09/14/2024
So yesterday was a special day at the Laboratory! I got a text from a long time friend Dee Dee. She and I were both students of Ed’s back in the day and I know this will be controversial for those who took classes with him… but we were his favorites! Ha ha!
Dee Dee was in town for a few personal reasons and wanted to go to the Barnes. It was Ed’s laboratory and then became mine… so of course to see Dee Dee and go to the lab? Winning!
She lived in NYC and would drive down every weekend to take classes, so she had never been! I was shocked, because all of the paintings we would talk about over and over throughout the years, she had only seen in books and in Ed’s lessons…
Well we both ran around the Barnes like punch drunk crazy people… going from painting to painting… Dee Dee taking photos of ones she had never seen… Soutine was one of her idols and you could hear her excitement when ever we got in front of one…
This painting was memorable… she walked into the room and made a b-line for the painting… Covered her mouth and her eyes welled up. She swooned over the beauty and the significance of the painting…
She looked over at me, with wet eyes… searching for her words, when I told her that Ed once told me that this was his favorite painting at the Barnes. We both basked in the serendipity of the day… to be among friends, past and present. To be moved by art and to have it be shared so deeply…
We are planning on going again soon as, luckily for me, the second floor was closed for renovations and that meant she had to come back! Ha ha!
Paul Cézanne
The Flowered Vase (Le Vase Fleuri)
Barnes Foundation
Btw… the colors on this image from the Barnes Website does not do it justice… it is vibrant and glowing… it is like fireworks!