“Red Cloud” by Audrey Stone

On holding, on being held, and on releasing

Dear friend,

I was saddened to hear Dorothy Vogel passed at the end of November. For those who aren’t acquainted with her, she and her husband Herb were legendary art collectors who amassed a seminal collection of minimalist art, all on civil servant wages. Unlike many other collectors, they never sold a piece, even though their collection of 4,000 artworks (all astonishingly crammed into their 450-square-foot New York apartment) would have fetched millions at auction.

Instead the Vogels made agreements with many of the artists not to sell. They then decided to donate their collection to the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, DC, a museum that is free to the public, in exchange for a small annual stipend to help support the couple in their retirement. Despite being wooed by several museums, they chose the NGA because the collection would “go to the people” and would never be sold off. The wonderful documentary Herb & Dorothy shares how, when the initial donation of 1,100 pieces was packed up for the NGA, they filled not only one huge moving truck, but five.

How was all this possible? Arguably, the Vogels were at the right place (New York City) at the right time (the early blossoming of the minimalist movement in the 1960s), but it’s a much more nuanced story that involves a beautiful partnership between the couple, a curiosity about new forms of art, and a dedication to collecting (they lived on Dorothy’s librarian salary and used Herb’s postal service wages to buy art)...along with what may best be described as shared hoarding tendencies.

For the Vogels, collecting was a calling that came with great responsibility. They bought directly from the artists, often creating long friendships. They saw themselves less as owners and more as caretakers. Breaking up the collection would have brought them great financial comfort, but would have destroyed what the pieces together represented: one of the great American-born art movements. They only released the pieces when they found an institution that would stay true to their mission.

This act of holding, of caretaking, has got me thinking about a piece by Audrey Stone, in which one part holds the other and also opens up a conversation about giving and receiving refuge.

May what you choose to hold be a source of joy and care,

xxKatarina

In case you missed it:

Invitation 40: “Untitled (PF.293, Bouquet, Vase with Flowers - Anni’s Bouquet)” by Ruth Asawa (public post)

Invitation 41: “Still Life of Exotic Flowers on a Marble Ledge” by Rachel Ruysch

Invitation 42: “Eleven-headed, Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara” from Central Tibet

Invitation 43: “Nine Feathered Panels” by the Wari people, Peru

Invitation 44: “Plate” by Maria Martinez and Julian Martinez (public post)

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Invitation 45: “Red Cloud” by Audrey Stone

“Red Cloud,” acrylic on canvas, 20 x 16” (50.8 x 40.6 cm), 2022. Image courtesy of the artist.

New York-based artist Audrey Stone has a fascination with light. Her paintings are in-depth studies of how color shifts into one another and the tensions created by juxtaposing one color against another. On the one hand, they are glowing, retinal delights, but I wouldn’t be writing about one of them if that’s all there was.

Consider “Red Cloud.” When I first saw it, I resonated with a kind of primal pleasure. Seeing the golden yellow at the bottom move upwards through the spectrum to intense reds, passing through dark purples that deepen into indigo at the top, is akin to beholding a spectacular sunset, as the evening light intensifies before giving way to darkness. The sky reminding everything below of its encompassing glory. It’s a moment of awe and of being humbled.

But look closer at the painting, and you’ll notice about two thirds up, there is a slight curve in one of the red bands.

Detail of curved red striation

Its arch bleeds thinly down both sides of the painting, framing the inner area of brilliant oranges and yellows. This isn’t just a painting about color gradations, Stone is pushing us to consider the relationships of the warm colors to one another, and how red is both a conduit between the cold of the dark colors and the heat of the lower painting. “Red Cloud” is part of her “Hold” series of paintings. As she describes, “In the [H]old pieces one band of color from the gradient curves to run alongside the edges and overlap a side or portion of the painting or the whole painting. It was a way to contain the sense of expansiveness the gradients can have, hopefully like a gentle hug.” “Red Cloud” has both, an expansiveness at the top and containment below.

There’s also another layer found in the painting’s title. Moved by a Substack post about the Wounded Knee Massacre by historian Heather Cox Richardson, Stone named the painting after Chief Red Cloud who had offered refuge to Spotted Elk (also known as Big Foot or Si Tanka) and his tribe at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. As they made their way, Chief Spotted Elk and many of his people were killed by American troops at Wounded Knee. As Stone wrote to me, “sadly the anticipation of shelter ended not with shelter at all.” Yet the welcome, the invitation to be held in safety, still echoes.

Having this context sets up a tension for me between what it means to offer to hold another (e.g., offering refuge) and to be held, just as the red in this painting reframes the inner striations, offering an unexpected relationship between them. Stone’s painting makes me think of the sunset, right now growing brilliant outside my window, as it begins to merge into the comfort of the long, dark winter’s night. I imagine Red Cloud extending his invitation to Spotted Elk, a fellow Lakota, and the relief with which it was received. We can’t control the outcome, but we can still extend and receive the invitation.

To see more of Audrey Stone’s art, please visit her website www.audreystone.net and follow her Instagram account.

This week’s invitation:

What does it mean to you to offer refuge and what does it mean to accept it? Take a few minutes to write your thoughts or turn them into some other form of expression. I invite you to share what came up for you in the comments section as a way for us all to be together.

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