Jim Bassler, Zoom
36" x 38" hemp
linen, indigo dye;
2008
Another friend, David Touster's mother
Sondra collected important Art Deco and
his stepfather, Al Ordover, amassed contemporary art. In their house on Malcolm
Avenue in Westwood I saw my first Josef
Beuys, a larger than life-sized felt suit suspended from the banisters of their curving staircase. This presence of art, fine
or decorative, in a private house was a
revelation more powerful than anything I
saw in the L.A. County Museum. There
were, I was learning, people, not necessarily rich, who made a point of living with
beautiful and interesting things.
Slowly I put together a little library of Dutton/Studio Vista paperback titles: Art
Nouveau, Art Deco, The Bauhaus, De
Stijl, and I was astonished to encounter,
from time to time, friends' parents who
owned the things I coveted from these
pages. I credit the few books and houses
I knew at that time with my lifelong obsession with decorative arts, or what I call
objects of use.
"Life is short, art is long," said Goethe.
In the two and a half years I spent at
University High, a penitentiary of a high
school, I cobbled together an artistic life
from the scattered spoils of Los Angeles,
HYLAND
