Tending to Art
“Objects, like people, need attention if you want them to stay. So, this is what I do: I tend to paintings and sculpture. And sometimes, if I’m careful—and also very lucky—I catch a glimpse of those who made and loved them.”
– Libby Buck
Almost five years ago, I called Libby Buck to tell her that I wanted to do something to help women in the arts. The only problem was I knew practically nothing on the subject. So, it was Libby who first introduced me to the writings of Linda Nochlin and Griselda Pollock, gave me the book Where is Ana Mendieta?, and answered my questions about Berthe Morisot and Julie Mehretu. Whenever I am trying to get my head around an article, a piece of art, or just life for that matter, it is Libby I call.
As you will soon see, Libby has a gift of sharing her knowledge and her stories in a way that draws you in and keeps you at the edge of your seat. Even more impressive, she does so in a way that never makes you feel as though you should have already known something. Sometimes, I find myself wishing I could have attended her art history courses at UNC, knowing they/she must have been fabulous. Then I remind myself that I got the even better deal by getting to be her friend.
Honestly, I could not be more thrilled to have Libby as Matrons & Mistresses’ first guest writer.
Shingles
Basha Burwell
Tending to Art
When I am asked why I became an art historian, I have several easy responses: I’m a visual person by nature and memorization comes easily. I also had an inspirational professor at the University of Virginia, Lydia Gasman. And yet, the truth is far more complex.
I learned at a young age, no more than six, how much of themselves people leave behind. Halfway through the first grade, my father took a job in France. We left North Carolina behind, exchanging the brick house and a pool in the backyard for a rental apartment filled with someone else’s belongings. Hidden inside the baronial furniture, meant to withstand careless hands, my sister and I quickly discovered traces of prior occupants: receipts and handkerchiefs, photographs, and a set of 19th-century encyclopedias that kept me busy for hours. I particularly loved the black and white pictures of a city that was at once familiar and vastly different.
In the summers, when every Parisian decamped for six weeks for the grandes vacances, my family went to visit my mother’s relatives in Maine. At first, we rented whatever was available, small cottages or barn apartments, each crammed with similar books, their interiors speckled with age and mold, and games of Monopoly missing most of the pieces.
When Periwinkle cottage came on the market, my parents, eager for a toehold in the United States, jumped at the chance. Facing a wide crescent of pebbled beach, the front of the house watched the ocean. A small uninhabited island hovered at the horizon but otherwise there was little to contradict my childhood notion that the waves staggered to shore, exhausted from their journey directly across the Atlantic from France to Maine. Just like us.
Two Bryn Mawr professors—the Misses Gilmore and Whitehead, as my parents referred to them—had built the simple shingled structure years earlier as a summer residence. Because neither had married, the house passed into the hands of Miss Gilmore’s nephew. After the closing, his daughter met us for a tour. I vividly remember the small kitchen with a wood-burning stove, the nook under the stairs, the stone fireplace made of softly rounded granite boulders. When we walked upstairs, she presented each of the tiny bedrooms—The Blue Room, The Gold Room, The Writing Room—in hushed tones, as if not to disturb the former residents.
We have a picture of that day. My willowy redheaded mother stood at the left, smiling at my four-year-old brother. My father grinned broadly at the camera, his hair unusually disheveled, ruffled by the wind and saltwater. My sister and I have turned our heads away, looking expectantly towards the deep blue ocean.
The house came to us fully furnished: dishes, bed linens, towels, curtains, paintings on the walls, books, letters, and photograph albums all included. It shocked me that anyone could part so easily with such treasures. My Southern family saved everything. Newspaper articles, wedding announcements, childhood essays, report cards, dinner party menus, and obituaries were all painstakingly pasted into large leather albums. After my father died, leaving behind mountains of files, I found receipts, programs, and a ticket for the Hindenburg stuffed inside a box. A political button bearing my great-grandfather’s face was pinned to the inside, too.
We adopted the stories of these two women along with the artifacts of their summer lives. My sister and I spent hours poring over their scrapbooks. We came to recognize their friends and the two kittens named Perry and Winkle. We learned that the Misses Gilmore and Whitehead were competent sailors and rowers and that they painted and put on plays and entertained. They picnicked and swam in funny bathing costumes. Friends and relatives came to visit. They sat on the porch in the evenings, as we did, and took photographs of beautiful, wooden-hulled sailboats. We read their books, some of which were annotated in the margins in blue-inked script.
I learned at a young age, no more than six, how much of themselves people leave behind.
– Libby Buck
The two women became so vivid that we often spoke of them as if they were still present, ghosts assessing the conservatorship of their beloved summer home. When we lost things or they inexplicably moved to a new location, my mother cheerfully attributed this to either Miss Gilmore or Miss Whitehead.
“They’re unhappy we moved the furniture around,” Mom said. “They prefer it when we leave things the way they had them.” Eventually, they came to accept our intrusion, and the disturbances stopped.
As we slept in their beds, under their sheets, our lives coiled gently around theirs. We added our own collections to the house: silvery driftwood, pieces of white-ringed granite, moth-eaten sweaters, and old bathing suits. During the spells of terrible weather—when fog descended upon the coast, it could sometimes take days to lift—we made granola and jams. Art projects from sea glass and worn beach pebbles appeared. My father commissioned a flag for the weathered pole out front, a white periwinkle shell curled on a blue field. Eventually, it became difficult to tell which things were theirs and which were ours.
At night, the three of us fell asleep to the sound of adult laughter, lulled by the softened rumble of chatter and the spitting fire below. I loved the way it smelled, the whisper of smoke as it rose through the walls. As I grew older, though, I started to worry. Although Periwinkle’s walls withstood the bitter winds that howled through the rooms every winter, the boards had darkened and grown brittle with age. Mounted on the walls of each bedroom, thin wire rings held small glass globes filled with mysterious liquid. My father explained that in case of a fire, the glass would break. The chemical inside would extinguish the threat. I wanted to believe him.
First Light Periwinkles
Basha Burwell
After I turned fifteen, my worst fear came true. Periwinkle passed into the hands of a young forest ranger who wanted to winterize it, the fire sale a casualty of my parents’ divorce. The new owner expected the house to be cleared. She did not want the accumulation of junk, old furniture and moth-eaten sheets.
After years of peaceful coexistence, the old ladies were very unhappy. For every box my mother packed, another fell from the table, spilling their contents with a terrible crash. The noise grew louder as she tried to bubble-wrap the portrait of Miss Whitehead painted by Miss Gilmore, her profile outlined in a warm golden light. My mother found she was swimming against a strong current and, in the end, she sat defeated in the middle of the room, crying.
“I’m sorry,” she said finally. “I have no choice.”
After that, the commotion abated, as if no one possessed the strength to protest further. My mother brought their boxes home and left them in a corner of the garage where they sat unopened for many years. Sometime after I left for college, they disappeared, carted away by the Salvation Army. The movers left behind only a single photograph album.
Objects, like people, need attention if you want them to stay.
So, this is what I do: I tend to paintings and sculpture. And sometimes, if I’m careful—and also very lucky—I catch a glimpse of those who made and loved them.
About the Writer
Libby earned a Ph.D. in art history at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she continued to teach until 2010. Since then, she’s spent her time writing. Most recently she finished a novel based upon the work of Gustave Moreau, the subject of her dissertation. She lives in Chapel Hill with her wonderful husband, Lee. Together, they parent three brilliant daughters and two exceptional dogs.
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About the Artist
Basha Burwell is a Jewelry Designer, Art Director / Stylist and Photographer living on the Maine coast. See her work at bashacreative.com and on Instagram: basha_oog.