LONG MARRIAGES: ARTISTS MARRIED TO ARTISTS

                                        JUDITH AND GUS LEIBER
                               Married 70 years as of February 2016

Marriages are often difficult to sustain, long marriages are a triumph and long marriages where the spouses are both artists are an exceptional union. 

Artists have a reputation for being temperamental and difficult but they also come with a sharp focus and passion for the visual. I believe that their creative drive suffused with their thirst for art in all directions is the critical bond that artists have in common and that personal energy and commitment are what keeps a marital bond strong. Also since they share the profession of being an artist, there is a mutual interest and respect for each other's art that keeps their love alive year after year.

Here are couples who defy odds of the gravity of aging and the vicissitudes of love:

Judith and Gerson (Gus) Leiber:
Both Leibers are approximately 94 years old; she is a world renowned handbag designer and he is a modern expressionist painter.They met in Budapest when he was a GI after World War II and she was living with her family. Now married about 70 years, they are an extraordinary example of adoring love and devotion to each other.

Iris and Carl Apfel:
Iris is a self professed "geriatric starlet" and her fame and good fortune has grown tremendously in recent years. Iris, 93, and Carl, 101, met at a resort hotel in Lake George when they were young; their first date was on Columbus Day and they were married on Washington's birthday.He says it's been "one trip, beautiful trip”. Both were in the arts and launched Old World Weavers, a textile company for which they sourced and designed for globally to satisfy their famous clients.I would candidly estimate that they are married, extremely happily, for about 70 years.

Alice and Richard Maitzkin:
Now in their 70s and joint authors of the award winning book "The Art of Aging", they are both engaged in portraying art through the lens of the aging process. Married about 32 years, Alice is a portrait painter and he is a figurative sculptor using clay.They met at a friend's home, immediately became inseparable and months later were married in India.

Leona and Nelson Shanks:
Leonia was introduced to Nelson in 1984 by the then curators of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Married in 1989, they are both very active painters and in 2002 they co founded Studio Incamminati in Philadelphia which provides advanced instruction in classical realism painting. As realist painters and Studio Incamminati teachers, their daily lives are completely intertwined.

Susan Rothenberg and Bruce Nauman  
Also married since 1989, Susan is a contemporary painter and Bruce's work crosses a range of mediums including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance

Aline Kominsky-Crumb and Robert Crumb:

Aline and Robert met in 1971, they were married in 1973 and are happily ensconced in a large estate in the south of France. Robert, an underground comic artist is the originator of Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural and Devil Girl and says of Aline: “She was the first woman I met whose emotions didn’t scare me". With Aline, also a comic artist and the business woman behind their art, they have a daughter Sophie who is, yes, also a comic artist living in France. Aline and Robert have an open marriage that has given them freedom to maintain other spousal type relationships.

April Gornik and Eric Fischl 

They were two painters who met at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in 1975. Their first interaction was a flirtatious move with food by Fischl who now is a believer that “Art and food are intimately tied together.” Eric is known for his work as a painter, sculptor and print maker and April is a landscape painter. They enjoy healthful gourmet eating and frequently host dinner parties in their Sag Harbor home.

Yvonne and Joe Bobrowicz
Now married almost 65 years, they met at Cranbrook Academy of Art where she was studying textiles and he was working in design. Yvonne began her studies with traditional functional textiles and over the years her art evolved to etheral fiber pieces using monofilament. Joe worked in architecture as well as design and taught at the University of Pennsylvania. His seldom seen design work such as the jewelry he created for Yvonne is quite extraordinary.

Roberta and David Williamson –An early meeting as teenagers almost 50 years ago has catapulted to a successful joined career as artists. They create jewelry and sculpture and have uniquely adorned their home with their own work as well as other choice pieces of art and ephemera. They are both advocates of change and their home reflects their sense of continuous renewal.

Marriages, like careers, need constant nurturing... the secret of having it all is loving it all.

Joyce Brothers

WHEN GETTING DRESSED IS AN ART

Some linger. Others are quick. The solution is always the same; get clothes on and begin the day.

For most of us, it is as elementary as brushing our teeth in the morning yet there are people who consider it an opportunity for artful choices. The body is the canvas and fashion magazines simply emphasize that fact. And Hollywood’s red carpet at the Academy Awards celebrates famous people who take getting dressed very seriously.

While most people do not think about dressing in such a sophisticated way, at least not daily, women tend to be both more concerned and more interested. After all, their choices are greater than men; they have tops, bottoms, dresses, accessories. So it is not such a surprise that Tziporah Salamon, 63, a self-taught style maven has developed a cult like following in New York City.

It’s almost like a home course in Dressing 101. Held in a residential apartment, women gather to watch Tziporah take a variety of pieces from her large vintage wardrobe to demonstrate the art of dressing. She may not tell you that it requires a trained eye, a comfortable budget and a strong ego to absorb her creative suggestions but her demonstrations are in high demand mostly by middle aged women. While she acknowledges the body changes of getting older, she also makes fashion choices to address those changes. There are wonderful stories about her bargain finds that captures everyone’s attention; her finds range from a $60 jacket to a rare Prada handbag for $800.  Of course not everyone has her closet filled with eclectic choices but they are there to understand how to make those kinds of decisions. Not that Tziporah wants clones, she really wants to empower these women to find their own personal style.

And the fashion world has taken notice of her talent. She recently signed a modeling agreement in London and has participated in a Lanvin campaign. Of course New York Times’s Bill Cunningham is always taking pictures of her on the street and that alone is confirmation that what she is wearing is interesting and important in the fashion world.

Style is the hallmark of a true fashionista. Look at Iris Apfel, now 91, is a revitalized icon partly because of her style and everything because of her fashion vision. Having spent many decades with her husband traveling the world for textiles, she indulged in any and all types of wearable art. Known for her big black circular eyeglasses, she has a unique method of dressing. It’s almost architectural. She begins with a solid color, usually black, from head to toe. That enables her to “paint” herself with an abundance of unique and wild accessories. Her style is so extraordinary that she has recently become a brand and even scarves patterned with her eyeglasses can be bought in stores. She says ‘I can't tell people how to have style. No amount of money can buy you style. It's just instinctive.”

For Iris Apfel and others, style is instinctive because they have a keen eye and understand how to mix diverse and unique elements. But it does not always have to be eccentric, bold and colorful. Jackie Kennedy became our fashion leader with her elegance and understated simplicity of dress. While she could have easily worn a full mink, she chose to wear a wool coat with just a narrow trim of mink at the collar. Jackie established a new American style as our First Lady.

So whether it is a flamboyant assemblage of elements on your body, or a simple white kaftan, you can make your own style. It is a personal statement of choice that should be held with pride and confidence.

Iris Apfel:
No. 1 style rule: “If your hair is done properly and you’re wearing good shoes, you can get away with anything

Apfel at Age 90: More is More and Less is Simply Less

Forget the old saying “Less is More”. Minimalists thrived on that belief because it validated their art but the contemporary fashion niche embraced by Iris Apfel makes a different statement. Turn your head 180 degrees and open your eyes wide and your mind even wider. There she is; a fashion maverick, an irreverent renegade, a defiant creative spirit and a marvel of exquisite opulence of wearables.

“I’m a geriatric starlet, my dear, don’t you know,” she said “All of a sudden, I’m hot; I’m cool; I have a ‘fan base’.”*

With a rising cult of diverse people spilling around her amazing presence, Apfel is taking her show on the road. The HSN road, that is. Middle America is fascinated and wants this design eccentricity to be a brand in their lives. Naturally much will be in translation. For example, her classic owl shape eyeglasses will be featured in a scarf print and tribal type necklaces are modified with respect to design and price.
Iris was always a fashion maven. “My mother worshipped at the alter of accessories and I got the bug. She always said, if you have a good, little, simple black dress and you have different accessories, you can have 27 different outfits.” So she learned early. “The fun of getting dressed is that it is a creative experience and I never know what it’s going to be.” She assiduously edits her ensembles often wearing a basic architectural type of garment that can be accessorized dramatically. In 2005, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City presented an exhibition about Apfel called Rara Avis (Rare Bird): The Irreverent Iris Apfel. It was so successful that they created a traveling version that could be viewed by other audiences.
“Composing the elements of interior and composing an ensemble are part and parcel of the same thought process” says Apfel. So she was a natural watching her father in his business working with high end mirrors that focused on interiors. This passion for interiors catapulted the careers of Iris and her husband, Carl. Serendipitously they started working with Old World Weavers in search of a certain cloth and then began to travel worldwide looking for both exotic fabrics and historically based designs that could be replicated by these foreign specialty mills. It was through this work that she was asked to consult for the White House interior for Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Nixon, Kennedy, Johnson, Carter, Reagan, and Clinton.
Married 64 years, she and her almost 100 year old husband wear the same perfume called Yatagan by Caron which is hard to find so they store it in big containers in the refrigerator. They also wear similar round spectacles. An amazing couple, they have been very successful in their fabric business and, despite retirement from Old World Weavers in the 1990s, it’s clear that Iris’s fame is soaring. This radical fashion icon will be featured in an upcoming documentary by Albert Maysles while she continues to design products for various companies and has the magnanimous vision to donate more than 900 pieces from her wardrobe to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts.

Iris Apfel is an iconic legend with the bravado and mastery of greatness.

“You only have one trip (one life) so you might as well enjoy it”
Iris Apfel