Paint Me

Oh, to have been immortalized in paint.

Such was the fortune of Claire Wesselmann, wife of Tom, and part of tonight's documentary screening at VMFA.

I picked up a girlfriend on the rainy way to the museum, the better to have a conversational partner for after the movie.

One must always think ahead.

Walking up to the desk to get a ticket, I discovered my bottle of water had leaked all over the inside of my purse, leaving a 2" puddle at the bottom.

It wasn't pretty.

Ticket secured, we went downstairs to find good seats and await, "I Only Want to Paint," made in 1996.

The film opened with Wesselmann in his NYC studio, opera music playing, before going on to him explaining the arc of his career through specific works.

He came across as smart, driven and eager to share what he'd been trying to do every step of the way.

I was a little surprised to hear him say that at no point had he intended any social or cultural commentary in his large scale collages using billboard imagery.

But who knows? He was saying that as a 70-something, and perhaps he was remembering it as she chose to and not as it really was.

After recently having seen "Red," a play about painter Mark Rothko, I got a big kick out of that artist's assessment of pop art.

"There comes a time when one must say no!" he opined, clearly disdaining the work of the up and coming generation behind him.

In the film, we saw his model and assistant and it occurred to me what a fabulous job it must be to mix paints and take off your clothes for an artist like Wesselmann.

It was interesting to hear Wesselmann say that he would enlarge his drawings on a wall to "see how big they want to be."

Because, you see, it was up to the drawings, the source of all art, in his opinion.

We learned that Wesselmann had written and recorded scores of country songs, but the most interesting moment came in the talk after the film with the artist's wife and former studio manager.

Curator John Ravenal mentioned a painting now hanging at the end of the exhibition, hung just a few days ago.

Turns out it's a gift from the artist's estate to the VMFA for giving Wesselmann his first retrospective in America.

The crowd burst into applause when they heard the news.

Claire was full of anecdotes from past years, talking about the group of young lions coming up in the art world in the '60s.

She recalled a cocktail party with many of them in attendance and eavesdropping on their conversation.

They were bragging to each other about how long they worked at painting each day.

Not about concepts or methods or even art history, but about time put in to the work of art.

What a fascinating picture it presents of that generation of painters.

By the time the discussion ended, I felt like I had much more of a sense of the man who'd created all those nudes and smoking mouths.

And isn't that why we go out on a Friday night, to learn something?

Yes, of course, but also to eat, drink and be merry, so rain be damned, we made our way to Secco for supper.

Settled into the center of the bar, I ignored the gray weather with a Brazilier Rose, tasting of red berries and with nice acidity.

Because Friend has upcoming bathing suit season on the brain, I suggested salads, which was met with limited enthusiasm.

That changed once she had a bowl of local field greens, roasted pistachios ("I do so like a good pistachio," she admitted) and chevre in a lemon-thyme vinaigrette.

Perfectly balanced flavors in every bite.

Next came a smoked fish dip with the most gloriously pungent ramp pesto and grilled sourdough intended as a conveyance to get that fish and pesto into our mouths.

"They should put a warning on the menu not to order this if you're going to kiss anyone later," she laughed as we both piled it on every bite.

No applicable, we agreed.

Personally, I'd find a man who likes onions and garlic as much as I do and kiss away.

Suddenly I felt a hand on my back and there was a chef I know, uncharacteristically dressed up and out with his main squeeze celebrating her birthday.

It may well have been the first time I ever saw them together except for in the restaurant.

But, as we all know, birthdays are sacred, so good for them for escaping for a night of celebration.

We finished with a bruschetta rubbed with garlic, topped with crushed avocado, radish slices, English peas (so perfectly al dente we both mentioned it), fresh basil and chunks of beets.

When our charming server described it to us, he summed it up simply. "It's magical!"

Who wouldn't love the sound of that?

The melange of flavors with the earthy sweetness of the beets at the finish was such a well-thought out parade of flavors that we both agreed we'd order it again next time we were in.

And then we ordered more wine so we could linger and talk about beach vacations, clothes that fit but don't look the same as they once did and, naturally, men.

Don't get us started.

When we came up for air, it was to notice that the bar population was dwindling fast, once again leaving us to wonder how we'd not noticed the tables emptying out.

Damn, I hate to think it was our raging ramp breath.

Metaphysics of Promise

It's a long way from a nude to a drum pad.

Step one was Bistro 27 where a 45-top (no, really) of middle-aged fraternity bothers were slowly taking over the restaurant.

All the women wanted chardonnay and all the men wore khakis.

'Nuff said.

I amused myself at the bar with Vinho Verde, the lamb kebab over chickpeas, walnuts, red peppers and eggplant and the new Virginia Living magazine.

Their best of issue was laughable.

Example: Best hair salon for women: Bombshell Brazilian Wax and Skincare.

Seriously?

Most challenging golf course? This was a magazine made for the fraternity set.

But enough of them.

Step two was the VMFA for Dr. David McCarthy's lecture, "Toward an American Nude" about the Tom Wesselmann pop art show.

I found a prime seat, front row, back section (where I can stretch my legs) and almost immediately saw James, my fellow nerd.

He and I only exist to each other at lectures, talks and the occasional show.

Today, we talked about missing Poetic Principles at the Library of Virginia and how eager we are for the Richmond Symphony's performances this weekend.

Bring on "The Rite of Spring," we agreed.

Nerd talk.

I'd barely sat back down when a favorite couple appeared and took the seats next to me.

All at once, she pulled a small white box with a "For the Love of Chocolate"  sticker on it out and handed it to me. "For you," she grinned.

It was a box of absinthe cordials, a thing I hadn't even known existed.

She said she hadn't either but the moment she saw them, she knew they had to go to me.

It was a lovely gesture and proved that she knows something about me that my mother doesn't.

Dr. McCarthy began by instructing us to shout if his voice began to drop and fade away, something he also advises his students to do.

His voice didn't fade and what was coming out of his mouth was a well-considered look at Wesselmann's place in history and art.

He suggested that the nude allowed Wesselmann, whom he called "a profound art historian who wore his debts on his sleeve," to get out from under the yoke of abstract expressionism by referring back to classical French painting.

Taken in the context of the post-war boom, McCarthy saw the nude series as hopeful examples of the great bounty available in this country during that time.

His exact term was the "metaphysics of promise," a reference to the quest for the good life, and abundance.

Domestic hedonism, that's what Wesselmann portrayed.

During the Q & A, he was asked why an artist who was considered a major force at the time is so little known now.

McCarthy had a whole slew of reasons, but what it came down to was this: Think of Wesselmann like a female artist of the time.

No matter how talented, it was just harder to get noticed.

My friend the candy-giver and I looked at each other and it made perfect sense.

Looked at in that way, Wesselmann's unjust plight was no worse than our entire sex's at the time.

We could relate. [Knowing nods at each other]

Step three was upstairs at Best Cafe for the Jack Winn-tet.

You'd think that would mean five musicians, not four, but as Jack explained, "Count me twice."

His group played classic jazz like "Take the A Train" to a rapt bunch of classic jazz fans.

I found a fellow music lover and got a cheese plate and headed out to the deck while the band was on break.

Chihuly's red reeds were lit and the lily pads in bloom, making for a picaresque tableau.

It was a soft, warm night and lots of people were in the sculpture garden and on the deck.

Nearby, I watched two young women artists talk to an older woman who seemed to be a gallery owner, or at least a curator, asking her for advice on how to get shown.

The older woman offered advice and encouragement.

One of the young  artists laid her cards on the table. "I could really use this show now," she said emphatically. "I could use something good to happen to me."

Kind of makes your heart hurt, doesn't it?

Step four required driving to Balliceaux for music and unexpected tequila tasting.

The first band was First Creature, a lo-fi '90s-sounding group with a girl singer and lots of guitar lines that worked for me.

They got off to a slow start but built with every song until I was seriously enjoying their simple psychedelia.

Meanwhile, two girls in black dresses and impossibly high heels were working the room, offering shots of Malibu Red, an unfortunate mixture of Malibu rum and tequila.

One sniff and I went back to my Cazadores.

On their next pass-through, it was Malibu spiced rum/tequila, which smelled an awful lot like pumpkin pie.

Back to my Cazadores.

After a long set-up of card tables, a red suitcase with knobs inside and a drum pad, Mutwawa took the stage.

In costume.

Percussionist Jason had on what looked like a chain mail headpiece and knob twirler Gary wore a hooded red robe.

It took them exactly two songs to get so hot they shed their costumes.

Their music had been labeled  live electronic spaced out tribal dance rhythms, about which my companion of a certain age observed, "Yea, we used to call that techno when we were doing it back in the '90s."

It was true, I had to admit to him, the music would have been far better suited to a dim warehouse at 4 a.m. on a Saturday night.

But absent that, where better to be on a warm Thursday night than listening to blips set to beats while women in black pawned off bad tequila products on an unsuspecting audience?

This is the domestic hedonism our forefathers made possible for us, damn it.

Pop Goes the Afternoon

It was killing me that I hadn't seen Pop Art Tom.

Despite having written up the VMFA's new exhibition of Tom Wesselmann for Style, I'd been out of town for the opening and busy ever since.

And, no, I did not want to go on a Thursday or Friday night (at least for the first time) and battle the crowds.

So I slid in on an innocuous afternoon and, for the most part, my art-loving companion and I had the galleries to ourselves.

It was delicious.

We lingered over the early collages with their bits of wallpaper and fabric, promising so much potential.

I admired "Judy Trimming Toenails," with her wide-brimmed red hat, the perfect accessory for toenail trimming.

Then it was the Great American Nude series, with red, white and blue color schemes and portraits of presidents hanging over the reclining nudes.

We moved on to the addition of products- RC Cola, Beefeater Gin, Lipton tea and 7-Up ("You like it, It likes you") populating the canvases.

Seeing the "Still Life" series, I couldn't help but notice that the radios Wesselmann used were just like the yellow plastic one my mother kept on the kitchen counter when I was young.

And "Landscape No. 5" of a red Volkswagen took me back to the car I learned to drive on (or, more accurately, learned to pop the clutch on when parked on a hill) all those years ago.

Then we hit the shaped canvasses - mouths smoking, breasts at the beach, hands holding cigarettes- and things started getting big.

But the drop-dead delight of the show was the steel drawings, the pieces that required Wesselmann to help develop the technology so that he could render his drawings in 3-D.

Sure, I'd seen pictures of them, but until you see one of his colorful and articulate steel pieces, there's no way to fully appreciate a three dimensional drawing.

Or the fact that he even conceived of such a thing back in the '80s.

"Quick Sketch from the Train (Italy)" conveyed in a few green and brown lines the passing countryside of a country I'd just experienced last fall.

"Monica Sitting with Mondrian" combined his love of the nude with his ongoing acknowledgement of art history and his place in it.

The "Sunset Nude" series that closes the show continued the opulent colors from earlier series with a sure-handed maturity that signaled the end of the artist's life.

It's funny, a friend who'd already seen the show had told me she hadn't liked it because it was too modern, the colors too garish.

Now that I've seen the show, I'd have a crushing reply to her claim.

Go stand in front of "Friday Nude Drawing," as much for the beautifully simple line that makes up a nude reclining as for the title.

I'd be the first to agree with Wesselmann that a Friday drawing is not the same as a Tuesday drawing.

As the Cure said, "Monday, you can fall apart, Tuesday, Wednesday, break my heart, Thursday doesn't even start, It's Friday I'm in love."

A Friday nude drawing can take your breath away, without anything modern or garish to confuse your eye.

Even on a Wednesday afternoon.