Searching For The High White Note-With The 20^th Century Artist Stuart Davis In Mind

By Lance Lawrence

…..dazzled by the shapes, the colors, the angles and the combinations at the big retrospective of Stuart Davis’ work featured at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. in January, 2017

The end of the American frontier formed by the splash of the Pacific Ocean kiddie-cornered his dream of catching that high white note that Johnny blowing that big sax to heaven, the Prez blowing a bigger sax to that same destination, Louie when he cared about such matters, the Duke always, always tweaking his mood poems in sound to eke out the thing he saw coming through Cotton Club jungle nights up in kingdom Harlem with all those Mayfair swells sucking the life out of whatever the touched and he/they had to wait until after hours, after the clubs closed, the tables washed down, the chairs stacked and the fucking front door shut against the swell night and blow amongst themselves tethered by a little Johnny Walker, the best friend an artist ever had if you believed the advertisements, tethered too by a little weed, watch out for your precious club license, letting it all hang out, letting the notes blow out the door, no, the window that fucking door is locked against all perdition, blow out to the China sea once it crossed to the frontier’s end in Frisco town and you could just see the thing float around the rust colored golden gate and in the mist then back again making another world of tobaccos, bull durham, fis it man papers to roll your own and dream of tall-masted ships sitting in the harbor after a day’s haul on in the high seas, out in the Banks, bringing in food for thought and hungers that those Mayfair swells would never know and then he had an idea, had an idea like a million other Americans with ideas and with no desire to trespass against the borders of the burgeoning American scene he started to blow his own white note, decided, no, was impelled by those Art League dreams to put speed, put the fast pony express, telegraph, telephone, television, telepathy, speed, the rust to the subway, to the highway ,the freeway, the railroad track the runway, the fast up and down of daily existence, the hurly-burly of Ritz cracker existences, of milk cow sorrows, of pretty cities with funny names and funnier storefronts with even funnier names and you could feel the restless energy behind the placard placid scene, and turn the bell into buoy into bell tower in light house into all kinds of exotic lines and angel angles for effect, for the visions of the gone world that he tried to address, address through clipped scissors like some modern day Matisse dancing figures superimposed on crescent moons, triangular prisms, squares squared before anybody even knew what square was in a candid world, threw a pentagon, no, not that Pentagon which was only a military thought back then, hexed a hexagon, didn’t touch heptagon how could he and axed an octagon just for effect while finally, finally putting those forms together on a big placard proclaiming to one and all, maybe to the candid world again that “artists must not starve” and other such idealistic ideas and you know what he was right except nobody told him that not starving did not mean drinking up an ocean of gin, an ocean of Johnny Walker Red, and ocean of, oh well you get the picture and if you don’t picture, picture a guy who if you met him on the street might have thought that he had come out of the nearest pool hall after successfully hustling Fast Eddie out of cigar and booze money, and maybe a few bucks for art supplies, yeah a character out of a Bogie movie except he could those shapes, those triangles, those squares, those pentagons and you know which one I don’t mean, those hexed hexagons, forget the hepts and curlicue the octagons and blow pretty blues, stark blacks, ruby red lipped reds, ocean, no, China seas, blues, that blue-green before the big blow and maybe just maybe capture that damn elusive high white note-hell he tried.                          

….and, and then he started to do the whole thing over again, and again and again each time haunted by the search for that high white note that Duke, Johnny, the Prez, Charlie and even Louie when he cared about such thing spent restless after hour nights behind fucking closed doors full of bad whiskey and seedy herb blowing out to the great big mist-filled night without rest. Thanks, brother, thanks.