Opportunity + Danger = Pickles

The recipe:

 

Wash cucumbers, place in ice water overnight.

Sterilize canning jars and lids in boiling water for at least 10 minutes

In a large pot bring water, vinegar and spices to boil

In each jar place cucumbers to fill jar

Fill pickle jars with hot brine

Seal jars

Process sealed jars in boiling water bath.  Process quart jars for 15 minutes

Store pickles for a minimum of eight weeks before eating.  Refrigerate after opening.  Pickles will keep for up to two years if stored in a cool dry place. 

    

 

 

The optimist sees opportunity in every danger; the pessimist sees danger in every opportunity.
– Winston Churchill

 

Confident in my ability to create tangy crisp kosher dills fit for a New York deli, despite never having “pickled” anything myself, nor seen any pickling and being completely unfamiliar with pickling supplies and processes, I embarked on my latest slow food adventure. 

 

Some time ago, I announced my intention to “can”.  There is a general theory in the household that announcing intent is often sufficient to bring results. 

 

And so it goes; one day a box of Ball brand jars with coordinating two-piece lids was dropped off, then I was in a 100-year-old hardware store with point-of-sale “pickling spice” packets, a recipe arrives via email, and last week, my local garden share contained three of the cutest cucumbers ever imagined.

 

Lo!  The Gods have spoken, the very earth has produced fruit for my creation, and it is time.

 

Gathering my mise en place (or things needed to make pickles) I put the jar and coordinating lid pieces into a large pot added water and set it to boil.  While that was taking care of it’s self, I brought a pot of water, vinegar and pickling spices to boil.  Then let it cool because it was much quicker to boil than the large pot with the jar.  So I went to check email to give the jar time to boil and be sterilized. 

 

Eventually a dubious voice asked if I was cooking something…  After adding water to re-cover the jar in the pot, I set a timer. 

 

Moving the now sterilized jar pot to the kitchen sink, especially cleaned for this event (the sink that is), I engage my salad tongs. 

 

Now, pulling a jar filled with boiling water out of a large pot also filled with boiling water is not as easy as it sounds, particularly if one is trying to avoid both botulism and burns.  The jar is filled with boiling water and is too heavy to conveniently lift with salad tongs, and turning jar upside down in the pot (also filled with boiling water) didn’t release any water from the jar.  I eventually triumphed using a sideways kind of hold so enough water drained out so I could lift the jar into… dropping the jar back into the pot, I found a potholder and gently tipped as much hot water as I safely could from the large pot into the sink.  Then lifting the jar with the salad tongs, I tipped the rest of the water out of the pot.

 

Setting the large pot with the “sterilized” jar on an unlit stove eye, I put the potholder down next to the sink and turn my attention to the cucumbers (still in their bowl of ice water for a total “overnight” of 16 hours).  The three fit into the jar a mite too handily, filled wasn’t the word.  Luckily, though the Gods had spoken, Time, as it were, was a week later and I had two large cucumbers in the most recent garden share.  Slicing those for “pickle chips”, their addition filled the jar enough for me. 

 

Bringing the brine to a boil again, I poured it over the cucumbers and retrieved the two-part lid from the large pot using the salad tongs.  Uneventfully the flat lid piece dropped onto the top of the jar and the threaded lid piece sealed the whole thing.  Now to “process” the pickle jar for fifteen minutes:

 

Carefully (the jar is now filled with very hot brine and glass is an efficient heat conductor) returning the sealed jar to the large pot, I return to the sink to fill what is now the pickle jar processing pot.  Using hot water about ½ way up the side of the pickle jar, I set the processing pot down next to the sink to check the recipe and assess my progress. 

 

Lee drifted into the kitchen and notices I do not actually have “canning” instructions as part of my recipe; and further notices my “sterilized” jar of pickles is sitting in a ½ full large pot of warm water next to the kitchen sink. 

 

Pulling the Fanny Farmer cookbook from its place on the kitchen shelf, she politely asks if I have reviewed the (obviously unreferenced) tome for detailed canning instruction.  Much to my edification and appreciation, she commences to read the “canning process”.

 

Sidebar: Lee can cook.  Also garden and “can”.  In fact, my slow food journey is only possible because of her significant efforts.  If she didn’t till the earth, plant the garden, compost leftovers into nutrient rich soil, weed, water (from the rain barrels she installed), harvest, clean, cook and serve the food, I would only have my intention to make a slow food journey, and maybe some pickling spice.

 

By now, I have returned the ½ filled pot of water containing the pickle jar to the stove and set the eye on High to get it “processing”,

 

While Lee is making some critical point, I notice an enormous flood of chalky grey smoke coming from the stovetop under the processing pot.  Flying, I turn off the heating element, throw open the back door (I have set many dishes aflame and know to open the back door ASAP), return to the stove with hot pads, lift the burning pot from the stove, where something thick is stuck and burning a greasy acrid smoke. 

 

Putting the pot down, I set the hot pads on the counter next to the stove, grab the nearest utensil (a large plastic serving spoon) and quickly, carefully, quickly march the offending item to a table outside on the back deck. 

 

I can’t help but notice it was formerly the hot pad I had set down next to the sink when working to extricate the “sterilized” jar from the large pot.  Realizing I must have set the processing pot on top of the hot pad on my way to ½ filling it with water, I unknowingly moved the hot pad stuck to the bottom of the processing pot to the stove.  Upon my return to the kitchen, the still smoking logo: Certified Humane Raised & Handled is etched into the stovetop.

 

Luckily, the rest of the household knows the fire drill (this is not my first day) so by the time I return to contemplate the damage, all the windows are open, a fan is placed in the window closest to the stove to draw smoke outside, and the stovetop fan is engaged.

 

Undaunted, I returned to finish “pickling”.  Lee finished reading the canning process to me, and thank goodness she did, because apparently one does not set a glass jar on direct heat, also, the water has to cover the lid one inch, and something about a lid button not popping.  Anyway, I fashioned a clever platform for the pickle jar using a disposable cake tin, I also used Lee’s recommendation of the tall pasta pot (with lid) for “processing” (one inch, ¼ inch, tomato, tomahto) found a meat thermometer that went to two hundred degrees and waited for that pot to reach 212 degrees.  The pot had been boiling for thirty minutes and finally reached one hundred ninety degrees on the meat thermometer, so I called it “processed”.

 

A summer garden share from a local farmer, pickling spice packet, water, vinegar, 3 pots, a serving spoon, a potholder, a stove, electricity for: stovetop, hot water, various fans, and re-air-conditioning the house, plus four volunteer-hours price: $1,572.80 My jar of dill pickles: priceless

 

 

 

 

 

Debt to Margaret

Feng Shui

how does your garden grow?

honeybees and hummingbirds, thanks leelee!

 

obstacles

 Seek within the qualities that can surmount

  the obstacles inherent in the chosen path.

 

 

Q: What is Art?

 A: a product of human endeavor.

 

Seriously, look it up.

 

Or not, I don’t care. 

 

I’ve been reading what appears to be a textbook that magically appeared on a shelf in my bedroom “the origin and evolution of humans and humanness”.  Nobody admits to bringing it into the house.  It’s new to me, literally; a sticker on the back cover reads “New Book $36”.  A relative statement as the symposium that generated this textbook was held in 1992.

 

Tangent; I often get online driving directions that end in make a u-turn, and sure enough, I pass the road I need on the left and u-turn.  Yet when I revisit the site the u-turn directions do not recur and instead the left turn is indicated.

 

I sometimes wonder if I’m messing with myself from some future space/time/electro/magnetic unified field application or, if I’m insane.  Hard to know.

 

Anyhoo, one of the topics presented in this mysterious textbook is image making in the Upper Paleolithic by Margaret W. Conkey.  She is probably brilliant; hard to know.  After a longish introduction about why she isn’t calling cave art “cave art”, her text really starts to bore.  Then I get to her first image, and the next and next and she is redeemed.

 

By the time I get to a negative hand silhouette I am overcome.  The clown that left it reaches out from dusty antiquity to touch me like a brother and the weight of humanity crushes me as I contemplate human endeavor.

 

 

 

Positive and negative hand silhouettes of Gravettian period

 

 

Apparently, handprints occur all over the world in many different areas and cultures.  Check out http://www.uf.uni-erlangen.de/chauvet/chauvet.html if you would like to learn something about the symbols left by our Upper Paleolithic kin.

Liquidity, Artists & Patrons

- aye and envious too

Continuing

Ferrari, Maserati, Lamborghini, Oh my!

Surrounded by top-shelf automotive design and first class enthusiasts I bask in the reflected brilliance.

“If you choose a job you like, you will never have to work a day in your life” Confucius 

Implementing this wisdom has been challenging, Ferrari has many suitors who wish to nourish and be reciprocally nourished in a never ending cycle of love.  Undaunted, I continue my pursuit. 

Still life

winter forage, dry

sizzles in the late day breeze

i too wait for spring

 

to know when to stop

To know when you can get no further by your own action, this is the right beginning.      

Chung Tzu 

Notes from Villa del Sol

 http://www.vrbo.com/5505

Recommended for arachnophobes, Highly Recommended for everyone else. 

Paulina, I dedicate this notebook to you.  May your gift for communication continue to transcend the limits of language. 

It was a dark and stormy life; two weeks hermitage for mental rehabilitation - daily notations: 

Psalm 103

As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.  For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.

Porsche Club Racing

I ♥ my Porsche buddy.  So I found myself at Summit Point, a beautiful track in West Virginia with a deer hazard at o’dark thirty wishing I didn’t love my buddy so much.   But as the early dawn mist broke to a warm fall day, I too warmed to my fellow man.

Particularly when I realized these folks love finely engineered anything.  They were enthusiasts of the first order and kind to the ignorant and didn’t patronize me at all.  Thank you drivers, crew and volunteers!  My appreciation for fine German metal started with BMW… the beemer caught my eye early and so starts the Porsche Club show, Car 65, the driver and tech I met at lunch were very helpful in directing my ADD; everything else looked tasty to me.

Lee on Meat

Cheap Meat at High Cost

 With the advent of the industrial revolution in the 18th century, rapid population growth forced food production to become ever more competitive and a combination of genetic engineering, medical breakthroughs and greed gave birth to corporate farms and farmers. Today, corporate farms can be defined as those farms that utilize “intense confinement practices”, which are practices that employ inhumane farm management methods to maximize use of space and to minimize human labor costs. Many small farmers cannot compete. What America has been left with are enormous commercial farms far more concerned with quantity than quality. Everyday the poultry, cattle and pigs that we serve at our dinner tables are living in horrendous conditions and are being killed in brutal, careless methods.Opponents often take the stance that the treatment of the animals does not matter since they will be slaughtered for food, but as I will show, these inhumane handling practices are not only cruel and unnecessary, but are now proven to cause adverse health consequences in humans, including greater exposure to Salmonella poisoning, links to breast and prostate cancer, influenza, and most importantly, human resistance to antibiotics.All of these consequences are direct results of the “intense confinement practices” used in corporate farming today. Frequently, you will find highly specialized indoor environments that can accommodate many more animals per square foot allowing for fewer and less-skilled laborers to handle the animals. These practices severely hinder the animals’ ability to engage in instinctive animal behaviors, causing undue stress. In the case of poultry, the egg-layers are often housed in wire “battery cages”, each housing anywhere from three to ten hens. The hens live in intolerably cramped conditions, often having a third or half of their beaks and toes removed to keep them from cannibalizing each other from the stress of confinement. When the hens’ egg-laying cycle naturally begins to decline, they are stimulated to resume egg-laying by a process called “forced molting.” According to David Fraser in The State of the Animals 2001, during the forced molting process, the hens are deprived of feed, “usually for eight to twelve days or until they lose 30-35 percent of their body weight” (Fraser 89). The birds end up plucking out each others feathers in a desperate attempt to satisfy their hunger. This is despite the fact that, “In most states, intentionally depriving an animal of sustenance is recognized as cruel and punishable under the law as a misdemeanor or felony.” (Buyukmihci). Unfortunately, many of these animal cruelty laws do not yet apply to farm animals. According to Paige M. Tomaselli of the Animal Legal and Historical Center at the Michigan State University- Detroit College of Law:In the US, the treatment of animals raised for food while on the farm is not regulated by a federal statute. Instead, it is left to the state anti-cruelty statutes to regulate. These statutes regulate only some animals on the farm because over half of the states a have exemptions for common husbandry practices. This means that in states where common husbandry practices are exempted, animals raised for food are basically without protection. These animals may be systematically abused without redress. Even in states where farm animals are not exempted from the anti-cruelty statutes, it is often difficult to get a case into court. The state district attorney is responsible for bringing animal cruelty cases. The district attorney often times has so many human cases to prosecute that animal abuse cases never reach the courtroom. (Tomaselli)The consequences of “forced molting” are not only to the hens. The severe stress to the hens caused by starvation and pecking lowers “the cellular immune response and increases the chances of the hens contracting intestinal Salmonella enteritidis (Se) infection. In Buyukmihci’s article on forced molting, he quotes immunologist Peter S. Holt in World Poultry-Misset, “While unmolted hens usually have to ingest about 50,000 Salmonella cells to become infected, molted hens need fewer than 10.” The Salmonella cells are then carried into our grocery store eggs and poultry products, putting us at much greater risk for Salmonella poisoning.

Beef cattle are usually kept at pasture for most of their lives but dairy cattle are often limited to “tie-stall” barns “in which each cow is confined to an individual stall and held by a neck chain, strap, or stanchion such that she can lie down but not turn around” (Fraser 91). Although, according to an American University case study, there is already a surplus of milk production in the United States, almost all dairy cattle are injected with rBST, a man-made hormone that “makes the mammary glands of dairy cows take in more nutrients from the bloodstream, therefore, produce [ing] more milk (Falco 1). The unnecessary use of rBST increases the cow’s chances of mastitis, a painful udder inflammation caused by infection.

There are several concerns about the human costs of ingesting rBST in dairy products that are currently being debated. While the FDA has concluded that dairy products tainted with rBST are safe for human consumption, the European Union is very concerned about “the increase in the level of circulating insulin-like growth (IGF-I) in the target animal and its increased excretion in the milk as a consequence of the administration of rBST. There has been epidemiological evidence for an association between circulation IGF-I levels and the relative risk of breast and prostate cancer” (Botsoglou and Feltouris 426). Plainly stated, we are increasing our risks for breast and prostate cancer by consuming dairy products that come from cows that have been injected with rBST. The rumors that rBST may contribute to earlier onset of human puberty are unfounded as of yet.

Swine production too utilizes intense confinement practices that keep the pigs from engaging in normal animal behaviors. According to David Fraser, “During farrowing (giving birth) each sow is usually confined to a “farrowing crate” large enough to permit her to stand, lie, and nurse the piglets, but not large enough to turn around” (Fraser 90). These conditions make for very efficient environments for bacteria to grow. In addition, E Magazine cites that scientists have found a link between pork and not only salmonella, but also influenza (flu), which kills about 20,000 people in the U.S. per year (Gillette).

One of the most controversial issues regarding livestock and human health is in relation to antimicrobials. Antimicrobials are medicines placed in farm animal feeds to inhibit the growth of microorganisms that could potentially cause infection. Because the animals live in such overcrowded conditions, the risk of disease breakout becomes much greater so the medicine is fed to them as a preventative measure, rather than a healing one.

Such widespread use of antimicrobials in animals, sick or not, results in human intake of unnecessary medicines and the outcome is the resistance to the antibiotics that we take when we fall ill. The American Veterinary Medical Association recently reported that an “estimated that 80% of the estimated 2.5 million annual human cases in the Unites States of campylobacteriosis are food borne and that 95% if the 1.4 million annual human cases of nontyphoidal salmonellosis are food borne. […] If a significant percentage of Salmonella or Campylobacter become resistant to the antibiotics used to treat those infections in humans, there could be a significant impact on human health” (AVMA). The use of antimicrobials would not be necessary if the animals were not so overcrowded.

Recently, the constant stream of studies and press linking the meat we eat to the resistances to antibiotics and the illnesses we contract are making people take notice. Citizens are beginning to not only ask questions, but beginning to demand answers and new legislations to protect ourselves from the long-term health problems we appear to be headed towards. Letters to our government, the FDA and USDA, and to corporate farmers demanding the halt of “intense confinement practices” are beginning to cause extensive changes in farming and regulatory policies.

The FDA just wrote a new policy regarding these issues. In 1999, the Food and Drug Administration revised a document stating that “FDA believes it is necessary to consider the potential human health impact of the microbial effects associated with all uses of all classes of antimicrobial new animal drugs intended for use in food-producing animals” (FDA). More recently reported by the Wall Street Journal, “The new policy is the FDA’s biggest move so far to deal with an issue that has sparked world-wide debate. The agency will begin evaluating new drugs for livestock based on their possible impact on human health. If the effects are too strong, the FDA may refuse to approve it or restrict its use. The agency also plans to re-evaluate approved antibiotics using the same criteria” (Mathews).

Despite farmers’ arguments that the costs associated with updating farms to meet the new standards will drive up retail meat prices, consumer demand has begun to affect big business. On November 5, 2003, a news-story on CBS Nightly News highlighted McDonalds for their part in farm animal welfare. Journalist Wyatt Andrews reported that, “Quietly, both McDonalds and Burger King have become leaders in animal welfare, demanding improvements for the hens that lay the fast-food eggs and new standards for cattle and hogs destined to become sandwiches”. Companies must respond to the public outcry that corporate farmers are tinkering with our bodies and our children’s’ bodies for the sake of their own profit margins. Paying a little more for meat now is certainly better than battling cancer and other illnesses later. It seems a small price to pay to ensure our own wellbeing.

The same CBS news-story also highlighted a newly formed non-profit organization, Humane Farm Animal Care, which has recently formed in response to all of these concerns. Humane Farm Animal Care, which is based in Herndon, Virginia, has defined rigorous farming regulations that are based on the systems already in place in the UK. When Mad Cow disease decimated and contaminated much of the UK’s meat supply, they were forced to re-design their farming policies and today they have some of the strictest regulations in the world regarding farm animals. Here in the United States, this program is entirely voluntary and the farmers on the program include the “Certified Humane Raised and Handled” label on their products. Information from the Humane Farm Animal Care website, www.certifiedhumane.org, states that:The Certified Humane Raised & Handled Label instantly assures consumers that a meat, poultry, egg or dairy product has come from animals raised in the kind of wholesome conditions that make wholesome foods possible. Food products that carry the label are certified to have come from facilities that meet precise, objective standards for farm animal treatment. […] Under the system, growth hormones are prohibited, and animals are raised on a regular diet of quality feed free of antibiotics. Producers also must comply with local, state and federal environmental standards (Humane).It is unreasonable to expect that humans will stop eating meat all-together, as some fanatical groups demand, but it is not unreasonable to expect civilized, humane treatment of these animals when the cruelty is unnecessary. Corporate farmers’ greed has led to the use of “forced molting” for hens, and rBST hormones for dairy cows, and intense confinement practices for all of our food animals, putting us at higher risk for salmonella poisoning, and breast and prostate cancer. Because intense confinement practices are so detrimental to the animals’ health, it has led to industry-wide use of antimicrobials, which, in turn, affect us all by leaving us more and more resistant to the antibiotics we rely on to heal us.

Change is on the horizon and we are beginning to see the effects, but it is time for all American consumers to take a stand for our own long-term health. Retail power is the key. If consumers demand higher quality meat, raised under humane standards, then the grocers and restaurants will carry it. They want to sell us what we want to buy. The Humane Farm Animal Care website has pre-written letters that can be downloaded, personalized, and sent to your local grocers and restaurants requesting products and food raised and handled under the Certified Humane label. Simply put, raising our food animals in a healthy, humane environment is “the right thing to do” for both farm animals and human-kind.

Works Cited
Andrews, Wyatt. “Fast Food Embracing Animal Welfare”. CBSNEWS.com
5 Nov. 2003, 8 Nov. 2003
AVMA (The American Veterinary Medical Association). “Judicious Use of
Antimicrobials for Beef Cattle Veterinarians.” 2003. 6 Nov. 2003act/jtua/cattle/jtuabeef.asp
Botsoglou, Nikolas A. and Dimitrios J. Fletouris. Drug Residues in Food,
Pharmacology, Food Safety, and Analysis. New York: Marcel Dekker,
Inc., 2001
Buyukmihci, Nedim C. “Forced Molting of Chickens Used for Egg
Production-Forced Molting in ‘Laying’ Hens – Fact Sheet.” Association
of Veterinarians for Animal Rights.
http://avar.org/forced_molting.html

Falco, Tish. “Case Name: Bovine Growth Hormone (rbST) and Dairy
Trade.” TED Case Studies. 7.2 (1997). 11 Nov.2003tp://www.american.edu/TED/class/all.htm#Jun1997
FDA (Food and Drug Administration). Antimicrobial Resistance
Documents Available. 8 Dec. 1999, 6 Nov. 2003

Mathews, Anna Wilde. “FDA Announces Policy Designed To Curb Animal-
Antibiotics Use”. The Wall Street Journal. 24 Oct. 2003, 8 Nov. 2003
http://www.keepantibioticsworking.comTomaselli, Paige M. “Overview of International Comparative Animal
Cruelty Laws”. Animal Legal and Historical Center. Michigan State
University- Detroit College of Law. 2003. 10 April, 2004
http://www.animallaw.info/articles/ovusicacl.htm

Fashion Tips from Maddox

Lee on Andy

“Would the Real Andy Warhol Please Step Forward?”

 

Was Andy Warhol a marketing genius or genius artist?  His experience as a successful commercial artist enabled him to produce, and, more importantly, sell the “Pop Art” that catapulted him to fame and fortune, much to the dismay of many art insiders and critics.  But Warhol’s marketing genius did not only apply to his art.  He carefully cultivated a public persona that exuded naiveté, shallowness and even dim-wittedness.  Andy Warhol was not naïve, shallow or dim-witted.  Andy Warhol cleverly orchestrated a façade over his true personality that not only complemented and helped to sell his art, but also protected a sensitive, shy and caring man from the gaudy, materialistic world he often portrayed in his work. 

In Andy Warhol: Priest is one of Warhol’s most famous quotes, “If you want to know all about Andy Warhol, just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am.  There is nothing behind it” (qtd. in Kattenberg 3).  In a Newsweek article, “Warhol remarked that he wanted to be a machine – and to indulge in a cheap indifferent medium that perfectly matched his attitude toward his subject matter (Plagens).  Statements like this, which may appear to be flippant or even silly, were made to deflect the truth, but in the end, served to mystify, or maybe even “myth-ify,” Warhol.  He was purposefully vague about his art because to reveal its meaning would be to reveal himself. 

 Also, according to Kelly Cresap, author of Pop Trickster Fool: Warhol Performs Naivete, “Forming an intriguing social counterpart to the artist’s enigmatically simple images […] gives him a crucial edge over pop artists who maintain a more straightforward demeanor; it announces a playful departure from the aggressively masculine postures that typified artists of the then dominant New York school of painting” (5-6).  He succeeded in hiding much of his true self, but just a thin, shallow scratch at the surface shows us a man with depth, a man who was a caring son and a helper to the homeless.  He was also a devout Catholic and a man whose religion was at odds with his sexual preference.  An insecure man, Warhol wouldn’t have believed that his real person would have been good enough, glamorous enough, to capture the attention of the art world or of New York City, so he invented a new self, a self that would be interesting, mystifying and fascinating.  He very much wanted to be prominent in the New York scene. In describing Warhol’s fascination with movie stars, John Yau, author of In the Realm of Appearances, The Art of Andy Warhol says that:Like the stars he gazed at, movies must have been both intensely attractive and bitterly disappointing for him. They described a meanwhile that would forever elude him.  The language Warhol would in his lifetime master, the one his parents never learned to express, is one that tries to disguise its rage and obsequiousness.  It is the language of someone who is desperate to belong. (126) 

We knew of Andy Warhol as the rich and famous pop artist who consorted with trust fund babies and rock stars and went to all of the hippest parties, but that certainly wasn’t how his life began.  Warhol grew up poor and shy and self-conscious. In The Religious Art of Andy Warhol, we are told that “Warhol was extremely money conscious and never lost the anxiety about money that the grinding poverty of his early years in his immigrant home had instilled” (qtd. in Dillenberger 56).  And as John Richardson declared in his eulogy for Andy Warhol at his memorial service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on April 1, 1987, “As a youth, he was withdrawn and reclusive, devout and celibate; and beneath the disingenuous public mask that is how he remained” (qtd. in Dillenberger 13). 

 It is somewhat of a miracle and testament to his ambition that he was able to overcome his real self in order to project an image so contrary to the truth.While Warhol deftly projected a cool, detached character who was obsessed with celebrity and materialism, he downplayed his caring heart. Was this a calculated move or a defensive one? Maybe both. That he was a loving son may seem at odds with his public persona but is nevertheless irrefutable.  As soon as he was making enough money as a commercial artist to afford a small apartment of his own, his beloved mother, Julia, moved in with him and stayed for twenty years.  He knelt and prayed with her each day before he left for work, and they enjoyed a “close and symbiotic relationship” (Dillenberger 22).   His empathetic compassion could also be witnessed in his unrevealed visits to the homeless shelter where he would “serve meals to the homeless and the hungry” (Dillenberger 13).  In an interview in Unseen Warhol, Tama Janowitz, long-time friend, mentions that “he always went to the soup kitchen.  He would work in the soup kitchen on Easter, Christmas, and other holidays” (qtd. in O’Connor and Liu 177).   In his art, his empathy can also be seen in his suicide and car crash paintings.  The pictures may seem to be to be mocking or making light of the very human deaths, but a rare, revealing quote from The Religious Art of Andy Warhol shows that there was much thought behind them, “It’s not that I feel sorry for them, it’s just that people go by and it doesn’t matter to them that someone unknown was killed…I still care about people, but it would be so much easier not to care” (qtd. in Dillenberger 67). Andy Warhol was also very guarded and private about his home.  According to Dillenberger, “only his closest friends were ever invited in; Warhol usually entertained in restaurants.”  She also writes that “The elegant and formal rooms of Warhol’s townhouse looked more like the residence of an Episcopal bishop than of this rakishly wigged Pop artist” (33).  Warhol must have known that his love of elegant and formal living spaces would detract from his public image that he worked so hard to maintain.A somewhat shocking revelation to the memorial service attendants and soon thereafter to the general public, was that he was deeply religious.  Warhol had also managed to keep his piety a secret.  In his eulogy, John Richardson proclaims, “Those of you who knew him in circumstances that were the antithesis of spiritual may be surprised that such a side existed.  But exist it did, and it’s the key to the artist’s psyche” (qtd. in Dillenberger 13).  Dillenberger also talks about Warhol’s church-going habits: Father Sam Matarazzo, a Dominican and the prior of St. Vincent’s, revealed that although Warhol never went to confession or communion, he visited the church two or three times a week and sat and knelt alone in the shadows at the back of the church.  It was apparent he did not want to be recognized.  Father Matarazzo said that Warhol’s spirituality was private even within the confines of this bustling parish church.  He (also) remarked that Warhol’s lifestyle was “absolutely irreconcilable” with the teachings of the Catholic Church.  (33)  Warhol’s sexual preference must have been at great odds with his religion.  While Thierolf states that Warhol never stayed in church for more than four or five minutes because he did not feel completely safe (Thierolf 45), it could also be interpreted that he was drawn to church by his spirituality and simultaneously repulsed from it because of the Church’s views on homosexuality.  Thierolf goes on to discuss a canvas sneaker that had been decorated by Warhol.  An image of Jesus is painted on the side and the “reverse bears the word ‘sin’ in large letters, and he word ‘Accepted’ is printed on the tongue”(45-46).  Warhol’s casual, playful treatment of a cheap tennis shoe conceals a deep concern for his alleged sins to the Church and his fervent wish to be accepted by his god. Much analysis has been made by many critics of his use of crosses and the iconic treatment of celebrity portraits, but his interest in God can be most clearly seen in his Last Supper series, the last of his work completed before his death in 1987.  According to Rupert Smith, Warhol’s assistant, an Italian art dealer, Alexandre Iolas, commissioned the Last Supper series in 1986 for a show in Milan (Dillenberger 80).  The Last Supper series was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous painting by the same name.  According to Dillenberger, there are at least 20 large paintings and many smaller studies (79).   The series’ pop treatment may appear to reflect Warhol’s usual commentary on the banality of popular figures, but according to Hohenzollern and Schulz-Hoffman, “for Andy Warhol this project was obviously of crucial importance.  He devoted far more intensive effort to them than the commission and the space available actually demanded.  Indeed, the overall extent of the work indicates an almost obsessive involvement” (7).   Warhol was already very familiar with the da Vinci image.  Andy’s brother, John Warhola said that a reproduction of the Last Supper hung in the family kitchen for all of Andy’s childhood (Dillenberger 80).  Thierolf also mentions that Andy’s mother kept a picture of the same image “inserted between the pages of her old Slavic prayer book (30).   Some may view the Last Supper series as another controversial insult to the Church, but, according to Schulz-Hoffman, “what at first looks like a sacrilege proves upon closer inspection to be the exact opposite:  Leonardo’s Last Supper remains unaltered in its unique artistic and spiritual potential, prevails as a unquestionably accepted and venerated icon that forbids any manipulation” (11).  With the Last Supper series, Warhol lets his mask slip a little to give a nod to his mother, his faith and to his true self.  In one of the paintings, “a young male bodybuilder is juxtaposed with the image of Christ from the Last Supper, suggesting the conflation of physical and spiritual desire that is a recurring Catholic theme” (Heartney).  Perhaps Warhol was making a statement about his struggle to reconcile his homosexuality with his faith. 

As a commercial artist, Warhol learned how to sell consumer products with his artwork.  Maybe it was just a natural evolution for him to also create and package a personal image that could be sold along with his art, an image that complemented his seemingly shallow and fluffy work.  We will never know who the real Andy Warhol was, but a quick look at some of the things about himself that he chose to keep private shows us that he certainly wasn’t the naïve, shallow and dimwitted character that he successfully projected.  As John Yau so eloquently states, “The artist who helped demystify art has, it seems, become an impenetrable mystery” (22).

 

Works Cited: Cresap, Kelly M.  Pop Trickster Fool, Warhol Performs Naiveté.  Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press 2004.Dillenberger, Jane Daggett.  The Religious Art of Andy Warhol. New York: The Continuum Publishing Company 1998.Heartney, Eleanor.  “The bawdy art of Catholics: Catholic imagination shapes contemporary art in daring, sometimes shocking ways.”  National Catholic Reporter  40.6 (2004): 14 (3). InfoTrac Web: InfoTrac OneFile. Expanded Academic ASAP Plus. George Mason University Lib., 21 Oct. 2005. http://mutex.gmu.edu:2286/itw/infomark/639/358/77266438w2/purl=rc1_EAIM_0_A113855525&dyn=3!xrn_1_0_A113855525?sw_aep=viva_gmu.Kattenberg, Peter.  Andy Warhol, Priest “The Last Supper Comes in Small, Medium and Large”.  Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill, 2001.Liu, Benjamin and John O’Connor. Unseen Warhol. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., 1996.Plagens, Peter.  “What Andy Saw: Warhol wasn’t just the godfather of pop. He was a clairvoyant whose ideas on celebrity, cinema and even supersizing made him the most influential artist since Picasso.”  Newsweek  (2002) p 52. Infotrac Web: Infotrac Onefile. Expanded Academic ASAP Plus. George Mason University Lib., 21 Oct. 2005. http://mutex.gmu.edu:2286/itw/infomark/639/358/77266438w2/purl=rc1_EAIM_0_A88246682&dyn=5!xrn_1_0_A88246682?sw_aep=viva_gmu.Thierolf, Corrina. “All the Catholic Things.” Andy Warhol The Last Supper. Ed. Schulz-Hoffman. Munich: Dr.Cantz’sche Druckerei, Ostfildern 1998. 23-43.von Hohenzollern, Johan Georg Prinz and Carla Schulz-Hoffman. “Foreword.” Andy Warhol The Last Supper. Ed. Schulz-Hoffman. Munich: Dr.Cantz’sche Druckerei, Ostfildern, 1998. 7-8.Yau, John.  In the Realm of Appearances, The Art of Andy Warhol.  New Jersey: The Ecco Press, 1993. 

Bacon

Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humour to console him for what he is.