Agnes Martin
An art offering, a prose poem
The line, the dry line, on a gesso journey: east to west. The color: wet and washed with a brush. Come close, I have a secret: Life is an infinite dissolve, a geometry mirage, an atmosphere with the name Untitled 1977.
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Agnes Martin (1912-2004) was born on a farm in Saskatchewan, Canada, and came to Bellingham, WA, in 1931, where, at the age of twenty-one, she finished high school. Nine years later, while attending Teachers College, Columbia University, she began her career as an artist, though career is likely the wrong word for a woman who, at the end of a difficult life spent, at times, on the very edge of clarity, professed her belief that “happiness is the goal.”
I have always resisted the work of Agnes Martin. I had no idea what she was doing or why I would want to look. Because you put her “infinite dissolve” in front of me at the breakfast table, I looked. Lo and behold, I found a lot to see.
Oh, I understand this nine square acrylic and stitch. I'm attracted to stitches. lol. In the coming week that I'll spend alone with pencil and paper, the walls of the farmhouse I stay in will offer up a variety of art in every room, including Alice Trumbull Mason's, and that of the former inhabitants, Emily Mason (whose paintings I love) and her husband's Wolf Kahn's landscapes. My writing and meditation within those 117 year old walls is stoked with their creativity, freedom, passion, and revelation. The idea that art and music might infuse and blend their colors, shapes, emotion and rhythms with my words is a possibility because of your Substack sharings. Thanks for that. PS What are the dimensions of There is a clarity of line?