Art Collector Marcia Weisman
The past is intoxicating. It is like being driven to nakedness by the music in your dreams. It is where youth ruled by inexperience. Experience begot me.
From time to time I find myself rummaging through my archives. I am usually looking for something I think I have lost. I discover what was there all along. The map of a life lived.
I am a native Angeleno. Today New York is my home. I left Los Angeles to find a fuse to light. I needed to catch on fire. I never felt that extra gear until I moved to New York.
The energy in Los Angeles always seemed to be eluding me. Maybe lost behind some steering wheel. I am not exactly sure. Los Angeles seemed to always have the rhythm of a resort town. I liked the clothes.
One day in 1988 I returned to LA for a project. For a number of years beginning in 1983 and continuing in 1988 I traveled between New York and Los Angeles with dozens of intermittent orbital stops. I made thousands of images: I made portraits, quietly photographed hundreds of architectural accomplishments. I found visual life on the streets of LA. I partially realized my dream of recording a city to the specifications of a mash of literary chroniclers like Joan Didion, Walter Mosley and more. Something was coalescing.
My visits had me venturing east, west, north and south. I drove cars with great speed. From Pasadena to Malibu and destinations in between. A speed that was mostly harnessed by freeway traffic at all hours. In one particular eventful day I tried to photograph society patron Laura Lee Woods in Bel Air, society patron Caroline Ahmanson at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, and arts patron Marcia Weisman in the Trousdale Estates. I was rocked by the cars always in front of me.
Arts Patron and Collector Lauralee Woods
LauraLee’s words were always soft and laced with hidden swords in every breath.
She was elegance personified with a great sense of humor. I remember returning to her home to present in a slide show my portrait results. She didn’t have any wall space. So we sat on the top of her steps..and viewed the images on a white Agnes Martin canvas. ”Agnes would kill me if she knew. Do you want to photograph my neighbor Joan Rivers?”.
Caroline’s knowingly wink screamed, “there are no failures in my life”. When we made our portrait at MOCA (Architect Arata Isozaki’s design) Caroline suggested we shoot in front of this glass structure, She said, “why not, I paid for it”.
Arts Patron and Collector Caroline Ahmanson
Marcia the gentle gruff queen that embraced you with the whispering words, “just follow my lead”. Everyone talks about the exposure to the sun in Los Angeles. When great art is discovered in great homes, the intoxication can be debilitating. It was Marcia, (sister to Norton Simon) who seemed to sing to me that first afternoon; She sat me down in her vintage corrugated Frank Gehry chair. Her hands on hips and bellowed like the lead in Gypsy, “what can I do for you?”. She was so lovely towards me. Even when suggesting I call her brother’s wife the actress Jennifer Jones( that was a fascinating conversation for another time) to get access to Norton. You could feel the overwhelming generosity. Though at times it seemed part hesitation in her eyes, and part “let me lend a hand” to this naive boy. She did share the advantages of her little black book. I knew I couldn’t screw up this charitable trust.
When we finally moved to shoot the portrait, Marcia embraced the standing Roy Lichtenstein “Mirror”. Whatever she wanted was fine with me. I think at that time she may have had the best contemporary collection in Los Angeles.
Sometimes I wish I could have that day back. There was an art to being a woman in the Los Angeles’ cultural hierarchy. Those women, decades before “MeToo”, let the men in town know that they were not going to back down to any wolf trying to huff and puff and blow their worlds down. There was so much more the three women could have shared over time. Time just wasn’t on my side.
I have learned that when time is your enemy, anything that these powerful people are willing to share, you accept this gift without hesitation. I sit here this moment celebrating my good fortunes.
My days usually came to a close somewhere between Sunset and Pico Blvd. Inching along on one of the blvds. The top down. The sun blinded my senses like “The Effect of the Gamma Rays on the Man-in- the Moon Marigolds”. I was stranded behind thousands of other travelers who were also wondering about their days.
I had a collective of women’s voices traveling through my mind. The voices from societies’ doy-ennes, artists, curators, dealers and more floated above. The concerns about how or if I was going to use my portraits. It was almost out of a scene from Hitchcock’s “Suspicion”. Overtime I calmed their concerns
I learned overtime that they wanted to share their world. It was alien to me. I was not familiar with the generosity. But of course I say that now so many years removed. This learning thing is difficult.
