(Im)possible Conversations

This conversation almost didn’t happen.

In July, I went to see “Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) in New York City.  The exhibition centered around an exploration of the “striking affinities” of the work by two iconic Italian fashion designers, Elsa Schiaparelli and Miuccia Prada, who were separated by decades. The exhibition included orchestrated conversations that, but for technology and archival footage could not have taken place. 

I wandered through the exhibition, accompanied by two of my friends.  Morgan – much more fashion forward than I, and wearing a color blocked dress “something she picked up on a trip to London,” reminiscent of Audrey Hepburn, tried to focus my attention on the significant similarities and contrasts on display while Eric impishly interjected with snippets from “impossible conversations” that I had engaged in over the years – mainly with failed objects of affection. 

The combination of Morgan’s Audrey Hepburn-look and Eric’s gentle teasing reminded me of one of my favorite movies, “Two for the Road,” the 1967 movie starring Audrey Hepburn and Albert Finney as a couple embarking on their own series of impossible conversations taking place over a decade of marriage.   Neither of my friends had seen the film, so my reference would have been lost on them.  I would have to save my observations for my father.

My father.  Dad.  Roger.  The Art Dealer. 

He likes to tell the story about the time he took me to the Met. I was at an age where the bright orange child carrier (think metal frame backpack with an opening where a small toddler could go) should have long been retired in favor of asking me to walk, but for some reason, fatherly machismo or something, he thought it made sense to stick me in my carrier and struggle under the weight of my rangy four-year old frame.  According to my father, at some point, I sensed that he was struggling and gently offered to walk – forcing him to recognize that his little girl was growing up and forcing me to start seeing art from my own vantage point.  That trip to the Met was one of our first joint encounters with art and it wouldn’t be our last. 

Over the years, whether it was painting furniture – my (short-lived) foray into industrial design, collaborating on a family movie “Chip on the Moon” starring my stuffed Otter, Chip and scored with early Mac sound tools – (“E.T.” had nothing on us), or installing my finger painted masterpieces in a hallway of our house that we called my “gallery,” my father taught me how to see art beyond museum walls.  Art was something to create and to talk about, preferably over a good meal (or at least some Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream).  While I didn’t grow to share his love of food, I began to understand that art was one means of having “impossible conversations” – of making sense of the world and my own place in that world.

But, this conversation almost didn’t happen.

Every family has those moments that each family member can recall right down to the minute, second, frame.  One of our moments is the day I announced my intention to become a Visual Arts major as we drove through the Holland Tunnel en route to Chinatown to celebrate my little sister’s birthday.  In that space between New Jersey and New York, which on that afternoon felt endless, I was met with my father’s healthy dose of skepticism – was Visual Arts really a good decision?  I hadn’t known my father to be a “do as I say, not as I do” type and so with his B.F.A. in graphic design from the Cooper Union and his efforts throughout the years to expose me to as much art as we could pack into a weekend, I wasn’t quite sure I understood his dismay, especially as English was the only other contender – hardly a large leap in the liberal arts landscape.  I certainly hadn’t planned to disappoint (or even make waves) with this announcement.  But, in a rare moment of stubbornness and perhaps delayed adolescent rebellion, I wouldn’t change course just to assuage my father’s doubts (though I would go to law school to make sure I could financially support myself, but that’s a tangent for another time). 

That “impossible conversation” with my father about my path to ruin as a visual artist has taken more than a few twists and turns over the years and has evolved into a series of conversations and experiences with art that have included their fair share of (respectful) disagreement, but have also revealed a connection that continues to grow over time. 

Today, I’m a card-carrying member of the Met. I have a godson who will soon be too heavy for me to even think about carrying in the Met or elsewhere.  My father and I stand shoulder to shoulder.  Even still, when I look at art, I sometimes imagine that four year-old version of myself walking through the Met for the first time.  At some point, I must have looked up at my father and been able to show him something through my eyes – something he might not have seen otherwise.  And at some point, he must have kneeled down to meet me at my level and showed me that what I saw was just as valuable an observation as what I could see standing on his shoulders.        

My father.  Dad.  Roger.  The Art Dealer.

Let the conversation continue. 

-Ara Tucker, 2013