Ornithology

Eugene updates me on the mural progress while I’m away filming. He takes our dog Jojo for his afternoon walk around to the place where an artist named Dan has been filling the building’s recently renovated retaining wall with a pattern of geometric birds. The mural was commissioned in collaboration with the Audubon Mural Project by our board in honor of our friend and longtime resident Sandra who passed two year ago from cancer. She was an artist—a gilder—and one of the most vibrant members of our little community who was always the first to organize building holiday parties and summer socials in the garden. The plan for this mural had been in the works for a while; after months of delays, I was surprised to hear it had finally started in earnest. I ask how it looks and Eugene sends photos, blurry because Jojo is pulling on his leash and because taking photos is merely logistical to him. A visual transfer of information. It’s: which of these shampoos should I buy? It’s: which looks better with these pants—the gray sweater or the navy?

I look at these on the ride home from work, sitting in the passenger seat of a car being driven down dark rural Tennessee roads by a PA named Claire.  The brightness on my phone is too high and the colors fill the car with light. I’m exhausted because I’m stretched beyond my limit this month, but looking at the photos I feel a pang of disappointment.  A sign-up sheet in my building lobby had been asking for volunteers to help paint and I’d wanted to sign up. I wanted to take part in this community art.

            Our neighborhood is filled with these bird murals, which are part of a long-term art project that I admittedly don’t know as much about as I should by this point. “The Audubon guy lived around here” I explain when visiting friends ask about the giant birds on walls and garage doors and rolling store shutters. “He’s buried in the cemetery at the corner of my block.” My knowledge about this is very vague, caught from bits of information I’ve read here and there—I know Audubon’s legacy is “complicated” (read: racist) and that education about this is part of the project. I know the murals are done by a variety of local artists who each work in their own individual style, but that each mural features an actual species of bird. The quality varies. Some are majestic. Some are playful. Some are a little wonky.  A handful are, frankly, hideous.

            I have my favorites—a blue jay rising over a 99-cent store on 151st by the artists Mary Lacy. A pair of chunky orange and yellow warblers near the 157th subway by George Boorujy, and a mosaic-sculpture hybrid by Jessica Maffia on 173rd made of foraged-glass mosaics that spell out the American robin birdsong in the form of a spectrogram. The mosaics are tucked between a v-formation of six outstretched cast hand sculptures in a shade of brilliant robin’s egg blue. In the 15 years I’ve lived in this neighborhood, these birds have become parts of my day; surprises to wonder about while running errands, walking the dog, visiting friends, sitting in traffic. A sixth story flock of birds covers an entire building facade at the light where my Uber usually turns off the main avenue toward my block. When I see them after a long day I mentally start to relax knowing it won’t be long before shoes off, bra off, a snack, the couch.

Art in the Hospital Corridors

My husband Eugene had surgery last Tuesday. It was a long-planned, minimally invasive procedure that went extremely well, but which did require a few days of post-surgery hospitalization at NYU-Langone Hospital. As his support person, I also spent the better part of last week at this hospital, which I quickly learned (much to my surprise and delight!) has a rather extensive visual art collection of paintings, collages, photographs, murals, and sculptures installed throughout its campus.

The most well-known piece in the hospital’s collection—even to those who have never stepped foot inside the building—is Spot! by Donald Lipski (2018). A four-story sculpture consisting of a giant Dalmatian puppy balancing a yellow taxi on his nose. The dog portion was made from a modeled frame, while the yellow cab is an actual ready-made Prius taxi that was donated by Toyota to use in the sculpture. Located at the children’s hospital entrance on 35th street, the dog is meant as a playful and encouraging welcome for the children coming in for procedures. In an interview about the piece, Lipski explained that the sculpture of a brave doggy “achieving the impossible” was meant to inspire children during a frightening moment in their lives. (When reading about the piece, I learned that during the height of Covid-19, they added a large NYU-purple mask over the dog’s mouth to encourage children to do the same.)

Glissando, 2013

I spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of art one would want in a space like a hospital; a place where events wonderful and terrible, mundane and terrifying, joyful and heartbreaking are constantly and simultaneously occurring. Unlike the usual bland wall décor typically found at corporate hotels or standard doctor’s offices, the pieces at NYU-Langone don’t exist just to fill wall space. This is art that feels engaging, varied, and thoughtfully selected. It is work that seems to have things to say, though never so much that it pulls focus or takes over the room. The art is there to support the mission; it is not the purpose itself.

Unlike the deliberately bold Spot!, the majority of the works I saw in the adult spaces of the hospital avoided the figurative and leaned toward total abstraction. Like the iridescent twisting waves of The Moon’s Eyelid by Alyson Shotz (2018), the bright screen-printed color stripes of Royal Curtain by Gene Davis (1980), or the Turkish onyx twists of the sculpture In Pursuit by Leon Axelrod.  Emotionally, the works are overwhelmingly calming, often encouraging, playing with color, shape, texture, and light in ways that allow for joy without demanding it.

My absolute favorite of the pieces I saw while my husband dozed in his anesthetized stupor is the sunlight-catching Glissando, a 2013 mixed-media installation of clear polycarbonate Lexan squares suspended with thin stainless steel and aluminum wires. By the artists Tim Prentice and David Colbert, the piece stretches and cascades over the sunny lobby connecting the hospital’s Kimmel and Tisch buildings. In many ways, this silent musical performance seems to best capture the spirit of a collection that is ready to come alive and share its stories with anyone interested enough to pay attention, but just as easily recede into silence for those with other, more pressing, concerns.