Aesthetic Rebellion

The conversation went like this:

Julie circa (1976):

Dad, can you PLEEEZE take me to the antique market in Chelsea

Dad:

Why do you always need to look at dead people’s stuff?! Mommy can take you to the mawl.

Julie:

No! I DON’T WANT TO GO TO THE MALL and I don’t want to buy something made of lucite our whole house is made of lucite I want to go to the antique market!

Dad:

Mommy and I think you might need therapy

Julie:

Fine! But then can we go to the flea market in Chelsea!

And that’s where I bought my very first painting, a beautiful portrait of a woman who looks as though she’s from India or Bangladesh. But more importantly, I liked the way the artist painted her - with impossibly narrow shoulders, such a somber gaze and cultural headdress…I don’t know why I had to have this painting, but I did.

-- It all started with her -- 

I hung the painting on the wall in my bedroom and wanted her to have company. So I got my dad to take me back to the flea market to find more portraits - and I even got out of going to therapy.

-- I think she lived through the dust bowl. Maybe she was in a Steinbeck novel? -- 

Then I got older and went searching for paintings on my own. My rules were that any portrait I found would not be a painting of somebody famous. Every portrait had to be an original oil painting, and they had to have been painted between the 1930s and 1960s. Also, the painting had to speak loudly to me, there had to be something very special about it.

-- Happiness is bringing home a new painting --

Hence, the beginning of a substantial portrait collection that would eventually find its way to the walls and displays of Fishs Eddy. Paintings of everyday men and women quietly watching over a store devoted to everyday dishes

…and the everyday people who use them.