Lucky Pop Face Keith Gladysz

A couple of weekends ago on that 80 degree saturday, I was in my native Huntington, LI. There was an antique show in Heckscher Park which I walked through, knowing I would finish my trip with a visit to the eclectic and insecure Heckscher Museum of Art. It's a worthwhile place with a suburban complex and a good collection of Arthur Dove and Milton Avery. Dove lived locally and showed there; his nearby cottage now being converted into a musuem.

I saw the exhibit "A New Narrative: Marden Fitzpatrick Stella Warhol". I never heard of Tony Fitzpatrick and was most interested in his work for that reason. The rest of the show was as expected. There were 10 of Fitzpatrick's etchings with aquatint from the '90's that lined one of the walls. The small stature and undisguised narrative of these works in this traditional medium lent themselves well to the location. They were comfortable and a bit too easy; like playing cards, gum wrappers or kids' prizes.

Tony made the pieces because of his interest in luck, calling it "a very real thing and I like trying to put a face on it" That sort of charmed me, though I didn't think much of the outcome. What I liked was the transmission of this direct thought into representation. It's palpable. Maybe looking at them in my hometown made me nostalgic for face-value image making, like stuff from high school art class. Seeing them anywhere else, I may not have given them another thought.