Observing the Observer: Alex Gardega

When I met Alex Gardega, it was a late afternoon in 2011, and I was sitting at the bar at Coffee Shop in Union Square. I’d just had my hair cut, colored slightly blonde and blown straight and silky, but I had nowhere particular to go. I went to the bustling Brazilian-American lounge for my favorite Sesame Chicken salad, and maybe a Mojito. (Good hair requires some sort of celebration, right?)

I was reading and trying to write while savoring the delicious salad, when the cute guy next to me leaned over and, with a slight Southern drawl, staring straight ahead rather than at me, asked, “Are you a writer?”

It was kind of strange. How did he know? In New York, I suppose, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel, guessing someone’s a writer since there are so many of us. I had a book out, and a computer, I think, or maybe it was notebook, but still.

I shrugged, noncommittal as usual about my ‘writer’ status. “I’m trying…” I said.

He nodded in understanding. “I’m an artist,” he said. “A famous one.”

He proceeded to show me some of his work—his haunting ‘lost souls,’ in perfect seeping watercolor; his quirky colorful “sketchy folk” cartoons; his intricate etchings in glass. I was duly impressed.

hillaryblog

fifthavesnow

sketchy fish

He spoke of the attentions he’d gotten in the news—The Post and Daily News among others--and it was my turn to nod in understanding. Oh, how we artists in New York City want to be recognized for doing our thing. We do it anyway, we have to, but it’s nice to get some attention, not to mention money.

Alex and I connected that day, two wandering sometimes-wayward artists, and we stayed in touch. The accent was Texan, I was to discover, where he was born and lived before growing up mostly in Long Island. He’d been drawing since he was 3. It was in him, and had to get out.

I called on Alex to donate something for my boys’ school auction, and he gave me a gorgeous nude (that I should have bought myself.) I went to see the rendition of the Sistine Chapel he was painting on the ceiling of his Upper East Side apartment.

We talked about doing a comic strip together about the weird world of Park Slope motherhood called Planet Slope, and he brilliantly designed the logo but it got put on the back burner. He left the country for a while to study with Dutch painter Odd Nerdrum, but I caught up with him after he returned and joined him for a painting class he was doing in a bar on the Upper East Side. Amazed at what I was able to do with his help, I immediately decided to hire Alex to teach a class.

In February of 2015, we started weekly InspireCorps “Arts’ N Eats” workshops with Alex at Dizzy’s on 5th in Park Slope. I dare say, everyone was inspired. We learned to fearlessly put paintbrushes to canvas, in large part because Alex didn’t accept fear or negativity.

“Everyone can paint,” he said, popping over when people got stuck to patiently and decisively fix a cloud or a tree that had gone awry. After two hours, we walked away with finished paintings--good ones-- the same images but uniquely different, uniquely us.

Alex is a great artist and teacher of art because he has faith in the ability of humans to express themselves. I can almost see his eyes roll back in his head as he reads that, hear the curses under his breath. “Damn liberal mumbo jumbo,” he might say, if I asked him to comment. But I didn’t.

I guess that’s what drew me to Alex, and what keeps me fascinated in him and his art, how amazingly expressive it is, no matter who it pisses off or on, as the case was recently when Alex got a literal ton of press for creating a sculpture of a “Pissing Pug” and placing it beside the bronze sculpture of “Fearless Girl” across from Wall Street’s “Charging Bull.”

While Alex is politically right, and I am…well, I’m somewhere left of him…we tend to agree about a lot of things. We discussed the hypocrisy of people and the sometimes-unproductive posturing and labels that don’t necessarily serve the average citizen on a drive we took last week to the Brandywine River Museum in Chadd’s Ford, Pa.

I hadn’t seen Alex in a while, but I love reading his blog and emails. Whatever his opinions, Alex is always direct about them, political correctness be…pissed upon. I saw that he was planning to visit Brandywine for a retrospective on Andrew Wyeth, and I immediately reached out to see if I could join him. I’ve been to the museum before, first with my father, who is a painter and loves Wyeth, many years ago, and more recently with my husband and kids. It is an incredible place, full of paintings from Andrew Wyeth and his father, Treasure Island illustrator N.C. Wyeth, as well as Andrew’s son Jamie Wyeth and other notable American artists and illustrators inspired by the incredible lush landscape of the Brandywine River area.

Alex’s excitement was palpable as we walked in. The fast pace of his brilliant mind is often visible through his body language, like a lightning spark has coursed through him and he cannot help but feel it and express it.

“I’m so psyched I finally made it here,” he said quietly, leaning in but staring forward with a happy sideways smile, like when we first met, as we walked toward the museum through the cobblestone breezeway, seemingly part of an old barn.

As we walked through the exhibit, I couldn’t keep up with him. An artist viewing other artists that inspire them is a sight to behold, like a kid racing through a candy store where they are allowed to buy anything they want. The museum price was a small one to be allowed to take in the brilliant brushstrokes of these masters.

“I’ve never seen a Howard Pyle in person, this is better than sex,” Alex said loudly, shaking his head, when I caught up with him in front of one of the famous illustrators’ pieces. “At the height of illustration [The Golden Age, between 1880 and World War I] Pyle was the best,” he said.

Like with nearly every kind of art, Alex has had a hand in illustration. He illustrated the covers of the Ambassador Yellow Pages in New York for many years, before it closed.

He was awestruck by a painting by Asher Durand, “one of the more famous Hudson River guys,” he told me. And, he was blown away by seeing N.C. Wyeth’s work.

“I know every single one of these from reproductions, but I've never seen them in real life," he said, shaking his head and rubbing at his eyes like he couldn’t believe what was before him.

One of Alex’s (many) latest projects is drawing people observing works of art.

He took many photos of people looking at the paintings of Brandywine that I look forward to seeing in oil in his incredibly detailed hand. He manages to capture people as they really are, like the Dutch Masters he studies and has studied with.

We went on the awesome tour of N.C.’s home and studio, and Alex smiled and snapped a million photos. “This is cool,” he said, as we wandered through the prop room, where N.C. kept all the busts and tools and things he used for his illustrations.

Aaah. To be inspired.

Thank you Alex, for the inspiration, and for being a model for human expression, in its many forms.

Shalom. Inshallah. Peace be with You.

Steph Thompson

Founder, Executive Director

InspireCorps

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