Change of Plans

We were headed for Mexico City in 2 days for a tour of artist, Frida Kahlo's world when we heard that there had been an earthquake south of the city so at first we thought there would be no problem but it soon became clear that our trip would not come to pass.

My wife is a wiz when it comes to travel emergencies and by the next morning she had our son from Los Angeles who was going to join us rerouted to New Mexico.  The idea was to take a short road trip through Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado.

Our first stop was in O'Keeffe County, the town she settled in, Abiquiu.  We stayed at the Abiquiu Inn we knew from our visit to her house some years ago.

Going into the village we discovered a 5 room shop with every kind of artifact you can imagine from around the world on view.  Alas, nothing for us. Most everything else was closed but there was a wedding in the church for a Hispanic couple who were very nattily dressed.  We also drove to the nearby white limestone rock formation that O'Keeffe loved to paint, the Plaza Blanca.  Our son, Hunter took this image of himself and his mother, Penelope at the White Place as O’Keeffe call it.

Photo Credit: Hunter Stiebel

The following day we decided to do something more adventurous and went off on a dirt road for 13 miles, not the thing to do in a BMW sedan even if it has 4-wheel drive!  It went through mountains with hairpin turns but at the end of the road we had our reward.  In a green valley was the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, designed by the famous Japanese-American woodworker and designer, George Nakashima.  It is beautifully snuggled against the rocks with a glass clerestory so you can see the rocks from inside the church .  We entered just as the monks were getting ready to rise, put on their hoods and exit bowing to the altar and tabernacle as they left.  Quite an image that I wished I could have photographed, but here is a photo of the Church.

It was clearly a pilgrimage site for those seeking sanctuary and guidance as well as tourists.  One could even have a room for a few nights. There was a small cemetery with simple wood crosses which seemed so ideal for repose.

Our ultimate goal was Pagosa Springs, Colorado,  and a resort with hot springs.  Our son said our suite at the Springs Hotel was bigger than his apartment in LA:  2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a sitting room and kitchen.  We must have been there off-season because it is not hard to spend the same money on a just  O.K. room in New York.  Here is a photo of the hotel and outside at night.

The next day I walked along the river-bank watching the waters rush by while Hunter and his mother took a mountain hike.  Later, we all went to the Pagosa Springs pools.  There are quite a number and they have different temperatures.  The coolest is 89 degrees, going up beyond 110. Needless to say that one was called "The Lobster Pot"!  For me 103 was plenty.  There was much discussion between the visitors about what the hottest temperature felt like and there were those who were happy with the cooler ones.  It is novel and amazing from Nature's point of view but personally it was not something I would want to do on a regular basis.  The locals, however, could buy monthly passes and did.

What a treat those few days with nature were.

Change

Change is probably one of the most difficult phenomenon we have to deal with as human beings.  Whether we are changing doctors or jobs we go in with fear and trepidation.  The most upsetting I ever heard was when the wife of a friend of mine died very young and I said “I hope she did not have to suffer too long”, the instant unthinking reply was, “Not long enough”.  It sounded so callous until I realized it was said out of such a sense of grief and that my friend was unprepared for this incredible loss.  As Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein says “Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”

If we think about it, we usually see the warning signs and either prepare for them or not.  I recently had an experience that was both shocking and a relief at the same time.  I had worked at a foundation for several years.  Though I was a volunteer, I was there full time.  I probably invested more of myself than I should have in the functioning of the organization.  When it became clear that under current circumstances I could not stay on, I went into a serious funk.  I worried, of course, was I not needed? Had I not contributed? Was I a failure?  All perfectly normal reactions… now what?

I only had to reach back to the 6th century B.C. to find the answer, Lao Tzu, the Chinese Philosopher (604-531 BC) said, “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.” 


Years ago I saw a psychologist with my wife.  She was about to take a job that was going to have her traveling much of the time and not be home.  The psychologist said, “most of my patients I have to teach how to live together; you two I have to teach how to live apart.”  She gave me an assignment, “by next week I want you to think about all the advantages of not having your wife around”.  At first I thought it was ridiculous and I could never come up with a list.  Sure enough within a week my list was not short!

Cartoon by Andrew Grossman)

I went at my current situation in the same way and decided I needed a small office away from home, just a place I could go and work during the day, giving myself a routine just as my Missives have been an excellent discipline.  This would be the first time in my life that I would have a space totally my own with no one else present to assist in any sense, business wise or administratively.  Eventually, I found I was kind of proud of that!

Looking for a space helped to occupy my mind and when I finally found a space I realized I no longer missed what I had before.  I no longer felt I had to be somewhere at a certain time nor that I had to rush my lunch to get back.  To my delightful surprise, it was a liberating experience.

Ending with what might be an unusual reference from an art dealer better acquainted with Old Masters, Any Warhol in his The Philosophy of Andy Warhol  “They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”

“Lost in Translation”

“Lost in Translation” seems to be the title most often given to the lecture that we heard in Santa Fe a short while ago.  There is never a dearth of lectures given in Santa Fe and one of the organizations that produce quite a number of these is the School for Advanced Research (SAR), which is worth several Missives by itself.  It was established in 1907 as a center for the study of the archaeology and ethnology of the American Southwest and since then it’s scope has widened greatly. 

The other evening we went to a talk sponsored by SAR, Lera Borditsky, (1976–) was the speaker.  She was born in Belarus  and went to university in this country. Currently, she is an Associate Professor of cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego, and is known for her research in the fields of language and cognition. Her theme and her passion, as it has been for many years now, was how language shapes thought, which in her words, “Do the languages we speak shape the way we think.”

It is a subject I had not given much thought to but the more I cogitated the more fascinating it became.  I learned German in self-defense.  My parents spoke only German to each other and only English to me… so what were they saying behind my back?  That is a challenge for any kid!  My parents also spoke French, since after leaving Germany they spent 5 years in France , so I picked up more and more phrases.  Today, there are things I cannot express in English and my wife has had to learn many of the phrases as well.  Is it because the thought cannot be expressed in English, yes, unless you go into a long circumlocution.

Dr. Boroditsky has given her public lecture on this subject for seven or eight years, and though fascinated by the subject, I had not heard about her work before.  She starts out by quoting Charlemagne who said, “To have a second language is to have a second soul” and immediately points out that Shakespeare contradicted him by having Juliette say, “A Rose by any other name would smell as sweet” or we sometimes state that a rose by any other name is still a rose.

While I knew quite naturally that there were many languages, that their number hovered around 7,000 was a surprise.  Then I realized in New Mexico alone we have a host of languages since each Native tribe or pueblo have their own language slightly or greatly different from the rest.

We learned further that while we may speak of our right leg or left leg, there are aboriginal tribes in Australia that refer to their north leg or their south leg.   In tests with one tribe,  whichever way the aborigines were turned they were consistent as to North and South!  Must be wonderful not having to ask directions. One thing that Professor Borditsky did not speak of was how does body language play into a conversation.  Where would a Frenchman be without his hands?

Speaking German I know if one gives the time as “halb drei” (translated 3:30) it actually means 30 minutes before 3 or 2:30.  It took me years to learn that and I still checked myself before writing now!

To confront the issue head on Dr. Boroditsky brings up how eye-witness memory differs depending on the language one speaks.  She showed English and Spanish speakers images of events, like a person breaking a vase on purpose or by accident.  When it came to descriptions of intentional acts their memory for the details and the prime cause they were pretty much the same.  In the case of accidental events, however, the English described the person involved more accurately than the Spanish.  The question was, did that have something to do with the grammatical way they described the event: “Se ro tó el florero”, which is literally “The vase broke itself”.

I came away from the talk not convinced but feeling there are some very intriguing possibilities that could change the way we communicate depending on what our goals in a discussion are.  This became even clearer after the lecture when it was time for questions. I asked how do U.N. translators handle this difficult situation.  The reply was less than satisfying.  Dr. Boroditsky answered, “It is worse than you think, every translator is superbly trained but only to translate from one language to another so the statement is translated twice before it is translated into someone’s native language.” A statement in Greek might be translated in French by one translator then again from French to English by another.

Obviously, I have picked up on a very complicated subject and if you want to learn a lot more I refer you to Lera Boroditsky on the Web… enjoy!

The Ideal Board Member

Both the boards of directors that I currently serve on, a private foundation that revolves around a private collection of indigenous art and that of a theater and performance company are looking for new board members.  Of course, the question comes up all the time, who is our ideal board member.

Unfortunately, that person does not exist but every company with a board of directors continues the search with the desire to come as close as possible.  I have been on the boards and even an officer of various art dealer associations both domestic and international.  I have been on the boards of a couple of companies that made films about the arts and they all had the same question. 

Of course, all have slightly different goals but they all want energetic young people-- which I was when I was on my first board at 27 and am not now at 72!  The vast majority of these were looking to the dues from the entire membership and not board donations to keep them going.  The other day I had a discussion with a woman who had been on many boards of directors who said she was never on a board that did not ask their members to contribute.

Interestingly enough and not surprisingly the ones that did not ask for funds always ran into financial difficulties, but the ones that did also needed additional financial backing.  There has always been this strange attitude that the arts should have nothing to do with “filthy lucre”.  As the song from Cabaret goes, “Money makes the world go around”.   We have to remind ourselves that the shows need to be paid for.   So the ideal board member is one with funds to spare.

Though it changes from time to time we look for demographic balance on the board.  Still being in the age of feminism which started half a century ago we want to make sure there are enough women,. Though you might say that the fight for equality for the black population started 150 years ago in certain parts of the country we should have more blacks on our boards.  Where I live now in Santa Fe, New Mexico the same challenge exists but here it is to include Hispanics and Native Americans.  

The look of a board has not changed that much.  Here is and image of a meeting of a board of directors of the Leipzig-Dresden Railway Company Board of 1852.

A board of directors is chosen to establish corporate management related policies and to make decisions on major company issues. Most of the boards I have served on were not for profits.  They act similarly and the board also oversees the financial operations and maintains the legal and ethical standing of the organization and its staff.  I would further add that the board has to make decisions on the direction of the entity and offer expertise in various fields.  Therefore, one wants individuals who are specialists in certain areas such as law, finance and in many other areas as well.

There can be specific goals for a board.  It is not difficult to understand why the Museum of Modern Art’s board is formed mostly by major art collectors who are de facto wealthy and may some day donate their collections or parts thereof to the museum.

I often look around the room during a board meeting and say to myself why is there no one in the room who has more expertise in this field or that, or lament that the genius on the board is dead broke!

I am sure that I have missed many reasons for selecting or electing a board member but you can see the impossibility of finding an individual who can fit all the hoped for requirements.
This being the case, we need to seek out the best individual available at the time and place, then work on a wish list for the next member.

Communications!

Communication must be the most complicated topic on the planet to master.  Have you ever said anything to your wife, husband, or friend that they totally misunderstood?  It happens to my wife and myself all too often.  In school I had a statistics teacher who said if a class is given instructions half of them will misunderstand.  I found this difficult to believe but as I get older I wonder… or did I misunderstand?!

According to Merriam-Webster there are many definitions for communication(s) but it boils down to information communicated or transmitted  and a technique for expressing ideas effectively. 

I deal in communication every week through my Missives where I try to tell my readers about an event I have seen or an experience I had.  Some relate to these on a personal level in that they had a similar reaction or experience.  Some give me the great compliment of saying that they are learning from what I write.  On the other side of the coin I have to gather information that has to be communicated to me.  I remember that often when I would ask a question at the dinner table my father would tell me to look it up in the encyclopedia and to my shame I usually was not that curious!

Later, I learned how to use a library but mostly used it just to complete assignments.  Then we were blessed, or cursed as some people think, by the Internet.  For me it is the greatest invention of our time.   I have learned so much just sitting at the dinner table when my wife or I bring up a question that we can look up instantly.  Yesterday, we were looking up the dates of the composers Mozart, Wagner and Dvorak and their lives.  Often, however, it’s far more complicated issues.

If, however, I want to write about an exhibition it can be far more difficult, particularly, if I am writing about an exhibition or an event that has not yet occurred such as the Turner exhibition I reported on recently.  I try not to read other reviews before writing but sometimes it is irresistible.  Occasionally, it is the article itself that gives me the idea for my blog.  Also, I sometimes look to learn what important point I may have missed, not for the opinion of the critic.

What used to be called the Public Relations Department at a museum is now called, almost universally, the Communications Department.  Unfortunately, there are Communications Departments that do not communicate.  For instance, I wanted to write about an exhibition that I had seen at the Los Angeles County Museum and about another that would open after I had left town.  I phoned and followed up with two emails to the address I found on line and never heard.  I did write about the show I saw but obviously could not write about a show in the future without more information.  The same was true with a phenomenon in Santa Fe called Meow Wolf.  It is an art collective creating installations and a loose story which you can wend you way through having very different experiences and results.  Without some inside information it was not possible to write and after emails to different people, I gave up… though I will try again.

Of course, the best way to learn is if you can have direct communication with an individual you can speak with and has access to the material you are looking for.  That was true for the Lyman Allen Museum, which I also wrote about recently.   I had met the curator beforehand and could get first hand information and images.

With larger institutions and where I might not have connections or do not wish to impose I must rely on the Communications Department and each handles these matters differently.  When I started these Missives I could get in touch with one person at the Metropolitan and that person supplied me with what information and photos I needed.  As there were more and more outlets to satisfy and more an more going on at the museum I was referred to specific individuals who were “in charge” of a specific shows at the Museum.  Now there is another layer on top of that which I believe to be an improvement.  For the last couple of pieces I wrote on the Met I was given a name in the department and a code to get to the press material and press images pertinent to the exhibition.

The Frick Collection, which is far smaller has done me the honor of sending me Press packages in advance of a show which I take as a compliment presuming they want me to write.  Once in a while I don’t comply but feel really badly about it since they certainly make it easy with a great deal of information including the press release and an illustrated check list from which I can ask for specific images.

As I tell every young person who asks the key to accomplishment is always who you know and that is also true for gathering information.  The person you know is more apt to put in time and effort to go beyond the basics and in that manner communicate the best.

Review: A Bloggers List

I am closing in on my 8th year of writing Missives from the Art World.  That is a total of close to 400 Missives.  I understand there are bloggers who make money at this … any suggestions? Maybe that is why most blogs only last 3 years.

My Missives stretch over a very wide gamut of material revolving around my interests and travels over half a century.  We have discussed experiences in some of the great art centers in England, France, Germany, The Netherlands and this country, New York, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Los Angeles, Dallas/Fort Worth, etc.  including great art exhibitions and art fairs.  Coming from the European Old Master world to that of past and current Native America has represented culture shock for me, which I have, I believe, explored in detail through experiences we have had with the Native American artists and friends we have met.  I have even written on lighter fair such as parties we have been invited to and given.

 

Waddesdon Manor (link to blog post)

A Chocolate Party (link to blog post)

It is near the end of the year and I am tired.  This blog has continued without interruption through all kinds of crises including a number of my operations as well as one recently for my wife.  Happily, the only time they were life threatening was when we were in the hands of the capable surgeons we have found in this part of the world …  even though they are expected to all be in New York!!!

David Bradley (link to blog post)

I have been asked often how and why I do it every single week.   I guess on some level I enjoy it.  I learn as I write and I can explore different areas and ideas.  I am also lazy and scared of stopping, not sure if I will pick up the pen … I mean open the computer again!

Link to blog post

The director of a major American museum and one that I consider a personal friend has recently suggested that I repeat some of my blogs so I can take some time off.  At first I thought that was anathema.   Then it began to sound more and more appealing.  In any case, the concept that I could repeat a Missive and not write for a week is kind of liberating.

Thomas P.F. Hoving, “In the Presence of Kings”
(link to blog post)

Therefore, I am going to turn the tables and appeal for my readers’ help and at the same time find out who is paying attention!  Would you review some (all is a lot) of my missives and let me know which you think were the most interesting, illuminating or just fun.  Who knows you may see them again!

Ms. Frick’s della Robbia (link to blog post)

To the right on the first page of this blog is a list of years and dates.  When you click on a year it shows you the months of the year and you click on those and get the blogs you can scroll through for that month.  Alternatively, there is a small search box in the upper left hand corner.  Put in any word and every blog that had that word will show up and you can scroll down that group.  I just tried film, then theater.  You can put in Indian or Native American or Museum or Freud and you will find something.  Also, if you click on the random photos throughout they will take you to the Missive they come from.

A posthumous portrait at the Kimbell Museum, Fort Worth
(link to blog post)

I am looking forward to hearing from you… who knows you might give me an idea for a brand new Missive.

Collecting Quotations

I have always enjoyed quotes.  I used to sit down with Bartlett’s Quotations and just start reading.  Lately I have read a column of quotes in the magazine “The Week”, a publication I highly recommend.  It reminds me of other quotations that made me think in a new way about a specific subject such as art.

"If there isn't (a) vision it is hard to get others to follow" John D. Rockefeller on accepting an award from the World Monuments Fund, 2009.
 
Art critic Michael Kimmelman reviewing the Christo Gates in New York’s Central Park wrote, "Art is never necessary. It is merely indispensible."  The Gates were a project by Christo and Jeanne-Claude completed in New York’s Central Park in 2005.

The same writer reviewing a show “Manet/Velazquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting” at the Metropolitan Museum wrote, “The loot Napoleon took from Spain was an epiphany for artists at home.”  The other side of the coin. A European art dealer, Grete Ring said, "Why should one talk about art, if not to open the eyes of others to it"

Often that is difficult because of the “art speak,” jargon, that many art historians use which makes the following comment by a German/Swiss mother and son team of dealers and art historians amusing.  When Marianne Feilchenfeldt read articles written by her son Walter, "This is not art history. This is interesting."

A quote that recently opened my eyes was about the art of cooking, by Chef Fernando Olea at the restaurant Sazón in Santa Fe "The enemy of the taste is the eye and the mind".  If you think of the word taste as one’s preconceived notions about what art “should” look like it goes for art as well. 

In an art exhibition quotes sometimes help us understand the character of the artist either through a direct quote or from someone who knew her/him or even from an observer.

Georgia O’Keeffe said in 1921 "I wish people were all trees and I think I could enjoy them then".  A lady from the Philippines sitting next to me on a flight said as if in response to Georgia, "Georgia O'Keeffe reminds me how profound simplicity can be".   Here is an image of a painting called. “Gerald’s Tree 1 ” done in 1937 and can be seen at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe.  No, it is not named after me but an Irish writer, Gerald Heard who was visiting Ghost Ranch and brought the tree to O’Keeffe’s attention.  On a tour of the ranch a couple of years ago we saw the tree was still there.

O’Keeffe also had something to say about photography in 1922, “Photography is able to flatter or embarrass the human’s ego by registering the fleeting expression of a moment.”   I would put it slightly differently,  Photography is translating the image that you see in you mind’s eye into an image that everyone can understand.  The grand master in this regard was the photographer Alfred Stieglitz whose muse and greatest model was Miss O’Keeffe.

In a comment about his art Picasso wrote, “I don’t search (for inspiration), I find (it)”.  Similarly an interior decorator told me, “As good as new is easy, as good as old is talent.”  It all depends where you are coming from.

Pieter Jansz. Saenredam (1597-1664) was a painter of the Dutch Golden Age, "He created images of space pervaded by calm" from a museum label of Rijksmuseum pictures at the Portland Art Museum. This is the perfect description of this painting by Saenredam in the Rijksmuseum as well as most of the artists other paintings, “Interior of the Sint-Odulphuskerk in Assendelft, Pieter Jansz. Saenredam,” 1649.

In my opinion the ultimate comment by an artist regarding his craft was by the American portraitist Gilbert Stuart (1755-1828) who created iconic portraits of George Washington. "What a business this of a portrait painter - you bring him a potato, and expect he will paint you a peach.”   Here is one version of  his portraits of “The Father of our Country” painted in 1796 and now in the Brooklyn Museum.

As the British Poet and Writer Jeanette Winterson  wrote, "Everything in writing begins with language. Language begins with listening.”  I will never forget my cousin and senior partner in our gallery, Saemy Rosenberg , saying, “Hear the honeydew from my lips.”

As I finished writing this missive I read the annual Christmas letter from  a friend abroad that includes a few of his favorite quotations. I look forward to learning some of yours.

Forewarned is Forearmed

I was in the process of writing about an American historical figure when the enormity of my country’s recent decision finally hit me full force.  The reason is simple: my parents had to leave Germany right after Adolf Hitler became Chancellor in 1933.  There was no war, no proven violence, yet, suddenly the country that was suffering from their loss in the first world war had democratically elected the party of a crazed despot in the making.

Then I was sent an article about a California teacher who was suspended for comparing Trump to Hitler in his 9th grade class.   He was a history teacher and holocaust scholar.

I have been speaking about this to friends for some time.  I was taught by my father that, “It can happen here, it can happen anywhere”.  Now we have seen a beginning that we may not believe or wish to believe and pray cannot happen but…   forewarned is forearmed!

No question Germany lost World War I and was under the punitive yolk of the Versailles Treaty.  Article 231 of the Treaty forced Germany to disarm, make substantial territorial concessions, and pay reparations to certain countries that had formed the Entente Alliance.  In 1921 the total cost of these reparations was assessed at 132 billion Marks roughly US $31.4 billion.  Not only couldn’t Germany afford it they found it a national humiliation.

Then came the hyperinflation whereby there were 90 German marks to the dollar at the beginning of 1921 and by the end of 1923 there were 4.2 trillion German marks to the dollar,  a staggering figure.   It finally normalized with a new finance minister in November of that year. There were some high times in Germany for a short while and then there was the Depression by the end of the decade!

The reaction from the people in Germany was not dissimilar to the disenfranchisement that people felt in the U.S. after 2008/2009 Great Recession.  In the people’s opinion obviously their government had forsaken them and left them in a continuous state of suffering, no jobs or financial stability.   Along came a strong man who was charismatic and promised to make Germany great again.

“Early on, Hitler had a central insight: ”All epoch-making revolutionary events have been produced not by the written but by the spoken word.” He concentrated on an inflammatory speaking style flashing with dramatic gestures and catch phrases: ”Germany, awake!”
Time Magazine, February 24, 1920.

There were warnings in the New York Times as well on November 20, 1922 but with this coda.  ”But several reliable, well-informed source confirmed the idea that Hitler’s anti-semitism was not so genuine or violent as it sounded, and that he was merely using anti-semitic propaganda as a bait to catch masses of follower and keep them aroused…”

From History.com, This Day in History, January 30, 1933:  “The year 1932 had seen Hitler’s meteoric rise to prominence in Germany, spurred largely by the German people’s frustration with dismal economic conditions and the still-festering wounds inflicted by defeat in the Great War and the harsh peace terms of the Versailles treaty. A charismatic speaker, Hitler channeled popular discontent with the post-war Weimar government into support for his fledgling Nazi party (formerly the German Worker’s Party). In an election held in July 1932, the Nazis won 230 governmental seats”

No, I do not think that Donald Trump is Hitler but he has released a culture of hate against, Muslims, Blacks and Jews, which truly scares me on a personal level.  We have heard more moderate language to a degree but can he put the genie back in the bottle?

My good friend a lawyer and expert on Constitutional law believes our Constitution and division of powers will protect us and I want, badly, to believe he is correct.   We will, however, have all the elements of a perfect storm in place with all powers of government, President, House, Senate and most probably The Supreme  Court in the same camp.  I hope they show more strength and fortitude to vote their own minds and not follow the herd as they have for the past 8 years.  Without that I am afraid this country is going to continue on its trip down from the super power it thought it was.

Highlights from Southern Mexico

This will be the last of my 3 missives on southern Mexico.  I learned a lesson on this trip, if at all possible interview your guide before you put yourself in his or her hands.  In my case the guide was not a guide but rather an academic who only knew her own fields of archeology and sociology.  Thank goodness the Spanish Colonial Museum’s curator was with us since she could speak about the churches that we saw.

Having said that, I would have liked to learn more about the current archeology in that part of the world.  I spent about 5 years on the President’s Cultural Property Committee in Washington D.C.  and during the years I was there, the second half of the 1990’s, most of the claims of looting came from Central America.  I don’t remember how much if any discussion about Mexico.   A good part of our trip, however, was on the border of Guatemala, another artificial border so they must be related archeologically.  One of the archeologists on the Cultural Property Committee had spoken about the subsistence diggers, those who dig for archeological materials and sell them on the black market just to survive.  I have never seen such poverty as we passed along the road between the Yucatán and Chiapas. There were heavy border guards on the Guatemala border.  I am sure they were there for drugs but probably also for smuggled artifacts.  What a fascinating subject.

We did see some unbelievable archeological sights.  My wife took me to Pompeii years ago and you could walk around a town but most of it appeared more like rubble to a neophyte like me.  In Mexico many Mayan cities were well established by the 3rd century AD.  When the people left because they could no longer farm, the cities were reclaimed by the jungle until they were re-discovered by archeologists. 

There are obviously many spectacular ruins in Mexico and some even more elaborate than what we saw but Edzna in Campeche and Palenque in Chiapas were on the road we traveled.  We also stuck with the most easily accessible parts of the monuments They had the great advantage of not being overrun by tourists so we got to see them up close and personal.  At Edzna we saw just a handful of people, our group doubling the size of this village for the moment!  We could well imagine the leaders bringing their people together to address them from atop the stone pyramids.  Here are a few images.

In Palenque there are, according to the web over 1,400 temples, many still locked within the jungle.  Of course, many have reliefs and hieroglyphics on them as this was certainly a center for trade at its peak between 600 - 800 AD as it is a center for tourists today.  Here you have a couple of images of the monuments on the site plus an interior of the tomb of the Red Queen where my wife dared to climb!

An image I could not resist sharing was as we drove through Chiapas this beautiful view of the mountains through the abundant vegetation.

The site that I found the most incredible of all; was the church of San Juan Chamula.   It is actually the interior that is so exciting and not because of the art.  The church is full of individual worshippers praying in various Mayan languages in front of small altars with various numbers of candles on the floor in front of them, usually without stands just melted to the floor.  It seems that the number of candles depends on the seriousness of “the ask” from god.  One couple in the middle of the church was kneeling, there are no seats, and in front of them were maybe 25 or 30 candles. Their little daughter was lighting the last ones.  The man was holding his wife’s hand up in the air to the large altar in front.  I can only imagine that there was something seriously wrong with it.

One is not allowed to take photographs and one would feel guilty doing so because it is the people praying not the church you would be photographing.  I looked on line and could not find a single photo but in the market opposite the church I did find a postcard.  What a sight to remember!

Here too is an image in front of a church in the nearby village of Zinacantan where a priest is saying an open-air mass to a congregation mostly wearing traditional embroidered costumes.

Mexico is so well known for its music and what might be called their national instrument is the Marimba derived from both African an Central American traditions.  In Chiapas de Corzo we received a complete lesson on the various components of the instrument and how they affect the sound.  We had a one hour private concert at the home of a master Marimba maker, but here is less than a minute of the wonderful music.

My First Trip to the Real Mexico

My wife is on the Board of the Spanish Colonial Society and Museum and she never does
 anything halfway so she has immersed herself in Spanish Colonial art and its history.

We were in Mexico once about 15 years ago but it was at an Eco (ecological) resort meaning
that there was no internet and you went to sleep when the sun went down. There were a
 minimum of modern conveniences, in other words, a total rest! But it could have been pretty 
much anywhere.  There was, however, always delicious fresh fish which was brought in by the
local fishermen.

Penelope studied Spanish, and still does, so she went to Mexico for two weeks for an intensive 
Spanish course a number of years ago. This time, however, she decided we would share in a
tour offered by the Spanish Colonial Museum. We are only going on one of the two tours offered
and that starts off in the Yucatan state in the city of Merida. One of her fellow trustees owns a
house down there and arranged for a native guide who speaks English. Also, the museum's 
curator, Robin Farwell Gavin, who is an authority in the field and also speaks Spanish was there
to fill in the gaps.

Robin Gavin Discussing the Mission Church
in Mani, Yucatán

The guide's concept was not just to show us sites but to explain the culture from the social,
 Mayan and historical points of view. Therefore, the first day we were taken to different districts 
in Merida including where the foreigners live and the commercial districts. The shops are very 
small and plentiful and in the tourist areas each shop has its hawkers and owners yelling for you
 to come into their shop. A man sitting in an outdoor cafe decided that I looked like a smoker and
wanted me to buy the cigars he was selling. When he started to follow me I had to yell, "I
 DON'T SMOKE" so that he would go back to the table with his buddies.

There are a great many abandoned houses and we learned that if you want to buy one of them, 
they are not expensive but cheaper if the "For Sale" sign is in Spanish and it is best if you send in 
a local to negotiate with the owner.

Because of the poverty it is difficult to keep the economy going in the smaller villages and they
 have found artificial ways to continue and in some towns it is through fashion. Though the
 pattern may remain the same, each year the women are expected to wear a new dress in a
 different color. These dresses can cost as much as U.S. $250 which can represent 6 months
 salary for someone if they do not have a seamstress in the family. Those who cannot afford it 
and wear last year's color are marked as of a lower class. The plus side, though I am sure the
 impoverished don't feel so, is that the ones who could afford the new dresses are also expected
to pay more to the Church. Someone in our group asked if one moved to a new village would
 you be accepted, the reply was, only through marriage. It is the same everywhere, the keys to
 success and social acceptance are marriage and money.

In the villages the Mayans live in thatch roofed houses which allow the air to go through them 
giving cross ventilation since they cannot afford air conditioning. Only sleeping is done indoors 
as cooking and most activities remain outside. Many of the gift shops sell beautiful hammocks 
and they also hawk them at the outdoor restaurants in the tourist area. But it surprised me to
learn that 80% of the local population still sleeps in them.

Hammock on wall
 hook in a wealthy persons home

We visited a number of churches one dating from 1549 in Mani, Yucatán, most of the paintings
 and sculptures were replaced in more modern times, but here we saw 17th and 18th century
carved painted and gilded altarpieces. Many were built on top of what had been Mayan
pyramids, reusing the same stones. As these were Missions, impressing the Indians with the
vast vaulted spaces was part of the effort to convert them. Mexico today is still mostly Catholic 
but I had not heard before that there has been a large Evangelical movement in recent years.


Mission Church in Tecoh, Yucatan

The trip will continue and I will report more as time goes on.

Eric Stiebel, My Father

In July of 1911 a doctor and his wife had a little boy who grew up in their home town of Frankfurt am Main, Germany.  He went to school in Frankfurt and then, following the German system attended colleges in Frankfurt, Munich & Berlin.  One day in 1933 he was told that he would have to leave school because he was Jewish and shortly thereafter he left Germany.  When his American-born son asked him how he knew it was time to get out he replied, “when I was thrown out of school I knew that I was not wanted” and that was all I ever heard from him about that experience.

Eric Stiebel ready for University

He did, however, impart another interesting lesson from his experience in his homeland.  He told me, “It can happen here” which was a shocking statement to a child growing up in the United States.  Frankly, I remembered it but could not fully comprehend or internalize it until the 21st century when I watched a fair percentage of my country turn on all Muslims.

The two senior partners in our family art dealership moved to establish the firm in Amsterdam. My father moved to Paris where his brother had already established a private art dealership in the 1920’s because he loved everything French.  There was one problem, however, visa issues.  You could only stay five months on a travel visa so every five months my father went from Paris to London and then back again.  My mother joined him in Paris where they were married in 1937.

As you may have gathered my father was the youngest member of the firm and Intelligently his cousin, Saemy Rosenberg, had set up a company in New York in anticipation of the necessity of leaving Europe and in 1939, seeing the writing on the wall they sent my father to New York, to wrest the firm from the lawyers who had ben the nominal officers and set up the business.  The “office” was my parents’ apartment and because it had to represent the new art dealers in town they were allocated enough for an apartment on Central Park South.  I was born in 1944 pushing the business out of our two-room abode to a gallery upstairs in an office building on 57th Street.  The original space on the back of the building eventually expanded to the entire fifth floor.

I asked my father what he did during the war and he said, “mostly work with lawyers to prove that my relatives were vital to this country’s interests.”  Soon, however, a great deal of art was pouring in from Europe and he and his partners, who he had gotten into the country via Mexico and various countries in South America, had to start to field all the requests from cash starved Europeans and the demands of the American Museums who were eager to collect old masters and other European art.

My father was the consummate European Gentleman.  Like in any store or gallery we usually gravitate to the person that we believe will be the greatest help and many clients gravitated to Eric Stiebel just because of his calm and dignified matter.

Whenever the doorbell rang in the 57th Street gallery our secretary (today known as an executive assistant) would go to the door and announce who was there.  The first thing that my father would do was pull a slip of paper out of his pocket and write down who it was, so that he could report to my mother that evening.  She usually demanded that he repeat the conversations verbatim!  Today he might have emailed.  I actually caught him taking the time to write his note when Jackie Kennedy was announced.  The Secret Service agent waited outside in the hall.

In the film we made of the history of the firm in 1989 in celebration of 50 years in the United States my father said,  “I definitely have enjoyed my life as an art dealer tremendously.  Whenever somebody asks me… I say that I don’t know any other profession which brings you in touch with beautiful objects and also with the most interesting people, constantly.”