Inspiration

Yesterday, Joel and I went to interview an old family friend of his. Edmund Epstein, now 76, (Eddie to Joel; Mr. Epstein to me) is a Joyce scholar. He was a friend to Joel’s father, John Gardner. More than a friend. In Epstein’s words, a challenger, a discussion partner, a critic, a confidant, an office-mate at SIU where they both taught, starting in the mid-‘sixties. Eddie described his intellectual relationship to John Gardner succinctly, “I was his whetstone.”

Joel is making a movie about his father, and this interview with Epstein was fundamental to a complete portrayal. The Gardner and Epstein families were close, and our drive out to Port Washington, on Long Island, was layered with many emotions; not just the mission of capturing the interview on camera.

John Gardner worked Epstein into a number of characters in several books. His book Sunlight Dialogs is dedicated to Epstein.

Epstein describes himself and John as opposites. While John was the spontaneous one, Epstein was (still is) the planner, the orderly one. In John’s books, he often portrays the fight in life as being between the sinister intentions of those who advocate order and the procreative power those who incarnate spontaneity.

And even to this very day, 25 years after the death of his friend John, Epstein said he still has discussions with him in his head. Whenever he feels himself being too much the planner, too much the orderly one, then he hears John’s voice in his head, challenging him, fighting with him. Inspiring him.

As you walk into the Epstein home, you feel as if you are in the trough of a huge wave of books that are about to crash on top of you and rumble you into eons of literature. Almost every wall is lined with floor to ceiling bookshelves. And every shelf is full and overflowing with books and documents and sheaves of papers, artworks, photographs, placed sideways on top of the books. There are books on tables, stacks on the floor, piles on sills. Albums, volumes, catalogs. A whole collection of bibles. King James, Luther. English, German.

It is the home of a scholar. Of a family of believers in that precept that the mind not only has the freedom to roam far and wide, but that is has an obligation to journey. Not ride through the landscape and be casual observer of ideas, but to strap on the hiking boots and struggle off the beaten path, force the mind up the mountains of Joyce or Blake and down into the valleys of Nietzsche.

But what drew my immediate attention as soon as I entered their home was a framed print on one wall spared of book shelves, perhaps because it was too narrow between window and door. I had instantly recognized the artist even though I was still too far away to appreciate the details. Leonard Baskin.

Of course Baskin would hang in this house. Baskin was exactly that artist who believed in challenging the mind and spirit and every preconception we might have about life and death.

Epstein came over while I eyed the print up closely. I noticed it was dedicated personally to Edmund Epstein and named “The Death of the Laureate.”

We fell into a discussion of Baskin. But it wasn’t until the end of our entire afternoon with Epstein that I fully appreciated how much of a hand-in-glove Baskin was in this home. Baskin was the spontaneous. The challenger of the orderly. And just as Eddie kept having mental discussions with his old sparring partner John, so too does he keep Baskin on the wall as a reminder that death and disorder and the dark are depths that need to be plumbed, need to be understood in order to taste emotions such as fear, absence and longing.

I have two Baskin works in my home. About 15 years ago, before I even knew who Baskin was, I came across a huge print of his in a shop in Maine. The print was of a man’s face in the worst contorted anguish that you can imagine. Off to the corner, was the signature juxtaposition of Baskin’s work: a bird. The work is called “Torment.”

I was stunned and discussed with my wife at the time for weeks whether we could afford the $1,500 it would cost to buy this work of art. We discussed the sanity of spending such a large sum of money. For what? What practical value was there in spending that kind of money on art?

Ultimately, we bought the piece. Art is emotional, not logical. And ultimately we knew something then that we couldn’t articulate ourselves, but an art dealer put into words for me years later when I wanted to buy my second piece by Baskin.

I wanted to buy a piece of his sculpture. Even though Baskin is more known for his prints since there are more of them in the world than his sculpture, he identified himself as a sculptor. The least expensive piece of sculpture the gallery had was a piece about a foot high and cost $15,000. By this time in my life, I had a well-paying job, but even so... to me, this was an outrageous sum of money to spend on art. My god, it was the price of car.

I told the gallery owner I could not afford the piece. He was very calm and almost reserved, but said very clearly, “Well, you probably can, but what you are really saying is that you don’t want to afford it. We all make choices in life, and if this is what you really wanted, you would rearrange your financial priorities to be able to afford it. And because you would be rearranging your priorities, you would be rearranging your values. And it would begin to affect every choice in your life. In other words, it would change your life.”

Nice words, but I told him I just didn’t have that kind of money, nor could I take a loan. Not necessary, he said. He said I should mention any sum of money that I could afford on an annual basis and he would accept annual payments for as long as I wanted to stretch it out, until I finally owned the piece. Until then, of course, the piece would reside in his gallery.

I was stunned. I offered a $1,000 per year. Done, said he. In fifteen years, I would take the piece home.

Why did I do that? Because, as a writer, I have struggled with the extent to which my creativity is my vocation or merely an avocation. Having Baskin hanging in my study is a constant motivator to me. He is an artist I admire because of his attention to detail, his fearlessness in presenting the undesirable, his knowledge and inclusion of humanity’s history into all of his work. And every time I sit down to write, I think that if I can achieve a small fraction of that, I will be happy.

Perhaps similar to what John Gardner meant when he said words to the effect of: “Whenever I feel I have written a great book, I re-read the first page of Moby Dick.”

After making payments for two years, I lost my good income. I went to the gallery and brought home another print instead of the sculpture. I have had just as much enjoyment and inspiration from that print.

On the five-hour car ride back from the Epstein home to Boston, I told Joel this whole story in much more detail as such car rides elicit.

As I came to the end of the story, it suddenly occurred to me that it might not be the end of the story. You see, my mother died last year, and there is a small inheritance coming. Just enough to allow me to make a call to that gallery and find out where that piece of inspiration is.