly and then in Paris, where she remained until moving to New York in 1964.  In Europe, Spero produced her first significant works, the Black Paintings-somber, figurative works allusive of existential oppositions and emotional turmoil.  These works were made at a time when Pop Art and Minimalism were the focuses in the art world, marking Spero’s first consistent oppositions to the prevailing conventions in art making. 

Nancy Spero’s return to the U.S. in 1966 coincided with the height of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement.  In this charged political climate, her passionate engagement with these issues engendered the groundbreaking aesthetic style and the political and feminist themes for which she is now known.   The War Series was Spero’s first significant body of work on paper, a support she would favor for the majority of her working career.  Described by Spero as “broadsides,” The War Series depicted women and children as victims of war and suffering, a theme that would occupy Spero for the next forty years.  Though exhibited rarely in their time, The War Series works were more recently exhibited to great acclaim, including in Documenta X in 1997 and in Nancy Spero: The War Series at Galerie Lelong in 2003.

Following The War Series, Spero produced two bodies of work: the Artaud Paintings and the Codex Artaud series, based on the French poet Antonin Artaud, whom Spero described as the “most extreme writer of the 20th Century.”   In reading Artaud, Spero coined the term “victimage,” making a parallel between Artaud’s language and her feeling of the “loss of tongue” as a female artist in a male-dominated art world.  One of Spero’s great inventions was the fracturing of text and image in the Codex Artaud works, which some critics have described as the first works of Post-Modernism.  Following the Artaud series, Spero began work on her pioneering and critically lauded scroll series: Hours of the Night, 1974 (collection Whitney Museum of American Art), Notes in Time on Women, 1979 (collection Museum of Modern Art, New York) and Torture of Women, 1976 (collection National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa).
Earlier this year, the Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria awarded Spero the Herbert Boeckl Prize and presented her exhibition Nancy Spero: Woman as Protagonist.  In 2008, the Museu d’art Contemporani Barcelona organized a full-scale retrospective, Nancy Spero: Dissidances, which traveled to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, and the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville.  The Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris will present a retrospective exhibition of her work in 2010.  During her long career, monographic museum exhibitions of Spero’s work have been held at de Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam; Frac Haute-Normandie, Sotteville-lès-Rouen, France; Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain; Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, England; Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Germany; Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York; Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, England; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Malmö Konsthall, Sweden; The Power Plant, Toronto; and New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, among many others.
Nancy Spero was married to the artist Leon Golub (1922-2004) for over fifty years.  In 1996, together they received the Hiroshima Art Prize—awarded to contemporary artists for their achievements in promoting world peace—and exhibited at the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art.  A joint retrospective of their works, War and Memory: Nancy Spero and Leon Golub, was presented by the American Center, Paris in 1994 and traveled to the List Visual Arts Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge; and Vancouver Art Gallery, British Columbia.  Spero is survived by her three sons—Stephen Golub of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania; Philip Golub of Paris; and Paul Golub of Paris—five grandchildren; and sister, Carol Newman of Portland, Oregon

GALERIE LELONG Located at 528 WEST 26TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10001         ph 212.315.0470

Threesomes: The New Old…Ick.

When I think of “threesomes” the television show Three’s Company comes to mind. I picture Jack Tripper at the Regal Begal waiting on Larry in his leisure suit trying to ensnare two ‘groovy’ girls to come back to his place to show them his new hammock.

The idea seems a little passé, but lately in New York threesomes seem to be on the mind (and in the pants) of quite a few. I admit, the topic is hot, by that I mean like a hot tub, seedy and full of germs no one tells you about until you get into one.

In the last eight months I have had several conversations about the topic but even more propositions to be “the third.”

I’m not a girl that easily blushes but I have definitely been caught off guard by the swiftness of one conversing politely about craft beer then switching to “So, what do you think about my girlfriend? She’s cute right?”

I have to say for me, it’s gone from mildly amusing to exasperatingly off-putting. I’ve been approached twice this year by young couples (e.g. in their late 20’s) who, after having talked to me for a few minutes- wanted to know if I would accompany them back to their home to share a bottle of wine. While I suppose it’s flattering, I find it odd that a monogamous couple would want to bring someone home that they just met. One of the joys of monogamy (there are a few) is that you are in a “safe sex” situation.  Upon my yearly visit to my ‘lady doctor’ she and I conversed about the New York’s current sexual climate. “Do people have any idea how dangerous casual sex STILL is these day?” She said just before my exam, “I mean, maybe I just know too much, but seriously, it’s SCARY out there.” I reminded my doctor that I’m prone to panic attacks and if she could just wait to tell me this after my results came back, I would appreciate that.

I also had a conversation with a woman that enjoyed being ‘the third’.  “I felt like I added some sort of excitement to that couple” she said, “I think I’ve helped them with their marriage.”  I asked her what she got out of it besides an R rated version of the game Twister. She said, “I don’t know. It’s weird. It can be so complicated. Jealousy has been an issue, but I feel like most of the time the couple is bored without me.”

Yep. There you go. I’m not knocking alternative lifestyles. I have no idea what it’s like to be with the same person for over 20 years. I’m sure there is a need to spice things up. I just pray to God I don’t end up being in one of those couples with over grown body hair on ‘Real Sex’ taking classes on how to have a three hour body orgasm taught by some women with chunky turquoise jewelry and a Mumu on.

Then there was the case of a man that I was causally dating (which just means regular dating in New York. You might see them that week, you may not…). As we poured over a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, on a rooftop on Fifth Avenue, he looked longingly into my eyes and said what every woman in New York is just dying to hear, “Hey, you should see if one of your cute girlfriends wants to make a night of it with us.” As I sighed and said, “typical” under my breath, he jumped up and continued, “but first, meet me in the bathroom…let’s make out.” He said dashing to the restroom. I stood there staring at the Empire State Building wondering if he had seen “Eyes Wide Shut” too many times just before I slowly walked to the bathroom.

I think about Marlene Dietrich’s quote “In America sex is an obsession, in other parts of the world it is a fact.” We have put so much emphasis on stimulation below the belt that we have forgotten about true intimacy. The kind where trust and care for the others physical and well being is paramount and the kind that just takes two (sometimes delightfully twisted) people to make a thing go right. Beso- Maya

the him book is now on sale http://www.maya-contreras.com

The Business of Art

The business of art is a tricky one.

I have been on both sides of the equation since I was eight years old. I was holding my grandfather’s hand at the Watkins Gallery at American University in Washington D.C. while he talked to the curators about his works and their worth.

I asked my grandfather, “How do you put a value on art?”

“Well mi hija, that’s complicated. But, I do know there is value in the thought process, the work, and completing the piece. After that, you have to just hope that someone finds connection in it, rather than them just trying to match something to their living room couch.”

My grandfather much preferred to be in the art studio, or having a cup of tea with his five close friends talking art and philosophy, considerably more than dealing with curators, clients, and the gallery owners. He didn’t like the business of art at all. So much so that he refused many sales on his paintings if he didn’t like a particular client’s attitude. He could afford to be discriminating as he was a professor at both the University of New Mexico and American University. My mother on the other hand embraced the business aspect of art and was a quintessential saleswoman.

She did what it took to sale her jewelry, smiling and laughing at obtuse comments thrown her way all for a sale that might help aid in paying the bills and groceries for us, her three children. Because of her furiocity as a saleswoman, we went from welfare and a week of homelessness, to owning a house, a new Audi, and clothes that were bought in department stores instead of the Salvation Army.

In my room above my writing desk I have a picture of my grandfather and my mother together. They both passed away within a month of each other almost 20 years ago.

I find that my philosophy is in the middle of both of theirs. I know that I have to do some things that I am not too enthusiastic about in order to aid in book sales, but I also know that sometimes you have to let go, to put your work out there for public consumption, scrutiny, to know when and when not to compromise, but more importantly I have to just continue the thought process, create, and finish the work.

Beso- Maya Contreras

Stuck in A Habit

I don’t mean like a Nun’s habit. Although, I dare say I’ve been acting like one these days. I’ve been taking shelter in my room, writing my nights away, and refusing to answer the texts of potential suitors who propose rather dastardly rendezvous such as Sci-fi movies (which I hate) and Baseball games (I only like Basketball and Hockey gentlemen). A little advice to all men out there, ASK what a woman likes before you request her company at a comic book convention. It might be the last time you ever hear from her.

And whilst I’ve taken time to shield myself from undesirables, I have decided to reimagine what my life is in the fabulous city of New York.

I fear that in this past year, I have gotten stuck in a routine. Gym every other day, Pianos for a veggie burger, drinks with friends at 151 or Welcome to The Johnsons, I had almost forgotten that I live in one of the most amazing cities in the world. New York to me is the perfect marriage, just when I think I know everything about it, it shocks me in some new way that makes me fall in love with it over and over again.

So I am breaking out of my shell. Going to see Hamlet on Broadway in October, I’m going to take a jewelry class to remember the joy of making earrings like I did at my mother’s jewelry studio, I’m going to take a French and Spanish classes, but mostly I’m going to stop taking this city for granted. xo Maya Contreras