Gregory de la Haba

March 15, 2012A McSorley's Tale of Love for St. Patrick's Day
Originally published in the Southampton Review, 2007, but written three years earlier on the eve of artist de la Haba's one-man show at Glucksman Ireland House, NYU; the McSorley's Sketchbook series consisted of charcoal drawings and pastels of the famous saloon created between 1995-2004 and shown in conjunction with the bar's 150th Anniversary celebrations. Pulitzer Prize winning author Frank McCourt wrote the show's catalog essay.
#mcsorleys #love #art #StPatrick

A Letter From The Artist To His Muse


Nine years ago, on January 5th to be exact, you walked into my studio for the first time, to pose for a portrait at your father's request. Meeting him in the bar a few months prior, I recall how he wanted something special to commemorate your being the first female bartender in McSorley's history. The suggestion of a portrait sounded like a great idea.

You thought he was crazy to send you off to a stranger's studio, and I remember how awkward you felt. How nervous you were standing there for me, in the middle of a 2,000 square foot room with no furnishings, atop a huge old factory building nearly vacant. A single easel, some newly stretched canvases, a piece-of-shit radio, and a nightstand filled with the needed materials were all that occupied the space, except, of course, for me, but my own anxiousness did little to help settle the mood, one that seemed heightened and framed, almost, by the dark gray walls and yards of opaque black fabric that covered all the 16-foot high windows, save for a few feet off the tops of those that faced north. And of all the things I could have said on the way up the elevator, I went with the first stupid thing that came to mind: I told you that they killed cats on the third floor and used their guts to make strings for musical instruments.

I was fully aware how difficult the task at hand was for you. My eyes studied every detail, and for you, it felt like I was looking you up and down. I searched for that perfect pose, telling you to posture your body this way and that. Ten unobstructed feet between us, and you continued to make the adjustments I asked, but never looking right at me and clearly still not believing your father's request. A chair to rest your hand upon, a prop to lean against-it would have made things easier for both of us, but I wanted to see you.

I wanted to see you with nothing else around, nothing to distract. The way you looked like that, paradoxically, was making things way too damn difficult. How can anyone complain of a poorly executed portrait if the subject is ugly? If the artist fucks up, the sitter can easily be blamed.

But I was left to get beauty right.

The fact that the proprietor of my favorite bar granted me this first big commission exactly one week after my return to New York from my formal training in Boston was unbelievable to me. All those years of patronage at the bar paid off! Up until then, no one paid me as much for a portrait as your father did (and not too many since). The thought of failing kept at me.

I want to apologize (just a little) at the pleasure I took in watching you not know what to do with yourself. Your naïveté was my amusement, the only distraction from my own uncertainty. I remember asking, "What kind of music do you like?" and before you could reply I suggested Van Morrison, thinking to myself that it was the only "Irish" music that I had. I would learn soon enough that my "McSorley's girl" was as Irish as a Chinese fortune cookie was Chinese. For the time being, I though myself an idiot to have offered "Brown-Eyed Girl" as Irish diversion-as if Notre Dame's boys were a bunch of Celts.

And really, in the course of our sittings, it took no time at all for me to lose complete hold of the artist-in-charge-of-his-subject role. The size of the commission. The work it would take. You, Teresa. My anxiousness took the form of questions. "Are you OK? You sure? Is it cold? Hot? Change the music? Need a break? Coffee? Still-lifes, landscapes, hired sitters, this was a world different. Easier! It's no wonder it took three sittings to even start the damn thing, but it does make sense: it finally got clear that we both were in a similar boat. At that, you encouraged me: "Gregory, I'm fine. If there's one thing my father taught me, it is never to bother a man while he's working."

I've been comfortably working alongside you ever since. The loft became our home soon after the portrait was finished. Right now, I am looking through the French doors that separate the studio from our living space, that first portrait of you hanging on the far side of the room, beneath the latest one, created three days before the birth of our son Matthew. Thank you for him. Thank you for a-musing me all this time.

It is freezing out today, like many of those first times you came here, bringing the gift of coffee. The light this time of year is my favorite, cool, crisp, soothing. I don't know where I'm going with these recollections, Teresa, just like at times I haven't always known where I'm going with my art-or why I bother. But it is a much different feeling on the occasion of these works. I know exactly why-and for whom-they were created. I love you.

p.s. thank your father for me

-Gregory de la Haba