Pat Pasloff

I had been considering a post on 'frame of reference' and how the desire to share one--or not--affects art making, when I espied a post on Facebook that Pat Pasloff passed away Sunday. Linked above is the tribute article by David Cohen at artcritical.

The timing is especially unusual as I am reading Geoffrey Dorfman's Out of the Picture: Milton Resnick and the New York School (Midmarch Arts Press, 2003) and just a week before her passing, watched two videos of Pasloff with Milton Resnick on UTube (A World of Art: Works in Progress -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euFTYZ93XFk) to inspire me in the studio.

I once spoke with Pat on the phone, when she began to reminisce about the old days in our (at the time) Chinatown neighborhood. Gruffly, she stated that painters in her day didn't need cd players, heat, or even hot water to paint; she didn't understand the need for luxury so many artists had now.  Curiosity (could I paint in silence every day? Go without heat longer than a few hours in winter?) vied with  admiration for her grit. The admiration grew over the years seeing her at exhibitions, circling and looking, intently looking: in every way, the real deal.

Rest in peace.