Choosing How to be Seen: Lessons from Louise Nevelson’s Early Work

Louise Nevelson and I are twins, separated at birth by almost one hundred years—or maybe we’re friends, or she’s my godparent: a guiding light, a warning, an inspiration. Nevelson is an artist whose life and work have been critical to my own formation. Like Nevelson, I ran to New York City and felt the undeniable click of belonging. The tight grid of the city is the organizing principle of my life. Its repetition, its containment, its right angles—these are the conditions I rely on.

We were both born in mid-coast Maine. I read that she hated Rockland. To her, it reflected a life that was provincial, fixed, too small for her ambition. I know that feeling. I once watched an archival interview she gave upon her triumphant return to Maine, when she was invited to propose a sculpture for a public site. She finally settled on the little plot of grass in front of the Rockland Public Library. When asked why, she said, “I guess I’ll do it here, because the other sites are ugly. They’re ugly and they stink.” That line made me laugh, but also, I understood its defiance. A woman choosing where, and how, to be seen. When she arrived in New York City, she was dazzled by what she saw reflected there—the entropy and reinvention of its latticed streets and architecture. She called the city “a great big sculpture.”

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