Physics, Inertia & Art — Nora Patrich
Newton’s first law of motion states that “An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.” Objects tend to “keep on doing what they’re doing.”
From the above law which I learned in college in my physics courses (I thought I wanted to be an engineer) I came to realize that inertia as I saw it was simply a resistance to motion. A resistance to move.
For close to 10 years I had a happy relationship with two Argentine painters (Nora Patrich & Juan Manuel Sánchez). They were a couple where inertia was simply “to stay in motion”. I would call them late at night with suggestions of possible collaboration. They never denied any of them and we worked together with all sorts of “colaboraciones”. Our best was one where the three of us and another photographer (also Argentine) Claudia Katz spent close to a year taking pictures, sketching and painting one very beautiful Argentine woman called Linda Lorenzo. The result was a big show on South Granville called Nostalgia.
After that, we kept at it even if our collaborations did not see print or a gallery wall. The important task was mutual inspiration.
Some 7 or 8 years ago the Argentine artists, Patrich and Sánchez separated and moved back to Buenos Aires.
It was then that I came to realize how inertia seemed to affect my artistic life in Vancouver. It was an inertia where I could not move and I hit walls when I advanced an inch or so.
Since they left I have been active taking my personal portraits, of family and friends and quite a few female nudes. I know I can never show them anywhere. Somehow our city has become more prudish in its still inertia.
To escape my artistic doldrums I visit Patrich and Sánchez (she with her new partner Roberto Baschetti in the Buenos Aires suburb of Bellavista, he in his downtown studio on Paraguay Street and Talcahuano. Of Sánchez here and here). When I am there I am met with smiles and the promise of projects which in some cases are stymied by the geographic distances. But some of our ideas might see the light of day soon.
The above is simply my excuse to place here photographs of Nora Patrich in her studio in Bellavista.
I wonder where I can find that brand of enthusiasm in Vancouver?
I remember many years ago when I attempted to sell Marlene Cohen (I had been hired by her to take her portraits) some of my artsy Mexican photographs. She opened a blind in her large plate glass window overlooking beyond Wreck Beach in her house on Marine Drive leading to UBC and said, “Why would I want to buy any of those when I can look at this every day?”
Originally published at blog.alexwaterhousehayward.com.
