A Complicated Marriage (20 page)

As the sun set, the Bushes talked about their three boys with love and pride. Though their sons were nearly grown, Mabel and Jack would always refer to them as “boys.” Jack talked about the art in Toronto, the feelings of provincialism there, and his concerns about the future. Mabel appeared to me to be the perfect wife and mother. I thought in those terms. I was still looking for role models, my own family having left me at a loss in so many ways.

After dinner Jack and their two younger sons, Terry and Rob, played music—Jack proficient on the piano, the boys equally so on drums and guitar. Jack was mad for jazz, but Clem was equally mad for dancing and, as usual, protested that you couldn't dance to jazz. With some reluctance he made a concession in honor of the visitors, and that night, as Mabel, Clem, and I threw ourselves around, the beat of Buddy Holly and Elvis shook the small room. The Bushes and the Greenbergs had clicked.

During the next few days, as Jack became more and more excited by all the art talk and hearing about what was happening in New York, Mabel retreated. I could tell that the talk made her anxious. Even then, years before Jack's art career ignited, I glimpsed their fears about what lay ahead. They were in their late forties, Jack an established commercial artist in advertising, Mabel a homemaker. By the time our visit was over, it had become clear that Jack yearned to break the mold of his life. At the same time, he was fearful that his talent as a painter might not be sufficient to justify making the leap from secure, well-paid work to the precarious future of a full-time artist. On her part, Mabel wanted to shine and polish their life as it was, keep it safe. She had sought out, found, and fallen in love with the traditional man of her dreams. That he happened to like to paint had no doubt just added a bit of zest. Her fear was that maybe he would take that leap and she would be left behind
and the boat would sink. She knew how to be an executive's wife and a mother and hostess. How did one “be” an artist's wife?

I empathized with Mabel. I hadn't begun to figure out what my role was in Clem's world. I dog-paddled my way around in a pool of artists' wives who seemed to me to be accomplished, happy campers. Although it was still early days for me, somehow I already suspected that I would never get the hang of it. At least Mabel had the domestic, wifely role down pat; she not only owned it, but gloried in it. To my mind, I was striking out on both counts. As ungrounded as I felt in the art world, I was also unclear about how to “be” a wife. Oh, I did what I called “nesting” and I puttered, but I certainly never gloried in it, nor felt accomplished at it. Sometimes I thought it wasn't in my nature, that I must be missing a link. Other times I hoped maybe in time . . . And every day I managed as best I could. And I watched the art wives and hoped that what they seemed to do so well might rub off on me.

After our visit, the Bushes came often to New York. They would burst in like a gust of fresh air at the end of the afternoon, sinking gratefully into our big couch, elated after a day of galleries interspersed with shopping sprees. For them it was as if every adventure were like Christmas morning. Infectious. Clem would shake up the martinis—he was not a stirrer—and I would produce my far-from-fancy best effort at nibbles, invariably chopped liver from Barney Greengrass on Amsterdam Avenue, saltines, and a dish of canned ripe olives. Jack would effervesce to Clem about this artist, that picture, tentatively venturing his “takes” and why he thought this worked and that didn't. Mabel would gush to me about the stores they had gone to and what they had bought for themselves and for the boys, and where they had had lunch and how she had asked for the recipes for this or that dish. It was a rare dip into girl talk with my pipeline into “real” married life. More than a pipeline, Mabel was my first artist's-wife friend.

Sometimes she and I would talk fondly about Jack and Clem, so alike in the fundamental ways: same age, same height, both smoked Camels, a lot, both drank, a lot—though we agreed that Clem could handle it better—both had strong ethical and moral standards and were sticklers for good manners, and both could talk about art until hell froze over. And
they had both had emotional breakdowns—Jack when he was thirty-eight, Clem at forty-six. Their conversations about life and relationships were filtered through their experiences and fascination with the process of analysis.

As for differences, they were mostly a matter of appearance. Jack, with his shining pink complexion, neatly trimmed mustache, thick mane of slicked-back graying hair, and snappy clothes, always looked as if he had just stepped out of
GQ
. Clem, three-quarters bald, his skin a pale white, was a “comfort first, to hell with appearance” kind of dresser, a “take me as I am” sort of guy.

As for the give-and-take about art between Jack and Clem, it was not always fifty-fifty. That would develop only as their rapport deepened. Jack, by nature a sweet guy, found it difficult to be tough even when it came to his opinions about art. It was as if he were still playing catch-up and was unsure of his footing. Clem would sometimes get impatient and push him to disagree with him, to look harder, more critically, at what he saw. I was used to the hammer-on-the-nail precision of Clem's opinions about art and people. And I was used to it from others; for most people in the art world, judgments were their daily bread. But Jack. Sometimes even I wanted to shake him, shake him until all the dregs of anger and revolt, that underbelly of feelings that I was sure was in everyone, spilled out. Jack was certainly the only artist who ever made me wonder if someone could be too nice. Without that critical edge, would he ever be able to make it as a painter? But voicing strong opinions in our living room about his likes and dislikes of artists and their work, especially if there were other people around, which was often the case, well, it never happened.

The martinis drunk, the chopped liver eaten, and the olive pits piled on the plate, we would then set off on the town. With the Bushes that always meant jazz and Max's. And sometimes, if we “girls” held sway, we would head for a nightclub, somewhere fancy where Mabel could sport her new clothes and we could watch a show and the music would be divinely danceable.

How little I understood during those early visits about Jack's process as a painter. I, with my burgeoning list of absolute opinions about this
and that. Opinions, of course, that were rarely voiced among the big talkers that filled the airspace; at least I had learned that much from the wives.

But by the time we next went to Toronto and saw Jack's new work, I got what he was about. Jack's way was to sop it all up, everything he saw and heard in New York, and then, once he had internalized it, he would sort through what he liked and didn't like. I could look at his pictures and see how he worked. He painted his insides out. And in that he was like all the other good painters. His pictures said everything his reticence kept him from expressing in our living room. His pictures were an open book, an honest book. He felt deeply and painted deeply. Lord knows, he didn't need me or anybody else to shake the sludge out.

Gradually over the next years, Jack did take the life-altering leap and the boat did not sink—far from it—but in some ways Mabel was left behind. Not that she didn't support and even encourage his decisions—after all, she loved Jack—but there were also those deer-in-the-headlights moments, when I could see how uncomfortable she was in Jack's new world. Mabel could not have possibly foreseen that, far from being a Sunday painter, Jack would become internationally heralded as one of the preeminent contemporary artists to come out of Canada. When the time came for her to march forward into Jack's new world, I could see that their redirected life was too much for her to take on. As he joyfully threw open the door to his art and took over more and more of the house for his painting, she, in effect, closed her door with a resentful
click
.

Those were the toxic years. Her whole body revolted against Jack's art. She suffocated on the fumes of his paint media until her face swelled, her eyes closed, and she broke out in rashes. Did Jack resolve the problem? Indeed, he did his best, and as he soared creatively, he was eventually able to move his work into a large studio downtown. And as his pictures got bigger, so did his life.

Yes, they kept the house. And because guilt and resentment have a way of running through marriages like a river, Jack assumed the mantle of guilt for having put Mabel through such difficult changes. He was already known for his self-effacing, modest ways, and these traits became only more pronounced as time passed, almost as if he needed to balance the
bliss and passion he was experiencing in his art, lest those newly released emotions overwhelm him and others. But there were social occasions, especially after a few drinks, when his joy about painting would break through unbridled and his whole being would quiver with it.

Those were the breakthrough years for Jack, as the paintings avalanched out of him and he began to show in New York. Mabel continued to accompany him on his visits, but, although she slowly adjusted to their new lifestyle, it seemed to me that she stopped being as spontaneous and took a step back from being a full participant at Jack's side.

Jack was an art-world anomaly, a painter who flowered in middle age after years of juggling an increasingly incompatible day job. And so was Mabel an anomaly, an artist's wife who found herself thrust into a life she didn't want or understand. Jack grew up fast in those years. He enjoyed his recognition and success. It seemed that each time I saw him he was more confident and at ease. Why not? He was finally living the life he was meant to live. And then, in 1977, at sixty-eight, he died suddenly of a heart attack. As with many other artists' wives, in due time Mabel assumed a new role as Jack's widow. I was happy for her. With her characteristic grace and beauty, she represented him well and seemed to enjoy taking on the tasks and functions associated with his art. Perhaps she saw herself as a redefined homemaker, this time of Jack's posthumous career.

I once told the Bushes that I thought we four were like the Ricardos and the Mertzes. They laughed and we argued about who was who. Clem was miffed because he didn't know what we were talking about. And we laughed all the more, telling him he was probably the only person on earth who had never heard of
I Love Lucy
. But I was serious. Of all the people Clem and I hung out with, the Bushes were the only couple who had ever made me feel that I was part of a foursome. Compatibility times four.

AT NIGHT our living room was as dim as a cave, even with two table lamps, a standing lamp, and Clem's green-glass desk lamp. As small as the room was, there was never enough light to fill its veiled corners. Perhaps it was the high ceilings. Perhaps it was the dingy white walls that every day got dingier with the grime of Hudson Street that seeped through the old window frames. The walls were jammed with small paintings and one large one, a six-foot square abstract that Clem painted, dusky rose shapes billowing around a vortex highlighted with gold. Along one wall was a row of bookcases painted white. A few small sculptures perched along the top, while sprinkled in front of the books were an assortment of highly- polished silver candy dishes and the like, that cast a glimmer or two. They were the small fruits of our wedding that I had hoped would spiff up the place. They didn't. Instead they made the room look incongruously fussy. On every surface was a much treasured ashtray, small white china ones, swiped by Clem from bistros during his European trips in 1939 and 1954. Add to that a tattered and frayed Oriental of diminished reds and yellows, two small tables, two upholstered chairs, two weary Windsor chairs, and Clem's desk, and that was that.

I had not met Clyfford Still before, but that winter evening in 1958 he had come to our Bank Street apartment, a rare house call for this reputed recluse, who had moved to Baltimore. With him were his wife and one of his two daughters.

He sat in one of the armchairs—the bilious green one with the springs that poked through. Whenever anyone sat in that chair, I watched them wince. As bony as Still was, he didn't. Maybe he was invincible. He
was very tall, with luxuriant white hair. His face was expressionless and gaunt. His friends—did he have friends?—called him Clyff. Tonight, Clem called him that, his wife called him Still; I called him nothing. On his right, on a Windsor chair, sat his wife, a small dark ramrod, barely leaning back, barely sitting at all. The daughter sat near the door on the other wooden chair, huddled. Across from the Still family, Clem was by his desk; I was in the other small armchair, faded orange, a hand-me-down from my mother. There they were, lined up, in Puritan grays and blacks. We were as we were.

As I looked at Still, I wondered if I was seeing him or the self-devised myth that preceded him. I had heard that he would set himself up as the supreme moral arbiter and pass out judgments from on high. His way was white, “their” way black. I imagined that the darkness he saw “out there” was as dark as his towering paintings, with their spires that clawed at the sky. He had recently walked into the painter-collector Alfonso Ossorio's house in East Hampton and “reclaimed” one of his paintings. He had cut it out of its stretcher, rolled it up, and taken it home. The reason? He didn't approve of Ossorio's having sold a Pollock from his collection, and was protecting his picture from a similar fate. And although Ossorio owned the purloined picture, he did not protest.

Still's astonishing work empowered him to hold curators, dealers, and collectors hostage. Having shown in the forties with Peggy Guggenheim and Betty Parsons, he had had no regular dealer for years and personally controlled every aspect of his marketplace. Purportedly, no collector ever chose a painting to buy. Still vetted the collector, selected the picture he would be permitted to buy, and set the price. And Still's reputation, prices, and myth grew. And the more he tested people, the more they sucked up, and the more they sucked up, the more he held them in contempt.