About Steve :: Person :: Art Collection
Bellagio Personal Perspective
of Marsha Bentley Hale

The URL for this article no longer works.  Since this article is an interesting first-person account, it is presented here for its value as a personal evaluation of the art exhibit from the viewer's perspective.

 

    
   


http://www.fashionwindows.com/room_service/steve_martin_art01.asp
April 2001
The Fine Art of Steve Martin; The Personal Perspective of an L.A. Woman Transplanted to Las Vegas
Marsha Bentley Hale

"Writer, photographer, archivist, Martha Bentley Hale is the foremost authority on historical mannequins. She is also the head of the Mannequin Museum Foundation. Currently based in Las Vegas, NV, Marsha Bentley Hale travels constantly, doing research for her upcoming book and multi-media CD about mannequins."
 

    
   
Part I: The Private Collection of Steve Martin

Steve Martin reminds me of a Magritte painting; a `fine suit' without a wrinkle yet as formally casual as a bright green apple, a color he wears well. What is the meaning, the message of this Renaissance man? A glimpse of this `private' albeit `public' man can be seen through The Private Collection of Steve Martin a selection of art he has graciously loaned to the Bellagio Fine Art Gallery in Las Vegas, including a few pictures he has donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I was allowed the privilege of viewing this collection with a `crowd' of maybe a dozen people. Quietly, I slowly viewed each artwork as Martin waxed eloquently in my ear, describing each piece, speaking about the artists, their creations and sometimes imparting his feelings about the work. Adam Gopnik, an award winning art writer and critic for The New Yorker magazine wrote the audio tour scripts. Steve Martin was not actually there, I was listening to him on a device much like a cell phone. Whoever visits the exhibit, in a sense has a private guided tour by Steve Martin the writer, the appreciator of fine art and a quintessential observer of life. His narration comes through with sincerity and the joy of having the custodianship of this collection. Added to the descriptions is a subtle touch of background music from the time period or mood of each piece.

Prior to arriving at the Bellagio Hotel, I drove through my new town, Las Vegas, past the Claes Oldenburg `in-reverse' structures; miniature Egyptian Pyramids, mini New York skyscrapers, the smaller than life Eiffel Tower etc. I was wondering, "Why have I moved to this town, this cultural mystery to me? Will this exhibit give me an answer?" and "What was the first painting Steve Martin purchased for his private collection?" As I walked into the Bellagio Fine Art Gallery, smack in front of my nose was Steve Martin's "My First Painting" Ship at Sea, nd, by James Gale Tyler. It is a mysterious ship with the moon reflecting on the water. Steve Martin purchased it for $750 when he was 21 years old, and as he states, "and today, adjusted for inflation, it's worth $750." He shows that we can all start somewhere, it is the love of art that makes one collect, not necessarily the almighty dollar and snooty sophistication.

I identified with this, as my own collecting has been done on a comparative `shoe-string' budget, yet I enjoy and absorb my pictures as I wander through my home and office daily. Every evening when I fall asleep I glance up at the painting of a young woman sitting in a small wooden boat, the moon is reflecting on the water. She was painted by my Dad's mother in 1898. Some Feng Shui books say in order to draw romance into your life you should have a picture with a moon in your bedroom - another purpose for art in your life.

I had a second question for Mr. Martin, "What piece do you treasure most?" It actually turned out to be two small drawings by Georges Seurat the 19th century French painter, Woman Reading, c. 1883 and Man Sitting Reading on a Terrace, c. 1884. These precious, understated drawings, done with sticky crayon are haunting. Martin states, "If there were a fire in this gallery, and you wanted to save only one thing from the collection, save these.' He first saw these drawings in the National Gallery in London. I pondered as to whether these drawings had the most exciting provenance? Who had previously owned the Hopper's or Picasso's in his collection? Did any of his pictures have a history of subterfuge?
 		    
   
Part II: Suburban Reflections

Turning around I walked over to two large paintings by Eric Fischl, Truman Capote in Hollywood, 1988 and Barbeque 1982. The first was a dark painting, not my vision or remembrance of the various experiences of Hollywood I've had. This painting had images of Truman Capote, Joan Crawford and an odd assortment of people in different states of undress.

I was jolted, it seemed to be a fictional docudrama in off-colored sepia earth tones based on a Twilight Zone of reality. Martin discusses the term `psychological loading' an apt term for the painting from my vantage.

As I focused on Barbeque I felt more comfortable -- sort of. There was a swimming pool behind a home in suburbia, a Dad barbequing, and a young boy eating fire, and two nude female figures in the pool. For three summers as a child I literally lived in my family's pool in the Valley (pre Valley girls). Every Sunday we had a major barbeque. I come to this painting from a different viewpoint than Mr. Martin, who states from a personal context, "As a boy growing up in Orange County, California, in the late nineteen fifties and early sixties, I felt in retrospect, like a boy eating fire in the middle of a sanguine family barbeque".

From my personal context as a girl I didn't breathe or eat fire. I was always hiding away reading Nancy Drew books or practicing the piano, when I wasn't helping with the kids in diapers. I wonder if my brothers felt like they were eating fire?

My youngest brother, who could pass for a blonde Ron Howard, was always taking apart the intercom and other electrical gadgets; I think he could be the fire-eater. Eric Fischl's painting is familiar but somehow from La La Land when I zero in on its contents; the bowl of fish, the naked women. Male artistic and sexual surrealism of the Valley? Switch over to David Hockney's The Little Splash, 1966, there is the quiet suburban dream I identified with -- architecturally succinct, not a blade of grass out of place. I could catch my breath and continue on my journey of this private collection.

Swimming over to Martin Mull's Birthday Boy XI, 2000, an `upside down cake' so to speak in terms of presenting the perfect 1950's smiling mother and sister at a young boy's birthday. The females are half clothed, half naked, seen in a sense by the boy's x-ray sexual vision. It is a variation on paper dolls, so fifties, almost like my Dad's 16mm home movies, but with the jolting humorous unspeakably forbidden sexual desert. Boys will be boys; do they really, really always have sex on their brains?

 		    
   
Part III: Interpretation of Art

We all bring our own stories, our own histories, and our own visceral feeling to these paintings. They reflect back on our own life experiences and expectations, our own mediations of life. This harkens to a scene from the movie L.A. Story written by Martin, `a mash note' to the City of Angels aka Los Angeles, and his ex.

As Martin's character Harris K. Telemacher is roller skating through the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in a piece of `performance art' being videoed surreptitiously by his best friend and neighbor Ariel, he crashes into the woman, Sara, he has a `crush' on, literally crushing her to the floor. The scene segues to a front view of Roland, Sara, Harris and Ariel the videographer.

Harris is expounding upon his vision of the painting they are all studying, which is off camera. "I like the relationship, each has his own story -- I get emotionally erect when I see a painting like this" As the camera cuts to a view of the painting we are caught off guard, it is basically a canvas of red-brown paint which he is describing, The Emperor's New Clothes, intellectual and emotional babble about the meaning, the beauty of blank artwork; false pretensions.

Of course `beauty' is in the eye of the individual beholder. If Telemacher see breasts on the blank canvas, perhaps like Harvey The Rabbit they are there, "Look at how he's painted the blouse sort of translucent, you can just make out her breasts underneath."

The theme of the translucent blouse continues as we flip to page 51 of Steve Martin's novella, Shop Girl. After Ray Porter's first date with the main character Mirabelle Buttersfield, "he had called her from his car phone with an invitation for Thursday not only because he liked her but also because there is a riddle in his mind. Upon reflection, he cannot tell if the surface he glimpsed under Mirabelle's blouse was her skin or a flesh-colored nylon underthing." For the answer you must go to page 62 of Shop Girl.

Going to grab a cup o' java while sliding through my family room, as I write this article, I pass by a portrait of myself complete with a `translucent' Kimono robe, painted by Los Angeles artist, Betty Decter. I ponder the mystery of translucence. I make a mental note next major date, `translucent blouse'.

In Martin's play, Picasso At The Lapin Agile, Picasso and Einstein pass through the same café in Paris at the turn of the 20th century, espousing some of their views of art and science in fun, farcical, serious verbal sparring with the other characters in the play. There is a painting behind the bar, of sheep in a meadow in fog. Freddy the owner of the café says that it is beautiful. Einstein interprets the value of the painting; "I prefer to take it further. Observe how the sheep are painted small, consumed by the weather and the terrain. So I see `the power of the landscape over the small things'. For me it's the meaning that gives it its value."

The first time I saw this play in Westwood, Neil Simon, the playwright, was there. The laughter of the audience that night was full and hearty. The next time I saw this play my long time beau, a doctor and inventor, was at UCLA hospital from a heart attack. The theatre was across from the hospital; I slipped away to the play by myself to wrap myself up in laughter. The theme of artist and scientist has run through my life, it is something I identify with. Today I wonder how this fictional Einstein would interpret the paintings in Steve Martin's Private Collection?
 		    
   
Part IV: Women: Some Nude, Some Not

There are a variety of pictures of nude and not nude women in the exhibition. Some are fun, some are scary, some are sexy, some are scientific, a slight cacophony of images. Roy Lichenstein's Ohhh, alright, 1964 is an example of pop artwork, as Martin imparts, "Girls with broken hearts, artists struggling for recognition, men in battle, women drowning in a swirling eddy of romance".

I liked this interpretation, it had never occurred to me. This picture reminds me of Trudi, in L.A. Story; perfect makeup, '30 minute lips', sarcasm that keeps her man on edge, perfect, high maintenance.

Martin, who had the honor and pleasure of knowing Lichenstein mentions, "Once while we were standing in his studio, he turned a painting upside-down to show me that the drawing still held."

The private collection has two sets of pictures with the title Two Women. David Parks', Two Women, 1957, imprints on my mind as, Eve and Eve.

Martin's take on this painting, "It took me a while to appreciate his work, which, like asparagus, I enjoy but can't find the words to explain exactly why." I found Willem de Kooning's Two Women, 1952, pastel on paper, to be mysterious, splashes of emotion and color - Martian & robotic yet Isadora Duncan, yet Sonia Delaunay.

Martin, "When this drawing was made in 1952, he was in the midst of producing the most powerful works of his life: a series of paintings that reflect a man's awestruck terror at the seductive, mothering power of the female." My final impression was pastel fury.

Martin discusses Lucien Freud's, Study of a Girl, 1966, "Freud's crisp nudes are not the damsels, maidens and seductresses that the nineteenth century loved so dearly. These are naked people. Blunt and unflinching, Freud's painting takes us starkly to the late twentieth century."

My first emotion when I saw this painting was sadness; it makes me want to become a vegetarian. She is meat-like to me, a Hannibal Lecter woman ready for the rotisserie spit. Was Freud being painfully, truthfully Freudian?

I am Pollyanna and will not allow myself to see the Hannibal movies. I am an unabashed `chick flick' collector. I think back to when I was sixteen in the Valley; My friend Fred (not Flicka) and I would sketch each other in charcoal on monster size pieces of paper. I wonder what the images look like today. My drawings of him were left behind, lost in a home in the forest outside Santa Cruz. Maybe he was better at archiving his artwork than I, and still has his drawings of me.

Fred helped me get over my first love, a Valley version of Romeo and Juliet. Fred and I use to spend hours talking about art, poetry, life and philosophy referring to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Hermann Hesse, Kahlil Gibran, over pots of coffee at Dyles Coffee Shop, or International House of Pancakes, or at a ramshackle place in Topanga Canyon. Sometimes we would venture over the hill to see a Fellini Movie, or the Doors at after-hours or go to LACMA to see an exhibit of Edvard Munch.

Edvard Munch's paintings as somber as they can be, do not disturb me the way Freud's, Study of a Girl did.
 		    
   
Part V: Picasso

The purity of line, the love of a woman's body is seen in Pablo Picasso's Nude, 21 Mai 1919.

Martin who has nine linear feet of books on the topic of Picasso and who is mesmerized by this artist tells us, "Here he succeeds in uniting two subtly different styles into one human form, while retaining the allure of the female body. I like the edge of daring he infuses into this simple drawing. Imagine it different, and you'll know why we are us, and Picasso is Picasso."

In Picasso at the Lapin Agile, a young woman, Suzanne, who has slept with Picasso, says to Einstein, "Want to see a drawing he gave me?" Einstein, " I never thought the twentieth century would be handed to me so casually_scratched out in pencil on a piece of paper. Tools thousands of years old, waiting for someone to move them in just this way."

In 1973 the wine makers Mouton Rothchild used a watercolor and gouache dated 22.12.59 by Picasso for the label of their Premiere Cru Classe. In the book Mouton Rothchild, Paintings for the Labels, 1945-1981, Picasso is quoted, "Nothing can be done without solitude. You'd never know how much I have to shut myself off_." (Pablo Picasso to Teriade, 1932). Even Picasso sometimes had to be a Lonely Guy_

Martin alludes to the hours spent in college libraries and museums studying art on his own, as he traversed the U.S.A performing his comedy act in nightclubs, colleges and folk clubs. He used his time to create a database of knowledge, for his `private collecting'.

I identify with this, as libraries, museums and bookstores give me a purpose wherever I travel in the world. You aren't an oddity when you are traveling alone if you have something to research (in my case mannequins, which makes some people such as businessman Al Checchi, say I am weird. Unlike Al I haven't spent 40 million on a political campaign to become the Governor of California. Who is weird?

But then again, would California be in the same boat regarding electricity if Al was now Governor?).

I realize how lucky I have been to experience the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, or the British Museum Library or the Colindale Newspaper Library of London etc. Once, I was having lunch by the river Thames at a pub in Pangbourne, England, across from a tiny train station.

I asked my friends how long it would take to go to the University of Oxford_a few minutes later I was on my way to Oxford, having my photo taken for a library pass, to do a bit of research. At the time the card catalogs were still handwritten!

I wonder what libraries Martin has studied in? Where did he find the choicest of books? What is his favorite museum? Subliminally, in his movie L.A. Story, he mentions, Victoria & Albert, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Hollywood Wax Museum, L.A. County Museum, and MOCA. Video tapes labeled with these museums sit on top of a puppet like TV theater titled Harris K. Telemacher's World of Art for viewing his performance art.

This is in a scene in which he is visiting his neighbor and best friend Ariel, to edit his performance art pieces. In the catalog for his private collection at the Bellagio, Kindly Lent their Owner, he mentions a visit to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Just think, soon he will only have to hop over to Las Vegas to view pieces from the Hermitage, now that it will have a satellite museum as a part of the new Guggenheim Museum being built at the Venetian Hotel to open in the Fall of 2001. I have sent in my CV to the Guggenheim to see if there might be a spot for me, to give me a `raison d'etre' in Las Vegas.
 		    
   
Part VI: The Guggenheim in Las Vegas

The May 2001 issue of Talk magazine mentions a meeting in January 2000 between Thomas Krens, director of the Guggenheim; Mikhail Piotrovski, head of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia; and Rob Goldstein, president of the Venetian. They decided to go over to the Bellagio Hotel to see Steve Wynn's gallery of fine art, they were pleased to find that they had to wait to get in. By June 2000 the Guggenheim Hermitage project had a green light.

Steve Wynn had opened a door for a cultural revolution in Las Vegas; The Venetian, The Guggenheim and The Hermitage made the major leap to join in.

Pablo Picasso's Seated Woman, 1938 is compared by Martin to the three concentric waves of the city of Barcelona; the oldest inner city, surrounded by the middle city, which is surrounded by the Modern city. This colorful puzzle of a cubist painting reminds me of the warmth of Barcelona, with a dash of Jean Paul Gaultier and vintage Norma Kamali.

This takes me back to all the times, and all the cities in which I have spent hours and days tracking down obscure Picasso Museums; Barcelona, Madrid, Paris, and Lucerne... Each museum has its own niche. One wonders all the worlds this painting Seated Woman has seen.

A parallel painting in boldness of color to Seated Woman is Cubist Head, c. 1916 by Stanton MacDonald-Wright. It too is bold in color, but it is much more abstract. Is this male or female? Whichever, as the catalogue mentions, "This MacDonald-Wright hides a tender human face, built only with triangles of color."

The pencil drawing on vellum, Eyes Astray (Pystis Sophia), 1955 by John Graham of a female head that is beautiful in ways, yet is off-putting in its calculated irony, or `serious comedy'. Despite the elfin ear, and the one eye askew, she has serenity.

This picture of Graham's reminds me of how a plastic surgeon prepares for surgery, drawing on his patient's faces with his marks-a-lot, only her hair would also be twisted into funny little pony tails. I write from recent experience, as between paragraphs and pages of this article my plastic surgeon Neil Klein, MD drew on my face and put my hair in little ponytails. However, he didn't use any astrological signs, or obscure Latin words. I did find out though that he had studied art before switching to Medical school, a blessing. So far I don't look like Picasso's Seated Woman.

Hopefully, just as Steven Martin's Eyes Astray (Pystis Sophia), "still maintains an unaltered seriousness" so will my new face, yet with the laugh lines around the eyes still readable and enjoying life.

Cindy Sherman is her own theatre unto herself. Her self-portrait, Untitled Film Still, 1979, is a black and white photo that takes you back to the B movies of the late 50's and early 60's. Over the years she has reinvented the characters in her self-portraits, some mysterious, some jolting, some playful.

In my mannequin archives there is only one folder dealing with Cindy Sherman, it is a very poor Xerox of an article written by David Goldsmith. She veers into overt sexuality in the mannequin photos. Her photo in the exhibit has a softer contemplative edge. Martin speaks of Sherman, "It took us awhile to realize that all the diverse characters in her photos were her. She created a moody body of work that was at once sultry, conceptual, and girly."

I am a contemporary of Sherman's, in that I was experimenting with my first self-portraits in photography at UCLA in the late 70's. In one class we had an assignment for a self-portrait. My first attempt was ordinary, dressed in a Norma Kamli bathing suit cum leotard. I was thin as a twig, 99 lbs, 5'6", sounds a bit like Mirabelle in Shop Girl.

My former brother-in-law used to call me the `red toothpick' when I was dressed in my bright red Norma Kamali sweatpants outfit and four inch platform shoes. I went to the photo lab on Westwood Blvd. to make prints and while the prints were drying someone stole them. I guess they liked twigs.

The next day I conferred with the teacher's assistant of my class, I was disheartened. He offered to allow me the use of some unique light sensitive photo paper, which was three foot wide on a huge roll housed at his studio (said the spider to the fly_just kidding). That afternoon I drove to his studio. With all lights turned out we cut an eight-foot length of photo paper and laid it on the floor. I quickly undressed, laid down naked, front side flat, on the paper; he flashed a flashlight around me.

In the dark, faster than the speed of light I dressed, we then put the paper through a huge custom size pan of developer, and then cleared it through fresh water. We then hung it up on a line to dry. We did this twice. Needless to say I got an A on the assignment.

My self-portrait body-print stayed in storage for fourteen years. While I was working as a consultant at DreamWorks SKG in 1995, helping set up the animation archives, it was announced that there would be an art show at the Animation Campus featuring the artwork of employees, not just the animation artists. I hadn't felt like an artist in years, I had founded my corporation, which coordinated film and fine art archives in 1986.

I was always organizing other people's creativity. This gave me a boost; I decided to have the 8' tall body print framed. On the opening day of the in-house, courtyard exhibit I ran into Jeffrey Katzenburg. Without thinking about appropriate word selection I asked him if he had seen me, to which he replied with a laugh, "All of you."

Hmmm, sounds like a movie title, All of Me - All of You.

For six months the 8-foot tall body print resided at the end of the hall on the third floor of the animation building. I went to collect it when they were ready to move to their new animation campus, whose architect, Steven Erhlich is a friend and someone I had wanted to be involved in the design of my Mannequin Museum someday.

Perhaps Las Vegas will allow that project to come out of mothballs as I develop the Virtual Mannequin Museum on a website. As I sit here at my computer I look up to a pen and ink with watercolor rendering of my Mannequin Museum, designed by Deborah Richmond for her Master's Thesis in Architecture.
 		    
   
Part VII: Couples

Photographer Denise Truscello, of The Las Vegas Review-Journal took a photo of me as I studied the pencil and watercolor on paper by Charles Demuth, In Vaudeville; Soldier and Girl Friend, 1915.

I thought I was in her way, but she had wanted me in the shot. We started talking, she had just moved to Las Vegas from a six-year jaunt in Paris, France. Like me, why was she here in this city, a cultural mystery to us both?

Slowly I am making friends from various parts of Europe here in Las Vegas. As I turned back to the picture I felt the warmth of the yellow sphere, and the girlfriend's dress. I felt the warmth of the couple. It is a sweet, soft and loving picture.

Two bolder representations of couples are by John Koch. The first is The Accident #2, 1968, in which you can actually feel the heat and humidity of the room encompassing the artist and his model. They are both looking out the window at an accident down on the street, I believe in New York. He is casual in pants and a t-shirt; she is more than casual, stark naked.

As they peer below at the accident, they are oblivious that she may well create Accident #3. Are they lovers? `Peut-etre'. Koch was a painter who painted to the beat of his own drummer, he did not follow the painting trends of others as stated in the catalog, " -- these pictures have the feeling of nineteenth century genre paintings that feature placid scenes from daily life, but with a healthy dose of sensuality."

As we slide left a few paintings away to Koch's Lovers, 1970 we see a couple at an in-between stage of matter of fact intimacy. It is casual; he lies back nude on the bed possibly studying her backside while she in her nudeness lifts her red dress above her head.

There are none of the romantic touches of him helping her off with her dress. It is all routine, matter of fact. It appears that his pants and shirt are folded neatly over the back of a chair; he gets a few points for neatness, but loses a few points for romance and passion. Both paintings have dashes of red. The first has a red sheet, the second has a red dress; perhaps a subtle reference to passion `between the lines' or in Accident #2, `between the sheets'.
 		    
   
Part VIII: Landscapes of Sorts and Psychedelic

I am personally drawn to the seemingly simplistic feeling of graphite on paper, perhaps due to the memories of drawing exercises at UCLA that took total concentration, involving wrapping a square piece of cardboard with black plastic, plumped up with little wads of newspaper and tied with string.

It was an exercise to teach us the complexity of shadow and light, drawing every highlight and hue of the black plastic, and then focusing on texture, drawing the string every hair awry. Vija Celmins', Untitled, 1980 has depicted Saturn and the surface of Mars with that clean graphite feel incorporating acrylic as well.

Martin questions, "Is she drawing the surface of Mars, or is she drawing a photograph?" In a sense both Celmins and April Gornik's Light after Heat, 1998 are landscapes. Gornik's would more aptly be called a landscape from her mind. Celmins is a landscape from outer space. The surface of the moon in Celmins picture looks as though it is lit through a microscope. Gonik's `mind-scape' has contrasting dark with pink brilliance and reflection.

Martin says that this work hangs by a window with an ocean view, yet his eye always goes to her painting first. It must be a powerful piece to him to usurp the ocean.

I have lived three-quarters of my life by the ocean; over the water on Pacific Coast Highway or the Old Road in Malibu, complete with pounding surface, seals and pelicans; On the Strand in Manhattan Beach where every night when you came home from school or work your soul would melt gently with the sunset.

A block from the ocean with a sunset view of Malibu, it was torture to be that far from the sand and surf; On a boat in Marina del Rey, sweet but too flat and calm. On two Malibu mountains with an expansive view of the ocean, one had deer and a house with thin walls; the other was an artists Architectural dream, but you had to drive up the driveway backwards at what seemed like a 45 degree angle and the brand new walls were filled with rats that liked my rare books and red onions.

I can never imagine looking at a painting before the almighty ocean. That is major piece of my soul that is missing in Las Vegas. I have one painting across from my Grand Piano that depicts a women looking out a window at herself and a child on the sand by the ocean, it is painted by my friend Stephanie Farago and is called Checkmate. That is my one link to the ocean.

For now my art is my personal landscape, my personal spiritual salvation. Steve Martin's Private collection has opened up a creative Pandora's Box in me, it has been taking me on a personal journey of the past and present that I hadn't expected. Perhaps I should have made a deal with the rats in Malibu.

At first when I saw the title Acid Story, 1983-84 on the painting by Neil Jenney, I have to admit I flashed back to the days of psychedelics. Did this painting have something to do with someone tripping out on LSD? Then I realized it was a painting dealing with environmental issues, a dying tree, probably affected by acid rain.

It is framed in what Martin calls a "black funereal frame." The description states, "One gets the feeling that something chilling is going on just outside the picture, that Jenney denies showing us the devastation that our imagination is quickly conjuring."

Environmental destruction is something that is close to my heart. I am currently working on a play called, "Smog." When I first went off to college at the beautiful UC campus in the forest in Santa Cruz, I would fly back to my homeland, L.A. and cry silently when I saw the Smog from my plane window. As I travel the world over I cry silently as I see the Smog enveloping so many cities.

For five years I worked with botanists, geologists, surveyors, attorney's, tow-truck operators, demolition specialists, dump truck drivers, tractor operators and the L.A. County Sheriff's, cleaning up property in the Malibu Mountains that had been raped and pillaged. Ironically, one of the `rapists' use to pop acid like aspirin; Acid Story #2.

The 'overloaded' male featured in Robert Crum's Weirdo #8, nd is amazingly detailed. At first impression one thinks `cartoon', yet it has a level beyond cartoon that seems to be dealing with the stresses and pressures of contemporary society. Pushed to the limit this guy has seen too much, and if I am seeing correctly has very odd shaped sperm forging ahead in the lower framework. It deals with depression "and other stories about people whose nerves are shot." Crumb is famous for his Keep on Truckin' drawing.

Martin acknowledges its influence on him, "One look at his famous Keep on Truckin' drawing with its exaggerated profiles of three characters strutting, and I realize that some of my own exaggerated body movements on stage in the late 1970's can be traced back to Crumb."

It was during the late seventies that I first saw Steve Martin at Royce Hall at UCLA. This is when his book Cruel Shoes was published. One vignette is titled, The Steve Martin Collection of American Art: The Man Behind The Genius. Martin jests, "The collection was to be shown at the Metropolitan in the winter of this year, but Martin withdrew the offer suddenly. `These paintings were never meant to be shown during daylight saving time.' " No wonder the Bellagio exhibit opened up post daylight saving time...
 		    
   
Part IX: Solitude

February 13, 2001 Adam Gopnik e-mailed to Steve Martin, "Do you know that you have a deep, nearly exclusive, pull towards single plaintive figures, isolated against shadowy backgrounds, yet leaning (literally) either toward a place outside the confines of their frame, or (as in Bacon, Seurat) towards a glowing, possibly transcendent object near at hand? And what do you suppose this means?"

Francis Bacon, Study for Portrait, 1966 is as Martin describes, "_chilling, psychological, bleak. Bacon's early pictures portray images that seem to come from the deep, animal brain, and the presence of anguish is felt in all his subsequent works." This description links me to my first memory of a painting at age four, The Potato Eaters, by Vincent van Gogh; my parents started taking me to museums at an early age. This painting is imprinted on my soul. The characters did not horrify me as a child; instead they gave me an appreciation for character.

The color pencil drawing of Andy Warhol drawn by David Hockney in Paris, 1974, is `solitude' fading out or emerging from the chair, depending on how you look at it. What was Warhol thinking about as Hockney drew him? Did Warhol ever draw or paint Hockney? This drawing is so calm, such a contrast to my teenage memories of the wild worlds that Warhol promoted. As spoken in the audio tour, "David Hockney is the master of cool distance."

A solitary figure, Edward Hopper's, Captain Upton's House, 1927, is imbued with the silent character. Martin relates, "... I can think of only one other who can isolate a figure in a room with the same intensity, and that is Vermeer." Though the house is not a figure in a room, it is a figure in the story of the painting. He goes on to write, "One can sense the interior of the house, feel the wicker chairs on the porch that are just beyond view, that there is really someone living inside."

With all of my world travels I have somehow had few adventures on the East Coast. Through cut and paste of my imagination, I cut away the lighthouse and imagine this is the grey clapboard house I lived in on the Strand in Manhattan Beach while I was going to UCLA and Cal Arts. I evolved from fine artist, to video art (Nam Jun Paik was one of my teachers), to live action film to mannequin historian.

I made my first trip to France, then my first trip to England (doing research at the Westminster Abbey) and finally my five-week solo research trip traveling the trains in seven countries. I can still smell the ocean, hear the waves, see the sunsets and hear the lightning cracking in the August rains from the window in that clapboard house.. You can see my 'cut and paste' house if you rent Tequilla Sunrise, written and directed by Robert Towne, starring Mel Gibson, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kurt Russell and Raul Julia. It was torn down after the movie was made.

The woman in the red dress and hat peering out the hotel window in Edward Hopper's appropriately named, Hotel Window, 1955 personifies what I sometimes feel as I travel the world alone. She is lost in her own thoughts, perhaps waiting for someone, perhaps not. There is a yin and a yang to traveling alone. You can do whatever you want to, no one can stop you from going to museums, or bookstores or shopping for clothes or music or whatever.

You can take time to write about your observations. You can be more open to meeting people from new worlds. The sad part can be that you do not have someone to share the wondrous treasures of your adventures, or someone to hold hands with, or someone to have a nice meal and fine glass of wine with topped off with conversation and laughter.
 		    
   
Part X: Who Is Steve Martin?

Take a look at Eric Fischl's portrait of Steve (Steve Martin), 1998. It is so casual, an open Californian so to speak, except he won't let you see into his eyes, he blocks out the entrance to his soul with his sunglasses.

Yet, his smile alludes to happiness, perhaps the happiness that comes from enveloping oneself in nature, the sand and surf, plus maybe taking off from work for a bit. How is it that Mike Nichols co-owns this painting? Do they do a time-share? - A month in Mexico, a month in Italy, a month in Malibu?

Actually, Martin explains that he and Mike Nichols both have self-portraits that they exchanged, "in a futile demonstration of humility."

I for one appreciate that Martin has shared this collection with the public. Over the years I have cataloged private art collections, artwork that will rarely if ever be seen by the public. Sometimes I'm passing through a museum and I see one of the precious pictures that I have had personal contact with while cataloging it. It pleases me when I see the work being shared.

Just as Steve Martin has had the joy of absorbing his collection over the years, I have had the joy of absorbing many collections in private settings. Sometimes this has been healing for me just as I am sure Martin's pictures have nurtured his soul or given him pause to laugh at the absurdities of life.

The Private Collection of Steve Martin has a nice blend, what one might call good Feng Shui. He balances absurdity, suburbia, female figures, couples, environment, pop art, comic art and solitude. I suddenly realize that the only male portraiture I have in my home and office is of three animation characters; Fievel the mouse, Homer Simpson and The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. It is time to Feng Shui my private collection and find `mates' for all my `female' pictures.

My appreciation of Steve Martin has grown as he has evolved in his writing. One film that is dear to my heart is A Simple Twist of Fate, based on the classic novel Silas Marner by George Eliot. I am still curious as to how C.D. Bales sipped wine with his nose in his film Roxanne, based on the play Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. Notice how he made Roxanne the blonde, a scientist (Thank you Steve).

I am currently reading his book of plays, WASP, illustrated by Martin Mull. Following his theme of artist and scientist in Picasso at the Lapin Agile, he could write a one-man play with Leonardo da Vinci.

Steve Martin is giving back to Las Vegas, a community that helped form him as a young comedian. I thought Elvis Presley was out of context in his Picasso play, now I think I understand. Presley is a part of Martin's history in Las Vegas. No one ever really knows someone else. Out of life experience our pathways can change without notice. His private collection stirred up memories and emotions I had neatly tucked away for years.

Every morning when I wake up and go down stairs to brew my coffee, I smile, as I look at the portrait my seven year old niece, Caitlyn drew of me a few months ago; it is taped to my refrigerator. As I wrap up this article, I stop by to glance at an ink drawing my Uncle Nathan Cabot Hale, artist and author, created for me when I was four. It is a labyrinth with words, "The labyrinth of Crete an Universal condition of mankind. Wherein he turns his instincts into Monsters. Done in homage to one Mrs. Plomis age four- with hope that she may bear always a sword and ball of twine for her lovers." My private collection is truly private, and no wonder I always dream of labyrinths -- mystery solved.

I have tried to blend together some of the aspects of Steve Martin, in other words `The Fine Art of Steve Martin', as I see it from the personal perspective of an L.A. Woman transplanted to Las Vegas. Hopefully my perspective of his art collection and some of his writings gives a slightly different puzzle work of him.

Perhaps you will explore your own environment and make certain you have filled it with pictures that bring joy into your everyday world. I still don't know why I am in Las Vegas, at least The Private Collection of Steve Martin made me explore and experience. I hope you are able to visit the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art or explore your local museum, or library, honing the Fine Art of Yourself.

On my flight from Las Vegas to Los Angeles the other day, I sat next to a darling Asian woman from Maui. I assumed her to be in her sixties. She had stayed at the Bellagio Hotel. I asked if she had seen The Steve Martin Private Collection. She said she had and she enjoyed it, she added, "I like his hair. I always watch him when he is on TV."

It turns out she had a son who is 61 one years old, this fan of Steve Martin was at least 78. The meaning and his message have spread to a very wide audience however it is interpreted; perhaps that is the True Art of Steve Martin.		  
       
   
   
   
   
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