art | The Casual Blog

June 12, 2010

Money, and the ballet

There’s a tension between art and money. Money is instrumental, a means to an end. It’s associated with commerce and a variety of tawdry of human attitudes and behaviors. Randy Newman’s song, It’s Money that I Love, is deliciously ironic, since it’s simply pathetic to love money. Art is different. It’s nourishing. It opens doors. It expresses our best, and makes us better. Art feels ambivalent about money, but somehow they need to get along.

Last week I found myself reflecting on art and money after Ginny Hall invited Sally and me to take a tour of the studios and offices of the Carolina Ballet with Ricky Weiss, the company’s artistic director. We’ve had season tickets for the last decade, starting shortly after the beginning of the company, and have seen all or almost all of Weiss’s ballets, some of them multiple times. He’s a great choreographer in Balanchine tradition. He has achieved something truly incredible in building a very strong company in our own Raleigh, North Carolina, and we’re so grateful.

As a longtime fan, I looked forward to talking with Weiss, but felt some anxiety about the money issue. I was well aware that the company needed it to survive. Sally and I had discussed a possible contribution several times and agreed that we’d feel good about making a meaningful gift. But it was not something I looked forward to discussing. Where I’m from, we didn’t like to talk openly about money. I’m not clear on the reasons, but we didn’t talk about things like salaries and prices for big ticket items. It was taboo.

In the end, though, our meeting was surprisingly fun. Weiss and Hall walked us through the studios and work spaces, which were not especially beautiful, but that was part of the point. He made clear that he’s very conscious of managing money carefully, not spending it on things that don’t matter, and spending as much as he can afford on what counts. He talked in detail of the cost of point shoes, costumes, and sets, of paying the dancers and staff, and of expenses such as disability insurance. He compared his productions to those in New York, and admitted his sets were less elaborate, but he took pride that his productions cost a fraction of those. As a person interested in the backstage, I found all this really interesting.

Weiss told us about falling in love with the ballet as a kid, dancing for Balanchine for 19 years at the City Ballet, leaving to become artistic director for the Pennsylvania Ballet, and leaving there under difficult circumstances. He also described a six-year period of free lancing and searching without success for the right position. He said that during this time he considered leaving the field. (This would have been a tragedy.) He talked about the Ward Purrington’s long effort to bring professional ballet to Raleigh with no idea of the long odds against success.

I’d wondered whether Weiss, with his enormous and continual creativity, would find it interesting or helpful to have a philosophy of art and dance. He did. He seems to view ballet as not simply expressive, but also magical, transcendental, and yet at the same time basic to human existence, like food. I was surprised, then, that he had no real trouble with the idea that some people don’t especially enjoy ballet, or even actively dislike it. He didn’t feel compelled to win over everyone. He noted lightly that someone once took him to a hockey game, and he didn’t particularly like it.

It turned out that Weiss had an unexpected gift for asking for money. Without any hints from us, he at last said he’d like us to consider giving the exact amount that we’d already decided we wanted to give. It was uncanny. I felt happy and excited. It’s wonderful that we can help with something that has brought us so much joy.

June 6, 2010

Our anniversary

Sally and I celebrated our anniversary on Saturday, the same day of the week as our marriage in New York 28 years ago. We had quickly agreed last week that we needed to mark the occasion with a special meal, and gave consideration to several fine area restaurants. We settled on Piedmont in Durham, a place we’d been meaning to try for a while.

As usual, we did not do anniversary presents. Sally is fundamentally unacquisitive — not deeply interested in expensive jewelry, clothes, or other consumables — and so holidays at which presents are integral, such as Christmas and birthdays, are challenging for me. She likes books and practical things. For her birthday last week, she wanted a special type of binoculars strap, which I found, and I also got her a hardcover called The Ballet Companion. Plus flowers, a card, and cupcakes. She seemed happy. For the anniversary, she got me a sweet card, and I, after a difficult search, found her a humorous card that at least wasn’t dumb or tasteless.

Piedmont is on Foster Street near the Armory, where we used to do swing dancing, in a block of short commercial buildings. The decor is post-modern Euro bistro, evocative of a lot of things, some warm, some cool. The menu is interesting — modern Italian, with locally grown organic ingredients. It is vegetarian friendly, which I define as having more than one plant-based entrée. I had zucchini mint soup, which was lovely, with just a hint of mint, and ricotta ravioli with olives and tomatoes, which was acceptable. Service was the one disappointment — too slow. For dessert, we split a rich chocolate torte with chili ice cream and chocolate sauce. The chili idea created a certain risk, and it was rich and rewarding.

We talked about food, music, dance, science, and travel. We’re thinking of another scuba trip to the Caribbean and considering the Bahamas, but the horrendous ongoing Gulf Coast oil disaster, with vast quantities of oil moving into the Gulf Stream, is an issue. We continued our discussion of making a larger donation to the Carolina Ballet, which we love. As I was reminded recently in reading Dee Brown’s book about the settlement of the American West, the performing arts spread and survived because of patrons, not because of ticket sales. We started our married life with no assets other than cheap furniture and clothes to wear, and the experience was formative. I never imagined when we married that one day we’d be giving thought to the right way to handle charitable giving. We’re very lucky.

This morning the Times had an interesting take on the breakup of Al and Tipper Gore after 40 years of marriage. http://tiny.cc/lve8n We were sad to hear of their split, and of course, curious about the cause. And as Tara Parker-Pope notes in the Times, there’s just no way to know the root cause. But it’s a reminder that marriages change, and they require nourishing. Apparently couples who do new and different things together are happier. Certainly, it’s good to try new restaurants.

October 10, 2009

Taxis and Vermeer

When I first arrived in New York right after college, it didn’t bother me that I had barely enough money to share a tenement apartment and eat. It was just so great to be in the city. I loved epic scale — all that glass, all that steel, all that concrete. All those details — sooty buildings with gargoyles. The contrasts — suspension bridges, Central Park. The super charged energy of New Yorkers, with many ethnicities, languages, accents, customs, gestures, styles. So many, so much.

I continued to feel that way about New York, and still do. But by the time I left to go to law school five years later, I’d grown tired of being (relatively speaking) poor. It wasn’t that I desired any particular worldly goods. My ambitions involved freedom of movement. I was tired of running for and missing the subway, and waiting on a lonely platform, or squeezing into a crowded car. My great fantasy was to take a cab whenever I wanted, and never to look at the meter with anxiety.

Last week I had some great cab rides when I was in the city for two nights. Catching them was as easy as in a dream: one appeared almost every time I got ready to raise an arm. Going up Broadway and down Fifth, up Madison and over on 59th. The teeming pedestrians — all ages, colors, and clothing styles. I was briefly fascinated, then annoyed, by televisions in the cabs, and learned how to turn them off. Many cabs, wonderfully, now take credit cards.

I was tightly scheduled with meetings, but managed to carve one hour free to see the Vermeer exhibit at the Met. The centerpiece is The Milkmaid, loaned for the exhibit by the Rijksmuseum. It was a subtle and powerful work. The subject is as common as possible — a servant pouring milk into a bowl. As in other great Vermeer portraits, the light seems natural at first; the impossible vividness of it becomes noticeable only gradually. There is a hyper realism to the scene, and at the same time a dreamlike quality.

I disagreed with some of Peter Schjehdahl’s review in the New Yorker, who argued that The Milkmaid did not deserve to be placed in such a position of honor in Vermeer’s oeuvre. For me, it was worth much more than a cab ride, and perhaps even a trans-Atlantic flight. But Schjehdahl reminded me that Vermeer, perhaps more than any of the Dutch masters, changes our perceptions of ordinary life. After gazing at The Milkmaid, I was reminded that there was much more to see in everyday life than we normally notice. Even within the commonplace, hiding in plain sight, is otherworldly beauty. Thanks, V.