Sol LeWitt died Sunday( 1928-2007).
In a letter to artist Eva Hesse, he wrote:
Stop it and just DO. Try and tickle
something inside you,
your 'weird humor.'
You belong in the most secret part of it.
Loopy Doopy, Box 1999
That notion of art-making and tickling is kind of wonderful, especially when I think about LeWitt's work, which seems so controlled, so much about order. That's why I'm drawn to him. Like Martin, he used a grid as an organizing form. He also used words. And in reading some of the titles listed in the obit, I think of Wallace Stevens.
Listen to these: "Loopy Doopy (Red and Purple),"
"Buried Cube Containing an Object of Importance but Little Value,"
"Run I-IV." I hear "The Emperor of Ice Cream," and "The Man on the Dump."
Just last month I was looking at his wall drawings at Dia: Beacon, copying his directions in my notebook and thinking that though they appeared dry there was an appealing whackiness to them, particularly when broken into lines. Ordered whackiness.
I'm needing some ordered whackiness these days.
That's spring talk for where's the warmth.
This morning on the way to the bus stop, it was below freezing. G said it smells like it's going to rain, and it was true. Like a spring rain storm was brewing under the hard frozen ground. The weather is out of order. That's why I railed at the universe yesterday morning, why the computer's hard drive crashed, why S can't find work. I miss mud season, want the peepers to come back and sing all night.
Some instructions from Sol LeWitt I copied in my notebook during a recent visit to Dia Beacon. The image above is not from Beacon...and doesn't actually capture the detailed intensity of his Drawing Series at Dia. The graphite pencil made on the walls recall the childish impulse to mark up all those walls in the halls of authority -- classrooms, bedrooms, store fronts, highway abuttements. Here are his sentences. I have added line breaks.
A straight line is drawn
from a point halfway
between the center of the wall
and the upper left
corner to a point
where two lines
would intersect if one line
were to be drawn from a point
half way between the mid
point of the top side and the
upper right
corner to the mid point
of the bottom side
and a second line
were to be drawn
from a point half way
between the mid
point of the top
side and the upper left
corner to the midpoint
of the right side.
A broken line is drawn
from a point when 2 sides
would intersect
if all lines
were to be
drawn
from the end
point of the straight
line to a point
half way
between the mid
point of the left
side and the lower
left corner and a second
line were to be drawn
from a point half
way between
a point halfway
to the mid point
of the bottom
side and the lower
right corner to a point
half way between
the mid point of
the top side
and the upper left
corner toward
a point which
is half
way between the mid
point of the left
side and the upper left
corner and whose
length is equal
to the distance
between the second
point of the not
straight line and the mid point
of the top side.
Sol LeWitt died Sunday( 1928-2007).
