'A really great picture keeps beginning'

 

     Lunch last week was originally set for Tuesday. But my friend asked if we could bump it to Wednesday. No problem. Although I was meeting my younger son and his beloved for dinner at Miller's Pub. Both meals taking place in the city. Meaning I'd have to figure out something to do with the hours between lunch and dinner. Again, no problem. There was always The Art Institute. Or the Museum of Contemporary Art. Or sitting by the fire in the Cliff Dwellers Club.. I considered having coffee with a friend, but that seemed like over-scheduling. In the end, I decided to just not worry about it; something would present itself. And if it didn't, I tucked a cigar in my pocket in case I needed to just stand somewhere, killing time.

Bad form? Discuss among yourselves.

     The lunch friend was artist Tony Fitzpatrick, who is no stranger to EGD readers. For years we met at Dove's, and revelled in their fried chicken. But we are men of a certain age with  vintage, Eisenhower-era hearts to consider. So we've shifted to Yuzu on Chicago Avenue, which is no hardship. Excellent sushi, which I took a picture of, to Tony's displeasure. "So you're one of those guys..." he said, reproachfully. Yes, yes I am. I'm surprised I have any friends at all. 

     We caught up over lunch — he's off to Costa Rica soon on a bird watching expedition. How fun does that sound? I'm plodding away, digging a hole that fills up by next morning, ready to be dug again. At one point he said he had to go back to his studio and finish a painting, and I, with nothing better to do, volunteered to come along and watch. Did I worry about intruding on the creative process? Yes I did.  I'd hate for a docent to pause in front of a glorious bird painting featured on a museum wall 100 years from now and say, "Scholars believe that this would have been Tony Fitzpatrick's masterwork but a forgotten journalist, Ned Stenborg, was there the day he finished it, throwing off his aesthetic sensibility in some ineffable way. His mere presence fucked the painting up!"

     But Tony didn't seem to mind, and we headed over to his studio on Western Avenue.

     The painting was "Chicago Kingfish (and the Women)" and someday its proud owner might enjoy knowing his treasure was completed on the afternoon of Jan. 3, 2024. If you're unfamiliar with Tony's work, his trademark image is a central painting of a bird embellished by all manner of found material, a collage frame, essentially. I watched as he used tweezers to apply tiny pink flowers, little colored dots and shiny silver squares, methodically handed to him by an assistant, Detroit artist, Owen Spryszak.

     "The thing itself presents a map of feeling," said Tony, as he worked. "I want there to be a flowery percussive rhythm to the thing." He's already put in the better part of a week on the painting.

     He took a tiny green chair from Owen with his tweezers, tried it out in three positions, sighed, placed it in four more, then put it back. 

He's right. Luxembourg Gardens

     "Why a green chair?" I asked.

     "All the ones in France are green," he said. "I started making these in Paris. In Luxembourg Gardens. All these green wrought iron chairs. Humboldt's got a few too."

     "I'm thinking of some music notes, kid," he said. "We're closing in on this."

     I asked him about the collage aspect. It obviously comments on and enhances the birds. 

     "The purpose of this stuff is never decoration," he said.

     Conversation ranged from ordinary stuff guys talk about to, unsurprisingly under the circumstances, art. I mentioned that a Facebook friend had posted something about how the world would be unbearable without art, and while I generally avoid getting into Facebook debates, I couldn't help adding Bernard Pomeranz's line from "The Elephant Man" as a refutation: "Art is nothing as to nature."

     "As beautiful as your birds are," I ventured. "They can't match actual birds."  Tony didn't argue, He was busy channelling his life, his experience, his vision into the painting set before him.   

      "There are more elegant collagists, better draftsmen," Tony said. But nobody who does what he does.  How does he know when a painting's finished?

     "A work of art fails when your eye stops," he said. "A really great picture keeps beginning." 

     I admired the jars of meticulously sharpened colored pencils — Tony took a straight edge and pencilled in a dotted blue line.

     "I think we're done here," he said. The blue tape came up. He held the painting at arm's length, regarded it a moment, then Owen whisked it away to be photographed and begin its journey to a collector's wall. We spoke of other things, and as dinnertime approached, I thanked him for an unforgettable afternoon and made my way to the Blue Line.