GET HUBBIED

I've told everyone I know this story at one time or another because it touched me so deeply. I was in charge of the visiting artist's lecture series when I was in the grad program at SVA, NYC. There were a lot of characters who came through to say the least (Jeff Koons was a real kick; Schnabel was pretty amusing too though hard to look at with all the ‘work’ he’s gotten done; Christo and Jean-Claude Christo: seemingly not such a healthy marriage there, but they gave 'good talk'). Of all of the talks, Leon and Nancy were the most memorable, perhaps because they didn't talk about their work at all. They held hands in front of all of us bright-eyed bushy-tailed art students and talked about their marriage, their love, over the span of their long careers. Their art work was so different in style and temperament that they never got accolades in the press or in the public at the same time, though the attention they did get equaled out over time. They told us that the most important thing, the most precious, was that they each supported the other during the times that one was ignored and seemingly forgotten while the other was in the spotlight. They said that without their relationship to buoy them, either one of them would have given up their art.