ART APPRECIATION: The Hart to The High

Sadly the only time I’ve seen Dilworth’s art exhibited was at Atlanta’s High Museum in the late 60s. Yep, I’m talking last century. One piece, an approximately 40 inches in diameter granite peach, was partly sliced open exposing part of the peach’s pit. Not surprisingly it was titled a Georgian Peach. Keep in mind this was a decade before someone followed with Steel Magnolia. The peach was highly polished granite which is, of course, how Georgia women like at least to think of ourselves. I was surprised and quite proud as I read the name of the artist. We had gone to undergrad together in the 50s. Actually I went to the High that day to see a painting by another well known Georgia artist, Ann Osteen, from my hometown.

Hartwell is fortunate, particularly for any sophisticated art connoisseurs in the area. One of our country’s most gifted artists, Mary Lula Dilworth resides there. Hartwell will have an exhibition of her works and only hers, a one woman show. She’s done her civic and regional duty often acting as judge and allowing pieces shown in Hartwell, Anderson and other fortunate spots in the area. However, October 1 some new pieces never before displayed will be seen.

One of my favorites was featured in Vivian Morgan’s excellent June 16^th Hartwell Sun article on Mary Lula and her works. The canvas is of several women and the topmost face, about 2^nd from left must be her self portrait. It looks as she did in her youth. Excellent likeness. The 3^rd from left also intrigues me. It seems to be someone I don’t know at all but at the same time I know dozens of women who look just like her and they all have an identical personality. They present themselves attractively almost identical to some prototype. That face’s right ear is clearly non-functional, indicating a common feature of that personality type. The 1^st face with its collared neck doesn’t intrigue me at all, possibly because of her obvious bondage status. Yet the hand/arm with the possibility that the collar is also around a wrist does... there’s a lot of geometry in that face. That piece is an example of why Dilworth is one of America’s foremost artists; the more you look, the more you find. The apparent nose, to the left of the first eye begs the question is it phallus instead. Before I could resolve that I was struck by the recurring possibility that the eye’s position and shape was not unlike testicular. In fact, all the noses and eyes on those faces are. Keep in mind that Art Appreciation can reveal more about the observer than the artist. To see the picture go to www.mdilworth.com.

Another of my favorites she admits took 47 years to complete and I have personally known that wooden sculpture since it was merely one of many trees bull-dozed to construct I-285. About 1970 I received an excited phone call from her telling me she had just saved some trees. Being a lifelong tree-huger; literally so, usually in order to not fall as I loved to climb them. Then as a Biology major in undergrad, I studied under Botanist Dr. Donald Caplenor and much later once had myself a three storied home built completely around an ancient sycamore. So I was impressed by Mary’s rescue. Never knew she gave a fig about trees. Of course, as a tree-huger I was less impressed to discover she ‘saved’ them after they’d been bull-dozed. She was ecstatic at the prospect of using them for wood sculptures.

I have looked at that former tree several times through the years and the progress of her sculpturing of it. Last time I saw ‘the tree’ it was a voluptuous nude, though obviously quite gravid female. It too was pictured in the Hartwell Sun’s story... Wood sculpturing has a strength requirement that few women, even as young adults, would undertake and Dilworth is 82. Impressive again, but no surprise. She takes roads her art requires her to take. She was the only woman ever known to enroll and gloriously complete Industrial Arts at our Alma Mater .

HERE'S LOOKING AT YOU, MICHELANGELO

                                                     

You’re not going to believe this but let me tell you of my apparently pornographic half bath. I bought a condo in a northern suburb of Suburbville, GA (others call it Atlanta). It was in lousy condition still I call it home after some insane DIY projects. These gave me bonding time as well as a way to give spending money without danger of spoiling him, with an otherwise distant grandson. It went like this:

“Son, would you like to earn some money by painting my half bath for me? I have the paint and all.”

Eye rolling, fake grimacing, heavy sighing Grandson: “what size?”

“Quart and a five inch brush.”

Pitying look at me, head shaking and eye rolling Grandson: “I mean room size?”

“Like a big closet… really.”

GS with a sneering look of authority and might’ve known:”You didn’t even measure it before buying the paint, did you?” toward my head shake.

Such was our ‘bonding’. I leave it to your imagination as to the look he gave when he opened the paint and found it to be super-duper high gloss and pitch black but his disbelieving words were. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing using this freakish paint?”

Once done, off went my GS with words of urgency of school work. As I was left to clean the brushes, remove floor tarp and generally act as clean-up guy I pondered suspiciously his sudden devotion to homework.

Eventually I added my decorative touches. My hobby is painting but obviously not the room kind. I had my pencil sketches of statues of artists in front of the Telfair Gallery in Savannah and put them in gilded frames but really needed another to fill the bathroom shelf. Meanwhile, WalMart had great plush, black, edged in gold guest towels. Except for another picture of an artist, I liked the room even better than I’d imagined.

Then I rushed to locate a picture of one more artist. Bingo! Found the perfect one on, of all places, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel… well, no, didn’t really go to the Vatican in Rome but that’s why we have the web. Right? Michelangelo, the guy that ‘painted’ that ceiling, used his own self portrait as St. Bartholomew. My pencil sketches were white on black paper and Mickey-O’s was black on white paper. Also my sketches wore their clothes and Michelangelo was naked as a jaybird but I dared not be dumb enough to mess with any M painting. Besides I really like the contrast of the one white among four blacks. I was thrilled but not without fear that my GS would really roll his eyes and worse when he saw it.

Tried phones, Texts, Emails to get GS to view my finished room but without success. Soon his Dad decided he had no room for a family heirloom resulting in my looking out my window to see GS. ROLLING said heirloom, a  round table, on the concrete to my condo. Felt the need of Aunt Pity Pat’s smelling salts but being more the Prissy type tried to appear calm. Like all teenagers he had more like himself in tow. He briefly introduced me to friends who’d helped him with the chore while I resolved this was not the time to unveil my finished bathroom. I offered them glasses of tea after they placed the table as directed. They were leaving when one emerged from the bath with a red face, painfully resisting the urge to burst out laughing. He whispered urgently in his friends’ ears and suddenly GS ducked into the bath. He emerged with eyes rolling like they’d entered the Daytona 500 and I braced myself.

“Baxter, you’re a dork. Next year when you’re a senior like me you’ll take Ms. Carr’s Art Appreciation class and learn nudes are NOT porno, you dweeb! Nudes ’ve been around since fifth century B.C. To the Greeks and Romans the nude body represented Humanity and depending on how shown represents heroism, vulnerability, purity, idealism and that kinda stuff.Those remotely sexy are meant to arouse only the mind. That’s not porno! That’s a great Renaissance artist plastered among a lot of other nudes including God on the inside of the best known church in the world, you Neanderthal.”

GS was still making his point as they left. I was now the one rolling my eyes… mostly heavenward in relief and thanks for education.