A RICH LIFE WITH LESS STUFF

One of the series of Color Band etchings by SOL LEWITT

A friend of mine is moving. She lived in a spacious apartment for several years but now she’ll be sharing a townhome with a partner who lived in his own -  but not-quite-so-spacious  - apartment.  “Two hearts may beat as one” as the song goes but two adults sharing a house bring mountains of stuff!

I was struck by how much prioritizing will be necessary when I visited mid-move and looked around at rooms full of HER domestic collections (his will arrive in a few days) and caught sight of a bookcase IN THE KITCHEN filled with cookbooks! They own a computer so why spare the energy, space and responsibility of owning cook books? Am I missing something?

Next will be the duplicates - wine bottle openers, brooms, coffee makers -  never mind the things that come with “history” or “sentimental attachments.”  Sharing life with a partner is hard; division of closets and shelves is HUGE.

Offset lithograph by CARMEN HERRERA

I believe in “less” (the Japanese concept is called ma - open space) but I always called it “clutter free.” Today nearly sixty books (I counted) are available through Amazon with titles like “The Joy of Less,” “The Everyday Minimalist,” “The Minimalist Mom: A Rich Life with Less Stuff” and one written by singer-songwriter Ani deFranco, “More Joy, Less Shame.” Add to the reading list blogs galore. Miss Minimalist is a list maker: “100 Things Don’t Own” (more than one credit card, T.V., desk chair, video or board games, not more than 35 kitchen items.) 

Formal minimalism is the cult of extreme simplicity. Its architectural roots grow from traditional Japanese design where light, form and obsessive attention to detail were cherished goals. Landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted was a minimalist. He envisioned grand, sweeping landscapes absent the fussiness of carefully manicured boxwood edges and cleverly clipped topiaries. And so were musicians John Cage and Phillip Glass.

In art, minimalism draws a straight line back to the Bauhaus and works by painter Piet Mondrian; it became a recognizable “ism” during the 1960s and 1970s. Minimalist painters aim to strip away all reference to metaphor and expressionism. To be achieved: equality of parts, shape repetition, and neutral surfaces (flat - no texture please).  Quite often a simple geometric shape (cube, square) are starting points for endless exploration. 

To the uninitiated, minimalist art seems “easy,” cold, mechanical. With a little more time, the work reveals itself as cerebral, based on mathematical suppositions and physiological responses. Go visit the pop up gallery on 1328 University Avenue throughout the month of June.  Art representative Deborah Ronnen shares her expertise and print collection in an exhibit called MINIMAL MOSTLY.  

The space, borrowed from a studio photographer, is perfectly lighted, appropriately nude of extraneous fluff and open to the public afternoons Thursday through Saturday.  If you are very lucky, Deborah herself may be in the gallery.  Few people in our area are as tuned in to this art form as Deborah; she’s been handling work from these artists - these print houses - for decades and visitors may take advantage of her encyclopedia of experience and knowledge just by asking a few questions. 

Meanwhile, to my moving friends:  “Do not own anything that you do not believe to be useful or beautiful.” William Morris  And prepare for the compromises - he loves that picture that was his mother’s and she won’t part with that ugly plate, a gift from a grandchild. 

(But you might want to give her most of the closet and he deserves more book shelves.)

screenprint by AGNES MARTIN

(These prints are representative of pieces on view at MINIMAL MOSTLY through June, 2017.)