SILENT VOICES

THE LATE MRS. PERSIMMON (oil on linen, 30in.x26in.) 

Last week, Main Street Gallery in Clifton Springs opened a Robert Marx art show. The paintings assembled are all of a piece. In this work, ghostly skeletal shapes and pale funereal flowers dissolve into somber backgrounds. Two death masks stare back at viewers from gold leaf. 

Mr. Marx has painted a death sonnet.

Robert Marx celebrated his 90th birthday a few years ago.  Until then, he got out of bed every morning, dressed and drove to his studio several miles from home to work a full day. Two or three years ago, he moved his studio to the lower level of the home he shares with his wife, Francie. He still works a full day — every day — but (as the comedian said), the commute is shorter.

Until he retired, Bob taught art at the State University, Brockport campus. Before that, he taught at Syracuse University. His personal art iconography  became familiar throughout Upstate New York —portraits of needle nosed (mostly) unisex figures staring hollow-eyed from waxy backgrounds. He abandoned graphic color contrast choices early on in favor of grayed down, browned out, blackened shades to define clothing, accessories, and backgrounds. 

Robert Marx (artist statement)

Bob has enjoyed a respectable degree of acclaim. After more than half a century, people still want to purchase and live with his art. Those of us whose job it is to contemplate meaning in narrative art find his images challenging and fun to analyze. From an outsider’s view, his life looks satisfyingly full.

I asked Robert recently “Can you teach someone to be an artist?” He answered immediately: “No!”

I keep rewinding that conversation. He’s right, of course. Humans are problem solvers. It’s the problems that inspire our quest for solutions that send us down life paths: fireman, teacher, plumber, drummer. So we take classes or apprentice or experiment to find the solutions to those problems that capture our interest and our imagination. Any of us can learn art techniques. Does that make us “artists?” 

“Music is not in the notes but in the silence between them.” (Claude Debussy) 

I can play Ragtime on my piano as long as little black notes are placed on skinny music score lines…but I can’t play “ragtime.” I have no feel for it…I can’t improvise…I don’t know what “walking the base” even means. 

I enjoy playing the piano but I can’t label myself a “pianist.” “Solving the problems” of being really good at playing the piano required more work, more dedication, more totality than I was capable or willing to devote to the solutions. So it is a hobby.

Art is not a hobby for Robert Marx. He is an artist and after years of problem solving, understands the blank spaces — the silence between notes. 

At the gallery opening, me, Kathleen Leahy talking to ?, and Robert Marx