NYC Unicycle Fest on Governors Island is a go!

NYC Unicycle Fest on Governors Island is a go! Save the date! Sept 4, 2010.

Marian was family

Marian Griffiths was loved. She was family. I met Marian like so many others at the Sculpture Center on 69th Street. I had just moved to New York and Matt Freedman recommended that I go up and introduce myself. She sat me down next to her behind the front desk and made me feel at home. She looked at my work, listened to my stories, showered me with praise and attention, and made me feel special. She made everybody who walked through that door feel special. I used to visit her every week. Marian was incredibly supportive of my burgeoning career. She included me in several shows at the Sculpture Center and at Long Island University. She hooked me up with several commissions, writing opportunities, and sales. She would come to my openings and events around town. After she left the Sculpture Center we continued to see one another. We would meet for drinks, go out to dinner, and would regularly see museum shows together. I suspect that she had seen the same shows with others, but she never let on. She enjoyed my excitement and enthusiasm. I used to feel awful knowing that she had arrived and would return home by bus, but that was her way. Marian was tough to the end. She would always bring my family gifts, and regularly gave me books to read. I recently finished reading Treasure Island to my son- a gift from Marian. She would buy me lunch, listen to my problems, and give me encouragement. It was always about me when we were together. She was unconditionally supportive. It was tough getting anything out of Marian- art world opinions or life stories. She was always vague and tough to pin down. Her favorite story about me- which she loved to retell, was Robert Chamber's description of me repelling down the side of my six story building into a smoke filled courtyard some 20 years ago. I suppose my favorite story about Marian was hearing about Robert Chambers riding her around on the back of his motorcycle. The laughs we used to have. I will miss her laugh and her smile. Marian made all of us feel good.

from Nancy Grove

Just in case you hadn't seen or spoken to Marian for a while, this is what she did on September 7, the Sunday before she died.

She met me at Penn Station at noon, wearing her signature black and commenting, as always, on the amazing outfits people in the station were wearing. We took the train to Philadelphia - she was very excited about the trip because she had not been there for many years, and she talked about going to her uncle's house in Rittenhouse Square. It had a big window in the front and every evening at 5 pm her uncle would stand there and watch the pretty girls leave work...

We took a cab from the station to the Philadelphia Museum and had a lovely lunch in their cafeteria, then explored the American collection. She was thrilled to see the great Thomas Eakins Gross Clinic and the wonderful Copley portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Mifflin – all while she commented on the size, shape, color, and layout of each gallery and the placement of each object. That critical eagle eye never missed a thing!

We also went to the modern section, where she saw Duchamp's last work, the Etant Donnes, for the first time, enjoyed the spareness of the gallery with Duchamp's Large Glass, and thoroughly approved the Brancusi gallery (she disapproved of MOMA's Brancusi display...). We also attended a memorial for Anne d"Harnoncourt, the director of the museum, who, oddly enough, had unexpectedly died in her sleep, age 64,in June. Marian disliked the classical music that was played – she found it "turgid"- and could not hear the speeches, so when we were going back on the train I told her that one speaker had quoted Richard Serra's speech to the graduating class at Williams, about the importance of immediate perception, of keeping it real and staying in the moment. She loved that - she liked Serra's work and we had recently seen the documentary about him, which she loved, although she also understood why many people did not feel about his work as she did.

I also told her that another speaker had quoted Adam Gopnik's remark at Kirk Varnedoe's memorial, that the ancient Greeks did not believe that any life was too short or too long - that every life has a certain unique shape to it - and she loved that idea. We were all part of the shape of Marian's life, as she was an important part of the shape of all of ours. When we parted, she was full of plans to go back to Philadelphia - to the museum, to the Rodin Museum, to the Institute of Contemporary Art to see the R. Crumb show, which of course she knew about and I didn't...In short, she was her upbeat, indomitable, engaged and delightful self!

On Marian Giffiths

Marian loved art and young artists, making the SculptureCenter at her time a space particularly geared towards exhibiting young unknown artists. She gave many artists including myself what I consider my first professional opportunities. She curated us into exhibitions such as SculptureCenter Roosevelt Island and LIU plaza summer sculpture shows. These projects came with budgets and were often reviewed by publications such as The New York Times.

I considered Marian one of my best friends. We had a special friendship and I was proud to have an 85-year-old friend. At a gathering in her honor at Hannah Tierney’s Soho loft so many people arrived whose lives Marian had influenced. I realized many people had a special friendship with Marian.

I was very intrigued by her history. She was very reticent about her past, but I pried. Every so often she would offer up a fascinating upbringing. For instance, she spoke of being a small girl in Italy and her Italian nanny teaching her fascist songs. Much to the embarrassment of her intellectual parents, Marian was once brought out to sing at a gathering of their friends. As an adult in Berlin she liked eating Profiteroles. She lived in Dumbo in the 1950s!

But despite a fascinating history, Marian preferred to live in the present, seeing every museum show and going to all the movies as well. She took a drawing class. I begged to see her drawings, no such luck. The last time I actually saw her we met at The Drawing Center to see Alan Sarets gang drawings. Typical of our meetings, we would stand for long stretches in the middle of a gallery and talk.

But maybe for me the one most significant memory has to do with my own commitment to art. She told me many years ago, back when I was a younger artist, that there was something about me that she could tell I would always make art. I wondered then, as I still do, how she could tell. What intuitive powers did she have, or was it just years of observing artists.

Summer 2008

Photo by Ann Rosen 2004