JANE MAYHALL
THE REAL
LUCIA
When I think
of Lucia, I think of her versatility, wide range of interests, and multiple
talents. She was an airy spirit, a butterfly with grand passions. The divergences
were, many of them, ensconced in practical thinking. Which may strike those
who knew her as antithetical to the way she lived. Her apartment was an accumulation.
But amidst the overflow of books, precious tiny objects, paintings, and spartan
and indulgent old furniture, and confused tastes of informal effect, she did
keep up a certain formality. Lucia served a lovely tea (she didnt
go for alcohol) and was an excellent, exacting cook. The dinners or teatime
rituals I was invited to were memorable, and of a high refine-ment. The old-fashioned
teapot, plain buttered toast and honey, and real napkins were fitting accompaniment
to conversation. Honestly intriguing, hot items, esthetic battlefields--and
nothing was ever spurious or gossipy. Or materialistic.
Lucia had none of the sly New York manner of showing off. Her interests were
authentic: art, literature, the ballet, peace marches, womens rights.
Her heroes and influences flowed through the contexts; names that had biographical
validity and of a close affiliation with her life. Rilke, Lou Andreas-Salome,
Nijinsky, Paula Modersohn Becker, Frans Masereel (Lucias style in woodcuts,
I think, often reflected Masereels simple and volatile formation, and
were politically exu-berant), Karsavina (Lucia introduced me to the Karsavina
autobiography), Balanchine, Stravinsky, these were celebrities she responded
to as equals. The duo-pianists, Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale, were evident-ly
old friends. I once heard her talking to Gold at the State Theater. It seemed
to me that the warm, fraternal interest between them gave a mooring to her own
cultural vision. Gold-and-Fizdale were way out, erudite,
skeptical men.
I know now that Lucia Vernarelli was a first-rate painter. But she was too occupied
with it, self-demanding, overly anxious- to live on any artistic even keel.
She hadnt the patience or confidence to utilize what she had. The illustrations
she did for books, and ballet designs (I remember she worked with Jerome Robbins
for one of his stagings) were of best quality. And a big event for her. But
she didnt have the pushiness to compete in a business world.
A strong accomplishment was when she created the antiwar murals for the militant
church on West Fourth Street.
Lucias so-called differences werent cranky. I never measured up
to her politically active career (though shared most of her beliefs) but I never
encountered the Vernarelli wrath. She could be angry, sometimes scary. But kept
her justice-demandings (this is very personal stuff) on the scale of, as it
were, positive weldings of the larger forces. That is, she could oppose government
and the law with free abandon. She was proud of having gone to jail, on one
of the Washington marches.
If this all sounds virtuous and right-minded, it was. Lucia was determined,
and unafraid of putting herself at risk. Again, to those who knew her, this
may sound too obvious. But that she operated consistently within her own set
of rules, is not as easy or obvious as the facts tally up to. And she was flamboyant.
Some of her ebulliences and curse words like piss off--(I
think she used them as banners) could shake up a party.
When I first met her in about 1956, I remember being astonished at her good
looks. The slanty, green-blue-eyes, high cheekbones, and the mass of burnished,
gold-brown hair, this composition of features was very akin to ancient portraits
one had seen of the perfect, Italian classical beauty. I dont think she
was unaware of the natural endowment, but she was so sprightly, individualistic,
and of a sporty (swash-buckling) type, she never tried to take dominance among
us.
She was so very much alive. And Lucia didnt welcome death, there was no
submissive acceptance either. One cant blame such energies for not being
docile. Her father named her Lucia for the Donizetti heroine. She was like her
paintings, or a collage. A diffusion of colors, but central to the purpose.
May 1998