8 minute read
INTERVIEW BY H. CANDEE
ARTIST UPDATE MARK MELLINGER
Interview by Harryet Candee Photographs Courtesy of Artist
Harryet Candee: One of the new and exciting things in your life is the relocation of your art studio. Once upon a time on North Street, and now, you are at the Clock Tower Artists’ studios in the Eagle building in Pittsfield, MA. How has this move been for you? Mark Mellinger: A colossal change. As the only artist working in the old Agricultural Bank Building, I was invisible. Joining the Clock Tower Artists, an ever-growing hub of Berkshire art, currently including 11 outstanding artists, is an honor and a delight. In the first month that we were open I had more visitors than in all 8 years on North St. Everyone needs to see this beautiful space on the 3rd floor at 75 S. Church St.
The Clock Tower Artist’s individual studios are beautiful. Have you changed gears in any way that has made a difference in the way you are creating new work? MM: The space and camaraderie there are very stimulating. I want to be working there every free minute. Not only is there cross-fertilization of aesthetics, but also exchange of knowledge of materials and art technology. I’m learning gilding now and using fabrics in my artwork. There’s some danger in experimentation. One can get too expansive and neglect honing ones’ skill in a central practice. For me painting is central.
We are all hoping for a brilliant year ahead of us. What do you have planned as we move into the year of 2023? MM: I’m looking to expand my Clock Tower space into a proposed “Maker Space” that would allow me to do welding and woodworking for more of my “Constructions”. Wouldn’t printmaking equipment for etching and lithography be great there too? I’d like to continue exploring the combination of painting and assemblage a la Rauschenberg.
Chromosome. 2022. . Acrylic, nails, rust and cardboard on plywood. 48" x 32" Mark Mellinger, Flight Path. 2020. Acrylic and collage.20" x 20" (sold)
Flag Day. 2022. Fabric and acrylic on plywood. 32" x 48"
Over the past decade, what were some strong outside influences that you became aware of and applied into your art? MM: There’s nothing like seeing people’s art to refocus your own. Artists are always stealing elements from their predecessors and contemporaries. There’s really nothing new. Just original recombinations. Paintings by Max Gimblett and Frank Bowling have pushed the limits for me. In 3D work, there are few who can match Isamu Noguchi, Xu Bing and Martin Puryear as inspirations.
Mark, you attended Cooper Union Art School in NYC. I wonder, what were some top hit list important principles in the concepts and theories in art that you were given and still apply now to creating art? MM: There are two modes for learning in any field. The most important is working in the presence of other students and teachers. The second is the formal study of the principals, theories and methods employed by masters. I found this to be true both in learning to be an artist and a psychoanalyst. In painting, Cooper Union offered a lot of the former but not enough of the latter. In the wood and metal workshops it was just the opposite. Sixty years later I’m still learning from my mistakes with the chemistry of mixed media.
I know history has a strong influence in your art and process, whether it’s obvious to see, or just below the surface. Can you tell us about what parts of history most interest you; who in history has a significant meaning for you, and what piece of artwork best describes your connection to our ancestors, great and small, in art, or not in art at all? MM: The Nazi holocaust that immediately preceded my birth left its’ mark on me. My mother Lucy lost her parents and a sister while living safely in New York. Her admiration for Eleanor Roosevelt, Albert Schweitzer and Marian Anderson taught me that compassion can heal trauma. In psychoanalytic work the idea of trans-generational transmission of trauma is a powerful tool for understanding the individual. Picasso’s Guernica embodies that transcendence of horror. A more recent event, the attempted overthrow of our democracy provided all of us with a sense of living within history. Being gripped with despair and anxiety necessarily distracted me from creative efforts.
Are you still making collages? I have seen some being very detailed, (a lot of work), almost like you decipher a mystery-puzzle in each one. Fascinating to me, because of the layers and mind boggling, ‘how-does-he-come-up-with-that?’ aspect I find in these works. MM: I seem to require an outside inspiration to liberate my ideas. You’re providing that with your good questions. Continued on next page...
Pandemic. 2018. From a 1918 photo. Acrylic on canvas 16" x 20"
The Christian Mother Exhorting her Daughter to Martyrdom. " Destroyed Print series". 2018. Vintage rotogravure, acrylic and collage Umbilicus. 2019. Oak, telephone wire, nest and eggs
Mark Mellinger, Lysis. 12x12. 2021. Acrylic on board
American Sunset. 2022. Acrylic on canvas 36" x 24"
Gates of Perception. 2022. Acrylic on canvas. 20" x 20"
I have a series of “Destroyed Prints” that start with old rotogravure prints of classical art, which I proceed to “destroy” with paint and photomontaged images. They’re strange and make many people just scratch their heads. I integrate collaged material into some of my paintings to complicate the surface and the perception.
I am always amused and thoroughly appreciate the titles you give to your finished artwork. How do you reach that final title? Have you ever changed titles? What comes first? The art or the title? MM: A title is the last step. I gaze at the piece until I have an association, usually obscure, sometimes whimsical. I love words almost as much as patterns.
Through COVID times, how was life for you as an artist? In what ways have you seen COVID make a difference in the ways we live and survive? In what ways do you think the art world, culture and younger generation have reacted and changed their tune as a result of COVID? Do you have any art that you made that reflects this time period? MM: Art got Barbara and me through the past years. We went to museums as often as possible with our masks on. It wasn’t just the virus itself that was so hard to bear. It was the barrage of news mixed with lies and antagonism to which art offered a respite. The only piece of mine that addressed the events literally was painted from a photo of masked scientists during the 1918 pandemic. A lot of black and red in my recent work may well have reflected life under COVID. Lately I’ve tried to return to pastel tones, maybe reflecting recuperation.
At this point in your life, what do you find you are more relaxed and enjoying? MM: At 77 one can’t help but notice the looming exit door from life. I don’t crave relaxation as much as fulfillment. But relaxation is a necessary complement to work. Walks in nature are ideal. TV will sometimes have to do.
What is so interesting about Arshile Gorky to you? How does he influence you? Who else do you love that comes out of the pages in history, and why? MM: I’ve long been in awe of Gorky’s shapes, his textured surfaces, his color palette and of course his mind-bending titles (like; “How my Mother’s Embroidered Apron Unfolds in my Life”. Bill Traylor is another historical influence. Born into slavery on a plantation in Alabama, his paintings rival Matisse’s late works.
Tell us a little about your family, and where you grew up and the cultural and social surroundings you were a part of? MM: I grew up in Manhattan. My parents, Jews who quite fortuitously had left Germany prior to Nazism and met in NYC. Shortly after I was born at the end of the war my father returned to Germany with the US Army as “Berlin Theater Officer”, charged with spying on Communist actors (mostly his friends who he failed to report). My mother trimmed cashmere cardigans for Saks Fifth Avenue, sewing ribbons and pearls with tiny stitches. Bette Davis wore some of them. She raised me alone. We lived for a long while in a shabby rooming house on 86th St and Park Ave (if you can believe such a thing existed). She moved there so I could go to PS6, the best public school in NY. We shared the room with cockroaches, and the shared bathroom was down the hall. My friend Bernie lived down the block in a luxury suite at the Croydon Hotel. They had a silver Ronson table lighter under which his mom left hundred-dollar bills for the maid. This disparity in class seemed unremarkable to me.
Ok, daring moment: Share a secret you have kept. … Do you put secret messages into your art? How? MM: OK. My father was a scoundrel. He tried acting, writing, directing and briefly running a theater in Hamburg. But he was also a mystic, a major figure in Aleister Crowley’s London cult. Dad translated his writings into German. I, on the other hand, prefer de-mystifying. I don’t intentionally put messages in my artwork and am not fond of “messagy” art. Visual art offers an alternative to the avalanche of words we wade through every day. I love the sensual materiality of paint, wood, fabric, and rusty iron. It’s a great counter to my other work as a psychoanalyst.
Thank you, Mark!
71 S Church St, Pittsfield MA 914 260-7413
